FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Somewhere in an abandoned building with broken windows and boarded up doors, in the basement of the structure sat an old Alakazam in a stone slab used as a makeshift seat as he leans against the wall to act as the back of a chair. On his left, a Haunter. On his right, a Hypno. In front of them was the tiny, helpless, young Ditto standing before them, and he shivered in intimidation.

"Well? Show us what you've learned, squirt," the Haunter taunted.

With a little hesitation, he transformed, focusing on the Hypno. Before now, he did this over and over. Every time he failed, he'd be hit and yelled at. It was everything to him, he had to get this right.

"Hmmm," the Hypno muttered, stepping close and looking at the Ditto copy. He grabbed its face and inspected its sides closely, not at all acting like he was dealing with a living thing. "Boss, it's pretty close this time. I think it might be right."

"Let me see," the Alakazam ordered with the wave of his hand. The Dittohypno came forward, looking down at the ground until, like before, he face was grabbed and forced to look up to him. "My, my, it certainly is a good immitation. You've finally stopped making that ridiculous face or malformed faces. You could pass for a real Paust right now. But what about your voice?"

The Ditto closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and then spoke. "I will do as you ask, Master Riz." His voice wasn't like Paust's, not exactly, but it wasn't like his own. It was a deep, strong, manly voice, categorically similar to the real Hypno's, just not identical while being somewhat close.

Riz frowned slightly, but shrugged. "...Close enough."

He looked down in shame, but the Haunter walked up. "Don't worry, Carbon. Uncle Ark will help you become -perfect- for our plans!"

"After so much time, we've accomplished a lot," Riz waved his hand to gesture to the basement. It was a large room and had various tables stacked with papers, blueprints, computers, workbenches with tools."We found this useful building to hide in, with some old human machinery and electronics. Some of it even still works. We've stolen, kidnapped, and bribed for much of the rest; we've gotten involved in black market dealings of unwanted drugs and items; we've used trickery with faux magic shows to get extra funding. We're scammers, walking scandals, a gang or mafia. It's glorius! And with Carbon's help, everything is going to be so much easier. Any information we want, or anything we want stolen. He can walk right in to most places and just take it from people's hands while looking to them in the eyes!" He began laughing, and they all burst out laughing in a trio group hug, leaving Carbon standing in front of them and watching.

This has always been his life as far as he could remember. As they said, they kidnapped, and he was one of them a long time ago. They never told him the exact circumstances of his background, if he was taken from his parents by force or if he was left in the wild, or anything at all. It didn't matter to him. This was his new family, or rather, the only family he knew. Yes, sometimes they were quite... harsh. They would beat him if he failed, but in his mind, it was because they wanted him to improve, and he wanted to do that for them to make them happy, even if they weren't necessarily proud. He loved them. He'd kill for them, or die for them, and do anything in between.

Almost immediately upon being around his new trainer, the abra could vaguely sense something. Every time they trained together, any time they went to the PokeCenter, and everywhere they went, there was some sort of desire in the air that he had to become stronger. Over time, those senses developed, and it became apparent to Riz that it wasn't simply a feeling he had within himself from the training. He was passively reading the thoughts of his trainer, and learned to focus his mind to read more.

One day, after having grabbed a pencil and paper in his trainer's bedroom, he scribbled a note and handed it to him.

Hello.

It was obviously quite a shock for the trainer. Although he realized Riz was learning English and also taught him a little in occasional lessons, the abra was mostly trained for battles and had to learn more on his own by reading minds and sneaking onto his master's computer, which was easy since he was generally allowed to stay outside of his Pokeball.

Over time, he learned more and more language and computer skills, and even managed to fully evolve, but his fighting skills somehow stagnated. Although he fought many battles, he wasn't very good at it, probably since he made his personal focus on everything but fighting. Why? He loved his trainer and wanted to communicate with him. Most Pokemon wanted to make them happy by being good at fighting, but somehow that conclusion simply didn't register in Riz.

That's when the worst thing possible happened to him. After all that effort, he was betrayed. He was shoved inside his cramped Pokeball, and then left out in the middle of nowhere. Released. Abandoned.

"That bastard," he muttered to himself, wandering around by himself, not paying attention to his surroundings. It didn't matter if he fell into a pit and died now, it'd at least put him out of his misery. Or maybe another wild would attack and kill him. The only thing he didn't want was another trainer to catch him. They'd be disappointed anyways. "I can't believe he did that. What do I do now?"

Days went by, and he didn't eat anything. He found an abandoned ghost town, and crawled into the basement of what seemed like an old office building. There were computers, printers, and so on left inside, surprisingly. You'd think stuff like that would have been stolen, but it all looked old and Riz doubted much of the stuff was workable. Not that it mattered, really.

He sat in a corner, leaning against the wall. The fur of his face was matted down with dry tears, and he was too tired to cry anymore. Riz waited for hunger and thirst to finish him, even if it meant having to sit here completely still for days.

"BOO!"

The Alakazam sighed, turning his head over to look away and rolling his eyes. "I sensed you before you said anything. Stop annoying me."

"Damn it," the Haunter cursed. "And I've been working on that for so long."

"Are you here to fight?" Riz asked, forcing himself to bother looking into the eyes of the ghost-type. "I'll let you kill me. Go ahead, get it over with."

At this, the ghost stared at him with an awkward look. "Uhm... you're weird, man. I just like scaring other Pokemon."

"Then leave me alone," Riz growled, though it didn't come off as very intimidating.

At first, the Haunter thought about leaving. He turned and began floating away, but then came back. He frowned and got his face uncomfortably close to the fox-like Pokemon, inspecting him and hmm'ing to himself. Until the psychic tried to bite him, that is, at which point he backed up a healthy distance.

"Hey! That's cruel," the Haunter pouted. "What's wrong?"

Finally standing up on his feet, Riz slammed his foot on the ground to show his anger. "You're bothering me, that's what!"

"I mean what's bothering you. You should relax, man." The ghost floated upside down, "Like this."

Riz facepalmed and groaned. "It's not important..."

"If it wasn't so important, you wouldn't be asking me to kill you," the Haunter sighed. "What's haunting you?"

Another groan. Louder this time. "..."

"If you tell me, I'll leave you alone!" the ghost offered.

"Fine," Riz sighed. "I've been abandoned."

After inspecting him, the Haunter nodded. "I see. By your trainer, considering your form."

A sarcastic clap. "Good guess!"

"Indeed, thank you!" The purple shadow thing bowed gracefully, not getting the joke. "That is no big deal."

Anger rose in the evolved fox's voice. "No big deal? How would you know? He was all I ever knew, my whole life!" Then, sadness. "I tried my best for him, but I'm just not very strong, despite my appearance."

A comforting pat on the shoulder was given to Riz. "Really, it's okay. Why don't we just introduce ourselves formally for now? I'm Ark, my friend Paust and I make a living by trying to use tricks to scare people, mostly for fun."

"Uh huh..." the Alakazam squinted his eyes with suspicion. "I was named Riz by my trainer. I don't do anything. Who is Paust?"

"Like I said, my friend," Ark nodded happily. "He's a Hypno. Kind of goofy and absent-minded, but he has a good, scary sense of humor. If only he were a ghost like me. One can only daydream."

Riz stood up, dusting himself a bit. "Well, it was nice meeting you, but now it's time for me to leave and wander around some more." In truth, he just wanted to go be alone.

"Wait." The Haunter held his hands up to stop the newcomer from leaving. "Maybe we can all go haunting together? You might end up liking it a bit more than you think you would."

Riz scratched his head, "I really shouldn't intrude."

"Pft, what else are you going to do? Go walk around and wait to die?"

Well, actually, yes, he thought to himself, but hid it behind a small forced smile. "Oh, I, er. Fine, sure."

With the help of his underlings, stealing the egg was easy. It was then, too, that Riz took the darker side of the forked path of his life.

While Ark and Paust had beaten the parents up, Riz wasn't satisfied. He grabbed them and squeezed the life out of the Dittos. The mother first, so that her mate would have to watch the blood ooze out over his hands.

"Ugh, even I find that a little gross," Ark complained.

Paust nodded in agreement, looking away and holding his nose. "Yeah, did you really have to...?"

"Yes, I did," he replied without emotion. "If they lived, they would follow us, or turn us in to a guild. We'd be done for, and we this would be a useful tool for us," he gestures to the egg. Then, he grabbed it, inadvertently smearing the blood all over it.

"If you say so, Boss," the Hypno nodded obediently, and they all went back to their hideout.

From the time it was hatched, it was mainly watched over by Ark, who taught it how to walk and talk, though it was still mostly tutored and trained by Riz, and practiced with Paust. Ark's big brother, almost fatherly-like figure to Carbon made him grow to love him as such, but his loyalty still fell with Riz, to no fault of the brainwashing involved with such a dark upbringing.

The two Lucario laid in bed together, panting and covered in various mixtures of lubricants and other... substances. "Wow, that was... amazing. Thank you," the male said, and kissed his female partner in bed.

"Oh, I enjoyed it just as much as you," she grinned, and kissed him back. "Now, like we discussed before..."

"Oh, right, yes." He grabbed a lump of coins that had been tucked underneath the bed, "100 before, and 100 after. Here you go."

She grabbed it, pat the Pokemon's head, and left after they both washed themselves with a bucket of water that was inside the tent. They waved, promising each other future business encounters. Once outside of the town, a Hypno and Haunter popped from their hiding spots, which wasn't really anything more than them putting leafhats on and hiding behind some trees.

"You two are terrible at hiding, you know," Carbon complained, no longer using his female voice.

They both took their hats off, and Paust nodded with embarrassment. "Yeah, we are, aren't we?"

"You're worse at fighting than Riz! If you got in trouble, you'd need us," Ark protested. "You're even worse at fighting than Riz!

The Ditto released the form, waving them off. "I know, you always say that. Anyways, here's the money I collected from my... er, the usual scams. You know." He handed the money pouch to Ark, not explaining it any more than that.

"Oh, that looks like quite a bit," Paust exclaimed, peeking in the bag while Ark opened it. "Even a couple of small computer-looking chip things!

"Around six hundred," the Ditto shrugged. "It's not a big deal. Let's get moving. I could do more here, but it could look suspicious if I hanged around any longer."

Ark nodded, "Alright, then we'll keep this place in mind for later."