FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 8

We're back at the town where we were earlier today. I'm half tempted to make a comment on how much different it looks at night than when the sun was still up but Caleb's been in his ball ever since he took a bit of a beating during his fight on the way here, Allen would likely just hit me for stating something stupid and Sanaline would probably just call me stupid for ruining the moment or something. My eyes having gotten somewhat used to being unable to see anything anymore the first glimpse causes me to squint my eyes to adjust to the light. All over the place seems the strange poles scattered around the town are glowing with a strange pale orange light. Allen starts leading us further into the town, most likely back to the place he sent us to the last time we were here. As we walk down one of the hard and raised walkways I notice that each of the little blocks he pointed out to me earlier today seem to be conveniently in locations that the light from the poles fully illuminates everything on them. Even though the strange poles sticking out of the ground do a decent job of keeping everything at least somewhat illuminated it does not do it nearly enough that I would be able to see something sneak up on me. In response to this fact I follow behind Allen carefully and solemnly; keeping my ears constantly moving to try and pick up the sound of anyone else on the streets that might be waiting to attack us. Thankfully from the sounds of things there aren't really that many people out at this time of day. There do seem to be a couple of groups that seem to be walking through this place somewhere but not along the paths that we are taking.

"I just thought of something," I think out loud.

"Now that's something that's never happened before," Allen comments.

"That bag doesn't look like it'll fit all of the balls that would hold all the pokemon the Humans would likely catch. So how do they deal with trying to find the excess space? Do they start selling bigger backpacks?"

"No, you idiot." Allen retorts. "Only a max of six pokemon go with the trainer at any time. All others are sent to a box where they stay there if and when their trainer takes them out of the box."

"Oh," I comment, falling silent.

Sanaline also seems to be very quiet during our walk, though potentially because it might be her first time in such a location. Though considering how close she must have lived to run into us to this town I'd almost find it somewhat surprising. As we walk my mind wanders to thoughts of how horrible it must be to be forced to exist in that void within the balls for prolonged periods, to be left inside of that void inside the box and never know if you'll ever be able to see light or feel anything ever again. My head shakes from an involuntary shiver running all along my spine. Among all of the tall buildings the one that seems the most brightly lit turns out to be the very place we are heading towards. Once inside he takes us back to the counter where the one lady is standing, looking over at us with an almost expectant look.

"Okay, you two. Time to get into your balls," Allen order after pulling both of them out of the bag.

"What?" I ask, somewhat scared of having to be left in that experience-less location.

"I need to get the two of you healed up. So get in there or I'll force you into it and then leave you in it to teach you to obey me more quickly," Allen threatens.

Sanaline touches her ball even before he had finished his threat, probably starting to get used to this process already or in a sort of anticipation to having ones body no longer hurt. Not wanting to stay in that thing longer than necessary I move over to the ball and stare at it a moment before reluctantly pressing at the button with my nose. The light shoots out and grabs me again and I barely manage to stifle a surprised bark and then I'm once again in the void. This time it is somewhat different than last time. Whereas last time I just more or less existed in this void, this time I can feel a sort of warmth permeate every part of me from seemingly everywhere. It is certainly an odd experience. If I actually had a head to do so in this strange place I would have cocked it slightly to the side in response. It is almost like the sensation of the sun on my skin and fur during a nice warm day only it's more than that as it would be the equivalent to the sun going through my skin and warming up my body all at once and yet at the same time I do not feel any warmer than usual.

With nothing at all in this void to tell me the passage of time I can't tell how long I have been in this place when I find my world suddenly filled with light again. I gasp for a moment as I take in the sweet smells of the area. I take quick stock of my surroundings to try and figure out how long I had been stuck in the ball. First thing I notice is that it is still completely dark outside, meaning it's at least still night time. There doesn't seem to be anyone in this place that wasn't already there which is a good sign. Last major thing which causes me to sigh in relief is that all of the scents are almost completely the same. From all of these factors I guess only about a couple of minutes at most must have passed.

"It's so good to be out of that thing again," I comment and notice Sanaline and Caleb exploring the nearby area.

Allen seems to ignore me as he lugs the bag to a part of this place that is well lit but also more than slightly out of the way. I can't fault him that decision, really. If I wanted to be unobtrusive, the one spot people are least likely to pass by is the most obvious choice. I take in a few deep breaths, savoring all of the scents in the area and for good measure raise a leg and scratch at my ear. Not so much because it itches but because it is something to experience again. I then stand up, shake myself off a few seconds and then start to explore this place more thoroughly. Guessing from how Allen is settling down we're likely going to be here the rest of the night and last time we were here I didn't have much time to explore the place. There doesn't really seem to be too much in this place. The table full of food from earlier is still there. In fact from the scents most of the food that was there when last we were over here is still there. There are some flat surfaces raised off the ground with some soft and rather odd looking things placed right next to each one of these. There is a section separated from the rest of the area with an incline that must somehow go above where we are and still stay on the ground. I'll have to make a point to explore that place above me sometime later tonight perhaps.

What interests me most right now is a sort of box thing that one of the humans in the area seems intent at staring at and picking at some flat things nearby. Curious I sit behind the person with my head cocked slightly to the side as I try to figure out what significance it might have. For the longest time I can do nothing more than draw a blank until the human moves and I notice that there are symbols on some sort of illuminated surface. The symbols even look somewhat familiar, sort of like those on the little device in the bag over near where Allen is lying down, helping himself to some plain smelling food that seems only slightly different from the stuff he had me eat earlier. Which reminds me of the strange fact that though I hadn't eaten in a good long time I'm not the slightest bit hungry right now. It doesn't take much for me to guess that that warmth that went through me while I was in my ball is probably responsible for that fact.

Personally I would have rather food than some warmth negating the need for food but not much I can do about it at the present. I see the human move the little white object across the screen until it was over some figure and then clicks it. I jump back as a thing nearby starts screaming out nonsensical sounds for a moment as it spits out one of those paper things. The human than hits moves the little white thing a little more and stops on something which causes all of the symbols on that page to disappear. The human then takes his paper and leaves the computer to go somewhere else. I stare at it for a good minute or two before an idea pops into my head. I walk up to the thing that spat out the page and look nearby and find a bunch of other pages hidden in some sort of compartment near the ground. I take a single page and then close the compartment carefully before bringing the paper over to Allen.

"What do you want?" Allen asks dryly.

"I was wondering if you could write something on this so I can practice on that box thing over there."

"And why do you feel the need to do that?" He prods while practically tearing the paper out of my mouth.

"Well if I'm going to be using that box that makes us fight I should learn how to read human. I figured if I practiced a bit on that box thing I would be able to potentially learn a few words."

"Fine, whatever," he grunts while pulling out the stick thing from the bag.

"Can you write on it 'Could you send six pokemon over to the ride and set the box code as active in make instead of leaving them here?'"

Allen doesn't make any response but writes down a bunch of symbols on the paper. Once done he hands the paper back to me. I accept it gingerly, trusting that he had written the words as I had asked him to. It wouldn't be of much help if he did otherwise. I start to walk away towards the glowy box thing when he speaks up.

"Hey, you're going to need this, you idiot," he chucks the stick thing at me.

As a reflex seeing an object come hurling at me I jump back out of its way as it passes me and lands on the ground.

"Thank you," I state as I reach down and pick up the stick thing while making sure not to let go of the paper thing.

I reach the big illuminated box thing and seeing no humans with no apparent intent on using it I hop up into the nearby chair and struggle a moment as I get my balance on the thing as it seems to enjoy spinning around. Eventually I get things figured out enough and maneuver the chair and the direction it's facing so that I can get to it. I find a bunch of little symbols with a bunch of tinier symbols below them. I take the opportunity to take a close look at all of what I'm dealing with. Directly in front of me is this flat object with a bunch of small squares, each with a different symbol engraved on its surface. To the side is a sort of flat round thing with what almost look like ears on the thing. I push at it with my nose and it moves and I notice that the white thing on the box moved. Deciding that this flat round thing controls the white thing I begin to move the flat round thing and guess at which of the symbols is the right one. Once hovering over it I wait for it to do something. When it does not I go back to the flat round thing and decide it must do it. Not seeing anything other than the ear things to tell it something to do I use my stick to push at one of the ears, eliciting a small click and the symbol on the screen changes color. Encouraged I start pushing away at the ear and pretty soon the display in front of me changes but not to the type that allowed that one human to write those symbols down. So I move the white thing back up to the small square at the top and click on the flat round thing and the display goes back to its original appearance.

I decide to try again on a different symbol thing and this time when I click it I find the window appearing how I saw it when the human was telling it words. I place the paper nearby and stare at it a moment before starting to push the stick into the square that has the same symbol as the first symbol in the word I want to start with. I end up missing my first attempt and a different symbol is pressed and appears on the box thing in front of me. Knowing I made a mistake and try to figure out how to undo that problem. I look around the flat thing with the square buttons and notice a somewhat big one near the top right that has an arrow on it pointing to the left. Curious I push at it and the symbol on the box in front of me goes away. Encouraged by this I start again, pressing in each symbol at a time until I run into the next problem of how to get this thing to separate words.

Not knowing what else to do I decide one of the other things must do something along that line so I start randomly pressing on some of the button things that have more than one symbol on them and observing what they do. After a few minutes I have managed to get a good idea of what most of them do. Well except for a few which seemed to do absolutely nothing at all, especially the one with a bunch of symbols on it and an arrow pointing forward. But still knowing enough to continue on I go about finishing the rest of this little sentence, checking every now and then to see if someone gave any intention of heading towards me to shoo me away. But for the most part the entire place seems completely quiet with only a few other pokemon around the area. Though I can make out what sounds to be sleeping humans above me considering how slowly they're breathing.

Once done I spend a moment making sure all of the symbols on the box in front of me are all in the order that they should be in. Once satisfied I move the little white thing to the spot where that human had it before the machine spat out a page and press the button to make it do something and the nearby machine starts making noise. I quickly take a look at my surroundings and notice that no one really seems to be making any response to the machine. The human behind the big tall table thing near the entrance looks over out of curiosity and I see Allen making a motion of casually looking to see where the noise is coming from. Beyond those two not a single person seems to care. A thought strikes me as I head over to the machine that I haven't seen the slightest sign of where Caleb or Sanaline had gone to after being released from our balls again.

I move over to the other thing which spat out the paper. Considering Allen's general attitude towards me I can't exactly know if the words he wrote down for me are the right ones or if he was doing something else in order to use it to pick fun at me later. And if I brought him the paper the machine spat out there would be no way to tell if he's just lying to me again. I consider it a moment and then decide that the safest person to pick to read what I wrote would be the person near the entrance and next to the machine that healed me. The symbols seem to be on the bottom of the paper but it would be difficult to grab easily so I bite at the middle part of it and pull upwards, effectively folding the paper with the symbols on the inside of the fold.

I then trot over to where the female human is standing and then jump up onto her desk, somewhat startling her. I drop the paper and use a foot to try and push it a little closer to her, trying to hint that I want her to read it.

"Is this for me?" she asks while picking it up.

She stares at the page for a good long while, making me wonder if perhaps I had misspelled something or that I got the grammar wrong. I nervously pace a few steps while almost hoping that I had something I could chew on to occupy my time while waiting to see if she understands the sentence or not though I'm pretty sure it would be rude to do so while making such a request.

"Sure, why not, bring it over," she responds slowly after a moment longer, allowing for me to understand what she's saying, though I get more from the tone of her words than the words themselves.

Cheerfully I hop off the table and head towards Allen and the bag is, feeling a sense of accomplishment that I had managed to write out that statement without making any errors or at least not enough errors for it to be still readable. I reach Allen and pretty much half ignore him as I dig my head into the bag and try to feel around for wherever the square thing is.

"What are you doing?" Allen asks.

"The female human at the tall flat thing near the entrance wants to see our square box. She told me to bring it after seeing me with the paper. I'm pretty sure she just wants to make sure that we have one and that it is legitimate and not stole from some random human."

"But it's the same person who signed us up in the first place!" Allen complains.

"No she isn't. The one from this morning is different person from the one there right now," I comment while backing out with the box in my mouth.

"And how would you know that? They look exactly the same."

"They smell different. The one this morning smelled like flowers. This one smells like fruit. Beneath that the one this morning had yellow hair underneath that strange pink hair thing while this one has more reddish hair. But as we had it here I'm sure everything will be okay."

"If you say so but know that I will make your life far more miserable than you can imagine if you screw this up for me."

"Okay, I'll bring it right back when she's done," reply cheerfully, putting it down on the ground for a moment to speak clearly before picking it back up and running off towards the female human near the entrance.

Once at her table thing I hop onto it neatly and then drop it gently for her, all the while willing my tails still so as to not seem too enthusiastic and get her to change her mind. She picks it up and pulls out some sort of long string and attaches it to the side of the object somehow and then puts it down and begins hitting the keys on the bigger word creation box in front of her. I sit down as she stares at something for a moment and rub a hand through her hair as she considers something, a rather intense look on her face. Eventually her hands start moving faster than I would ever be able to and the keys start clicking with an almost surprising speed. After a few more minutes she stops and then pulls the string out.

"Okay, that aught to do it," She states as she hands back the device. "I'll send an email to the Professor to let him know about the alteration. Since he's your sponsor I'm sure he deserves to know."

Not really knowing what all she was saying I bow to her that causes my whole front part of my body to dip down before picking up the device gingerly and hop off the table thing to give it back to Allen, my task complete.