Lucas walked with one of Prof. Birch's assistants to the front door of the building as the assistant gave him last minute advice before he walked out.

"... And six pokemon will always be your maximum." He informed Lucas. "Since every pokeball is registered to you, the system will detect if you have caught a seventh pokemon and store them in the PC for safe keeping. Do you follow?"

"Yes, sir." Lucas said, not mocking in anyway. This was indeed common knowledge for anyone who went to a trainer school (Or anyone with an internet connection), but Lucas was already nervous about leaving home as it alone, so the assistant was more than welcome to give Lucas another run through.

"And it is always advised to make absolutely sure you have any kind of potions on you, because you never know when your partners may get hurt on your adventure."

"I have six potions, five antidotes, and three paralyze heal." Lucas informed him, tapping his backpack for reference.

"Also, personal hygiene is very important." The assistant stopped at the door as he gave Lucas this bit of extra advice. "Be sure to carry some body products, rubbing alcohol helps, and a toothbrush. We had a trainer a decade ago and he forgot to get a toothbrush and now his teeth are more artificial than fast food ingredients. And that's not even taking into account the number of tonsil stones he had accumulated over-"

"Thank you, sir." Lucas interrupted, getting grossed out. "I already got that lecture from my mom. It wasn't as graphic, but I get the message."

The assistant nodded with a smile. "Just trying to be helpful, son. Too many kids these days take this kind of stuff for granted and I rather not see them have to regret it later."

"Well, I'm not that much of a kid!" Lucas said defensively. "I'm fourteen!"

The assistant just smiled again, but said nothing to Lucas about his statement. Then his face turned serious again. "Now, take the time to learn more about your pokemon as you reach Petalburg. It should take you about a day or two to get there, and when you do, the gym leader there can help give you some pointers and practice: Norman. He doesn't have much time as a gym leader to teach you or your classmates on personal experience, so be sure to take notes on whatever he has to offer."

Lucas frowned. "I don't have classmates."

"Beg your pardon?"

"I took online courses..."

The assistant paused for a moment before putting a hand on Lucas' shoulder to try and provide reassurance. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

"You don't really sound too sure, sir..."

Before the assistant could talk further, he was called far off from the building, near the lab area. "Reggie, hurry it up! We need your help here!"

"And that's my cue to part, Lucas. I honestly wish you the best." He turned to leave the boy to his own devices but stopped mid-turn and snapped his fingers. "Ah! I almost forgot!"

Reggie dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a small device. It was a black ear piece with a green bulb at the end of an antenna. He handed it to the confused Lucas who stared at the thing in his hand. "What is this?"

"That is the next piece of revolutionary technology." He informed. "The official name we have given it is Pokespeech Translation Sensory Device, or PTSD for short." He frowned after hearing his own words. "We're working on the name, but we would like if you and the other trainers were to test this equipment. As the name implies, it can translate any pokemon language into whatever set you have it to in hopes that stronger communication between trainer and pokemon can help improve growth. It has tested to be capable for experienced trainers, but hopefully this can help you further as you grow used to pokemon training along the way."

Lucas looked at the earpiece with new found appreciation. "That's so cool!"

"Give it a try with your new partner. You'll have plenty of time to get to know each other." The voice in the lab yelled for Reggie again and he gave Lucas a final nod. "Farewell, Lucas. The path of the pokemon world awaits you."

And with that, Lucas was alone at the front door. Knowing that his time there at the lab was done, we went through the front door to outside.

Lucas was in the building long enough that his eyes had to adjust to the bright sunny day. He blinked until they did and he took in his surroundings in a new light. The sky was bright and blue with the occasional thing, puffy white cloud soaring across the sky past the sun that warmed the day gently all across Littleroot Town. The bird pokemon within the area flew across the sky almost looking like flying ants. He looked at the surrounding buildings in the area and saw the distance between them and the tree line to the surrounding forest, and just then did it really occur to him just how many trees there really were, miles of forest until he got anywhere else.

He gulped and felt his heart thump. He would soon be traveling to see all of this.

The world suddenly felt too big to him.

His shaky hand went to his belt and he grabbed the only pokeball that had a pokemon in it. There was a small fire symbol above the small button. He pushed the button and opened the ball.

A sphere of energy came out of the ball and shot out a few feet in front of him, swirling in a sphere of light until it took proper form. A little bird appeared, a bright orange body with tufts of yellow feathers coming out of its head, wings, and tail. It shook its head and stretched out its wings before looking around until it made eye contact with Lucas. The bird tilted its head curiously and spoke its native tongue.

"Torchick?" It asked.

He frowned, not knowing what it said. He quickly remembered about the translation device and pulled out of his pocket. He held the on button until the small green bulb flashed on. When it did he placed it in his ear.

"What did you say?" Lucas asked.

The torchick tilted its head the other way.

"Huh." Lucas heard it say, its voice clearly that of a girl. "That's funny."

He was momentarily surprised as he realized that he just understood what the pokemon was saying, but then he frowned he frowned at her words. "What's funny?"

The torchick went straight and her eyes widened. "C-... Can you understand me?"

"I can now." He thumped the ear piece with an amazed grin. "A gift from smart guys."

The torchick paused for a second before she began to jump up and down in excitement. "WOW!" She yelled, amazed. "That's super, super cool!"

It was then that Lucas realized that he could only hear understand what she was saying with one ear while all he heard was "Torchick" and shortened abbreviations of the word in his other ear. It was disorienting.

He plugged his ear that didn't have the translator. "Really cool." He agreed.

"Are you supposed to be my trainer?" She stopped jumping and tilted her head again.

"Yup." He forced himself to smile. "Partners from here on out."

She let out a sad groan. "You don't seem excited."

"Well, to be honest, I guess I'm just kind of nervous." He admitted. "This is my first time leaving home for such a long time. Especially on my own."

The torchick suddenly jumped again, flapping its tiny wings in the air, gliding down onto Lucas' shoulder with grace. Lucas was surprised.

"Well, you're not on your own!" She told him. "You have me!"

Lucas blinked at the tiny bird. "You're very enthusiastic about this. We didn't even know each other until less than two minutes ago."

"The white coat guy always kept telling all of us that we would one day find someone to help make us stronger, and I'm just really, really happy that I can do that! I waited so long to finally get out of there, and now I get to go on adventures! The only thing I hoped for was that my trainer wasn't a meanie." She paused for a second. "You're not a meanie, are you?"

Lucas automatically opened his mouth to reply defensively No, but he thought about for a moment. "Well, I don't think I'm mean. I don't make it a point to be mean, but I have yelled at video games."

"Video games?"

With the destination of Petalburg fresh in his mind while he was talking with the torchick, since Lucas was still standing, he began to walk to toward the road to Oldale to get to Petalburg.

"Uh-huh." He said. "They're games that you play on things like a T.V. Y'know what a T.V. is?"

"You mean the big picture boxes?"

"Yeah."

"I see the professors watch them, but they were looking at boring stuff. I couldn't get most of it."

"They were probably looking at science show and news." He shrugged. The movement of his shoulders caused the torchick to lose her balance for a moment, threatening to fall off and land face first into the ground. Lucas quickly used his hand to grab her front and keep her steady and stay in place. He muttered an apology and felt something on her leg as he pulled his hand back. On one of her ankles was a red tag with numbers and letters on it. "What's this for?"

After gaining back her footing she clutched onto his shoulder with her talons, making sure not to squeeze him too hard and lifted the other leg up to see the tag.

"Oh, they put on me when I was born." She said. "There was a lot of us torchicks, treekos, and mudkips, so they put these on us so they knew which of us was us."

Lucas frowned again. "Well, I don't want to call you 'Four-Twelve-A'. That just isn't right."

"The professors and everyone else just call me torchick."

Lucas shook his head. "Nah, that's just the name of your species. We need to give you a real name."

"OH!" She got excited again and wagged the feathers on her tail. "How about 'Blaziken'!? I always wanted to be that!"

"We'll see if we can make you a blaziken soon enough." Lucas said with a laugh then took a moment to think. "... How about Ashley?"

"Ash-Lee?"

"It's kind of a play on words, in a way, I guess." Lucas said. "I mean, you're a girl, and Ashley is a girl's name. You're a fire-type pokemon, so the ash part works..." Lucas thought it sounded a bit silly to name her Ashley because of that and got embarrassed. "Actually, we can just think of a different name late. What I picked was for a dumb reason."

The torchick quickly shook her head. "Uh-uh, it didn't sound dumb! I like it. I like Ashley." She pressed a wing against her chest. "For now on, I want to be called Ashly!"

Lucas grinned. "Alright, Ashley it is then. My name is Lucas."

"Hi, Lucas!" She yelled happily from his shoulder. "I'm Ashley!"

Lucas liked her energy. Talking to her helped him forget he was nervous until he realized that the sign that said "Welcome to Littleroot" was about fifty-feet behind him. When he saw how far some was he felt his heart sink. He gulped audibly to the concern of Ashley.

"Hey," He asked her. "Did you have a hard time leaving home?"

"Uh-uh. All of us back on the ranch waited and waited until we were old enough to go on our own to the lab place. I miss my friends, but we all always wanted to evolve as much as possible, so we couldn't stay there to do that." She tilted her head. "Do you not want to leave your nest?"

"Not really." He said, forcing himself to turn. He really just wanted to run home and see his mom again, but if he did that, either himself or his mom would try to convince him he should stay. He had already shed the tears for the past week and was in constant fear of leaving home to unfamiliar places that he had basically emotionally drained himself, but if he went back now, he was afraid he'd crack and just stay home. He turned his back to the sight of Littleroot with a deep breath and continued to Oldale. "But I have to."

"Why do you have to?"

"I'm not old enough around here to get a real job, and my mom barely makes enough to put food on the table. She went hungry sometimes just so I didn't have to. One of my buddies from town told me that you can become a trainer if you're ten years or older and that the Pokemon Association will provide you funds when you start off so you can get a head start. If I do this, my mom only has to worry about getting money for herself, and I can do this for a living if I'm good enough."

Ashley's brow furrowed and her beak lowered. "That's really sad."

Lucas shrugged. "That's the way it is. I told her I wanted to become a trainer because I wanted to make her feel less guilty, but she was still quiet for a while."

"I kind of feel bad, though." Ashley said, downcast. "You're only doing this because you don't want your mama to be sad."

"It's okay, really!" He assured her, giving her a pat on the head, mostly to keep her from seeing his face to see if he was lying or not. "Besides, this is something kids younger than me even do, so I want to think of it as me just getting into this late."

He took his head off of her head. She didn't know if he meant it for real, but he sounded earnest enough. She nodded.

He gave her another smile. "And I promise you that we'll make you stronger. Together."

She stopped being sad and got excited again at the thought of turning into a blaziken. "Promise, promise?"

He held up a pinky. "A pinky promise." He explained the concept of what a pinky promise exactly is and Ashley loved the idea. She held her wing out and wrapped it around his pinky finger.

"Pinky promise!" She said with a giggle.

Lucas couldn't help but smile back at her as her tiny feathered appendage gripped on his pinky. He continued on his venture to Petalburg.

...

5 years later...

"FUCK!" Lucas yelled as he ran through the trees, jumping over any debris that happened to be in the way, mostly bushes. Lucas heard another tree crack like a thunderbolt and fall to the ground with a earthy thud, followed by the roar of a large and fast pokemon. He ran faster. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! ARCEUS' FUCKING SHIT TITTIES!"

Lucas would have released one of his pokemon to help stop what was coming behind him, but his belt that held his pokeballs had snapped in half the other day so he had settled to put them in his actual pockets instead, and he made the bad decision to have deep pockets he'd have to literally dig through. Had there been nothing to jump over as he ran he might have been able to, but he did not have the luxury. Hell, he narrowly dodged trees, and the thing behind him knocking them down like they were cardboard standees did not help him try and get a clear head on things.

Even through his fear-ridden mind that kept processing how he was going to die, a spark went through it. An inkling of an idea. He quickly, in an act of frustration, slammed the heel of his hand into his forehead three times to try and get his thinkers gears un-jammed enough to get a proper thought in. Miraculously it somehow worked for him.

It was a long shot, but it was either that or be mauled to death. Lucas kept running until there was a tree dead ahead of him. The last few that he came across he simply ran around them, the tree then got destroyed, then fell backwards by being dented outward with the top of the tree falling the opposite direction of the impact. If that weren't the case, the trees would have fallen and crush Lucas long before then.

Instead of dodging the tree by running around it, he made a fast turn and then dashed madly to the left. Behind him he heard the pokemon slam into the tree with another thunderous sound of the tree breaking, the top half of it falling down dead shortly after. It was barely a second when the creature roared in anger and challenge then it followed him again. Lucas had assumed the trees had to be somewhere between 40 to 60 feet, so he needed to run into a different tree within the same distance.

Lucas repeated this again and it followed with the same thing: Left turn, break tree, tree falls backwards, roar, repeat. He repeated this for a third time, but it was the fourth time that he did a small change. Instead of making a straight left, he ran backward diagonally to the left. The pokemon had almost swung at his head with its large, muscled claws, but Lucas ducked in time. He barely got to keep his head on his shoulders. The monster crashed into the tree as usual, but Lucas used the fallen trees to his advantage.

With each tree broken while the creature thought more than likely he was just running in a circle, he was actually making a square. Specifically with the fallen trees. Lucas ran in a specific pattern so that the fallen trees, one by one, formed four lines to make a cage, which the creature was outside of of the wooden cage as it broke through the last tree. As the creature tried to slow itself down long enough to make a turn, Lucas saw as tried to make the turn.

The creature was a nidoking. It was a deeper shade of purple than normal, or at least normal for a Kanto Region pokemon that he had only heard about in info on websites years ago for his studies before he became a trainer, and it seemed even more rage filled. The info was wrong about one thing that Lucas himself was going to make a written complaint to the Association about.

This thing was far more terrifying in person when it was pissed for whatever reason.

He only caught a glimpse of its eyes as it made the turn, and what he saw in them was enough to make him turn tail to finish his plan. He jumped over one of the fallen trees.

Going through one tree at a time was next to nothing for the nidoking to break through like they were glorified tooth picks, but one thing Lucas noticed was that the nidoking slowed down for a second before it picked back up its momentum, but it would have to go through a second tree to try and get to him which Lucas could only hope would buy an few extra seconds.

The nidoking charged and Lucas stuffed his hand one of his pockets. The nidoking broke through the first tree and Lucas grabbed the ball. The nidoking was slowed momentarily; Lucas got the ball out of his pocket. nidoking rushed toward the second fallen log, Lucas tossed the pokeball and it opened in the air, a mass of light forming right in front of him.

The light formed into a blaziken. It stood at six-foot-five, was covered in red feathers so small in many that it was basically fur. It had a small red tail and deep, blue eyes with long, sandy blonde hair that traveled to her upper chest and neck in an almost x-pattern. Though this blaziken was different from your average one: The blaziken standing before Lucas was a rare breed. The differences between a rare breed blaziken female and an ordinary blaziken are something one can notice on first glance. The rare breed blaziken's figure was far more feminine, in an almost bizarrely human way. This blaziken was filled out in places most would deem inappropriate: A set of d-size breasts were on her chest with a crimson shine, her rump was filled out to the point that they were two toned meat spheres, and her thick legs and flat stomach were toned as well, beautifully. The beak on her mouth a more receded than other blazikens. This blaziken in particular wore a pair of black workout shorts and a black sports bra to hide her... Woman hood from the public eye.

She truly was a beauty of her kind, and a beauty to others, for good and obvious reasons.

The female blaziken looked at Lucas with a bright smile, or whatever she could muster with a beak. "Hi, Lucas!" She said affectionately with a nod. "What do you ne-?"

"ASHLY!" Lucas shouted. "BEHIND YOU!"

Her happy-go-lucky expression vanished in an instant and her face instantly took a serious turn. When the second log of the cage broke apart the nidoking broke through the barrier it noticed Ashley in a split second and it immediately swung its large arm to try and crush her. Ashley met it by spinning around with a Hi Jump Kick and used the momentum of her power to knock the arm away from hitting her. Then while the nidoking was surprised, she then jumped in the air and Double Kicked the creature in the chest. The nidoking leaned down and clutched its chest in pain and surprise. While it was like this, Ashley's fist glowed and was covered in flames, and then she punched the nidoking in the face with Fire Punch. The nidoking was knocked backwards and it fell flat on its back.

Lucas stood up as Ashley hopped backwards until she was standing a few feet away in front of him. He swallowed. "Is he down for good?"

"No." She answered, staying in a fighting stance. "I was able to get the jump on him, but he won't stay down for long. I wasn't able to damage him much." She looked over her shoulder at him. "What's the plan?"

The nidoking nudged a bit and was beginning to realize that it was on the ground. Lucas felt his stomach knot up. "We have to keep it occupied until our guy gets his ass here. After the commotion this guy caused, he damn well better be here soon."

"We're gonna need Esper for this." She turned back to the nidoking who was rolling onto his stomach. "The nido pokemon are poison, right? Esper can be effective here."

"Assuming Esper won't freak out. You know how she is against pokemon this wild."

The nidoking was now on his knees and he punched the ground in anger, making the earth around them almost vibrate. It roared in rage. Ashley changed her footing to run and fight and she readied to charge. "We don't have a lot of options, and I can't take this on my own. Its level is too high." The nidoking ran full speed at Ashley and she met him in kind. The nidoking swung at her again with his large arms. Ashley blocked this one again but the nidoking had predicted this and used his other arm to swing at her while she was distracted with blocking that one.

Lucas saw that the nidoking was preparing his other arm for a strike and she was about to get by his other arm while blocking the other one distracted her. "Ashley, fall flat on the ground!"

She did so without question, falling flat on her back as the other arm came to strike her but it missed at the last second, not even grazing her. The nidoking then reared his head back to Headbutt her into the ground. "Kick his legs and skid!"

She slammed her taloned feet into the nidoking's legs and she skidded away from the attack. She bended her knees as a precaution and it paid off as the nidokings head missed hitting her feet by inches. She then kicked the top of nidokings head to put more distance between her and him and she she backed flipped off the ground and onto her feet in a defense stance.

Lucas went into his pocket and grabbed another pokeball. He pushed the button and let the light come out in front of him. It formed into his other pokemon momentarily.

Out of the light stood the gardevoir in an ivory glow, Esper. And like Ashley, Esper was a rare breed, with small but noticeable differences between Esper and an average gardevoir. Her head was not as round as other gardevoirs, but she still held that similarity, and like Ashley, her body shape was more like that of a human female in some regards. Though her breasts were not as a big as Ashly's, she still sported a modest B-cup with a red disk between them, though unlike other gardevoirs there wasn't a disk coming out of her back. Her rump was bigger than Ashly's, but not in a bad way. It was the definition of a heart shaped ass that made the dress that came with her evolution of being a gradevoir reveal more of her thighs and legs, and the underwear Lucas had to buy for her along with a bra being that the "Evolution Dress" (As Ashley put it) did not come with undergarments, unfortunately for Lucas' wallet.

Esper had a small smile on her face upon seeing Lucas, and held her hands under the disk on her chest. "Hello, Lucas!" She said sweetly. "What do you ne-?"

Exactly said like Ashley, she was interrupted by something, though not by Lucas. A large roar went through the forest again and Esper's smile faded and a look of fear washed over her face as she slowly turned to the direction of the sound. The nidoking had roared in frustration as Ashley had yet again dodged a third attack, and it had let out a battle cry in kind. It swung its hand again, this time needles shot out from somewhere in his arm and shot multiple of them at Ashley. She dodged narrowly, and though it was subtle her chest was expanding a bit faster than usual, showing him that this was starting to become challenging to her.

At the sight of the rampaging nidoking, Esper had done what she always did: Screamed and immediately floated behind Lucas, trying to be invisible by staying at his back.

"Put me back!" She screamed. "Put me back, put me back, put me back!"

Lucas could only sigh through his nose in frustration. It wasn't her fault she was naturally timid, but that didn't mean it was inconvenient for him at serious times. "Esper, please, I need you to help Ashley."

"B-b-but it's scary!" She stammered. "And its level is obviously high! I won't be able to do anything good!"

Lucas watched as Ashley had jumped high backwards onto one of the remaining two logs from his box trap and the nidoking repeated the old process of running head first into the log. As soon as he made contact with the wood Ashley jumped over him while grabbing his horn so spin her around on top of him. She then gripped his neck with her legs, squeezing him as she held his horn with one hand and used her other hand to form fire and repeatedly Fire Punched the top of nidokings head with a frenzy of hits.

"Esper, please!" Lucas begged. "You just have to keep him busy for a few minutes until our guy gets here! Hell, just try and use Hypnosis on it!"

"But it's scary!" She echoed, shivering behind him.

Every time... Lucas thought. He'd never say it aloud to her. He'd never have the heart to.

Lucas turned around to look at the quivering Esper. He reached to put comforting hands on her shoulders but she cowered away from his hands. It always stung a little on the inside whenever she did that since she turned into a gardevoir, but he'd have to think on that later. He spoke as soft as possible in the situation they were in.

"Esper," Lucas comforted. "I know you're scared. I was scared when I ran into this thing, and Ashly is probably scared fighting it. But I physically can't do it, and Ashley can't do it forever. We need your help."

Esper looked down at her fe-... Nubs and flinched at the sound of a loud colission. The nidoking had finally got a firm grasp on Ashley's leg and he pulled her off of him. He threw her to the side and Ashley unfortunetely had her back slammed into a tree. Ashly screamed in pain. She fell to the ground with an earthy thud with a severely pained expression. The nidoking looked satisfied and it walked to Ashley to finish the job.

"Ashly!" Lucas yelled then ran to aid her while Esper looked up to see what shocked Lucas and her eyes widened in horror.

Lucas picked up a large branch and ran through the destroyed log in a rush. The nidoking's horn on his head glowed and made some type of energy that seemed to spin around the horn. Horn Drill. He prepared to strike the pained Ashly but was surprised to get hit in the face with a branch. Lucas saw the horn glow and had swung the branch like a baseball bat into the nidokings face.

"Again with the face!?" The nidoking yelled.

"Get away from her!" Lucas said and swung the branch at the nidoking again.

The nidoking had smacked the branch out of Lucas' hands with ease leaving him defenseless. Lucas gulped in fear now that the nidokings attention was back on him with eyes that had since changed from rage to bloodlust. The nidoking was about to rush at Lucas and do him what he had been doing to nature for the last ten minutes, but was flung backwards with a bit of distance.

Esper had gotten into the wooden ring with them and was floating slowly past Lucas while trying to use her powers to immobilize the nidoking. Though trying to stop something that was stonger than her put even more strain on her abilities, the sweat running down her head being evidence of this. Esper had to stop for a second to catch her breath, so to speak.

The nidoking shook it off quickly and now saw Esper as a target. Esper squeeked when the nidoking had decided to try and attack her.

"Esper!" Lucas called out. "Keep using Psychic!"

Esper inhaled deeply before doing as he said. The nidoking slowed down quickly and looked like he was running through peanut butter to get to Esper. Esper wasn't able to get him off the ground again but she was able to slow him down at least. The nidoking proved to be hard to fight against once again as he took large steps toward Esper with his claws out at her. Epser was sweating as she used her abilities to keep the nidoking at bay and with how nidoking was gradually gaining back his speed bit by bit Esper felt fear that her power would soon break against the nidoking, though the nidoking did look pained by being affected by the psychic attack, but the damage was only doing enough to just make him more annoyed than concerned.

"Esper, keep looking into his eyes!" Lucas said. "Put some of your power toward Hypnosis!"

"But he might break away at any moment if I can't keep this up... !"

"But he will break away eventually, but it won't matter if he's asleep!"

Esper swallowed and widened her eyes as she stared at the nidokings, her red eyes becoming blue around the edges as she put her power toward Hypnosis. The nidoking had gained some mobility from the change in power but Esper did what she could to hold her own despite the growing terror in her heart. As the nidoking was less then 15 feet away, the effect of the Hypnosis was taking place and the large pokemon's eyes drooped a little. Esper gritted her teeth and the three fingers on each of her hands curled as she felt him crack through psychic. The nidokings large claws began to glow purple and prepared to strike Esper. Esper winced but maintained eye contact fearing for the worst.

The nidokings claws energy had faded and the nidokings entire body relaxed. His snarl had vanished and his droopy eyes had finally closed and the first snore escaped him. The nidoking fell to the ground, asleep.

Esper let her hold go on him with Psychic and let the Hypnosis fade away since he was now sleeping and she took a deep breath. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand as she gasped for breath.

Lucas stayed still for a moment to make sure that the nidoking was down for the count. It was snoring peacefully, but he wasn't happy yet. He turned and ran to check on Ashley.

Ashley was still on her side in a curled ball, breathing hard with her eyes clenched shut in pain. Lucas was relieved that she was alright for the most part. He gently grabbed her to help her sit up, to which she hissed and groaned at but managed to do it. He let her go gently against the tree, letting her lean back against it as she tried to stay straight.

"The nidoking." She said. "Is it down?"

"Esper put it to sleep." Lucas informed her, taking her three fingered, taloned hand in his. "Are you going to be alright?"

"This hurts pretty bad." She admitted.

Lucas winced. "We'll get you to a pokemon center right away." He reached into his pocket for her pokeball and as soon as he brought it out she shook her head.

"Not just yet." She told him. "'Thing always makes me stand up when I come out, and I'll stay the same hurt until we get there. Wait until I can actually stand first."

Lucas nodded. "Okay."

When Esper had gotten enough energy to float again she went to her friends. Tears formed in her eyes and a sob went through her after seeing the pain that Ashly was in. "I'm sorry." She told Ashley through tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, Esper." Ashley told her, taking her hand for reassurance. Lucas smiled when Esper accepted Ashley's backwards comfort for someone who was injured.

Then Lucas frowned. "It's not either of your faults." He told them. "The blame's all on me."

"You were just trying to make money for us." Ashley defended for him to which Esper shyly nodded in agreement with a sniffle. Ashley went through another wave of pain and she winced. It hurt Lucas to look at.

"And because I agreed to that assholes offer, you got hurt." Lucas said, angry at himself.

"'Asshole' is a little rude to call someone, don't you think?" A voice with a southern accent said.

They all turned their heads to look in the direction of the voice.

There walking up to the tree cage was a man in his mid 20's, wearing a grayish blue suit and had his hair slicked back with some type of jell making it shiny almost look yellow chrome. His emerald eyes observed Lucas and his pokemon and then fell onto the nidoking. His lips turned into a frown on the sight. He straightened his tie and rubbed his thumb against the purple ring on his ring finger out of some habit.

"Especially someone who's nidoking was so unjust fully harmed when I had requested of you to be gentle when finding my precious Nidey-Nidey. I think calling me the... Unpleasant name is misplaced in this situation."

Lucas wasn't generally an angry person by any means, but the key factors that there was still adrenaline running through his system, his friend of five years was injured and that he was called the asshole at fault (Which he still did to an extent), in uncorked the bottle of anger cider and Lucas wanted to blow.

"Stay with Ashley." Lucas said to Esper as he bared his teeth and stomped over to the wealthy man, his fists clenched. When he closed the distance between them he grabbed the front of his suit in his fist and brought their faces close together.

"You dumb mother FUCKER!" Lucas screamed into his face. The gentleman looked back at him with anger of his own.

"Unhand me!" The gentleman said and shoved Lucas away from him, using his hands to smooth out the wrinkles. "This behavior is uncalled for!"

"You didn't tell me that your pokemon that 'Got out of your hands' was an arceusdamned nidoking!" He yelled with a gesture toward the large purple beast.

The gentleman straightened out the collar of his suit and slicked back a line of fallen hair back into the groove of his jelled up scalp. "I told you: I'd give you 10,000 Poke to make sure my pokemon was safe and sound, and it seems this was too difficult for you to grasp!"

Lucas jabbed a finger in the gentleman's direction. "YOU said," He put on a mock accent as he replayed the gentleman's offer. "'Bring back my precious Nidey-Nidey back from the forest around Lilycove, he's one of them cute little Nido pokemon from the Kanto Region.'" He pointed to the sleeping nidoking again. "You did NOT specify that it was a final former!"

"Well, forgive me for assuming you could have figured that out on your own!"

"If you had told me that it was a final former, I wouldn't have had my pokemon in their balls cause I didn't want to scare what I thought was a small nido-thing, and maybe my pokemon wouldn't have been injured when I had to improvise when you 'Nidey-Nidey' tried to kill US!"

The gentleman shifted his footing and sighed deeply through his nose. "Look," He said in a reasonable tone. "I apologize, okay? But we did have the agreement that my pokemon did not get harmed in the process." He nodded to the nodiking. He had burn marks on his head from the Fire Punches Ashley had delivered to the nidoking. "I'm afraid due to the complication, the agreement was only half-fulfilled. The price of his return will have to be dropped by that same amount."

Lucas' jaw dropped and he glared at him. "I didn't almost get killed for only 5,000! Try and bump that up to 20,000 for this bullshit."

The gentleman snorted. "The only way I'd give you that much is if you gave me one of your rare breeds there, friend." He turned an eye and raised eyebrow toward the hurt Ashley and the Esper who was staying close but behind Ashley's side. Lucas followed his gaze and was about to tell him to get bent but blushed when he was something he hadn't noticed until now. The collision with the tree had ripped her sports bra from the back and it had been lying beside her. Her dark red nipples and large breasts were exposed and were giving a good show with her trying to get her breathing under control.

Lucas blushed and gestured to Esper to cover up a chest. Esper quickly looked down at hers in worry but then saw that Ashley was exposed. Esper blushed green and used Psychic to gather leaves to cover her breasts in a make shift bra.

The gentleman walked past Lucas and stood about fifteen feet away from the pokemon, holding his chin. Ashley looked over to him with a glare and Esper hid even further behind Ashley.

"Though, I must say," The gentleman admitted. "It is a rare sight to see a trainer with a rare breed nowadays who isn't a noble in some way, let alone two. And despite your blazikens loss with the battle, she did put a decent amount of damage on my Nidey-Nidey, and the gardevoir did well to hold her own." He looked over to Lucas. "I would be willing to give you the said amount for the blaziken and the gardevoir..." The gentleman looked back over the pokemon and his brow furrowed and he frowned after giving Esper another look over. He snapped his fingers to himself. "The gardevoir... She's actually male, isn't it?"

Esper's eyes widened in horror and her jaw dropped. She popped up a bit and looked at the gentleman in bewilderment. She looked like a deer caught in headlights. Ashley weakly lifted one of her arms and used it to block Esper from the gentleman. Ashley growled.

"G-gardevoir...?" Was what the gentleman heard, but by Esper's reaction, he could tell that Esper had said what Lucas heard through his translator. "H-how did you...?"

"It's of no fault of yours... Dear." He added dear almost hesitantly. "Most of your kinds male populations final forms can do well to conceal the facts of their sex if they choose to, but someone such as myself is a man of interest in the dating scene so much that I've had to keep an eye for the finer details of those who would purposely try and deceive me. I do not say this with malice to you, gardevoir, but I'm afraid my interests are simple." He looked back to Lucas who was walking to him. "So, for the blaziken, how does 20,000-?"

Lucas grabbed the gentleman's arm. Hard. The gentleman winced in at the grip. "I have told to unhand-!"

Lucas had enough. "Neither of the girls, my friends, are for sale or trade." He said in calm anger. "But I am going to get paid, and it will be handsome."

"I'm not going to pay you 20,000 for this poorly executed-"

"Then how about you pay me to keep my mouth shut?" Lucas threw the gentleman's arm to the side.

The gentleman frowned. "I'm afraid I do not follow."

"The wreckage here? The poison needles and head butts in the ground with the clear additional hole with the horns? This can't be linked to any pokemon native in this area, and since you're a registered trainer, all the pokemon you currently own, including the nidoking are listed as your party, right?"

The gentleman's expression turned blank but his face loosing color had said enough of what he was really feeling.

Lucas continued: "If someone were to point the police here in the right direction, give them a tip of a non-native pokemon going on a rampage without their trainer to keep it under control, all they have to do is link the DNA to a certain registered nidoking and the trainer would go to jail for a long time after causing reckless endangerment. The forest is near one of the biggest pokemon contest halls in all of Hoenn, where people, especially woman and children, and Arceus knows what would have happened if the situation wasn't properly contained."

The gentleman paused for a second before clicking his tongue. "I could buy my way out, you little rodent of a pokemon trainer."

"Maybe you could, piggybank." Lucas admitted. "And if you want to flip that coin, all it takes is one call from my gear to set that bet in motion."

They grew silent and stared at each other, Lucas holding his ground with his hands on his hips, the gentleman thinking Lucas' words over.

The gentleman gave in with an ugly look as he dug into his pocket for his wallet. He pulled it out and grabbed two 10,000 bills and slapped them into Lucas' open palm with a dark mutter.

"I'm going to want this doubled." Lucas' demanded. "For the additional trouble."

The gentleman's lips pressed into a thin line and he wordlessly grabbed two more bills, though instead of handing them to Lucas he dropped them on the ground for him to pick up. With that, the gentleman had gotten out his Ultra Ball and returned his nidoking and stormed away without looking back.

Now that the matter is resolved and the nidoking is put away, as the gentleman walked the adrenaline and anger were draining away from Lucas and the realization that death was just a hair length away had re-set his fear and it echoed throughout him hard. His knees began to shake and his hands unclenched and vibrated.

Ashley's pain was getting dulled tiny bit by tiny bit and she looked over to Lucas. "Are you okay?"

"As soon as he's out of sight," Lucas said with a shaky and sick voice. "I'm going to vomit."

"Ah." She then looked over to Esper who was crying again. She stopped using the arm for defense and had put a hand on Esper's shoulder again. Esper cried deeper and s(He) pressed her hands into her face. "It'll be alright."

"He knew." Esper sobbed. "He figured it out!"

"Shhh." Ashly consoled Esper and brought her in with a one armed hug. "Don't let it worry you."

"B-b-but if h-he found o-out..." Epser sniffled. "If he c-can then s-someone else c-c-could..."

"He got lucky in pointing it out. It doesn't matter what he says."

"Yeah." Lucas supplied from his spot, which he never moved from. At some point he was on his knees. "Don't worry about it. He-"

Lucas lurched the contents of his stomach outside with a loud grunt and gurgle. Esper stopped crying and covered her eyes from the sight. She made an uneasy sound like she was now getting sick herself now.

"Gross." Ashley commented calmly.

...

I thought I'd try something a little different, and this story had been knocking around in my head for a while, and I hope you enjoyed. I do not know for sure how long this will be at my time in writing this, but it should be in about five parts with what I have planned.

If you have anything you want to say about this story, I appreciate any feedback, so don't afraid to review.

I don't have much more to say for this other than that there should be smut next chapter, and that if you're disappointed that there was none for this chapter, hopefully you'll stick around for that and the story itself.

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and Goodnight.

-Turtyrus