The ground passed beneath his paws. The Ninetails was in too much of a hurry to change form into the less mobile humanoid form. He hurried around the building to where the other morphs were gathered, may of them sobbing and hurt. Some, he noted, had changed form. There was no sign nor scent of Cassandra amongst them. He moved further away and sat beneath a weeping willow tree, feeling heavy in his heart. Was he about to lose another person from his life? Someone who had the potential to be a lifetime companion?

Even if in their natural state he would be the predator, she the prey.

Suddenly a scent came to his nostrils. That of Vulpix. He fur rankled at this particular odour. Vulpix and Ninetails had very strong scents, sometimes even noticeable to human noses, and there was no mistaken this aroma, or the bitter taste it brought to his olfactory glands.

This was no normal Vulpix, this Vulpix reeked of badness. There was no better way to describe it. He examined the area more fully, finding what he wanted to find but was also longing not to find here. Not with the smell of a foul fox along with it.

Something was very amiss.

He could smell Cassandra’s sweet earthy aroma, intermingled with the stronger, masculine tang of the Sandslash and the hot, almost spicy aroma of a Rapidash. They had captured her, he guessed, from the fear-smell she had exuded. And he would have to find her and rescue her.

Nose to the ground, he began to follow the rather obvious scent trail.

*

"Hey, I hate to break it to you, Ren, but I think we are being followed." Cassandra was draped over the shoulders of the muscular Rapidash-morph, and it was he who had just spoken.

"Figures," the Vulpix growled. "Well, Phin, stay here and stop him from coming any closer."

Cassandra grunted through the haze of confusion. She had no idea where she was, or why that had captured her. She had regained consciousness some time ago, but was lying quiet, in the desperate hope that they would not realise and deal her another blow to the head.

So who was following her? She hoped it was someone a bit more capable then Brooke. Brooke would stand only a whisper of a chance against these rogues.

"As you command, Renardo," Phin sighed. "But I rather hoped to find out why the Boss wanted this particular girl. I mean, she’s nothing special really, a passable dancer perhaps, but hardly an experienced kisser and, well, what’s so different between her and the pretty Vaporeon girl?"

It took all of her energy to hold back her tears. She had actually for a moment thought someone had liked her, found her attractive. And it had all been a scam.

"So you want me to kill him, Renardo?" Phin asked.

"If needs must, my friend, if needs must."

Him, Cassandra thought. Who could it be?

And then Pierce began moving again and she was taken away, her questions unspoken and unanswered.

*

The fox flattened himself to the ground and something immense soared over, but whatever it was, its target was the village and it paid him no heed. His nostrils flared. Something was wrong up ahead. He could smell ambush.

Well, he was not about to fall for that one! He circled the scent trail. It had now led him off campus and into the wild forested area to the north of the University. He saw his ambusher and grinned to himself.

Why, it was the Sandslash-man. It would give him some pleasure to kick that rodent’s spiny butt.

Nothing alerted the porcupine-morph to his presence with a well aimed ice beam.

Instantly the humanoid turned and, reeling somewhat from the cold shock, came at him, jumping into the air and transforming at the same instant so that he could roll into a tight ball (something impossible with a human’s spine). His nice suit tore to shreds around him and fell to the ground, although shreds of cloth were caught in his spines.

He fired off some of the quills and Nothing had to dodge swiftly to avoid the poisoned barbs. As the Sandslash hit the ground, sending dirt spraying in his wake, Nothing braced himself and the moment it unfurled he aimed a ray of light from his pale eyes into the Sandslash’s, in a desperate attempt to confuse it.

The Sandslash unfurled and started slicing madly through the air, but the ray must have had some effect because most of the slashes went wide and the others the Ninetails managed to dodge, although one slice caught him in the right flank and he rolled over whimpering.

Instantly the Sandslash was upon him, slicing with those deadly claws.

Without giving it a chance to hit, Nothing took a deep breath and aimed an ice spin attack straight in his opponent’s face.

His opponent was forced back with the freezing beam, not that different from fire spin, save for the element.

Bleeding from a dozen cuts, Nothing limped over to his fallen combatant. He stood over the mostly frozen Sandslash.

<<I could kill you,>> he said, <<but I shall not, if you answer me these questions. Why did you capture Cassandra? Where is she being taken?>>

The Sandslash gazed up at him with glazed eyes. <<Renardo,>> he whispered in reply, <<paid money…. Take her to Boss…>>

<<And what is he going to do with her.>>

<<Don’t know, not told.>>

Nothing grunted and kicked dirt on the fallen Sandslash. <<Be thankful I am not like most of my kin,>> he snarled, and darted away.

His chest was slashed, his white fur marred with blood, but he had a mission to do, and he would do it well.

He must find Cassandra, for whatever their "boss" had planned, it could not be pleasant and would be nothing compared to what he would do to them, when he caught them.

*

"He made it through?" Renardo snarled, lowering the binoculars. "That’s inconceivable!"

"Well, to be completely frank Ren," Pierce replied, "it would only be inconceivable were Phin actually a competent fighter. I have, quite frankly, seen a woman fight better then that."

"Well, it looks like its your turn now, Pierce."

"My turn? But I have to carry the girl!"

"What do you take me for? A bloody Bellsprout? I can carry a wisp of a girl as well as you can. Or are you scared of a little fox?"

The Rapidash snorted, and Cassandra’s heart leapt. Fox, it had to be Nothing, or Saffire or whatever his name was.

Maybe he did like her after all!

She tried to keep her breathing shallow as the Rapidash reluctantly handed her to Renardo.

She hated him immediately. He smelt like old socks and sweat and hidden lust and poor hygiene. He smelled evil. Of course, all fox-types smelt strong, yet she had not considered it a bad smell on Nothing.

One horrid hand rubbed up her body, caressing her lightly in her delicate areas, as though the Vulpix were dying for a cheap thrill. She could not hold back the shudder it invoked and Renardo noticed immediately. He flung her over his shoulder in an easy move.

"You try anything girl, and you’ll be real sorry!" He snarled, "now Pierce, kill the stinking fox. Phin was weak, but you’re a much better fighter then him." He patted Cassandra on the butt, "now me and the lady are off for a bit of fun before you fail too."

He hurried off, leaving the Rapidash pacing in the glade.

*

Pain and blood loss was starting to make Nothing light headed and slowing his gait. He was no longer putting his full attention into the tracking and thus his first notification on the presence of the Rapidash was when the hooves missed crushing his skull by half a inch.

He rolled over as the hooves crashed down again.

<<I guess you’re one of the Sandslash’s friends?>> Nothing stated as he dodged another deadly blow.

<<You killed my friend,>> the fire horse snarled. <<You deserve what you get!>>

Nothing did not bother to clarify that statement. He rolled into a crouch and hit the horned horse with a confuse ray. At the last moment the Rapidash reared and it went wild, through his thick mane. Smoke began to plume from his nostrils.

Knowing that fire versus ice Pokemon was not a good thing, Nothing darted between the horse’s legs as fast as he could move. The heat seared through the ground behind him, turning the grass into steam and removing the tip of one tail. The Rapidash whirled sharply, bringing his hooves down again, one of them painfully grazing Nothing’s shoulder.

The Ninetails lunged upwards, closing his jaws about the larger horse’s throat.. It screamed as his teeth pierced flesh and brought the strong coppery taste of blood to his throat. The Rapidash bucked sharply, sending Nothing crashing to the ground, with a sizeable chunk of its chest muscle in his mouth.

The many wounds he had suffered were beginning to ache now, and he barely managed to crawl around in time as the Rapidash aimed another fire spin at his head.

In the instant before it hit, he managed to curl his tails up over his head, providing some protection from the flames that tore through his fur, melting it away in patches.

The heat was unbearable.

And then, nothing, no follow up, anything.

Very carefully he moved one now naked tail aside to peer at his attacker. The Rapidash had fallen to its knees and was changing into humanoid form as it fell.

"Go to her," he groaned, "you deserve her more then that bastard fox."

And then the horse-morph passed out.

*

The naked, scarred and burned Ninetails staggered over the rise and was welcomed by a greeting.

"I see you have finally decided to join the party," the orange-furred Vulpix growled. He was sitting on a rock, Cassandra in his lap. There was a knife pushed against her throat. "Nah, ah ah," the Vulpix tisked, "you stay right there, snowy. One more move and the lovely lady here will find a new attachment in her neck, and we can’t have that, can we just?"

Nothing stood still. "What do you want with her?"

"Ah," the Vulpix grinned, "we’re going to play that game are we? Tell the hero what you’re doing so that he can know for later, if, and I find this highly unlikely, he wins." He shook his head. "Know only this, snowy, the boss has offered us rather a nice sum of money for the capture of this here lady. Now, I can’t tell you why she’s so special, and I can’t let her go. So, I guess its you loss my friend."

"You really are something," Nothing snarled, his hands clenching as he held back his rage, forcing it down. "But you would not kill him, your boss wants her alive!"

He took a step forward and the Vulpix pressed the blade close to her throat, drawing blood.

Cassandra gasped.

The holding back his aggression was almost getting to too much for the Ninetails.

"Now, let’s see," the evil Vulpix said slyly, "you’ve defeated my Sandslash, so you must be pretty strong, and you must have defeated poor ol’ Pierce, which means your rather agile, but I doubt, however that you have the brains to defeat me."

"You’re pretty smug", Nothing muttered, "when you consider that I am evolutionarily superior to you."

"Not quite," the Vulpix tried to explain, "you see, you may be a Ninetails, and I may be just a Vulpix, but I have trained with the masters whilst you, my friend, have been hiding away in the hallways of that stupid establishment."

"Oh really," Nothing muttered, overcome by the utter arrogance of this prat and wanting to tear him to shred right then and there. "How about I propose a little competition then?"

"This gets more and more interesting," the Vulpix grinned. "Why, but of course, what in fact do you propose?"

Nothing grinned. "Well, as fire type pokemon, we are weak against water, and therefore cannot drink it as other races do, so this is my proposition. We have two cups, one containing pure water, the other containing your preferred beverage, which I would guess would be alcoholic?"

"Gin," the Vulpix replied, looking interested. He moved one arm to grab a knapsack and removed from it two mugs and a waterskin. "I don’t carry water though."

"Of course you don’t, but luckily your fighter Sandslash does," he drew out a flask. "Now, pass me the mugs, I shall pour alcohol into one and water into the other, knowing fill well that pure water inside us can be almost deadly."

The Vulpix nodded impatiently. "It causes stomach cramps and seizures," he replied, "get along with it."

"Very well, just making sure we understand each other." Nothing turned his back to the Vulpix and filled the two mugs. He turned back and placed them on the rock, which the Vulpix, still dragging Cassandra, had vacated. "Now, chose your beverage and we shall both pick ours up and drink it down in one gulp."

The Vulpix stared at the mugs. "Well," he said, "it is true that a wise person would never put the water in front of themselves, but, you, knowing that would have done so, because you know that I am not stupid therefore would see through that one. Therefore, you would not put the water in front of me."

Nothing made no reply, merely watched with a bland expression on his face.

"But, tis true that you know I would figure that one out, so you would not put the water in front of yourself."

Nothing tried to hide a chuckle, "so where did I put it then? In front of her?"

"Shut up!" The Vulpix snapped as he went through complicated movements in his head. It was almost amusing, but Nothing tried to hide his Mirth. He could not afford to anger this madman. Suddenly the Vulpix seemed to focus on something behind him.

"Pierce, Phin, you’re not dead after all?!" The Vulpix was so convincing that Nothing actually turned and looked, but there was, of course, nothing to be seen.

As he turned back, he saw the opponent picking up his own mug and reached for the one in front of him.

True to form, they both drank it down straight.

The Vulpix broke out in laughter, "hey, you fell for the oldest trick in the book! I switched the mugs, I switched the…" He started jerking uncontrollably as the water took effect on his internal organs.

"It made no difference," Nothing explained to the fitting Vulpix as he stepped over the rock and picked up Cassandra. "They were both water. You see, I am not your typical fire pokemon – I am ice trained, and whilst Ice Pokemon are weak to water from the outside, we suffer no ill effects to it on the inside." He kicked the Vulpix. "You really are a stupid fox."

Cassandra, against her normal shyness threw herself into Nothing’s arms with so much force she almost sent him sprawling.

"You saved me! I was so scared!"

"Easy there girl," he replied, chuckling as he set her on the ground. "I’m a little battered too you know." She looked down and noticed two things at once – firstly, that her clothing was covered in blood and secondly that her saviour was completely naked.

She began to look down in embarrassment, unfortunately, because of her position, that meant she was now staring directly at the one area of the Ninetail’s she did not wish to focus on. She turned away, her face a brilliant scarlet.

She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Don’t be alarmed," he said softly, "I would never do anything to hurt you." He turned away and held the gasping, struggling Vulpix down with one foot whilst removing his clothing and attiring himself in it. He was taller then the Vulpix, but it did manage to cover the offending areas and also to mop up some of the blood.

He turned back to Cassandra and put one arm on her shoulder, drawing her towards him. He stroked her cheek with the other hand, brushing her long hair from her face.

"You’re someone special, Cassandra," he said softly, putting his hand under her chin so he forced her to look in his eyes.

"I, I am?"

"Yes, you are, and I would be honoured, Cassandra, if you would perhaps allow me to court you in the, err, human manner."

She had to laugh, she didn’t want to offend him, but she just had to laugh from all the stress and fear being removed and him talking of courting in a human way. He chuckled with her.

"Is that a yes?"

She nodded mutely, too excited to trust herself to talk and suddenly his arms were about her, lifting her up to his face as though she were a lightweight, and then he kissed her.

And suddenly everything was beautiful.