FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"I don't think you realize just how lucky you are, Chris.." Anne looked on at myself and Lapin. We had just finished telling everyone about what we'd learned in Mauville City earlier that day, and it was getting quite late. Our group was at the junction where Route 119 meets Route 118, east of Mauville. We'd crossed a river not long ago, and since neither I nor Anne were in possession of any water pokemon, we had to climb over a few large rocks that were jutting out of the water; not fun.

"I'm very lucky, I know. Most humans can't even hope for what I have", I replied. Anne continued to stare. The look of envy in her eyes was unmistakable, but for some reason, I got the feeling that she wasn't referring to my abilities. These suspicions were validated by her response, which was delivered in a tone that suggested she was more than a little bit tired.

"I wonder what your kids are going to look like.. Did Nurse Joy tell you if they were going to be pokemon or human?" When I told her that Joy hadn't said, she continued. "You know, I've studied up on pokemon breeding. If this happens like it does in normal circumstances, your daughter and son will probably end up being Buneary. With regular pokemon birth, the offspring inherit their physical traits from the mother, and their mental traits from the father."

In all honesty, I was hoping this would be the case. The thought of having rabbits for a family gave me a pleasant little warmth deep down.. Of course, I would love them no matter how they turned out, simply for the fact they they have a piece of Lapin in them. Right then I couldn't help hugging Lapin, her radiance only fueling that tiny flame. "I love you so much.."

"I love you too, Chris.. You know, Anne's wrong", she said, wrapping her ears around me tightly, "I'm the lucky one." I kissed her full on the lips. Where I had once found the shape of her mouth awkward when coupled with my own, it had since become just one more thing about Lapin that I cherished. I'm eternally grateful to have her as my lover. I would have kept on hugging and kissing if Anne hadn't started to speak again.

"Well, I don't know about all of you, but I'm bushed. Should we make camp here? If not tomorrow, then we can probably reach Fortree by the next day heading due North on Route 119." Without waiting for us to agree, she began to unpack the blankets, sleeping bags, and tents she'd purchased back in Mauville. They were all a good size, big enough for a few people in each. It appeared that Anne had gone all out with the money I'd given her.

After all the sleeping arrangements were.. arranged, we had a bag left over, as I had elected to share one with Lapin. There was more than enough room in these sleeping bags for two people, let alone the space in the tents. It was no small wonder that Anne had managed to carry all of them in her pack. They were of high quality, too. The inner lining was almost as warm as Lapin herself, whose back was pressed up against my chest.

"So..", I started. I rubbed Lapin's stomach, immensely pleased by the smoothness of her fur and her delightful pliability. "Just a little under two months.." I squeezed her to me a little more tightly. "I know that's not long, but it's hard to imagine waiting to see them, and even then, it'll only be their eggs."

"I know what you mean.. but, Chris, just be happy that I'm not a human. How would you like to wait almost a year?" I shuddered at the thought. How can regular human parents-to-be bear it? It had only been a few days, but already I was growing impatient. "Just get some sleep, honey. When you wake up we'll be one night closer."

Taking her advice, I settled into a more relaxed position, ready to fall into the blissful darkness of respite. Ready as I may have been, it didn't happen. A few thoughts kept piercing my mind every time I was about to nod off, and one in particular had made me become a bit more curious than tired. I wondered if I could get a look at my kids' auras.

I had come to the conclusion that to look at anyone's aura in detail, I had to know them. I had to be able to picture my past with them in my mind. This, of course, posed a problem. I hadn't yet had the opportunity of meeting my offspring. I wondered if I could work around this knowing the fact that, being a culmination of myself and Lapin's efforts, each of them had half of each of us.

Deeming it worth a try, I started how I thought best to start; thinking of the times when I felt closest to Lapin. I imagined that day about a week ago when she rode on my back through Cerulean City. I remembered clearly our first kiss. I pictured the moment we were told that we were going to be parents.. that one was probably the happiest. I was just about to get lost in the past when a light became apparent at the edge of my vision.

I turned my head and, remembering my position, realized that I would have been looking straight at Lapin had my eyes been open. As it was, I was seeing a bright glow. I moved my head a bit closer, and as I did so, the light split into two others, both a bit dimmer in color. One was almost pure white, like Lapin's aura, but the other had a very slight hint of blue. These were my children..

As I had done with Lapin when I looked at her aura, I tried to reach out and touch them, only to have my hand block by an invisible barrier. It was obviously Lapin's stomach. As always, my regular senses where all but useless when I was in the state, so I couldn't feel her fur, but It was definitely there. I opened my eyes again and sure enough, my hand was resting atop a sleeping rabbit's belly.

I was a bit disappointed that aura was the only way I could see my kids at all, but it had at least helped to ease my mind. I fell asleep to the cute sounds of my lover as I rubbed and scratched at her fur.

_ _ _ _ _

Anne was screaming.

Lapin and I got up as quickly as we could and ran out of our tent to find Anne and Copse being set upon by an Absol. Though it was posing an immediate threat, I had to fight off the urge to admire how cool it looked. Dark skin and claws, white fur, razor-sharp teeth, and a blade on its head and tail, it looked every inch the danger that everyone associates with it.

It was advancing on Copse, who was cowering almost as much as Anne was. Judging by the scratches along my companions, and by the lack of them along the Absol, they had been fighting, and the Absol was very good at it. Bearing its fangs and growling, I could tell that if nobody intervened soon, things could turn out very badly for my friends.

"Lapin, can you tell it to stop?" Lapin nodded, and turned towards the Absol.

"Hey, why are you attacking her? What did she do to deserve that?" The Absol continued to stare and growl at Anne before saying a few things in its native language. All the time that it spoke, the Absol never took its burning stare off of the human girl in front of it. "Apparently Anne tried to catch her while she was asleep."

I stared at Anne for a few moments myself before speaking. "Anne, why'd you try to catch her off gaurd like that? You could have been a bit more honorable about it." Though I asked her a question, it was the Absol that I got a response out of. She turned to me and cocked her head, leaving Copse and Anne to shiver in fright without her gaze. She spoke again, with Lapin translating.

"She asked you how you knew about what Anne had done." The Absol looked at Lapin now, seeming even more confused.

"I have a lot of Lopunny in me, Absol. I can understand her." Judging by the look that surfaced on the Absol's face, she had a lot of questions, and the sheer amount seemed to anger her a bit. I sighed. 'This is the worst part of meeting new people..'

Lapin and I told our story. We had gotten so used to telling it that we were able to get through it rather quickly. The Absol remained silent the entire time, but her stare was a little unnerving. Had I not been so accustomed to the words I was saying, it would have been easy to get lost in those seemingly hypnotic eyes. The more I stared, though, the more I became aware of a pain in my head. If my experience with these headaches has taught me anything..

"Do you think he would consider taking me with him?" A bit gruff for a girl, but not without emotion, came the voice of the Absol. I began to smile. Lapin turned to me, clearly ready to relay the Absol's question, but I spoke before she could ask.

"Why do you want to come with me?" The Absol was immensely surprised, and Lapin a bit less so. When she recovered herself, the Absol elaborated.

"That girl over there, Anne, made me realize that eventually, if I keep living here, I'm going to be captured. Luckily, that Leafeon of hers wasn't anywhere near a match for me, but some day a better trainer with a stronger pokemon is bound to come along. I figure that you're a pretty interesting character, and judging by your Lopunny and what you've told me, you take good care of your pokemon. I might as well choose who I want to belong to now, rather than be forced into it later on."

I could tell that I would like this Absol. She reminded me a lot of Nexus; both of them elected to join my team without my asking them, both appear to be battle-hardened fighters, and for some reason this Absol was giving me the same feeling of loyalty that I get constantly from Nexus. Of course, the Absol was a bit creepier.. She is a Dark type, after all. The look in her eyes gave me a sense of foreboding, and it was this quality that influenced my choice of a name for her.

"So, you're sure you want to come with us?" She nodded. "Well, then if you wouldn't mind, could I call you Omen?" Judging by the mischievous grin that appeared on her face, my choice of names had at least amused her. I was thankful that the name had come to me so easily; I find that naming pokemon is usually the hardest part. With that settled, I reached onto my belt and removed one of the empty pokeballs, holding it button-first in front of Omen.

She walked forward a step and pressed her nose to the ball, soon becoming digitized and drawn into it. As the button on the front shifted it's color from red to white, I realized just how grateful I was to never have companions who felt the need to struggle against the ball's effect. That they trusted me so much from the moment they met me was a blessing. The token click sounded, signaling that the ball was finished integrating Omen's being into its hardware.

_ _ _ _ _

I felt like a total jerk.. I could understand Lapin, I could understand Celeste, and I could even understand Omen, a pokemon who I had just met, yet never had I once thought to make myself able to understand Nexus. This hit me as we climbed one of the many sets of stairs on Route 119. Lapin and Celeste were at my sides, and Omen was walking next to Nexus, with Anne and her pokemon staying well away from her. Omen and Nexus were getting along great, and apparently had more in common than I'd thought, but in my eyes it was a completely one-sided conversation.

I had all but mastered viewing someone's aura by itself, and though this was my first time looking at Nexus's, I had a great deal of memories with him. I called up his aura in my head, which took the form of a yellowish light. Thinking specifically about his voice, I opened my eyes once more, and was instantly greeted by a new voice in the air. Nexus sounded very deep, and it was as though he growled each word that he spoke.

"...So I challenged her to a battle. I was cockier then, and I ran straight at her with barely a thought of strategy. Chris had her use Defense Curl, and after I bounced off her I got an ear right to the face.. Certainly not one of my better fights. Christopher had the kindness to take me to the Pokemon Center after that, though I didn't really trust him. I was biting him the entire way there." The story of how we first met.. I couldn't help but ask a question that had been nagging me for a while.

"Nexus, I'm still not quite sure why you asked to join my team that day." All the pokemon who had heard the conversation looked at me for a few moments before Nexus responded.

"Well, it's about time, Chris! Way to leave me out for a while there, man! I don't know what that whole aura thing is like, though, so I didn't want to impose.." I walked over to him, ruffled his headfur a bit, and gave him my best apologetic look. "Better late than never, though.. So, about when we met, I figured that since you were a trainer, and that your pokemon had beaten me in battle, you probably wanted to catch me. I wanted to pay you back for all of the biting, too."

"Like I said at the time, you didn't owe me anything, Nexus. I'm glad you forced it, though. You've been a great friend over the past year." I rubbed his head a bit more before continuing to walk between Lapin and Celeste. After I walked away, Omen and Nexus continued their conversation.

"So do you all get in a lot of fights?", asked Omen.

"Not too many, no. Chris tries to avoid them whenever he can, but he has us train and develops some pretty astounding strategies for us, just in case the inevitable fight happens." Omen looked a bit displeased at this news, but Nexus tried to offer her some consolation. "Omen, I'm sure Chris won't mind if we spar. He usually lets us do what we want; pokemon violence is just something he's always been against."

"So he's a trainer that doesn't like fighting? I've always been told that it was in a trainer's nature to try and be the best, but Chris is against violence?" Nexus nodded. "So what exactly is it we do, if not battle?" There was a pause after Omen's query, Nexus thinking of an answer.

"You know, I'm not sure. For about the past year we've just been doing what we please. The only reason we're even in this area is because Lapin suggested it." Noticing the many shades of orange and purple in the sky, I decided to interrupt again.

"Speaking of the area, do you think this would be a good place to set up camp?", I asked nobody in particular, "Because of this morning, we barely covered any distance today.." It was then that Anne decided to open her mouth for the first time since her screams earlier, suspicions and fears about Omen dissolved slightly.

"It looks like as fine a spot as any", she said, surveying the area. Indeed it was; the ground was bare, save for a small puddle of water at its center. I didn't think that the water was trustworthy, but a stream was nearby, a short walk through the trees away. The only problem I had with the site was its close proximity to the tall grasses that we'd seen grew unchecked all along the route. I doubted any pokemon would have the fortitude to attack us, but as always, the possibility of a fight worried me.

All the same, we began setting up camp. Celeste went off to find firewood, with Omen keeping her company, the two talking and sharing their backgrounds. The rest of us were pitching the tents and setting up our sleeping bags and blankets within them. After a short while, though, Anne came up to me.

"Celeste and Omen have been gone for a while; I think I'll go and find them, alright?" As I had said, it had only been a short while, and this fact coupled with her tone suggested that she had some ulterior intention. If I had had to guess, I would have thought that she wanted to speak with Omen. Of course, this was only possible through either myself or Celeste, so if she wanted privacy, I suppose the opportunity was as good as it was going to get.

Anne walked off, and apparently found Omen and Celeste in the trees, a bit out of earshot. For a regular being that is. After gaining the hearing ability of a Lopunny, it was no challenge for me to listen in, to the point where I couldn't have helped eavesdropping even if I didn't want to. Of the three of them, it was Omen who spoke first.

"Oh, it's her, is it? What does she want?", asked Omen to Celeste.

"Omen asks what you want, Anne. We were just on our way back into camp..", translated Celeste, adding a statement of her own.

"I wanted to talk with Omen. Well.. not really have a conversation so much as speak to her; I just have something to get off of my chest. I feel bad about trying to catch you earlier.. at least, the method. Ever since I met Chris, I've tried to be a bit more civil to pokemon, but when I saw you, I couldn't help myself. I used to see Absol from time to time around here, but I'd never had a good opportunity to catch one.

"At any rate, I hope you could forgive me. It's not so much for my sake, though I would like us to get along; it's that we'll be traveling together, at least for a little while. I don't know what Chris thinks of me, but I don't believe that he would want one of his pokemon to hate me. So how about it, want to start over?" There was a small silence, before Omen's voice rung out once again.

"I still think she's a bitch for what she did.. Ah, whatever, tell her I forgive her. I just hope she keeps up her trend of leaving me alone." Celeste, a bit confused, relayed her message.

"Er.. she says that she accepts your apology." Again, silence. In a few seconds, though, I heard Anne make a noise that suggested that she was in pain. "Um, Anne, I don't think Omen wants you touching her.."

"Mm.. I have to hand it to her; her blood tastes pretty good." It wasn't long before the three of them walked into camp, Celeste carrying wood in both hands, Anne carrying considerably less wood in the one hand that apparently hadn't been bitten, and Omen carrying a single piece in her grinning, blood-stained mouth.

Before going to bed, all of us got together for a light dinner. It was light because we were almost out of food, some sandwiches that Anne had taken from the Mauville Pokemon Center's cafeteria being all that was left. All throughout dinner, Omen stared at Anne, licking her lips. Though it was obvious to the rest of us, Anne was a bit too scared to realize that Omen was just messing around.

It was her willingness to be playful that showed me Omen had truly forgiven Anne.

_ _ _ _ _

Lapin's pregnancy was starting to show. That little bit of swelling.. I woke up on top of it. It was as if nature had told her stomach to start flaunting the fact that we had shared ourselves with each other in the most intimate way, though of course nobody we didn't know personally would realize that I was the father. This fact was, in some ways, a blessing, seeing as how the community looks down on trainers who have had relations with their pokemon.

In other ways, I was disappointed. People would look on at me, Lapin, and our children and see not a cute family of Lopunny, but a cute family of Lopunny and their trainer.. My father had once said something about how it would be possible, because of my DNA, to become a Lopunny, but he didn't tell me what I could do to make it happen. As the days went by I wished more and more that I could be with Lapin as a pokemon rather than a human.

It wasn't that I cared that much about what people thought of me mating with a pokemon, though that was, of course, part of it. That I could simply dismiss by using the device that Dr. Laurel gave me to show them how much less human I was than they. It was that I had started to wonder if Lapin might like it more if I was one of her kind. Where I have some pokemon in me, it's easier for me to regard them as beautiful or attractive, but Lapin had no human in her.

That Lapin finds me less attractive because of what I look like on the surface was not a train of thought that I wanted to board, though I couldn't help but wonder. I was still amazed that Lapin loved me at all.. It was while I was so wrapped up in this that Lapin woke up. After a bit of hugging and kissing, I had to throw out the parasite that was starting to eat away at me.

"Lapin, why do you love me?" Lapin was taken aback. I was sure this was a question she had never expected to hear, especially this early in the morning, but she answered it all the same.

"What's not to love? You're intelligent. You're caring. You're really, really cute! And if it's not so bold, you are an amazing lover, Chris." It did my mind good to hear those words, and now that I think about it, if Lapin had asked me the same question right then, I would have given almost the exact same response.. But still I had a few doubts.

"It's the 'cute' part that I really don't understand.. You're much less a human than I am a Lopunny, so I just don't get where the physical attraction on your part is coming from, exactly." Lapin adopted a look of mock offense.

"So you're saying that you never thought I was cute before you copied my DNA?", she retorted. 'Good point', I thought. "Besides, Chris, you said it yourself; pokemon and humans aren't really that different. This is especially true for us humanoid types. It isn't hard for me to be attracted to humans and Lopunny alike, and can you honestly say that you didn't find me the least bit sexy back when I first evolved?"

I knew quite well that what she was saying was true, and when she had become a Lopunny I had indeed found her straying into my thoughts much more often. It pains me a bit to say it, but at times these thoughts had been less than decent, despite how innocent I had always thought Lapin was. Even after we had actually had sex I never thought of her as any less pure..

And I thought of her a lot. The times where she wasn't at least in the back of my mind were growing few and far between. She had rapidly become everything I needed to be happy, from her soft fur to her sweet soul. We had shared a year with each other so far, and we had so many more to go.. And soon two more lives would join our duo and experience life with us as a family. All of these thoughts made me feel so intensely good, inside and out.. Except for.. my.....

"Chris!"

_ _ _ _ _

To be continued.

_ _ _ _ _

First chapter in a long while; over a month, I believe, yes? Well, don't worry, this shouldn't become a trend after summer is over. Until then I'm very busy with everything that makes up my life outside of the internet.