Fox Tales - Chapter 2 (Patreon)

&Just a bit more Poliwhirl! Use bubblebeam!&

I hastily scrambled out of the way as a stream of explosive bubbles smashed into the ground where I was just standing. The human trainer shouted in excitement as I was forced on the defensive and called out another order for his poliwhirl. The stupid frog thing charged me looking like it was going for a body slam.

I had to give the trainer credit, he managed to time it so his pokemon was going to intercept me before I could dodge again and with the type disadvantage he was betting I couldn’t do anything without still getting hit by the attack. Too bad for him he was underestimating me.

Fire spewed from my mouth and completely covered the ground between me and the blue amphibian, setting the grass ablaze. And while the water nature of the poliwhirl was enough to let it briefly stand in the middle of the inferno, it did nothing to protect it from the blinding smoke or detect me through it.

That coupled with a quick confuse ray ensured that even if the poliwhirl did manage to get a glimpse of me, it was going to be next to impossible to actually land a hit.

The trainer let out a shocked shout and began yelling incomprehensible (to me) orders, but his pokemon just flailed wildly instead, trying to escape backwards out of the smoke. So it was completely unprepared for me to circle around from behind and tackle it further into the flaming grass.

And since this wasn’t a game, I immediately followed up with another burst of flames and kept it up until the other pokemon collapsed and stopped moving.

Satisfied that the battle was over I reached out mentally and connected to the remaining traces of my energy in the fire around us. With a flex of will I let the flames die out and reveal both the defeated pokemon and me, sporting a foxy victory grin, to the trainer.

&Stupid fox. I didn’t want it on my team anyway.& The trainer grumbled something and pulled out a pokeball. Poliwhirl vanished in a beam of red light and the trainer stomped off.

Heh, I bet he was frustrated at the loss.

But it wasn’t like Mom was going to let any of us get captured if we didn’t want to go. So in reality the trainer dodged one heck of a giant fox-shaped bullet.

Actually, where was Mom? She normally lurked somewhere nearby whenever there were humans on the mountain, just in case one of us needed rescuing. But today she was nowhere to be found and I wanted to tell her about my win!

…maybe she decided to hang out with that other Ninetales that was passing by?

-o-

I didn’t see anything! I didn’t see anything! I didn’t see anything! I didn’t see anything!

I saw nothing!

My siblings were snickering in the corner of our den as I did my best to self-hypnotize the last ten minutes out of my memory forever, develop acute amnesia, or failing that, claw my eyes out.

Mom and the other Ninetales were certainly ‘hanging out’.

Unfortunately they were doing so in the adult way and the mortification of walking in on your parent remained the same no matter what species I was.

I couldn’t even blame them for not locking the door. We don’t have doors!

I did get something out of it though – besides the mental scarring – and that was the discovery that Ninetales were basic shapeshifters. Both mom and her friend being females initially didn’t mean they had to stay that way.

…really wish I could forget about it though.

Mom and I steadfastly refused to meet each other's eyes for the next couple days after that little incident.

While we weren’t human and had very different instincts…yeah, both of us were embarrassed by what happened.

It didn’t help that Mom's visitor thought it was cute and went out of her way to nuzzle both of us affectionately before taking off again.

-o-

I growled through a mouthful of prey as the scavengers circled closer.

One of them tried slinking forward when they thought I was distracted only to retreat back when I turned the full force of my glare on them. But while I was dealing with that one the others took the opportunity to creep closer.

I backed up further, still growling, but I was getting ever closer to the river. Pretty soon I was going to be trapped.

I saw a flash of gold out of the corner of my eye and was tentatively hopeful at the arrival of mom. Since my mouth was full all I could do was give her a pleading look for assistance.

She just chuffed and told me to either drive off the pests myself or give up my meal, she couldn’t shelter me forever.

I wanted to complain about the unfair treatment but while I was pleading with Mom, one of the filthy scavengers I called siblings managed to sneak up close enough to leap forward and rip the fish I had caught out of my slackened jaws.

They immediately turned tails and fled into the forest with their prize while I could only stare helplessly after them.

My fish!

I howled at the injustice of the theft, the betrayal of my family, and the loss of my dinner.

I was so caught up in my emotional woes that it wasn’t until several minutes later I noticed the replacement fish Mom had left nearby for me.