Chapter 2 Sintaleate

Electric sparks leap from jagged fur tuff to jagged fur tuff as a deep growl rumbles from his throat. Needle-like fur highly charged with electricity glows brightly. Black abyss eyes narrow as they lock in on a foe. The foe, a wounded ekans, hisses and charges again. But, it is forced to dodge a pin-missile followed by a thunder fang.

"Move it." the ekans demands.

"No." The jolteon replies without hesitation .

"I may be weakened, but I still have some fight in me."

Behind the jolteon, a trainer shouts "Sintaleate, another thunder fang should do the trick." With a nod, Sintaleate, the jolteon, complies. This time, the ekans is not able to avoid it in time, and its scales are punctured by Sintaleate's teeth, which discharge volts upon volts into the ekans' body. The ekans utters a cry, and falls back. Though he hasn't fainted, he is barely able to move. A red and white orb, thrown high in the air, glints as it hurtles towards the snake pokemon. After hitting the pokemon, a red light consumes the ekans, and the ball closes. Once, twice, three times it twitches, the capture device doesn't move again.

With cool composure, Sintaleate trots over to his trainer, who gives him a pat before picking up the ball. "Good job, that should be enough training for the day, let's go to the pokecenter and see if they have a room available." Without looking back, the trainer jogs off.

Sintaleate, tired and wounded, limps behind. With a sigh he says wryly "Sure, go on and leave me behind. I'm sure I'll find you without fainting, or getting caught. I mean, why should anyone, even an adult, worry about his lifelong companion?"

Aching, he limps, favoring his right forepaw. The paw is raw, with acid from one of the ekan's attacks eating away at the flesh. A soft, sharp intake of breath shows that the wound is worse than he thought it would be. "… Eric shouldn't mind if I take a while to get back. I'll just take a detour to wash this off." With a shrug, he veers off the beaten path, and hobbles towards the stream that winds through the plains like a blue iridescent ribbon. Gingerly, he dabs his paw into the pool, hissing with pain. How ironic, the ekans' acid is making me hiss. He growls slightly, gritting his teeth as the poison is drawn from his body by the water.

As he stands, with his forepaw dangling in the clear water, a shadow overhead moves rapidly towards him, followed closely by a hoot-hoot. The owl pokemon passes by, only glancing at Sintaleate, circling once, then flying by again. Sintaleate blinks, certain he saw something fall from the bird's foot when it circled over. "I swear, if that bird dropped a message, and doesn't come back for it, I will not look at the message. I will not look at the message. I will not look at the message…" He trails off from his repetition with a sigh. "a quick look to see if he dropped something is all I'll do." A quick glance around the area shows no message, or at least no message that is very obvious to the eyes. With another shrug, he tests his paw, and finds it is slightly better. He grumbles"That acid wound must be getting to me, I swear I saw something fall… Hmph, well, I'd better to the pokecenter to be healed." He plods wearily back to the trail and towards the town.

Fuchsia's bustling streets are crowded with pedestrians who pay Sintaleate no mind as he limps towards the pokecenter. Most of the people walking through the streets this time of day are men and women returning from their work. Every day, around this time, they see the same jolteon padding towards the pokecenter. His being injured has occurred so much, they no longer seem concerned when they see him hurt or limping, for they all know the pokecenter will heal him.

Today, there is the typical swarm of uncaring people, but among them is a child who does. The child, seeing Sintaleate hurt, walks towards him then shoves an oran berry in his face "Here jolteon, eat this!" Sintaleate looks at her, surprised by a stranger's kindness. He eyes the berry before gingerly taking it from the toddler's hands. Just as he does, a purse comes swooshing towards him. With a thud, it hits his bruised side. He yelps and skitters back a few yards.

"Get away from my child!" a woman screeches, yanking her child away from him. "Sweetie pie, are you alright?" she coos, examining her child for any scratches

"Mommy, I was just feeding the pokemon."

"Don't give it your berry, you said you wanted to give it to your friend's pet."

"This pet needed it more mommy, Kaleb's rattata isn't hurt."

As the two humans continue talking, Sintaleate slinks away. The pokecenter is nearby, and he can see his trainer standing by the door. Eagerly, he trots up to him as his trainer says "Sin, where have you been?"

"Oh, just eating your dust while you ran ahead, not really caring whether or not I could keep up while injured." He says, but to his trainer's ears, his words are just repetitions of his species' name. His owner, oblivious to his pokemon's wry comment, pats Sintaleate's head.

Irritated, Sintaleate growls softly to himself. Instead of making his needle sharp fur stand on end to prick his trainer, he merely walks to the pokecenter door, and walks in when the door opens automatically. The cool air washes over him, and he finds himself relaxing. Eric and he have been staying at the pokecenter for the past few weeks, and will stay until they decide to move on.

"Oh, hello Sintaleate," Nurse Joy chirps, then nods when his trainer comes in "Hello Eric." With a smile, she gets a chansey to lead Sintaleate to the back room, though he has been there so often, he could easily walk there by himself.

Once in the back evaluation room, the chansey turns to him and smiles "So Sin, what have we gotten into this time?" Examining him, she chortles "You've got an acid wound, and you went through quite a pounding." Bustling about, she gets a bag of cool ice, and a potion, and an antidote. "Here Sin, sit down, and give me your right forepaw." Without a word, he sets his spikey yellow paw in her pink ones. A squirt of antidote makes the stinging leave, and a few sprits of potion reduces the pain and starts healing the wound.

"Thank you for the help Chansey, I'll be on my way now." He nods to his friend and gets up to leave.

"No, sit back down, we've gotta ice that bruise on your side. Where you run over by a graveler or something like that?"

"Close, but no cigar. First I fought with an ekans, then a woman walloped me with her purse."

Pursing her lips, the chansey clucks to herself. "You always go through quite a battering each day…" Trailing off, she focuses her attention on icing his side.

"Well that's life. Hey, can I go lay outside in my room with the bag of ice? These examination tables are not very comfortable."

"Sure, go ahead. But, keep the ice on for at least another ten minutes. No strenuous work, or running for tonight. Before you go to sleep, I'll have someone drop off a pain reliever and some moo-moo milk for you."

With a grin, he says "What would I do without you?"

"Oh, probably just get yourself killed. Have a good day Sintaleate."

With a nod, he strolls out of the room and towards his. Luckily, the door is not closed, so he is able to slip inside and rest. A love sofa by an open window provides him a very comfortable place to sleep. His eyelids droop, and as he finds himself starting to doze, something lands next to him.

"Idiot, didn't you get the message I dropped?"

With a snarl, Sintaleate leaps up, his fur standing on end. However, his needle like fur slices through the plastic bag which the ice is in, and sends ice scattering across the floor. He looks at the source of the voice, and sees the hoot-hoot that passed overhead when he was rinsing his paw earlier. "What do you want?" he snaps.

"… Crap… You're not Illem, are you?" The hoot-hoot closes his eyes and mutters something under his breath.

"No, I'm not."

Desperation tinges the hoot-hoot's voice when he says "Did you just so happen to pick up the letter I dropped?"

"No, I couldn't find it."

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap. He's going to kill me. What if it got lost? What if it-"

"Here, let me help you find it." Sintaleate, unable to watch the distressed hoot-hoot fret, speaks before he thinks.

However, it seems like the owl pokemon didn't hear. He continues speaking "He's going to skin me alive, and then beat me with my own kidney. I'm so screwed if it's lost…"

Gingerly, Sintaleate pokes the pokemon "Let me help you find it."

The hoot-hoot blinks "… If you can't help me find it, my boss is going to be sooo pissed off. Let's go, quickly!" He takes off, with Sintaleate following close behind.