FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Zack watched carefully in the darkness for signs of human activity, but despite his excellent night vision he was unable to detect anyone about. "I don't see anyone Boss" Poochyena growled softly. Zack kept his eyes peeled on the bushes, but he was pretty sure there was nobody here. He grabbed the communicator on his belt and pressed a button on its side.

"This is Ranger Zack, there's nobody in my sector"

A short buzz and crackle later a man's voice replied, "I have your position on the radar Zack, proceed to sector 7 and continue searching"

Zack checked his Location on his com, but before he could jump off his rock the sound of human voices distracted him. "Looks like they don't have this area covered, let's set up the machine and split!" The voice said as Zack watched its owner and another man noisily creep into the area he was about to leave. The two men started to set up a strange device the likes of which Zack had never seen. It looked like a kind of satellite dish, but more complicated. The men calibrated the position of the device and then pressed a button. The dish sent a pale blue light up towards the sky and Zack watched as the men put Pokéballs in a slot on the dish and then sent them off into the sky.

"Those must be the Pokémon they were poaching" Zack said to Poochyena, "Lets Howl, maybe it will scare them!" Zack had picked up a few tricks in his Ranger training; one was the ability to use quite a few Pokémon moves. Zack tilted his head back and let out a frighteningly loud howl.

"What was that!?" One man said with obvious fright in his voice, "Let's hurry this up!"

"That was great Boss!" Poochyena growled playfully, "Let's do a Roar!"

This time Zack really let loose as a mighty roar rocked the field below his perch, the two men yelped audibly and scrambled to get the rest of their balls sent, but Zack had other plans. Blind in the dark one man switched on a flash light, but the beam was more than easy to avoid. The man still in the dark yelped as Zack tackled him and sent him sprawling into the darkness. "What... who's there?" the remaining man said.

"Who do you work for?" Zack growled from the darkness in barely understandable Human.

"We're... We're Team Umbra! And if you know what's good for you you'll... You'll clear out and leave me alone!"

"Ha, sounds like a threat, care to back it up?"

"Zubat, show this punk who's boss"

Zack Roared shaking the rock around him and sending the Pokémon right back into its ball, "You'll have to try harder than that" Zack said as the man screamed and ran into the night. "I have an unconscious suspect caught in possession of poached Pokémon and one fleeing suspect heading towards sector 5" Zack said into the com.

"Shit, Zack, how do you always find these goons" The same man's voice said over the com, "Rangers Dean and Barbra intercept suspect in Sector 5"

"Right away sir"

"Yes Sir!"

"I'll take the ATV out and pick up the other man"

"No need Captain, I'll carry him" Zack said as he hoisted the man onto his shoulders.

Back at the Ranger Base Captain Victor watched as the red dot on the radar started back towards the ranger base. In his short 4 years as Captain Victor had never seen a Ranger like Zack. In the six weeks since he had arrived Zack had already caught thirteen poachers, five of which weren't even reported until he brought them in. The kid was a pro at finding lost trainers and tourists that came to the new rout 119 Pokécenter. Even now in the dead of night he had apprehended two poachers that nobody had even known where really there.

"Hey Captain" Zack said as he walked in the front door of the post nearly scaring Victor to death.

"Zack... Wow, you got here fast!" Victor said and looked at the young ranger. The kid was getting pretty burly from all the time he spent in the wilderness and in training. Victor had started him with Bruce, the heavy equipment specialist. Now Zack used the welders and blast nets as well as Bruce. Something about Zack bugged Victor though, nobody said anything about it to Zack, but he looked kind of frightening to a few of the visitors and younger trainers. Zack had piercing, feral, blue eyes and coarse un-kept brown hair that grew down his neck and back. He had grown hairier since he had come sporting a nearly furry chest that he more than proudly wore bare under his Ranger Jacket. Other Rangers idolized him. Most other people and trainers clear avoided him. The strangest thing of all, and something Zack clearly tried to hide, was the conversations he would have with his two Pokémon. He mostly barked and growled, but the way the Pokémon talked back made Victor think they understood what he would say.

"That was fun!" Zack said when he emerged from the holding cells. The look Captain Victor gave him almost made Zack blush. The more Zack got to know Victor the more he liked him. Victor was a tall, strong man with a deep voice and a great body. Zack had put on some considerable size since he came, but Victor was still bigger than Zack. "You ok captain?"

"Huh? Yea... I was just thinking about... well I've been meaning to ask you..." Victor stumbled over the words. He clearly liked the boy and gave him special privileges, but he was weary to confront Zack on his oddities for fear of driving the boy off. "What I meant to say was that I have been wondering if there was something you wanted to tell me... Something personal about yourself..."

"I... um... I didn't think it was so obvious, I mean I try to hide it from the other Rangers, but..." Zack paused and thought about how to continue while Victor hung on his words, "I know this is going to sound weird, but... I have..."

The sound of the other Rangers arriving from through the door with a thrashing man who was screaming about some kind of 'Team Umbra' and 'payback', "We found this on him" Barbra said and slammed a broken device, the one the men had had in the field where Zack had scared them off, on the table.

"A mobile Pokéball transfer device, these are illegal for non army personnel to posses" Captain Victor said as he walked over to examine the device. "Call officer Jenny, we'll need someone to confiscate this and get it out of our base legally"

"Maybe I'm an undercover army operative and you're gunna get it if you don't let me go!" the man said.

"Somehow I doubt that" Lock him in a confinement cell, they're meant for Pokémon, but we've had plenty of poachers in them nowadays too!"

When Captain Victor finished talking to Officer Jenny who had arrived to take the men away he realized that Zack had left the other trainers. Victor sighed, he had been so close, and now he was sure Zack had something he would have been willing to tell him is only he had been more direct and to the point. Victor sighed as he walked towards he chambers.

...

Zack pulled his Ranger gloves off and sighed. The fur that was growing over his hands was now completely filled in. A quick inspection of his feet yielded the same results, and the wicked black claws on his fingers would need to be filed again tonight. Zack wondered how long he could keep up the charade; sooner or later the computers would register him as a Pokémon instead of a Human. "Why is this happening to me?" Zack asked Poochyena who sat beside him on his bed.

"I don't know boss, maybe it's got something to do with my pack" Poochyena said and nuzzled Zack.

"I know, you're last 'boss' was just like me, but not with my colorings"

"Yup, I fixed that! I bit you and made you like me"

"The point is that we already know this" Zigzagoon said as he materialized from out of nowhere, "Zack looked normal before he got bit that day, and now he even smells like a Pokémon, no offence Zack"

"None taken"

"And now he can understand us and can even use our attacks and abilities like we can, this is curious indeed" Zigzagoon said and bounced onto the pillows.

"I'm going to take a shower" Zack said and stood. He caught his reflection in the mirror and sighed. His entire back was covered in thick brown fur that grew down to his ass where a thick bushy tail drooped, reflecting his mood. His face was getting furrier each day with yellow brown fur sprouting from pretty much every pore. The worst thing was that lately his nose had begun to turn a light shade of blue brown on the bottom and grow fur on the top. His teeth were getting bigger and sharper and his ears were growing a healthy coat of fur too. Zack could only shave so much and this was getting ridiculous. On the way to the showers Zack made sure to listen for other Rangers that might be up. There was always a night crew on patrol, but they were long gone by now, and the station was silent with exception of the occasional snore. Zack reached the public showers and reviled in its emptiness. Nobody showered this late and with his recent anatomical changes Zack couldn't risk showering during the day. He stripped down and turned the shower to hot letting it build steam. One great thing about having fur on your ass was that you didn't get cold easily.

Victor put the pin down as he wrote his last report for the night. The rest of the paperwork would have to wait for the morning. Victor stole through the silent Ranger station still lit in case of emergency. There was someone at the front desk, but the rest of the station echoed with snores. The shower should be empty by now and anyone still awake would probably be out patrolling. Victor walked into the showers and felt hot mist on his skin, "Must have left the showers on again, don't these kids think about our bills?" Victor said as he stripped. The warm steam soothed his skin as he disrobed making the usually unpleasant chore more tolerable. Victor stuffed his gear in a locker and with naught but a bar of soap and his favorite luffa stepped into the showers.

"What in the blazing...!" Someone said behind Zack as the clatter of soap and luffa hitting the floor alerted Zack to the presence of another man in the showers. As Zack turned around his heart sank, the one person he cared if they thought he was a freak stood before him spectacularly nude and shocked at what Zack was sure looked like a wet Mightyena standing on two legs.

"Cap...Captain Victor! I... I can explain!" Zack said and cringed as what he said came out more Pokémon than Human.

"Zack is this... what is... this" Victor stuttered. Zack panicked and bolted for the door behind Victor, but the bigger man did something Zack hadn't expected, he actually intercepted Zack and tackled him as the confused boy scrambled towards the exit to the showers. The two impacted with a sick thud and to Zack's surprise Victor wrapped his arms around Zack as Zack dug his claws deep into victor's chest leaving bloody gashes in the man's chest. As a last desperate measure Zack sank his fangs into Victor's arm, and when that didn't work his shoulder, but the man's death grip on Zack wouldn't budge and now Zack was starting to cry as he realized he had hurt one of the only men that had ever cared for him. After a while of Zack crying into Victor's blood soaked chest Victor stopped petting the hysterical boy and pulled looked into his deep blue eyes, "It's alright Zack, I already knew"

A flood of emotions swept through Zack as he realized what this meant, before when Zack had been thinking of feelings Victor had been thinking about Zack's other abilities. "Than... you don't..."

"I know about that too, and yes... I do"

...

Luce looked out the bars of his cage as tears rolled down his cheeks, "Than I'm going to be stuck like this forever!"

"I believe so Luce" A handsome man said from the other side of the bars, "But I was wondering if you had ever heard of the Curse of the Mightyena."

"No" Luce sniffed through the tears running down his grey furred cheeks.

"Long ago there were four great spirits, one that represented the mind, one the body, one the soul, and one all the darkness of the universe. Each spirit chased another spirit in an endless struggle of power. The spirit of mind chased the spirit of body who chased the spirit of darkness who chased the spirits of souls. For eons they went in this way, until the spirit of darkness found a way to win. Instead of attacking the spirit of Souls he attacked the spirit of the mind, who was then defeated. Because the spirit of the body could not touch the spirit of souls the spirit of souls defeated it and then was defeated by the darkness as well. Content that the universe would now be peaceful the spirit of darkness rested with the other three spirits chained inside him. At long last the universe and worlds came into being and one day out of the darkness man and Pokémon were born. The spirits who were defeated had triumphed after all, but the spirit of darkness was not finished. It tied itself to man and Pokémon becoming two beings, darkness eternal and the curse of darkness. The darkness eternal left the world and became the endless night of space, but the curst of darkness tied itself to man and Pokémon never satisfied with the mind, body, and soul that men and Pokémon posses. For this reason the curse of the Mightyena exists to turn man to monster, but never monster to man, for monsters are innocent, while man is not"

The man paused. "Why are you telling me this?" Luce asked him.

"Because if mythology is true, than your bite can spread the curse... I cannot cure you Luce, but if you bite me two times I will be your alpha, and you will never be alone, and we can search for a cure together!"

"Xanthus, would you do that... for me?"

"Yes, two quick bites and we can scour the world together, make it ours, and cover it in darkness until the light of hope is ours to command!"

"I don't know..."

"Do it or be alone forever!"

Luce didn't see any other choice, "Will you let me out of the cage?"

"Or join you inside, your choice"

...

Stay tuned for more! Until next time! Woof!