Fox Tales - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

I don’t think I ever realized how convenient hands were until I lost mine. No, I didn’t lose them in an accident or wind up paralized or anything like that. Instead I ended up reincarnating into a creature that simply didn’t have hands.

I would’ve really liked to know how I ended up reincarnating too. One day I was just going to sleep like normal and the next I was waking up feeling sore all over and quickly discovering I was in the body of a small fox-like creature surrounded by several others just like me.

At first I freaked out, I had no idea what happened or where I was and naturally I was scared. After a few years though I was just resigned to the situation.

I did get at least a few answers though, even if they opened the doors to even more questions. I was a Vulpix. A small red furred creature also known as a Pokemon from an incredibly popular game and anime series of the same name. Still no idea how I ended up being reborn as one though. And as for where, it was a small mountain valley not too far from a human city. I couldn’t say much more than that, but apparently Mom had a decent relationship with the humans there. As long as they were respectful of the mountain, they were welcome to come and go as they pleased.

-o-

The valley was filled with barks and yips as me and my siblings play-fought over something. I didn’t even know what it was, I was simply ambushed by three of them because I was the strongest of us.

I made that sound much more impressive than it was. While yes I was bigger and stronger than them since I had a previous lifetime’s worth of memories encouraging me to eat healthily and I was resistance training using Extrasensory I had learned once I realized Mom used it as limited telekinesis and it would be a good replacement for the hands I no longer had, the main difference between us was I was capable of strategic thought while my siblings were still basically toddlers.

That didn’t mean they didn’t take me by surprise every now and then. Once one of my smaller siblings had the bright idea to shoot embers directly into my face from a few steps away in what was essentially an improvised flashbang. Even though all of us were somewhat fireproof it didn’t stop me from being blinded by the unexpected move. Then while I was stunned, the rest of the dirty little traitors took the opportunity to dogpile -foxpile?- me at the same time.

I had quickly shown them the error of their ways with my own moves. Once again Extrasensory was incredibly useful as the limited TK let me pull off one of the most powerful attacks an older sibling was capable of…

Tickling them until they were an exhausted puddle of fur and fluff even after they had cried for mercy.

After that, my siblings learned to cheat during our roughhousing only when they were confident they could escape from my inevitable sudden and merciless revenge. Usually by running to Mom, the little cheats.

Mom never failed to radiate amusement and take their side of the fight so that I was the one collapsed and exhausted. I tried fighting back, of course, but the difference between a baby Vulpix and a fully grown Ninetales was insane. Once I had tried my most powerful fire attack on her (with her permission, naturally) and the most it did was make her sneeze.

Red tails smacked me in the snout while another body slammed into my side, ripping me out of my memories. My siblings had once again decided to gang up on me but I wasn’t going to let them get the best of me! I braced my legs to prevent getting bowled over and retaliated by knocking one of them to the ground with my superior leverage. The second had already abandoned their partner and was prepared to run, but I wasn’t about to let them get away freely and gave chase. All while Mom watched over us from some ways away.

-o-

When I was about four, Mom started to teach us to ‘talk’.

Up until then I had just assumed the memories I had of pokemon talking to each other was just artistic liberty by the makers of the show or something that a human trainer would need to teach. Instead it was just slightly more complicated than I assumed.

Mom didn’t teach us ‘words’ or a ‘language’. Instead she showed us how to naturally link the Aura each of us possessed in a way that let us share images, impressions, and feelings. It was a bit weird but I eventually got the hang of it. It also explained why pokemon didn’t always act like they understood each other and how certain predator pokemon didn’t act insane as they slaughtered other sapient beings. If one of the pokemon didn’t attune their own Aura to understand the other, anything the first one ‘said’ was just white noise.

I was thankful for that because if I was able to understand my siblings at all times now, I would have never managed to find time for sleep between the requests to play, random comments, and the general amount of childlike energy they all had.

It also didn’t work for non-pokemon animals. I was able to occasionally convince a pidgey or taillow to drop some fruit out of a taller tree in exchange for cracking open some nuts, but the regular birds never showed any signs of understanding me. Or understanding their fellow bird types. I never had any success with other animals either.

It made me feel much better about all the times I had eaten rabbits and other animals when Mom went hunting. They were still just animals. Tasty, delicious animals…

-o-

It was winter when I met my first human.

Normally I spent the winters curled up with the rest of my siblings sleeping the days away. It seemed reincarnating as a fire fox didn’t increase my preference for being in cold wet conditions even if it increased my tolerance for extreme temperatures.

But one day Mom personally nudged me awake and then shoved me out into the snow that was beginning to coat the ground outside.

I spent a good few minutes snapping, snarling, and just generally complaining about being forced out of bed before I finally ‘asked’ why I was being made to follow her.

Mom sent back an impression of confusion, cold, and fear. Apparently something was lost in the snow and Mom and I were going to go help it.

At first I was confused why we would bother. While Mom was basically the ruler of the valley, she didn’t really step in unless a pokemon was going to get really hurt. And none of the ones that lived in the valley would be bothered by the little snow we had so far. Perhaps a baby pokemon had wandered out of its nest and the parents couldn’t find it?

I was incredibly surprised to see Mom leading me to a little human girl in pink and black snow gear crying in the middle of a copse of trees. As far as I knew, humans didn’t come up this far without good reason and the few times they did Mom made all of the kids hide out of sight until they left. So what was a child doing here alone?

While I was thinking that, Mom paced forward and spread her tails out. Not only did this make her more noticeable, I could also feel the area warming up as pure heat radiated out from her. It did finally stop the human’s crying. But now she was just sitting there sniffling at us.

…

This was awkward.

…

Well if no one was going to make the first move, then I would. I slowly started approaching the little girl, stopping and laying down whenever she started to get spooked. It took a while but eventually I was close enough that I was able to prod her with my snout a bit. She was scared at first, but eventually she started giggling and trying to grab at me or my tails.

I am not a pet, girl!

Even more time later I was able to prod her into standing up and taking a few steps closer to Mom. The girl made some whining noises about getting close to the much-bigger-than-me firefox but eventually complied. Mom turned down the heat when we got closer and gave the girl a lick on the face before leading us somewhere else. The human complained a lot about that in a language that definitely wasn’t english or japanese.

No easy language cheat then. Shame.

Oh well, I wasn’t exactly that interested in re-entering human society anyway.

Mom led the two of us down the mountain while I made sure the girl didn’t wander off or get stuck and eventually we found a few more male humans wandering around screaming. Probably for the girl going by the way she perked up and ran towards one of them when they came into view.

The men checked over the child for injuries before they turned to Mom and bowed. Even if it wasn’t directed at me I still puffed out my chest proudly and basked in the secondhand appreciation for rescuing a lost child.

Mom simply nodded back, chuffed in laughter at my actions, and knocked me over with a paw. Utterly ruining my graceful and majestic pose. By the time I shook the snow out of my eyes she was heading back up the mountain and the humans were laughing.

So much for being graceful. I was going to stay in bed for the rest of the week.

As a reward for helping. Not because I was pouting for Mom embarrassing me!