Chapter 1
Shadow
walks his usual route through the city. He hasn't seen many people
around on the streets like usual. There must be a carnival or
something in town, he thought as he continued down the deserted
streets. His trainer expects him home by the time she gets up and
opens the door. It's five something in the morning and his trainer
wakes up at six. He starts heading home. On the way, he sees the
neighbor's espeon curled up with her litter in the alley next to his
home. He reaches his doorstep; his trainer hasn't woken up yet to
unlock the door, Figures she'd still be asleep. He sighs and
curls up on the steps.
A sharp pain in his ribs wakes him sometime
later in his ribs. "Oh Shadow! Are you all right? I'm sorry,"
his trainer's voice still sounds drunk with sleep. He gets up slowly
and nuzzles her affectionately to say he was fine.
"There's a
pokémon festival in town this week, and I entered you in one of the
contests." She smiles wide and scoops him up into her arms, "So
that means you need a bath mister night prowler." Shadow hangs
limply in her arms, he doesn't particularly like baths but, if it
must be done...
Lots of water and a mountain of foam later, Shadow
is lilac-scented with a large blue bow around his neck.
"There,
all clean and ready for contests." His trainer is smiling
again.
He scratches at the bow, it feels strange against his fur;
it itches too. Shadow forces himself to sit still, If she put this
thing on me it must be for the show. I probably shouldn't mess it up.
He does his best to ignore the bow and eventually it settles into a
comfortable place in his fur and he forgets about it.
The fair
grounds are packed with people and their prized pokémon, So this
is where everyone was last night. I thought it was a carnival of some
kind. He smiles at himself for being so clever. He is scooped up
again and carried into a large tent, This must be the show
tent... Shadow glances around. Several other pokémon are
sitting on pedestals placed around the walls of the tent, their poké
balls next to them. His trainer walks him over to a pedestal at the
far end of the tent, Great, I'll be judged dead last. He
slouches and folds his ears back. His trainer pulls his poké ball
off her belt and sets it next to him. It's almost completely white
with a thin red line around the rim.
"Judging will begin
shortly. Please remain patient." Shadow yawns and curls up for a
nap while they waited.
...
Shadow is woken by his trainer, frantically poking his ribs. He opens one eye to see her face contorted with worry; he springs up and looks around him. Everything is chaos, pokémon and trainers running around everywhere, Is this how contests are supposed to work? Something doesn't seem right... Suddenly, the tent is torn from above them and a large flying fortress hovers in its place; a huge red 'R' painted on it. Shadow growls at it, What's going on here?
His trainer grabs him and tries to run but trips.
Shadow goes flying and
lands hard a few yards away. Someone grabs him by the scruff of the
neck, they mumble, "A shiny umbreon, eh?" and places
him in a sack. "Let him go!" he hears his trainer's voice
screaming. Cold laughter from beside him and a strange voice answers,
"Not a chance, we're takin' these pokémon to the Boss."
His captor starts walking away, swinging the sack rather carelessly;
a weightless feeling and another hard landing. Grrr...who do these
people think they are, throwing us around like this? If I weren't
tied up in this sack I'd... Shadow growls loudly at whomever it
was that had bagged him. He starts to wriggle around in the sack,
eventually loosening the tie. He pokes his head out just in time to
see the door of the large carrier slam shut and throw everything into
darkness.
Shadow roars in frustration. He feels helpless, a new
feeling for him. He runs over to the door and rams it. His futile
struggle stirs a wave of rustling from the other sacks in the
container. Shadow continues to head butt the door, gritting his teeth
trying to ignore the pain, his paws slipping on the metal floor as he
presses ever harder into the door. Eventually, he gives in, sinking
to the floor. The container gives a great lurch as the fortress pulls
it skyward. Shadow whines, Why did this happen to me and all these
others? Why today? Why at all? My trainer, no, all the trainers must
be sick with worry. Tears rolled down his face, falling between
his paws. Why...
Shadow's body heaves with sobs, he's never
been away from his trainer. What's going to happen to us? "I
feel so powerless..."
A small hand touches his back; a
pikachu is trying to comfort him.
Shadow turns to face it, both
Shadow's and the pikachu's eyes are red, it has been crying as well.
Shadow blinks the tears from his eyes.
"We all feel powerless
to stop what's happening." the pikachu replies.
Several other
sacks nod, agreeing with the muffled voices of Shadow and the
pikachu.
"All we can do is wait, I'm afraid." It gives
Shadow a final reassuring pat on the back and returns to freeing the
others.
I hate waiting. Waiting is wasted time, better spent
figuring a way out of here. Shadow gets up and looks around the
interior of the container. All he sees is the smooth metal sides.
Metal... "There's fire pokemon in here, right?" he
calls.
The pikachu gives him a strange look, "I think
so...Why?"
"They can melt a hole in the side of this
box, we can all escape."
Muffled mumbling fills the
container.
"Yeah, and what about how high we are? How will we
land without dying?" the pikachu asks, skeptical.
"Birds
can fly us down or we can land on trees. I don't think we're all that
high up anyway." he replies.
The pikachu seems to be
calculating something, weighing risks and gains, it grimaces trying
to untie the sack its holding, "I don't' know, it seems kind
of risky." Pikachu grows evermore frustrated with the
tie.
"Don't you want to get back to your trainers? This could
be our one chance to escape. Don't you think it's worth the risk?"
Shadow glares at the frustrated pikachu; it's still struggling with
the tie.
"I never said I didn't want to get back or that it
wasn't worth it. I merely stated that it sounded risky, which it is."
The pikachu returns his glare.
"Yeah it's risky, I'll admit
it, but it's also the only way I can see for us to escape before this
flying fortress reaches wherever it's taking us."
The pikachu
finally succeeds in freeing the pokemon in the sack it's holding, a
young growlithe rears its head and shakes out its fur.
Shadow
smiles, "Exactly the pokémon we need for my plan."
The
pikachu nods and sighs, "I guess it's worth a
shot."
Shadow jumps around the inside of the
container, searching for the thinnest place for the growlithe to burn
through. He lands on a spot that has a lower pitch than the rest of
the wall, "Finally, a weakness..." he claws the spot,
leaving faint scratch marks before he falls back to the floor. "That
spot right up there is the weakest point that I found."
The
growlithe and some of its friends eye the scratch marks, carefully
aiming their attacks. Then a virtual volcano of flame races toward
the wall, liquefying the metal and creating a hole through which to
escape.
Loud cheering fills the box, every pokémon now free
thanks to pikachu and growlithe.
The pikachu motions for all of
them to move, "Let's get out of here then." Shadow and
Pikachu hurry up to the hole and look down, expecting a huge drop.
But the drop wasn't' so bad, twenty feet to the treetops and
another forty or so to the ground.
The pikachu gulps, "Twenty
feet...that's not too bad." They continue to look down.
"We'll
have to chance it, look." Shadow points to the front of the
aircraft, a large dark structure looms on the horizon.
The pikachu
looks back to the trees and jumps, landing safely among the branches.
It signals the OK for the rest to follow, which they did, very
quickly.
A waterfall of pokémon flows out of the side of the
container, Shadow standing at the exit making sure of everyone's
escape.
I can't believe the idiots flying this thing don't see
this... he thought as the last of the captives goes free.
Shadow
is left alone in the metal box, he runs to the sack he was captured
in and fetches his poké ball. Holding it in his mouth, he makes the
jump into the forest with the remainder of the once beautiful blue
bow around his neck. "I have to get back to my trainer, she must
be worried sick." As soon as his paws hit the dirt, he's
running; running at full tilt, trying to get back to where the
aircraft tried to steal him away from, his home.