Fox Tales - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

I grumbled and did my best to muffle the sounds of hyperactive foxes playing in the background, but no matter what I did it wasn’t enough. My siblings had decided that playtime would begin and the poor, abused bystanders that simply wanted to sleep would just have to deal with it.

Excited yipping and sounds of general mayhem grew slightly louder and I did my best to bury my head in my tails to make the noise go away. It wasn’t very effective.

Despite my best efforts the soothing feeling of sleep grew further and further from my grasp until I was just grumpily curled up in our den doing my best to just ignore what was going on. That was mildly more effective…until one of my siblings smashed into me, lightly trampled half my body, and ran off with one final kick to the ribs as they panicked to avoid the other sibling that had taken advantage of the first tripping over my prone form to nip at them.

…

Right, it’s war then.

I rolled to my feet and all activity halted as my siblings realized I was growling. Several heads turned nervously towards me and I let them reflect on their mistake for a moment. Then my eyes glowed with psychic energy as I reached for the first one with Extrasensory. He yelped as I started poking at several ticklish spots all at once.

The others promptly abandoned him since he was already caught and fled.

It wouldn’t matter.

I’d catch them all eventually!

-o-

It was a massacre.

Several small furry bodies were collapsed around the meadow. The only sign they were alive was the exhausted wheezing breaths they took in between the occasional laugh that forced itself out of their muzzles.

And as much as I’d like to say it was a flawless victory…my own panting breaths would give that lie away immediately.

Because despite how young and childish my siblings could be, that didn’t mean they were stupid.

They had seen how devastating Extrasensory could be when used correctly - yes, sibling subjugation via tickling was the proper use for that move - and, like any younger siblings, began learning how to do it themselves. Their efforts were weak and uncoordinated so far, but if enough of them teamed up it almost didn’t matter.

Eventually they might be able to gang up on me and win before I could turn the tables, but today wasn’t that day.

Now then, time to hunt down the littlest sister that was smart enough to run away at the beginning. Just because she was smart didn’t mean she got to escape from our ‘familial bonding time’.

I took a moment to collect my breath and groom myself.

I needed to look my best when I snuck up on the runt and impressed on her how important naptime was.

-o-

Normally tracking down one of my siblings when they try to avoid divine retribution punishment is a nightmare in and of itself because, as I already mentioned, while they are childish my siblings are not stupid.

They often took the time to make sure their escape routes had multiple paths I could get tripped up on or where they could split up so I couldn’t get all of them. The times I went on the offensive first and they didn’t have one of those routes they usually had a pretty solid backup plan.

Run to Mom.

Too bad she’s not here at the moment. So my littlest sister is left with just blindly running away as a result and the normal escape methods have trained me to the point where something on this level is practically a pleasant stroll. Which means it doesn’t take long for me to find the errant kit and prepare for vengeance.

Only, as I get closer I realize I can hear barks and yips that sound like actual distress. Not just the complaining noises of a young Vulpix. A particularly scared sounding yelp had my hackles up.

Something was messing with my sister.

For their sake they better pray they are fireproof.

I stepped out of the brush to find my sister pinned up against a small cliff and surrounded by a pair of trainers and their pokemon; a Raticate and a Hitmonchan.

That would normally be bad enough, but the big red ‘R’ on the trainers’ shirts made things much worse.

Team Rocket was after my sibling. That wasn’t a bad thing, that was freaking terrible!

There was a silver lining though.

As bad and problematic Team Rocket could be…they were not fireproof.

The two rocket grunts laugh as my sister tries to flee to a side only to backtrack when the Raticate lunges to bite her. It takes every scrap of my self control not to simply rush out there. But I see the extra Pokeballs on the grunts’ belts, they might only be using two pokemon right now because they were facing a young and alone Vulpix but there was no reason they couldn’t send out more if they felt threatened.

Overwhelming force it was!

The first grunt was hit with a Confuse Ray before he even knew I was there, and ‘unfortunately’ because I wasn’t a proper psychic type and needed a second to build up the right energy for similar moves, the second one was tackled from behind and knocked unconscious while the first tripped over his own feet and fell on his face. I put a paw between his shoulder blades to prevent any sudden moves before I let the fire type energy building in my mouth out and sprayed the area between me and my sister. Embers wasn’t my first choice, but I wasn’t accurate enough with Flamethrower to only hit what I was aiming at yet.

The Raticate and Hitmonchan both screeched in pain and surprise as the flames washed over their backs. Neither one was expecting the attack so even if it was weak, I now had their full attention.

“Hello there, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I ‘spoke’ to both of them.

“Tch, another one showed up.” The Hitmonchan grumbled.

“So what? This one seems stronger. We get better rewards for the stronger ones.” The Raticate growled back, idly patting out some of the burns in its fur.

“The trainers aren’t ready to catch this one.”

“Then we just beat it and wait until they are.”

“That’s a very simple and effective plan.” I interrupted, “there's just one problem with that. Your trainers are beaten and you’re next.”

The Hitmonchan smirked. “You held back to protect the runt, right? I bet we can take you down easy if you need to worry about hitting her.”

“You mean the one that just finished escaping?”

The two Rocket pokemon turned to see that while they had been distracted with me, my sister had managed to scale the cliff and was giving the two of them her own foxy smirk before turning and making a run for it.

The two turn back just in time to see a few wisps of flame escape my mouth.

“Oh…”

I didn’t give them time to finish as I unleashed a concentrated Flamethrower right between them. See, the funny thing about type energy is; when enough is generated and concentrated it has a wonderful tendency to violently disperse itself in a rapid manner. Meaning it tended to explode.

I snorted in satisfaction when the dust cleared and both Rocket pokemon were visible on the ground. Fainted from the explosion.

Now then, time to find something to tie them up with and track down a human to deal with them.

Maybe the grunts had some rope in their bags?

-o-

Thankfully a Pokemon Ranger had been nearby and had come running at the sound from my battle. He ended up arriving just as I had finished tying up the little quartet of criminals. It was hilarious watching the poor Ranger try to figure out how a single Vulpix had not only beaten two trained pokemon, but then somehow managed to tie them up…without hands.

But if he didn’t know, I certainly wasn’t going to tell him. I just gave him my best impression of a salute with one paw then turned around and walked into the forest to where my little sister was currently bouncing around in joy.

“You beat them! That was so cool! They were all like ‘grr, you’re going to come with us’ and you were like ‘no we’re not’ and the BOOM! So cool!”

I grinned at her and preened a bit. “I am pretty cool,” I agreed. “But don’t think for a second praising me is going to get you out of punishment.”

My sister froze at both my words and the feeling of my psychic ‘hands’ pinning her in place while others began to target the more ticklish spots.

“W-wait, I didn’t…”

Any more words were lost in her slightly hysterical laughter.

-o-

Ranger Andy stared in disbelief at the group of Team Rocket poachers. He had been on the lookout for this bunch for two weeks, but before he could even catch their trail they had been beaten, caught, and dumped in front of him like they were a group of kids and not members of a dangerous criminal organization.

When the other Rangers and locals had told him that this mountain was cursed to any that came here with ill-will on the residents he had thought they were folk still caught up in the stories about Ninetales being mountain gods instead of simply powerful pokemon. Very powerful pokemon admittedly, but still just pokemon.

That was before a wild Vulpix that he knew couldn’t be older than six years old saluted him of all things and disappeared faster than some ghost-types he had seen.

Andy looked at the crater that had been obviously created by a powerful fire move, one that was a couple feet deep and several more wide. He hadn’t seen something like that since Gym Leader Blaine had demonstrated one of his more advanced teams.

If this was what a six year old Vulpix was like…what was the mom capable of?

Andy shuddered as haunting fox-like laughter echoed through the woods, the trees making it impossible to tell from which direction.

“Maybe those stories aren’t completely made up after all.” He muttered to himself. At the very least he was going to check to see if there was some sort of etiquette regarding the two fox pokemon. While it might be nothing, it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to avoid insulting the ruler of the mountain and her overpowered offspring.

Andy shuddered again as the laughter got louder and (to his ears) more mocking.

He discreetly checked his Pokegear to see how far away the police team coming to retrieve the Rockets were. He needed to get off this mountain.