-- Gone Hunting --
-- Coneridge Series, Chapter 7.5 --
-- Short Story --
-- Contains: Soft Oral Vore, Implied Fatal, Erection, Sexual Situations --
 
 Their quarry had headed this way. Both Amasu and Zariel could easily track the fresh scent, following the lopunny unerringly. Which was good, since the dark night would have otherwise made finding anything difficult for Amasu. Ninetales were the creatures of the sun, while Zariel, a zoroark, was far more adept with the night.
 
 But together they were at home anytime, anywhere. Like here, deep in the forest in the middle of the night. The setting was definitely more in favour of Zariel, but with him walking nearby, the ninetales didn't fear getting ambushed. He could see what she couldn't, and anything trying to attack them would face a formidable array of moves.
 
 Not that they expected to find anything overly dangerous here. The area was after all not only their hunting ground, but Esak's as well. With the arbok's habit of always going for the biggest, strongest prey, a term which the snake extended to anything smaller than an ursaring, it was unlikely that there would be anything dangerous around. Anything other than themselves.
 
 They were gaining on the lopunny. Here and there they could see signs of the lagomorph having stopped to gather something, berries or herbs likely. The rabbit naturally thought it safer to do its foraging in the dark, and wasn't wrong in it. Most of the predators of the nearby town of Coneridge hunted during daytime. Amasu too would have, were it not for Zariel beside her. The ability to track a prey by scent didn't make up for the difficulty in seeing how it might defend itself once you caught up with it.
 
 But Zariel could do most of the fighting, if it came to that. Often they managed to simply land the first strike with enough force to kill or incapacitate their prey straight away. So she wasn't worried about their ability to make the kill. No, she was worried about something else. Something she had only come to sense lately, as the scent of their prey got fresher and stronger...
 
 "There." Amasu stopped upon hearing Zariel's voice. Looking at him, she could see the zoroark pointing slightly to the left of the direction they had been going.
 
 Carefully they crept closer, keeping behind cover as much as they could. Zariel could have made them invisible, and he could have tried to muffle any noise they made, but doing so would have felt unfair to them both. He kept his illusory skills in store for when they were really needed, be it a prey fighting back harder than anticipated, or another predator coming across them.
 
 Or if they couldn't catch anything otherwise, she admitted to herself, though that was rarely the case. Indeed, they were surprisingly good at hunting considering how rarely they had to hunt. Or how rarely they could hunt. Most days at least one of them had to stay present at all times to let others in to or out of the Barrier, but with their recent battle Myrtle had decided to give them some much needed leisure time. And with both of them having spent most of the past month either on missions or inside the Barrier, they were quite eager to get out.
 
 Specifically, they had decided to go hunt together. No dried meat and berries tonight. No cooking where meat was just an addition, not the main ingredient. Not that they might get even that for some time, with Ary gone. Arian cooked meat even less willingly than the zangoose did. Understandable seeing that the kangaskhan was a herbivore, but for the the foxes who walked on the border of carnivorism and omnivorism it was a blow. No, this night they had a chance to eat raw meat and drink blood, like the parents of both of them had grown them to do.
 
 Or so the plan had been. But now...
 
 "Wait" Amasu bid Zariel to hold back, as he was about to pounce upon the lopunny, his claws shimmering with dark energy. "Show me what you see" she whispered.
 
 The zoroark was clearly puzzled by the request, but she could feel an illusion grow around them, hiding them from the sight and hearing of their prey, as long as they kept their voices down. Soon an image appeared between them, the same view she could see herself, but brighter and more distinct, the zoroark showing what his eyes, more light sensitive than hers, could see.
 
 "She's a mother. See? She has young hatchlings" Amasu told the zoroark, pointing with her paw to the enlarged teats pushing through the lopunny's fur. That also explained why the female was going to such an effort in her gathering. After laying her eggs and later nursing her young, the lopunny would need more nutrients than normal.
 
 "So?" he replied, letting the image fade. Apparently Zariel was in the mood to act dump, or perhaps he wished that she would back down. The zoroark wasn't one for empathy, not with strangers anyway. She knew that he wouldn't care about his prey's situation. But neither would he act against her wishes.
 
 "So we cannot eat her. The buneary are still very young if she is nursing them. Possibly they haven't even hatched yet! Though they must have, the summer being this far along already. Wild lopunny wouldn't mate so late in summer that the eggs wouldn't hatch before autumn, would they?" she wondered aloud.
 
 Zariel said nothing, just watched as the lopunny finished gathering the bluk berries it had stopped to get before moving on, happily unaware that it had only barely avoided being fox food. "Fine. We'll get something else then. But whatever we find next we eat" he grumbled, starting off at a straight angle from the direction the lopunny had gone to.
 
 As Amasu hurried to follow along, Zariel allowed himself a moment of discontent. She really could be annoying at times, almost always refusing to hunt mothers or young pokemon. It was good that she didn't have to live in the wild, for if she had, she would have starved for certain.
 
 But then again, the ninetales had had a different kind of life than he had. Ever since leaving the other zoroark, he had had to survive on his own. He couldn't afford to have the softness she had. Myrtle understood that, the mawile having had to survive in the wild much like he had had to. Esak not only understood, he lived much as if he still was a wilderner. At times Zariel envied the snake.
 
 But then he looked back at Amasu, his irritation melting away. She was what she was, and he wouldn't have wanted her to change. They truly complemented each other, the pure golden princess and her dark knight. The goddess of the sun and the herald of night. The wise queen and the intelligent advisor.
 
 No. He wouldn't act against her wishes. He wouldn't dare to bring any unhappiness upon her. She was someone far better than he had any right to love. He couldn't afford to ever forget that. He would happily pay any price to stay with her.
 
-----
 
 The night was at its deepest when they finally came upon another fresh scent. Two of them, really. Sentret, having come from the plains under the cover of the night, it seemed, or from the town, possibly. The pair seemed to be lost, moving in a weaving path all around, never stopping. Catching up to the pair was easy, for they actually cut across their own trail at one point, saving the foxes a lot of time. Soon Zariel again warned Amasu that their prey was in sight.
 
 This time Amasu didn't object to the choice. While unevolved, both sentret were adults, or at the very least just months away from coming of age, a male and a female, stumbling randomly without any apparent purpose. And more importantly, neither showed any sign of citizenship, no rings, no bags.
 
 Zariel hadn't heard of wilderners getting this badly lost in a long time. Citizens often did, sure. That wasone of the things which gave the Rescue Teams a steady stream of work. But unlike wilderners the citizens were often more used to the town with its buildings and streets, many hardly ever leaving Coneridge. When one need or another made them do so, they then came to realise that their instincts had been dulled by the civilized life. After having failed to return by the time they should have, their friends or family then asked the Guild to post a mission to search for the missing pokemon.
 
 Surprisingly enough, the missing pokemon were more actually often than not found, tired and hungry but otherwise okay. Less often the pokemon being searched for was still alive, but wounded or otherwise in trouble, needing extra effort to rescue. And every now and then, the rescue was simply too late in coming, the mission turning to one of retrieving the silver ring that had marked the pokemon's citizenship.
 
 But these sentret were unlikely to get a mission posted for them. Both were wilderners, after all. And yet, a hint of doubt kept nagging at Zariel. The two might be children of a citizen, still under the protection their parents citizenship offered them. Such young pokemon very rarely left the town unescorted, but it had happened. The children might not have rings, for they often fell of during evolution and thus weren't usually given until the pokemon had fully evolved.
 
 He was fairly certain that the sentret were adults, or close enough that they would certainly have been given their rings, if only to avoid any possible unfortunate incidents. Yet it would be wise to be certain of the fact, before it was too late.
 
 "This one is yours, darling. I think it would be best if we caught them alive, just to be safe" he told Amasu. She was better at non-lethal attacks than he was, his having a tendency to hit something vital straight away, or to cause sever injury at the least. And after his earlier outburst, he wanted to show her that he could behave properly.
 
 Carefully Amasu crept closer to the sentret. The two were tiring, it seemed, for they weren't moving fast. Likely they had been lost longer than she and Zariel had been hunting, and might well have ran part of the time in panic. But that didn't matter. Judging herself to be close enough, Amasu focused. A wave of psychic energy turned solid came to being before her, hurtling towards the two sentret.
 
 The two noticed nothing before they were struck aside, the male slamming against a tree and dropping down on his face, the female bouncing along the forest floor. In moments Zariel had the female in his claws, Amasu stopping by the unconscious male sentret.
 
 "Well done" Zariel congratulated the ninetales. The female sentret was definitely alive, somewhat stunned but already trying to escape his grip. The male likely would be fine too, unless he turned out to be a wilderner, naturally.
 
 "Thank you" Amasu accepted the compliment, while she turned the unconscious sentret on his back, making sure he could breathe.
 
 "So, what exactly were you two doing in this part of the forest, hmm?" the zoroark asked from the sentret he held.
 
 "We were just lost. Please, let us go! We didn't mean to intrude on your territory!" the female sentret pleaded, her voice shaky but understandable.
 
 "Really? Perhaps we should take you to Coneridge then?" Zariel said, sounding as if he was really considering the issue.
 
 The sentret's reaction was telling. A citizen or a child of a citizen would have been glad to hear that. But since it wasn't anywhere near the safe visiting period, a town full of predators was a nightmare for a wilderner. "No! Just let us go, we can find our own way!" the sentret asked, revealing herself to be no citizen.
 
 Looking at Amasu, Zariel received a nod. The ninetales had made her judgement. The two sentret were indeed to be their prey tonight. "Sorry" he simply said, before his claws flashed, a burst of dark energy making the female fall limp.
 
 "You know, I think I could manage this one in one bite" he told Amasu, measuring the sentret with his eyes.
 
 "I know you could. Its nothing compared to what Tyrion managed" she answered.
 
 It had started when their team's newest member, or an unofficial member at least, had three days ago arrived with a manectric stuffed into his belly. At first Zariel had been merely surprised, but the sight had burned its mark into his mind.
 
 He knew it wasn't normal for the zoroark. But Esak always did so, as was natural for snakes, and Tyrion seemed to like it too, even if it wasn't natural for a typhlosion. And further more, Longfang also liked swallowing his prey whole, though the floatzel vastly preferred fish as his prey.
 
 Amasu had been slightly hesitant to hear of the zoroark thoughts at first, but had decided that if it made Zariel happy, she would allow the zoroark to do as he wanted. As long as he didn't risk hurting himself. A sentret would be a small, gentle start, she figured. Indeed, she just might try it herself, if only for the sake of the memory of the good old times.
 
 Taking Amasu's answer as a permission, Zariel began his meal. First, he gave the unconscious sentret a good licking to wet its fur and make it easier to swallow. With Amasu watching he refrained from touching certain areas, not that he would have had any special interest towards them anyway.
 
 That done, he paused. The zoroark had practised opening his jaws as wide as he could, but now he suffered a momentary lack of faith. Could he really get something this large past his jaws and down his gullet in one piece? Or would he just end up suffocating himself, forcing Amasu to come to his rescue? Hesitantly his jaws parted, stretching to their limit. It felt insufficient to the task, he couldn't help but think. He lifted the sentret closer to his maw, prepared to start pushing it in, but after a while lowered it and allowed his jaws to close. Perhaps this wouldn't be such a good idea?
 
 Seeing her mate doubt himself, Amasu wagged her tails in a wave, drawing Zariel's attention. She too had given her prey a good licking, he now noticed, having been too focused on his own prey to pay attention. Now, with Zariel watching to see what the ninetales had wanted his attention for, she opened her jaws wide, wider than he had seen her do ever before. In one swift motion, her maw descended on the sentret laying on the ground ahead of her, her teeth pressing in enough to gain a good grip without piercing the skin.
 
 As Zariel watched, she lifted the sentret from the ground, her muzzle covering the face of her prey. Then she suddenly pulled her head back, her maw opening slightly before closing down again as she reversed the direction of her movement. And the sentret moved a good inch deeper inside her jaws. Staring as if spellbound, Zariel could only watch as his mate repeated the process again and again, her cheeks stretched wide by the sentret held within. Finally she lifted her head high and swallowed. The gulping was clearly audible where he stood a full twenty feet away. And the sentret sank, a bulge starting to grow in Amasu's lithe neck.
 
 His own prey forgotten, Zariel kept staring. Amasu was smaller than he was, and much lighter. The sentret had to be almost a third of her mass. Yet there she was, swallowing prey that he hesitated to even attempt to get down. So far, the largest pokemon he had ever swallowed whole had been a smallish rattata, an act performed to avoid leaving too much evidence of his presence as he fled Unova. Never before or after had he done something like that, or planned to do so. Not before Tyrion came back those three days ago, the typhlosion burdened with a fully grown manectric in his stomach.
 
 The fire type had been mostly distressed, worried about his prey, something Zariel had felt was weird but hadn't commented upon, hidden as he had stayed. Yet he could smell something more. The typhlosion had clearly felt pleasure at having another pokemon trapped inside him. Later he had heard from Amasu about Longfang telling what he knew about the typhlosion.
 
 It seemed that Tyrion was one of the town's residents who preferred eating food raw. Many of the citizens had taken a liking to cooked food, with fully capable predators often carrying prey to town to prepare rather than eating where they had made the catch. But Tyrion seemed to be one of those who ate like his ancestors did, assuming that his ancestors had had a preference for swallowing prey whole.
 
 Zariel had grown as part of a pack of zoroark and zorua. There all prey were divided among the pack. To swallow something whole, to keep it to himself, hadn't been something that would have even occurred to him. But when Tyrion had made him think about it, he found himself attracted at the idea. He had told so to Amasu. Yet at no point had she given him any indication that she had ever had similar thoughts, much less that she had what was obviously experience in the matter.
 
 Most of the sentret was now hidden inside the ninetales's gullet, only the feet and tail of the smaller pokemon still visible from inside her maw. Those vanished fast though, the larger bulge of the sentret's torso sliding down her neck and pushing at her ribcage. That, it seemed, was the hardest part for her. Amasu lay down, pushing at her lower neck with her front paws. For a moment Zariel feared that she was in trouble, about to suffocate perhaps. He started towards her, not knowing what to do but unwilling to do nothing. But then, with a strange sound somewhere between a popping noise and a wet squelch, the widest part of the bulge passed through the narrowest part of her ribcage, allowing the ninetales to take a deep breath.
 
 "I didn't know that you could do that" he said, coming to a stop before her. He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but found himself unable to keep from looking at her belly, spread wide beneath her.
 
 "Almost couldn't. I am very... much out of... practice" she told him in gasps, rolling to her side to give her greatly distended belly more room. Still, despite her panting and a lingering pain visible on her face, she seemed content as she looked at herself. "But there you go" she said, turning to look at the zoroark after getting her breath back. "I can do it. So you too definitely can" she added, nodding at the sentret still held in his hands.
 
 "Right" he simply replied. Suddenly the situation had changed. Now he wasn't worried as much about whether he might manage to get the sentret in or not, but whether he could do it easily enough to avoid embarrassing himself.
 
 Like usual, Amasu was good at reading him. "I know that this is the first for you with a prey of this size. I first swallowed another pokemon whole over a hundred years ago, then again had some more practice some fifty years past. I know you are larger than I am, and that this should be easier for you than for me. But if you asked Tyrion, he would tell you that eating large prey isn't easy for him either. So just go on. You'll get better at it eventually if you decide that you like it" she encouraged him to begin.
 
 And with her telling him to do so, the matter was decided. Giving few more licks to the sentret, he again opened his jaws as wide as he could. Lifting his prey up, he rammed the sentret as deep in his mouth as he managed to. To his surprise he felt his jaws stretch further still. Not much, but farther than he had been able to open them before. And the top of the sentret hit the flesh of his gullet, which readily spread to give room for the meal.
 
 It shouldn't be this easy, Zariel thought. He wasn't a snake, or any other reptile for that matter. He had seen how large pokemon Esak could swallow, which were large indeed. Had the arbok decided to, he could have swallowed any member of the Rememberers, and indeed, almost any pokemon in the entirety of Coneridge. Compared to that, a zoroark swallowing a sentret wasn't much. And yet it was more than he would have imagined possible.
 
 Yet possible it seemed to be, as the brown furred pokemon slid further in, the back of his jaws giving way for the passing prey. He felt when the instinctive peristalsis of his gullet gained hold on the sentret, letting go with his hands and giving a tentative swallow. Now came the first hint of pain, the widest portion of the sentret needing more room than his spread to the limit jaws were willing to give. But he swallowed again, rising his hands back to push at the sentrets rear.
 
 With a pop, one felt more than heard, his jaws allowed the pokemon inside of them to pass. And with his gullet now doing the work, Zariel started to understand why this might feel enjoyable. The last remnants of pain faded away, a feeling of satisfaction and an anticipation at having his prey in his stomach filling him. Slowly the sentret slid further down, first its feet, then its tail pulled in his jaws and past them, down into their final journey. He held his hands on his neck, feeling the form of the pokemon moving down inside of it, massaging it gently to aid the process.
 
 But then everything slowed down, the sentret hitting his ribcage, and not readily moving further. Yet Amasu had been right. For her this had seemingly been the hardest part. But he was larger than she was. Pressing down on the bulge while at the same time giving one last strong swallow, the sentret squeezed in his chest, the bulge hidden for a moment as with a strange feeling everything inside of him moved to allow the pokemon to pass by, his belly starting to bulge slightly even before the sentret actually reached it.
 
 But soon the prey really did reach his stomach, filling the small amount of empty space that the muscular organ had inside of it when at rest, then stretching it further and further as more of his meal kept pushing inside. His belly stretched, first giving him an appearance akin to a female pregnant with multiple eggs, then going beyond that, to a size larger than any that he had seen on any zoroark before.
 
 And then it was done, all of the smallish brown furred pokemon sealed away deep within him, causing his normal hourglass figure to invert itself.
 
 "I... That was... I mean, it feels..." Zariel tried to explain what he felt, but interrupted himself with a "Bhuuurp!"
 
 As the zoroark stood there with his hands covering his muzzle, thankful that his dark fur hid his fierce blush, Amasu couldn't help but giggle. "I see you enjoyed that" she told him.
 
 At first Zariel took the words at face value, basking in the sensations he felt. He had eaten a lot at times before, yet never had he felt truly full, it seemed. If this was what Tyrion felt when he did what he did, Zariel fully understood the typhlosion's habits. But then he noticed where his mate was looking. Focusing his attention downwards, he realised the real meaning of what she had said, for he could feel his erection pushing against his belly, trying to slide fully out of his sheath yet trapped by the bulging gut pressing down on it. "That, I... I did enjoy it, yes" he managed to stammer. Realising that they were out in the open, he quickly hid the two of them with an illusion. He didn't know if he would have been able to give chase had some passing pokemon seen him at such a state, so it was best to take no chances.
 
 "Sensible. I certainly aren't moving for a few hours myself" Amasu said, feeling the illusion through his bond with the zoroark. "Now, come here and..." she started to say, before she was interrupted by a feeling she hadn't felt in more than fifty years.
 
 Looking at her bulging belly, the ninetales could see the small movements that the suddenly awake sentret was making inside her. She really hadn't thought that the pokemon would wake this soon, believing that it would remain unconscious, simply never waking up again.
 
 "He woke up?" Zariel asked her, joining her at staring on her belly.
 
 "Seems so" the ninetales answered, reaching with one paw to rub the belly and its occupant. "Sleep, little one, sleep" she told the sentret.
 
 Had he not been immune to the psychic suggestion, Zariel might also have felt the effect of the hypnosis. As it was, the softly spoken words themselves were enough to bring upon him a momentary feeling of quiet contentment, luring him towards sleep. For the sentret, the words were joined by a psychic suggestion, bringing wave of tiredness, stealing all motivation to escape or to struggle. The small pokemon fell asleep, sleeping happily in a warm embrace without any memory of what his fate truly was.
 
 "There. He is content now. He won't wake again to find the horrors of this world" Amasu spoke, not at him, Zariel realised, but to herself, or the world at large. Somehow, he felt uncomfortable at hearing her speak like that. It wasn't like the Amasu that he knew.
 
 That thought was followed by a realisation. Did he even really know her? He hadn't ever asked too much about her past, content with what she had been willing to tell herself.
 
 The Amasu he knew was kind, warm and gentle. She sometimes seemed naive, or foolish, doing or saying things that seemed childish. But at the same time, she was a predator. One that sometimes let a potential prey go, then fell upon another without mercy. She could be very efficient in combat, not that strong but skilled and brave. And despite usually standing by the side, waiting to be told what she should do, she could have strong wishes, one she kept pushing for hard.
 
 All of the pieces didn't fit together, he thought, massaging his own belly while he watched Amasu do the same to hers. But there was no question about whether he loved her. And as much as he feared it to one day be otherwise, for now at least she loved him back. He would stay at her side, learning more about her, trying to understand her. Perhaps one day what he learned might be of use to her, to allow Amasu to understand something important about herself.
 
 But right now, it seemed that Amasu wanted something else from him. "There. Now, as I was saying, come here. Let me do something about that" she told him, motioning beneath his belly.
 
 Had Zariel known that in the following moments of passion he had let his illusion slip, he would have been mortified. Had he known that a passing hoot-hoot for a while stopped to watch the two vulpine pokemon, locked together despite their heavy bellies, he would have burnt the forest to get at the bird. But he never realised either, and the bird soon continued its own hunt, having mostly been curious at seeing a pokemon as uncommon in these parts as a zoroark was.