Length: 1800 words Vore type: M/F oral vore, reluctant prey Fandom: Pokemon Other info: Liepard pred, human prey, feral pred, threat of digestion Summary: An ex-Plasma Grunt seeks closure with one of her past victims. It goes poorly for literally everyone but the Pokemon. Links: FurAffinity, tumblr

With each step Marie took closer to the Castelia City storefront, it felt only further away, and her backpack - or rather, the clothes inside - hung more heavily off her shoulders. Part of her hoped to find it packed with customers, to give her some excuse to put it off for one more day. Marie clenched her jaw, brushed a lock of red hair over her shoulder, and continued on; the rest of her wasn't a fucking coward. The bell over the door, decorated like a Chingling, rang as the woman entered. Despite the store's varied collection, the air smelled mostly of books, mixed with cinnamon incense. A woman with short, black hair looked up from her phone behind the register. "Oh, hello!" she said in a light, customer-service voice, "can I help you find anything today?" --- As tempting as it was, Marie had more important things than tchotchkes or the new "Ledyba and Black Nyarth" comic. She sighed and approached the cashier. "Kind of. Um... may I ask, Riley, how's your Purrloin doing?" Confusion and concern were evident on Riley's face; she took a step back from the counter and one hand dropped to her hip for a pokeball. "H-how did you know- wait, Purrloin? Who are you?!" Marie immediately raised her open hands and took a step back, herself. "Did I get the wrong person? I'm sorry, the records are kind of-" "Records? What are you talking about?" A dark green pokeball swelled to full size in Riley's hand, and she held it out in front of her, guarding herself from whatever she thought Marie was up to. "E-explain yourself, or else! Where did you look me up, and why?" "I..." Marie accidentally backed into a shelf and straightened up, "do you, um, remember the whole "Team Plasma" thing about a decade ago?" "Yeah, but I was never involved with them! For one, I was twelve, and for two-!" Marie cut her off. "For two, a young Plasma Grunt stole your Purrloin, so you weren't exactly keen to join up." This threw Riley for a loop. "Yeah. But how would you..." Marie watched her connect the pieces in her mind; as soon as she did, she returned the pokeball to her hip and instead grabbed a heavy-looking book. Though still threatening, the look in her eyes was one of fear. "You bastards aren't taking him again!" she declared. "It's just me, and no, I'm not. After realizing what the team was really about, I quit and fled. The fact that I was lied to doesn't change what I did, but I just..." Marie swallowed a lump in her throat and tried again. "I found a copy of Plasma's quote-unquote "liberation" records a couple months ago, and your Purrloin was third and last on my... rap sheet. I just want to know, how is he? I really hope he was able to recover from that." Riley was silent for a long, uncomfortable minute, then retrieved her pokeball once more. She tossed it up and called, with a measured voice, "Noir, showtime." A burst of red light coalesced into a feline form. Rather than the short, mischievous biped Marie expected of a Purrloin, what appeared was a sleek, four-legged Liepard, standing an impressive four feet tall and adorned in a beautiful, dark purple coat. He landed on the store floor without a sound and glared at Marie before turning to Riley for instruction. "Noir, this is the woman who stole you from me back in Nacrene city." The brunette's voice was tense with effort to keep malice from her tone. "She wants to know how we've fared ever since we reunited on Skyarrow, after thinking we'd never see each other ever again." Marie dropped to her knees and shrugged off her backpack; the light hood of her old uniform fell out from it, but she looked nowhere but the cat's green eyes. "Purrl- Noir, I'm so sorry. I can't even claim a change of heart; I was simply too stupid, too blind to know the bond between a girl and her Pokemon." Noir stared placidly back at her, tail lashing behind him. Marie dipped her head and closed her eyes. "Please forgive me. I heard the cries of the Pokemon we'd stolen; I don't have to speak your language to know that I must have hurt you." "You're asking him, and not me?" Riley asked. There was an edge to her words, but also a note of surprise. The ex-grunt nodded, never raising her head. "Noir was the one I grabbed and imprisoned. Even if you offered, I couldn't accept your forgiveness if he would't grant me his." She didn't hear him move, nor did she expect to. Marie startled when she felt the Liepard's paw on her shoulder, and when she looked up, his feline face filled her vision. She wasn't N, she couldn't get a read on him. Was he thinking it over? Was he planning to gut her? It didn't matter; she'd forcibly taken his life into her hands, and would not flinch from a reversal. Noir yawned wide, rows of pointed, yellow fangs framing a glistening, pink tongue and mouth. However, rather than closing his mouth, the Pokemon pushed forward, and surprised Marie by fitting her entire face between his jaws. She reflexively closed her eyes just in time to feel him tense around her and drag her head forward, into his throat. It was warm, dark, and tight. His fangs brushed against her neck, and she half-expected him to continue to close them. From beyond the Pokemon's jaws, Riley shouted his name, horrified; Marie heard the sound of a pokeball recalling its Pokemon... and then the sound of that beam of light shattering, of a miserably failed capture. Noir swallowed again and promptly got stuck on her shoulders. Despite the lack of fresh air and the vertigo of strange forces all around her head, Marie did her best to pull her arms in close. He could be no less trustworthy than she had been. Slowly, steadily, the feline worked his jaws back and forth as he soaked Marie's hair and shirt collar with drool; eventually, Noir worked out an angle and approach to get one shoulder, then the other, inside his fanged grip. With all the saliva, she couldn't tell if his fangs had pierced her skin, not as if it was of any matter. His throat, on the other hand, accepted her much more easily, stretching to keep her in a painfully tight grip. It only got hotter as she descended, closer to Noir's stomach. Just then, something rammed into Noir, raking his fangs through her shirt and possibly flesh. Marie heard Riley yell something else, maybe at Noir, maybe at her. She was growing dizzy. The heat around her chest sank lower, just past her ribs. The air around her head - if she could call it that - grew sharper, almost painful just to breathe, but it wasn't as tight around her head as it was around the rest of her. Something dragged against her knees, or was she being dragged around, herself? Her body told her to move, to thrash, to fight, but there was a reason she wasn't. There had to be, even if it was hard to remember. Maybe she could think after a nice, long- Red light blinded her, and Marie fell, her upper body drenched, onto the floor of the shop. She made out a blurry, green, circular thing laying that the light had vanished into, and a woman's voice was loudly moving around the store. Taking slow, deep breaths, Marie pushed herself onto her side, and then up a bit, working into a sitting position against a store shelf. There was another red light, and a large yellow and black - no, yellow and purple - figure filled much of her sight. A Pokemon, to be sure. With each breath, sharpness returned to her vision and mind. Noir the Liepard sat before her, watching her with a keen eye. Her backpack lay to his side, or rather, what was left of her backpack and its contents lay in a heap of tattered, torn fabric. Riley rounded the shelf and skidded to a stop, wielding a spray potion. "Oh, thank goodness! Noir, what the hell! You can't eat people!" Noir turned his head and smiled, as though pointing out that, as just demonstrated, he COULD, and simply didn't. Marie tried to wave away the Potion, as the scars would be a reminder of the lesson she'd learned... but Riley pointed out that she really couldn't have her walking out of the store a bloody mess. After getting herself sprayed down and repurposing the tatters of her old Plasma uniform as bandages, Noir approached her again. Riley cautiously brandished his pokeball, but Noir simply lifted his forepaw and smacked Marie a few times on the head before licking her once, twice, three times, before turning, booping his muzzle against the pokeball's button, and vanishing back inside. "Well... I don't get it, but I guess he forgives you," Riley said, staring at the now-dormant pokeball. It took some effort to stand, but Marie soon stood upright. She scooped up the remnants of her backpack and uniform. "How about you? I know it's a long thing, but-" "Absolutely not," Riley shot her down at once, "you're insane, I wish I'd never met you, and my life has been worse for each time we've interacted." She shot Marie an icy glare. "Thanks to you, my precious Noir is capable of killing people, and I'll have to live with that knowledge. If I never see you again, it'll be too soon." Marie nodded and walked back to the front door. "Noted. Thank you for your time." The other woman switched on her customer service voice again. "Have a good day!" she half-sang, "come back never!" The bell on the door jingled, and Marie stepped out onto the street. After a few seconds, she turned for one last glance. Riley had her head in her hands, leaning on the counter. Marie sighed. With the last Pokemon down, her heart was lighter... but man, that could've gone so much better.

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