As My Glowing Friend and Guardian
by Cyllya
I'm a very tiny creature. I'm not very old, so I'm even smaller, and I have no experience fighting. You'd think a person would take these factors into consideration before they judged a Pokémon's worth, wouldn't you? My trainer didn't. I'm officially classified as worthless.
I sit here and look down at the trees below me, moonlight dappling their leaves. I don't suppose anyone really cares about me. My life… I just don't like it. I could have been better; I could have been strong.
But I'm not. I doubt I ever will be.
The gentle breeze is making the leaves sway back and forth rather hypnotically, and as much as I try not to, I end up thinking about the recent events in my short life….
* * *
My trainer was in a very important battle. I, along with most Pokémon, don't really understand why some battles are more significant than others, but my trainer needed to win this one. From within my Pokéball, I heard the sounds of a Ditto and a Vaporeon battling a pair of Magnimites belonging to a human that tended to stutter and say 'um' a lot when she wasn't directing her Pokémon.
Ditto and Vaporeon are my parents, but I don't know them well. Vaporeon is very strong, so my trainer didn't mind using him against the electrical Magnemite. But he was too weak to beat the stuttering lady's big tough Steelix.
I had never seen a Steelix before that point, but I got my chance because my trainer had entered this battle with his other three Pokémon too low on energy.
If you were a little baby Normal type thrown into your first battle, which was versus an impossibly large level-infinity metal snake, what would your reaction be? Mine was instant paralysis.
"Bite it! Use Bite!" my trainer was yelling. Bite? What was that? He gave up and told me to use Tackle, and I knew that attack. However, I couldn't move. There was this huge thing looming over me like a metallic depiction of death.
"Um, go easy on it, Steelix," the lady had said. Yeah, right, easy…. I suppose that order saved me.
I didn't feel the pain of its blow until after I regained consciousness. I was in some sand; it was night. I saw my trainer walking away, muttering human words that other humans wouldn't like to hear.
I called out to him weakly, crying, Wait! Where are you going! It hurts! Help me, please! Come back! Where are you going? Please!
My own words echoed painfully in my mind as I realized he wasn't going to turn around and come back for me. I couldn't crawl after him fast enough, but it probably wouldn't do any good if I could.
I could hardly move at all; I laid there until dawn. I suppose I was immensely lucky to smell the scent of fruit. There was a goldberry tree in some grass nearby, and I forced myself over to harvest the fruit that had fallen from the trees.
I could walk well enough by the time I was done swallowing goldberries, so I set off. The sand was a beach, and I had no intention of going swimming unless I found a water stone. I went north, going through a busy city full of Pokémon trainers with big stringed poles. I found myself going uphill so I took a rest beneath a bush.
I watched this lady of whom seemed to be obsessed with Pokémon play with her Pikachu. I saw that happy Pikachu and felt this sudden pang of jealousy and grief. I'd tried to pretend I hadn't been abandoned, but….
It was evening when I dried my eyes and kept going. I found myself in a forest at night picking up more berries when I heard a rather frightening sound. I froze for a few seconds in my position of lifting a berry as I stared up at an awful evil-looking silhouette. My jaw, along with my berry, dropped. I turned my bushy brown tail and ran from that demon as fast as my paws would carry me, but it was right behind me.
It was faster than me. Save the fact that my little legs were nowhere near as long as I wanted them to be at that point, my size was an advantage. I could slip under bushes and logs that my pursuer would have to jump over or go around.
I dashed into an old hollow log and tried to run to the far end. I was about halfway there when the Pokémon's paws appeared at the end, so I turned back with little thought. Its fangs combed my tail as I escaped the log.
I don't know why I jumped, but I did. It was just in time to avoid the burst of fire that charred the air below me. It chased after me, barking to say that I wouldn't escape.
I did get hit by its fire a few times, and it hurt to no end. I was desperate for water. I couldn't see with the darkness of night over me like the blanket of helplessness it was, but I heard water running. Like a river. I relied on my ears to lead me and my instinct to tell where to put my paws and when to jump an invisible rock.
Water, water, it's closer…!
I squealed in terror as I suddenly lacked a solid surfaced beneath me. I could see the moonlight glinting off the river far below the cliff I'd just run off.
That vicious thing behind me yelped and skid to a fearful stop as I descended into the swirling depths of a watery grave.
Hmm, I seem think about death a lot, don't I?
I was swirling around below the surface, slamming into the occasional rock, when my path went from whirling and irregularly horizontal to perfectly vertical.
I was pressed against the sandy riverbed by countless gallons and tons of water pouring on top of me. Between the all around dark of night, the foamy water around me, and the fact my eyes were blurry anyway, I couldn't see the thing that grabbed my tail.
I kicked my back leg weakly and gave up, but it let me go and swam under me, pushing me up. Once on the surface, I gasped for breath and laid feebly atop the water creature. It was still swimming, but I fell it stop.
"Karp karp-karp magikarp," I heard from beneath me.
I am not a Magikarp; I cannot fluently understand Karpese. We're all Pokémon, so I could have translated it easily if I hadn't been so tired. There were more Pokémon sounds, but I didn't bother trying to hear them.
Something took hold of the fur around my neck and lifted me away. It moved away from the water at a fair pace. It wasn't like it was trying to go fast. It was like it was naturally strong and agile, but it was slow enough to make me wonder about how well it could see in the dark.
It jumped suddenly, and I felt myself being laid awkwardly on a wide forked tree branch. The Pokémon yawned and sprang off. It was probably diurnal.
Sniff-sniff…
Oh, berries! Goldberries!I literally rolled down my branch into the junction of the other branches. There was enough of a basin to hold a large pile of goldberries, and I wolfed several of them down hungrily before I realized they belong to someone, probably that Pokémon that brought me here.
"HOOT!"
"Eweee!" I squeaked, falling from the tree in start. I was healthy enough to land safely on my paws and look up. Just a HootHoot flying over; it didn't even seem to care about me.
I started walking, but I don't know why. It was like something was drawing me toward a cliff looking over the rest of the forest.
* * *
I circle those events around in my head a few more times before I look up at the glowing white orb above me. I snarl at it, feeling like it was up there like yet another predator, this time mocking me before its final strike.
Below me to the far left was the waterfall I'd fallen down earlier. I glanced at it and suddenly remembered that Magikarp that had braved the inconvenience of the water pressure to rescue me. Then I got the thought of that day-going land creature that had taken a chunk out of its sleeping time to come get me from that kindly fish. I doubt it could see well at night, so it would be a good target for others like that thing that was chasing me.
Wow, those Pokémon don't even know me, but they cared enough to save me….
Maybe there are some people who care, or will care…. I look up at the moon again, and this time I smile. It's not another predator; it's another friend, a protector, a guardian, and something to light my way through a shadowy foe-filled forest.
That last one could be literally or figuratively, I suppose.
Magikarp. That other thing, I'll have to catch its name sometime. The moon…. I smile, stand, and inhale the breeze that ruffles my mane and makes my ears wave. I don't know what's doing it to me, but I have never felt so happy. My radiant guardian gives me power, and I have never felt so strong!
I'm bursting with happy, happy energy! My inner sense of freedom and power is so warm it makes me glow, literally glow! I close my eyes and enjoy the sense of growing taller, so tall!
A sound!
I open my eyes and spin around. The whole world looks brighter now, like every shadow has been lit by some magical unseen light. My ears are so sharp, I hear what's coming. It pokes it heads and shoulders through the foliage.
I can see it quite clearly now. It's a Houndour. Funny, I thought they were pack animals, but that doesn't matter because I know there aren't any others around.
I'm not afraid of it now. I'm not sure why, I'm just not. It's not afraid of me either, but it's hungry. It identifies me by smell; it doesn't know about my recently-gained will to live.
I growl with a grin on my face. Simultaneously I'm warning him to back off and telling him to come and get me if he dares. He looks a bit confused.
My perfect instincts tell me what he's going to do, so I jump and easily avoid the Flamethrower attack. In that same jump, I land expertly on his back, squashing him.
I slash at him and see that my wider paw is almost invisible. I can see it only because it's darker than the night and the black areas on Houndour.
We circle each other, waiting for a chance to strike. He's hungry; he's serious. This is all a game to me, though it's a game with deadly consequences for the loser.
In the end I beat him. We scratch and bite at each other a lot, before I kick him off the cliff. After the large stone outcropping, there's a ten-foot straight drop and a roll that's not too steep before it drops about five more feet. Even that last part is lessened by tree branches. Houndour isn't hurt too badly, but he's certainly bruised and banged enough. I doubt he'll be messing with me again.
I turn away from the cliff and see a Pokémon a few inches larger than I, most likely having been awakened by the sounds of my battle with Houndour. I don't know how I recognize her, but I do. She's a day-going quadruped, but I hadn't seen her black eyes or her shiny purple fur. With her clumsiness at night, I hadn't felt her catlike grace.
She gestures with her head and turns around. I follow her into the forest knowing she'll show me around my new home.
I take a look at the moon first and smile before I continued after me. I know it will always be there, even when it's invisible. It'll always be there as my glowing friend and guardian.
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A/N: You should have known what Pokémon this is about by the fifth chapter. For those of you who still haven't figured it out it's Eevee, and he evolves to an Umbreon near the end of the flashback. That four-legged thing that carried him away from the river is Espeon.
For the record, this didn't turn out nearly as good as I was hoping it would. :-\
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