Author Note:
I hope this stuff is fun for you. It is for me. I hope to hear from a lot of you reader's out there as continue on this journey. Hope last chapter wasn't too nasty.
…
Chapter 2: A Different Kind of Dog
"Ring! Ring! Ring!" the cell phone signals an incoming phone call.
"Gym Leader Wallace speaking!" the flamboyant leader answers.
"Wallace, its May, professor Birch's daughter." May paused to hear Wallace's linguistic approach of sharing his sorrows for her loss. "Yes. Thank you Wallace. However, I've told everyone of the murderer of my father, a cannibal boy who just moved to town, but nobody believes me enough to start a manhunt."
"Well do you have proof?" Wallace questioned.
"He fled the scene and attacked my torchic! That's enough proof isn't it?" she quickly retorted. Wallace shared his concerns but complied with May's suspicions of the boy.
"Look dear, don't do anything brash. I will alert the other gym leaders and the league. If we run into him, we will try to apprehend him. I repeat, leave this to the professional..."
"Beep!" May hung up the phone.
"Wallace, you always were a baby-backed bitch. I am going to get justice on that boy. Wherever he is!" She tucked her phone into her backpack pulled out her bike from the rack in front of the house, tied a red bandana around her head, grabbed supplies from her father's pokemon research lab and with torchic by her side she set off to get her revenge.
Brendan awoke from a rough sleep with dried drool stuck to his face as he and rose to face the challenges of the new day. the gang was young a kind of weak so Brendan knew that he needed to be careful with himself and his buddies, especially since he knew firsthand the dangers of certain pokemon in the wild. The thought of the might of the poochyena excited and astonished the boy. This thought got him thinking that he wanted one of those terror dogs.
Mitsuhide and Nagamasa were up early; they rose before Brendan and began by training against wild pokemon roaming the route. By the time Brendan had awoken, the duo had clobbered nearly 20 untrained. Brendan could tell that the pair was stronger and took a pokedex reading of his pokemon pair. The readout showed that both had raised their stat level by a good sum. However, Brendan noticed that the two did seem a little tuckered out from the battling. "Guys, let's go to Oldale town and regroup before we go searching for more buddies." The poke pair nodded in consent and the group packed up the camp and set off down the trail for the town ahead.
It did not take but two hours for them to reach the town of Oldale. The town was small and Brendan hoped that he would not be recognized or questioned about the dead man back in Littleroot. The troop quickly healed up at the pokemon center, returning the dynamic duo to fighting fit state.
"Hey Mitsuhide," the zigzagoon asked his buddy. "Why do they call it Oldale town?" Mitsuhide shrugged in confusion.
"I don't know, I guess they're all drunkards here." the two shared a joyous laugh as Brendan stocked up on pokeballs, potions, and a couple antidotes at the pokemart nearby. Brendan then led the group north to the edge of route 103 to do a little training and viewing in the area before moving west to start facing down serious trainers.
"Guys we're going to hang around here for a but to center ourselves and get ready for the stress of the journey, we need to up our numbers and get you guys stronger, because there are beasts out there of insane power." the duo rubbed the dirt of their shoulders to signify to their master that they had the issue covered. However, the issue of Brendan's status in society scared him about the possibilities that lay ahead of him. He figured setting up shop on the sparse route 103 would provide his crew a safe place to train up to higher levels.
Almost immediately, Brendan saw the signs of a pokemon in the grass of the route. "Yes it's a pokemon, our first one here! That means we can catch it for our posse!"
"Hey Mitsuhide, why does Brendan think that he can only catch the first one he sees in a route? Doesn't he know you can catch however many you want in a single area?"
"Nagamasa, it is just part of the rules, according to him at least." the treecko replied, as they stood ready for the beast to emerge.
"RULES! What rules?" retorted Nagamasa.
"Bro..." the treecko extend an open palm at the eye level of the zigzagoon. "Don't fight the psychosis."
"Rwaarr!" emerging from the grass was a poochyena, the same kind of pokemon that killed Birch, the same kind that Brendan had been day dreaming about all the day long since he awoke. The pooch strolled toward the party without any fear in his eyes and rather than attack the troop he simply bowed his head in respect showing that he wished to join the crew.
"You want to join up with us?" the poochyena nodded in affirmation to the question. Brendan's eyes lit up with joy and love as he presented a pokeball to the wild dog. The dog bumped his nose against the center button and created the bond with the ball. Brendan then released his new friend and named him. "I'll dub thee, Masamune!" the dog liked that name and was happy to join the squad.
"Hey guys, thanks for letting me join up." Masamune said to the other two pokemon. "Masamune shook both of their hands/paws and they exchanged a few words two each other to break the ice.
"You excited to fight and train up." Mitsuhide said to the dog.
"Hecks yeah! I love fighting! People think that my breed of pokemon have low battle potential, but I want to grow in a true powerhouse and show them all TRUE power." Masamune replied looking toward the moon. The poochyena seemed a flight with dreams of battle and possessed a spirit for combat. Nagamasa took note of this fighting edge and immediately liked the potential he saw in his teammate.
"This guy had potential to really be an asset." Nagamasa said to Mitsuhide as Brendan and Masamune marched onward to find wildlings to battle up on. "According to the pokedex status app his attack stat is significantly higher than ours even with all our training."
"Yeah! Even though for the moment our stat level is higher than his, this guy has serious promise," the treecko responded to Nagamasa.
The rest of the afternoon was spent terrorizing the pokemon of the route. Masamune proved most hungry of the bunch and even stood his ground against his own kin. It mattered not to Masamune as he was committed to become a force to be reckoned with in the gang. By afternoon's end Masamune had trained up to become to strongest in the party, even outclassing Mitsuhide in total stat level. Brendan was amazed at the progress of his party that he decided that the crew would rest up for the evening under the stars next to the sea that divided the route.
The group felt seriously accomplished after the day's efforts and truly felt special that they were together; not so much because of Brendan being a great leader but because of the pokemon feeling a solid bond with one another. Brendan set up the campsite with the gang helping get things organized. Eventually they got a small little campfire together and Brendan being still a preteen passed out cold as his body required rest after an eventful day. The pokemon however decided to stay up and talk a bit more.
"So how Brendan's journey start out? Why does he act as if he's afraid someone is going to find him at times?" Masamune asked the other two. Nagamasa sighed, as he knew the story would always be one that he would have to explain to any newcomer as part of making sure they understood what they were getting into with the gang. He simply looked to his left to Mitsuhide, a sign that he believed the "leader" of the crew needed to be the one to inform the newcomer. Mitsuhide paused before starting the tale. The pause altered the mood, even for Masamune who asked what he believed to be a lighthearted question, but was in fact a sour subject for the gang. Mitsuhide however told the tale, and told it without any sugar or bias toward the party, as he believed that the truth pointed to their cause without any pandering needed.
"...and that is why we need Brendan to become Pokemon League Champion."
Masamune nodded in thought for a few moments. Then he began to affix his face to show that he was content with the explanation. "Alright then." he replied. "We protect Brendan and clear his name."
"Aren't you concerned about being associated with a man who is on the run because of actions of a gang of your fellow poochyena?" Masamune strolled off a few feet from the campsite and sat his rump on the ground while looking up at the moon.
"Not at all Nagamasa." he spoke to his friends whilst gazing at the brilliant light of the moon in the sky above. "Wild roving poochyena who refuse to eat berries and fruit and only hunt meat give us a bad name. We aren't wild savages, and I cannot stand that some people lack the civil manners to leave meat alone and actively hunt for It." a loan tear flooded the right eye of the poochyena as he sat alone. The duo of Mitsuhide and Nagamasa decided to go sit with their friend and watch the moon. They decided to speak no father and just enjoy the serenity of the night sky. Then after nuzzling his friends, heads in appreciation Masamune stood up on all four legs and belted a howl to silence all other sounds of the night. He was happy.
"You know guys I never had a pack." the others seemed astonished by this news as poochyena and the evolved form, Mightyena, were widely known as the most pack oriented pokemon known to man. "My parents were killed by farmers after my pack was blames for stealing crops, when we were actually hunting the pokemon that did steal them. Afterward I and the rest of my litter struggled to survive. Within two weeks the others died and I was alone as my pack was wiped out." He turned back to the two friends beside him. He then stuck his right paw in the center of them. "Let us be brothers, and always be as one together." he smiled as he looked at the other two.
"Brothers!" Mitsuhide and Nagamasa said as they all put their right hands in with the poochyena. All smiled as they took in the night light as a family, the family under Brendan.
"THERE YOU ARE BASTARD!" the sound echoed over the water and grass as it awoke Brendan and disrupted the trio from their bonding. It was the girl, May riding hard on her bike with a torchic sitting on her shoulder as the pair came speeding toward the campsite. Brendan rose with has and called for the crew to assemble as the girl slide her bike to a stop a few paces from the campfire. "YOU! DADDY EATER!" She called to the boy, "PREPARE TO DIE!" With those words, Brendan and his trio of pokemon knew that the battle was set. The torchic sent out an ember blast aimed at the crew, but Masamune jumped in front of the fire-puff, taking the damage for the others.
"I've got this guys." Brendan smiled as he saw that Masamune was ready to battle, and he was able to know this even without being able to speak the pokemon language. The torchic stammered up and charged the poochyena.
"Come on Torchic, burn that dog!" May called to the bird. The little firebird blew another ember in the direction of Masamune, but he leapt out of the way of this blast and proceeded to tackle the torchic. He hit the poor little bird so hard that is knocked back into May and pushed both her and the bird into the river, which had a current that swept the duo away, leaving behind her bike. "I'll get you," she gargled as the pair struggled to stay above the surface as they rode the current back to Littleroot. Brendan let out a sigh of relief as two of his pokemon comrades patted Masamune on the back. It was a quick concise victory for the gang. Masamune smiled proudly at his accomplishments.
Of course, seeing the girl again gave Brendan a sense of concern, as he knew that she still blamed him for the murder of Birch, and was not interested in letting be in peace. He feared that horror would come his way but he believed that after Masamune's sound victory over trainer's pokemon that his gang was strong enough to continue onward in their quest. "Alright gang, rest up. Tomorrow, we refresh in Oldale and then move onward to route 102 and our destiny." All smiled in excitement and then each member of the group nuzzled up for a good sleep with the remaining evening hours.
