CHAPTER TWO
A/N erm, I guess you guys like the story, so I'll keep this comin' if you guys want, also pls review it makes me feel warm and fuzzy like a white cat with red eyes and unassuming golden rings around its ears. *Cue 3*(that and I want both ideas and feedback since I wing it while writing)
As I sluggishly woke up, over the course of about half an hour I came to realize that 1,) I was still lost in the middle of Viridian forest, and 2,) I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. Sleeping on a log did wonders for being able to crack my neck loud enough for it to actually echo once or twice within the clearing. Awake at last, I was ready to try and make my great escape from being lost. However I was going to pull that off was going to have to wait till I got to know Skorupi at least, so I quickly let out Shellos and called for Sting, guessing correctly that he was up in a tree almost directly above me.
"All right, now Skorupi here isn't exactly the strongest Pokemon but I think he could make a great addition to the team if we give him some time, so let's be nice and see what we can do to get out of here ok?" I said quickly, wanting to get some backup in case something went south somehow… again.
Lightly putting pressure on the the white button that would let out the first Pokemon I'd truly caught without some 'heroic' ulterior motive, I set my face into a slightly softer mask than normal, and crouched down, not wanting to scare the young bug type who'd been trounced without much difficulty.
As he turned around and saw that we were still in almost the same spot as where I'd caught him, I nearly slapped myself and pulled out the Pokedex to actually see a description of Skorupi.
Skorupi, The mechanical voice droned, the Scorpion pokemon.
This specimen is male, and has the ability Sniper, powering up it's attacks against weak points with it's sharp pincers.
It knows following moves: Bite, Poison Sting, Pin Missile, Agility and Cross Poison
So the Skorupi was quite young as I had thought, which was pretty good considering that the amount of strategy Skorupi had learned so far was likely not as effective, and he would be more likely to warm up to me once he got some proper training and became an effective battler.
In fact, on that note, "Hey Skorupi," I said squatting back down, "Would you like some food?"
Seeing his eyes widen and brighten at the prospect, I smiled faintly and pulled a bit of dry mix out of my pack for the the three. Gligar began to gulp his down like the glutton he is, once I let her out Shellos chirped and began to munch on the food, seeming to enjoy it immensely, and Skorupi poked at it for a moment, stuck it with his tail, and began waving it around when it wouldn't come off. Laughing hard enough to fall onto my back, I hauled myself back up and walked over to help him get it off before something serious happened.
Chuckling as he sped up even further, so he does know how to use Agility well. Huh. Weird. While most Pokemon could use a trick known as 'p.r.i.o.r.-ity,' (which meant that the 'Pokemon who Rush In-between Other Reflexes...I hate scientists' naming skills sometimes, it could never be anything simple) and with moves like Quick Attack they could force their bodies to move at ludicrous speeds for but a moment, which in English actually means that the Pokemon force their muscles to all pump blood through themselves at once and push as one, which was effective in creating that sudden boost but was also quite dangerous to keep going consistently as blood vessels bursting within a body was a bit less than ideal, while Agility was the opposite in that it was designed for long term use and relied on the user's mental focus and perception abilities to keep the move going and augment the user's eyesight to be able to handle and process all of that information so quickly, similar to but not quite the same as a Psychic type Pokemon, which confused me 'cause Skorupi evolves into a Dark type.
Meh, researchers would get it eventually, maybe I should ask to have the Professor study Skorupi?
What was I doing again? I glanced to the left of where I was standing still after getting lost in thought again, oh yeah, his tail has food stuck on it.
"All right, calm down, calm down, come here Skorupi," I said soothingly, Skorupi turned to me and seemed to whine about the food getting stuck to his tail, he couldn't quite bend it to reach with his 'arms' to be able to move the food away at least, and he couldn't seem to slow down very easily so when he took one step it shot him 12 steps that way, and we chased each other back and forth for a minute until he finally stopped in front of me as we both tried to pull in opposite directions and get the dang food off of his poor tail, but we kept tugging and tugging repeatedly and after one big yank the food finally came off. The momentum from that consistent tugging sent the poor bug type flying. Straight towards me.
My eyes widening immensely, I simultaniously ducked and squinted so as to protect myself, and it did something. Oh boy, it did something all right.
Because I'd crouched down so suddenly, my feet were unstable, and when a twenty pound bug came hurtling right towards me, I curled up instead of trying to balance or stand up to avoid getting hit, since I wrapped my arms around my legs to 'protect' me and stop me from falling as well. This became an issue when Skourpi's flight path aimed straight for where my legs were, or in this case, my bare arms. Which were promptly injected with poison. As his stinger practically bit into my arm, he looked on in a bit of fear and while he did pull it out, my unsteady footing screwed me over and as I tried to relax all that happened was that I fell back and got roughly stabbed in the back as I tried to flip over and use my hands to steady myself.
A scream tearing itself out of my throat at this one, I urgently grabbed the clawed end of the tail and tore it out of my back ASAP.
Feeling my entire body go numb for a moment, I tried to relax. Then I realized I couldn't and figured out that this was what going into shock felt like. My. Favorite.
Trying and failing to not panic, I called Sting over and mumbled for a second before pulling myself back up, heedless of my own pain besides a hiss as my back spasmed. I needed to make sure they'd be safe.
"Sting," I said through clenched teeth, trying to focus on anything else, like what could happen if I left the trio of pokemon without any help and died. "Help me with the bleeding, grab me some thick leaves without any webs on them if you can."
Unwilling to give up, I quickly turned to Skorupi and despite his fearful look in his eyes, I gave a smile that probably looked more like a grimace and asked him quietly, "Do you know the way out of here?"
When he shook his head I thanked Sting for finding a few leaves that would help slow the bleeding, but of all things I didn't have gauze in the backpack, I didn't think I'd have the need and a pokemon could just be sucked up into its pokeball for safety.
Growing desperate, I turned back to Skorupi solemnly. "Skorupi," I croaked quietly, beginning to get drowsy and losing focus in my eyes, "you… might be our only chance out of here."
Seeing him begin to dig back under the ground as Sting screeched about something, I began to lose sight of everything as my eyes truly lost all focus. Ooooh, I groaned mentally, it had to get stuck to his tail. I smiled a true smile for just a moment, with a simple thought in mind. "Don' hold it against 'em Sting." I said woozily, my traitorous legs giving out beneath me.
"It'll… this is fine," I said dazedly, "What could possibly go wrong?" I chuckled good naturedly, not sure who I was even talking to anymore, as my senses shut down and my eyes grew heavier than a Wailord. "At least you guys," I paused, yawning loudly. "good friends…" I trailed off, gone to the world.
Waking up to my side feeling like it was cut, drenched in salt water and left to dry on a sweltering August day, I was unhappy. I was also laying on something dry and flaky, and after digging into it with my hand, I knew it was soft dirt, confusing me, since no reason for this came to mind.
When I tried to shift to a more comfortable position, I suddenly heard a grunt and three pokemon were upon me, and my side felt like it cracked, but glancing at the large scab there was no such crack. Wait, scab?
Seeing Skorupi look guiltily back up at me as I glanced to the side, I remembered what happened to land me in this position.
I promptly stared intensely at Sting, daring him to look smug. When he didn't I just sighed. "You can be mad at him for a while, but no holding a grudge for an accident. I should have been better prepared anyway."
Looking to the left in guilt and shame that they had to deal with me being passed out and stabbed with… poison…how…?
"Hey guys," I started hesitantly, "How did you get the poison out of my side?" While Skorupi were infamous for being weak pokemon, their poison could still easily finish off a human, meaning somehow they'd gotten the poison out of my system.
Staring in confusion, Sting began to gesture to Skorupi as the bug type slowly turned to the side with a wince, and upon seeing what Sting meant I sucked in a breath.
There was a slash on his abdomen, between two of his legs. Right in the internal organs, where the antivenom kept vitals from dissolving.
Skorupi's side had begun to heal, though it was nearly red and looked puffy, and he seemed to be near shedding his exoskeleton at the moment, meaning the wound would at bare minimum hurt a bit less. Not like that made me feel any better, but it was a small consolation nonetheless.
By now I felt like I was being torn up from inside, aching side forgotten. I didn't want… they… "I don't want you guys to get hurt again." I whispered in realization of what I was feeling.
"If I… you guys should be able to do what you want if something happens, I don't care about efficiency or anything dumb like that as long as you guys stay fine."
Seeing them stare at me hesitantly, I opened my arms, not caring if there were spikes or slime. "As long as you guys are okay, I will be too. I-I promise." I swallowed thickly, knowing full well that by now I'd rather be the one to take an attack that would kill them.
Whether they'd try to take the attack anyway I could only speculate.
I felt… refreshed I suppose. That moment in the forest, however small it might seem, with just three young pokemon by my side… the times were simpler and that was a turning point for me. I had truly begun to care about what happened, instead of being purely tactical. I would still have decisions to make as a trainer, but now they'd be tough, meaningful decisions instead of brutally efficient ones. It was a nice change.
Thankfully, Sting was intent on dragging out of my dark thoughts that day, and his joining the hug seemed to be a cue for the other two as well, as they joined shortly after.
Smiling widely, I thanked all of them, not caring what anyone else would think were they here.
Determined to get us out of here and get back to the other three, I gently set them down, ignored the sharp stab of pain in my side and got up. "Alright, we have two options. Skorupi, do you know which way leads out of here?"
When he shook his head solemnly, I gulped. "Alright, that's fine, we have option two."
"Which way do you guys think we should try?" I said with a small grimace. This was either going to be very messy or take a long time.
My fear was what would result if it were both.
Setting out in the same direction we were going before I caught Skorupi, I returned Shellos and set out, knowing the Poison type and the Ground type would be more effective here.
After we walked for an indeterminate amount of time, what with the sun being obscured by the dense canopy, I began to get uneasy. Judging by how Sting was warily scanning around us, he felt the same.
From the treetops, a bright green shape fell on top of Skorupi, then another two leapt from the treetops on Sting as he stared at whatever had ambushed his fellow bug type.
Turns out, even with three of them, the young Spinarak were no problem at all for Sting and Skorupi.
Just as the first one landed on him, Skorupi darted forward and stopped without warning, throwing the Spinarak off of him and quickly grabbing the little green predator-turned-prey with the pincers on his forearms.
The poor Spinarak seemed to realize he was doomed as his eyes widened and he began to frantically struggle, seemingly fearing the worst.
Seeing what Skorupi did next, this fear was obviously well founded.
As I left Skorupi to… his own devices, I turned to Sting just shrugging off any attempt at attack the Spinarak could muster, and simply charging in with Fury Swipes to deal more damage than it seems they could hope to without the advantage of their poison, and although they weren't immune to poison themselves it would take a comparatively ludicrous dose to actually hamper their efforts.
Time that we probably didn't have, considering that where there were Spinarak, there was often an Ariados or another larger predator that would be following them.
After the small skirmish with the weak bug types, we trekked on, encountering no more pokemon as we made our way through the maze like place, seemingly for days despite it not really seeming like time passed, it was always this hazy, dusk like level of brightness that would make one squint if not accustomed to it.
Regardless, we set Shellos up to watch while we slept on the ground, which none of us particularly minded.
By the third time we had slept we were all exhausted, running around trying to avoid more threatening pokemon like Ariados, the blindingly fast, elusive Scyther, and especially ambush specialists like Scolipede.
The fact that we all cheered and hugged when we saw a light to the way out was a Testa-ment to this fact.
Reaching for the pokeballs to recall the two faithful, obviously tired pokemon by my side, I grinned. We actually made it out of there alive.
"Not bad, kid."
Whirling around with eyes wilder than an angry Tauros, I took in the features of a fairly tall man with a dark uniform on and, surprisingly bright green hair. Blinking in surprise at this… anomaly, I pointed to his hair, "Is that-"
"Yes, it is my natural hair color." He sighed good-naturedly, seeming mildly exasperated by the question. "As I was going to say," He continued delightedly, "I would like to see what you can do with a little help from us in training your pokemon. We mostly do research with catch and release techniques, but we also train to make sure our pokemon are in top shape, it's always nice to have help on the journey, no? Anyways, I just wanted to get the invitation out there if you wanted to join, and you can join us later if you want, just keep us in mind ok?" His smile waned a bit as he scratched the back of his head, "Ah, sorry if I surprised you with so much info, I'm just eager to have good trainers join us, we need a lot of help making it up to certain areas to study the pokemon there."
"Ah…" I said, still processing all of what he said and what it would mean for my team. "I mean, I wish you guys luck, and I might help you later, but for now I want to get stronger and enjoy the journey that we're going on." I held up my finger with an idea as he began to turn away, "Oh, wait!" I called as he took a step away, "How should I find you guys if I want to get in contact with you later?"
"Oh, don't worry about that, we'll probably see you again sooner or later, since we need to stop in cities for supplies pretty often, and considering your goal I'm gonna guess that you won't be hard to find with skills like yours." He said mysteriously as he turned back around and waved behind him, "See ya later, kid."
Satisfied with the answer and the compliment, I set off to reach the dream civilization I had hoped would be my salvation for the past few days, or as it was more commonly known, Pewter City.
The physical city was quite small, perhaps about seventy people who consistently lived here, but what kept it running were the hundreds of trainers that came through to fight Brock, one of either the toughest or easiest gym leaders depending on your style of battling. If you were a brute force, all in kind of person, then you would usually wind up winning, depending on type matchups alone. If you were a patient, tactical battler, then boy do I have some bad news. Brock's rock types were simple enough in their strategies that most of the time, the only counter to them was to break right through them. You can't outsmart a rock hurtling at your face, all you can do is punch it to pieces or dodge the next hail of them that comes for you.
With Skorupi… there was no real chance. Being a big type with relatively soft armor and mediocre offensive skills wouldn't be able to do much to the rock types. Shellos would be both the best and possibly only chance at victory, depending on how many pokemon he decided to use against me, and Sting would be an interesting duality. He get around the battlefield with quick attack if needed, and probably jump on top of any rocks thrown at him using quick attack to reach the tops, glide off and maneuver his way around the battle, or perhaps tank some hits if he was on the ground, but the trouble was that he had no real way to damage the sturdiest type, since the tough hides of the rock types would prevent him poisoning them.
Then, the only solution to have not just a fighting chance, but an advantage was…
A plan already forming, I chuckled internally. If Brock wanted a battle, he'd get a battle.
After dragging my sore body all the way through the city-getting lost twice in the process, I resolved to buy a map of every city in Kanto if only to avoid looking like a street beggar, asking for the nearest pokemon center-I cleaned myself and got a hot meal, vaguely remembered a phase of 'hunger is the best sauce' and almost hit myself for forgetting such sacred words. I also bought a grey sweatshirt to stay warm, the first one had been ripped and was caked in dirt, and there was no way I was going to last more than a week without my precious pocket-y-warm-comforting sweatshirts.
Once my belly was full, I was done being dramatic and grabbed some supplies for the road including bandages, gauze, and a numbing agent. Just in case something happened… again.
Clearing my head before going outside, I pulled all three of the pokeballs off of my belt at released the friends contained within.
"Hey guys, before we get to our first gym, I have a few ideas…" trailing off on seeing confused faces looking back, I quickly explained what the gym challenge was, "So that's the gym challenge, and I…" I paused and continued lowly "I want to be a Ground type master, someone who's team is recognized as one of the best, the trainer and the Pokemon."
Shaking off my embarrassment at revealing my dream, however silly the emotion was in this case, I rallied my focus. "Anyway, my main idea is to get you guys learning quite a few moves, so far I've been lazy in trying to make you guys any stronger, and I apologize. In such a case, if you'd really like to get stronger, we have some work to do."
When several pairs of eyes flashed with determination and nodded, I grinned a mile wide and set up some exercises. We were gonna be out here for quite a while.
After all three of them had worked themselves to near collapse, I called a break. We'd all skipped lunch for today, and once the food was in front of them it didn't exactly last long despite knowing what would happen if they ate too fast. I just shook my head and ate slower, though I hadn't been idle either. When it came to Sting's endurance training, we both ran for about two miles each way and it positively killed the both of us.
We were still going to do it again after lunch though.
Sting was also tanking water pulses from Shellos during his training, when he wasn't working on his new move anyway. I wanted the tri to learn quite a few new moves, but generally one or two at a time was all a Pokemon could handle, and learning moves from allies was more difficult than most when the original pokemon had trouble with the powerful move.
Shellos was working on Mud Bomb and getting better with Acid Armor, especially the speed at which the move could be used.
Skorupi was trying to learn to slip into Agility as almost reflex when he was in trouble, since his armor was pretty soft for his natural ability, at least until he was a Drapion. Then he'd be a monster. Until then, he'd have to settle for being more of a speedy offensive threat. Oh well.
Sighing in both contentment and regret, I packed up the finished lunches and got ready to suffer through another run, though at least Skorupi would also have to go with us this time. Frowning, I realized an annoying loophole. "And without Agility Skorupi, no cheating." My eyes lit up in glee at my next thought though, "Or do, you'll just have to run double the distance in half the time, or do it again after we finish."
Taking an entirely reasonable amount of satisfaction out of Skorupi's slumping down, I sighed and began to drag myself alongside Sting as we resigned ourselves to running till we were ragged.
Lying on my back, almost wishing I was dead with the burning in my whole body, Sting had recovered more quickly than me and was enjoying this. "Sting," I groaned in pain, yet beginning to grin in spite of this, "you should go train with your new moves." Even if I couldn't see him, I knew for a fact that Sting was slumping his shoulders, getting ready to groan. Laughing through the pain, I pulled myself up and faced him. "You'll be fine, and after we get these sessions going consistently," I grinned maliciously as he buried his head in his arms, "then we'll be too powerful to be beaten."
Seeing him pretending to cower at the thought, I tiptoed behind him.
"BLYAT!" I shouted gibberish as he began to open his eyes again, and as he jumped more than four feet in the air, I'd say I got him pretty good. Shellos and Skorupi agreed.
Being as burned out as we were after the first of many a day's hard work, we headed back to the pokemon center to rest and get ready for whatever was next.
We had gone out quite a ways, about six or seven miles away from the city itself to find a quiet place to train without any interference, which was surprisingly easy to find due to Skorupi's vibration sensitivity. We had gone up into the small hills that lead into mountains since the forested area around most of Pewter was crawling with bug pokemon.
The hard part was getting back… then it started raining.
Not wanting anyone to get hypothermia, I quickly recalled two them and looked for a dry place to stay until the weather let up, though I let Shellos stay out and enjoy the rain, water of all things wasn't going to slow down a water type, but rain was also one of the few situations that Shellos could make use of her evolution's specialty and recover quickly.
After almost ten minutes of searching, I found a fairly large opening that looked shallow, and was a peculiar shade of pale yellow, and some odd red markings in one corner. Not one to question getting out of the rain, I ran in and huddled under the outcropping of rock, marvelling at what had eroded over millions of years into a smooth overhang, almost like a bunch of hair, since I could see that it curved under the mouth of the cave.
Turning around to an acrid smell, I quickly noted three things. 1) I was definitely not alone in this cave, 2) that was because there was a Numel in here, and 3)... he seemed angry if the rising temperature and the narrowed eyes were any indication.
Mind going blank for a moment as I began to panic without a way out-not including hypothermia anyway-I was snapped out of it when Shellos challenged the larger pokemon and slid in front of me to defend me.
The Numel snorted, smoke streaming from his nostrils as he stamped his foot, creating a crack with a weak golden light streaming from it snuck it's way underneath Shellos and erupted, causing Shellos to cry out in pain.
Sufficiently pissed off now, I matched the angry Numel's glare with my own and got ready to release Sting and Skorupi to assist, but then a wicked grin curved itself onto my face as I saw that Shellos was flatly staring back at me, shaking her head. Shellos wanted this fight, but I wanted blood too.
What the Numel didn't realize is that he forgot the rule of dealing with anything sentient.
Beware the quiet ones.
As the Numel stood still and stamped his foot again, I quickly told how Shellos to counter, "Shellos, use Mud Bomb to plug up the crevice, aim in front of it to intercept."
There was no need to be impatient, revenge was not to be rushed. It was best served cold, just like all of the rain Shellos had been absorbing through her extremely porous skin.
"Shellos," I called out in faux calm, "use the rainwater you stored up to hit 'em with Water Pulse."
Opening her mouth and quickly dipping into her water supply, the sphere was slightly smaller than normal in her haste.
Seeing that the orb moved almost double the speed of her normal projectiles, I thought we'd have to implement that one into her strategy. This thought was, of course, secondary to the feeling of satisfaction that hummed vibrantly through my veins as I saw the Numel stumble at the hit, and seeing the Numel take some water into the hump on it's back, the source of its power that determined it's offenses and was it's greatest weakness, now had water cooling a bit of the magma in it.
Seeing the pokemon begin to drunkenly stumble and see black smoke stream from the hump in it's back, I felt a stab of pity for the pokemon, but what had weakened it so much?
Wincing, I took a closer look at the pokemon, and saw that while the Water Pulse had hit a fairly significant portion of its front, its back was also soaked, meaning the rain had hit the Numel pretty hard. Thinking deeper, it was probably stuck out there for quite a while, being unable to move effectively in the rain at all.
Feeling sympathy for the fire type, I thought on my options and realized that I'd planned something very closely along these lines. Or close enough anyway. Simply put, there weren't a huge amount of ground type pokemon out there.
Prepping the ball, I threw it at the raggedly breathing Pokemon.
The ball shook a fair amount for a Pokemon so near collapse, but even with it's impressive tenacity there was no real chance of it breaking out.
Unbidden, a thought sprang into my mind about what was going to happen as the journey progressed. "D'you want a n-nickname?" I asked Shellos, giving a small shiver and hearing teeth begin to chatter as the adrenaline faded away and cold weather caught up to me.
Seeing a tilted pair of eyes squinting on a blue body blink at me, I quickly amended my question. "You don't have to get a nickname if you don't want one, I just… thought you might want one" I shifted awkwardly, maybe she wouldn't want one and she'd give up on me after seeing how much I rely on her, oh I've screwed it all up what will I-Feeling a wet tap on my leg, I turned back to the concerned water type from my pacing that I had unintentionally began.
"Aaahh, sorry about that." I gave a pained grimace, not liking how much my mind was acting up without any kind of control.
Shifting the worrying thought out of my mind, I almost asked Shellos what I was doing when I snapped my fingers and my face morphed into a little o. "Right, that was it. So! Do you want a nickname or no?" When all else fails, go to being pragmatic.
With yet another tilt of the head-with clear eyes this time-I knew she was thinking on it. Knowing it might take a while for the storm to pass, I let Sting and Skorupi out, asking Skorupi the same query, but he shook his after a moment of thought. Not like many people would get Skorupi or Drapion confused anyway, no one even used the powerful little… buggers… Oh god I'm turning into the Professor…
Pushing stray thoughts away, again(hmm… arguing with myself or another with a similar mindset would likely be beneficial at some point. Or maybe therapy-either or really a small part of me whispered), and resuming my focus on the task at hand proved to be difficult though not impossible, thankfully.
After what felt like hours, the storm let up and the sky began to clear. Smiling over to the beautiful sunset that was just peeking under the horizon a few minutes later, I saw it as a sign of great things. One could not reach the new dawn without some hardship through the night, but it was easy enough when you had pokemon by your side, and with the help of Sting, Skorupi, the newly christened Arroyo and the freshly caught Numel, there would be plenty of help for any situation. Ground was all around people after all, there was no way to truly escape it.
With a cheshire grin blossoming on my face, I began to think about what problems Brock specifically would pose and nip them in the bud. The main issue was that even though Sting was a powerful fighter, he wouldn't be able to pierce the armor of a larger rock type. A Geodude or a young Rhyhorn, sure, but nothing larger or more experienced than the most basic rock types.
Then there was Arroyo. The future menace to all pure melee fighters. What was worse than something that could hit you as you were forced to run into it and yet you still couldn't even strike it, despite it's stationary status?
For now, I was ready to introduce Numel to the team in case Brock pulled out a third pokemon, since I doubted even Sh-Arroyo could fight two in a row, knowing that Brock was a gym leader, he'd have a way to ensure that type advantages were at minimum semi-neutralized.
Probably? At least I hope so… wait no I don't what am I… I mean… I didn't want the battle to be easy but I didn't want to be hopelessly outmatched, I wanted a battle, not a one sided beatdown.
Mind made up, I decided that tomorrow would be our gym challenge.
In the meantime, I should really get to introducing Numel, Pulling out my Pokedex before ghosting my hand over the pokeball this time, I gathered everyone around and told them we had a fourth teammate, Skorupi and Sting were curious, and though Arroyo's eyes darkened for a moment, I blinked at it was gone as the three stared expectantly.
Pressing the white button with a moment more of trepidation, I shoved both the 'dex and the ball into my sweatshirt pockets before holding my hands out to not look threatening. It was a fight to not keep them shoved into my comfortable coat pockets, but whatever would help relations, especially with a temperamental and more importantly new member, I would at least give a try.
Madness promptly ensued.
Numel, apparently noticing the lack of rain, immediately took in the-nonthreatening-surroundings and fired off a small volley of Embers to stall Sting and block Skorupi, then fired a quick Earth Power at Arroyo, who wasn't expecting the hit and was knocked away. Before the fire type could pursue however, I stalked in front of the two foot pokemon and stared it down, rage pressing me on like a man possessed. It looked like it wanted to snort at me, until I crouched down, looked it in the eye and glared into the little bastard's soul.
"You might not like me, you might not fight for me, you might not even walk with me, but you will not ever attack the team without provocation again. Or you will not come out of the ball as everyone around you gets stronger. I don't like the idea, but if you go too far then I will leave you in there until Arroyo evolves let her drench you to the point where that magma in your back solidifies."
Still seething as the Numel backed up a step, I straightened up and huffed, not liking the turn the day had taken. Suddenly the sunset looked like a volcanic eruption waiting to happen, causing mass chaos in its wake.
Dropping my head to my chest in sudden exhaustion, I reached into my pocket and used both items on Numel, not having the energy to deal with his issues at the moment and went to find Arroyo.
If I hadn't been so damn stupid, Arroyo wouldn't have gotten hurt, Sting wouldn't think me crazy and unstable, Skorupi might even be happy with the others as opposed to just about food, and Numel might not fear me of all things.
Finding Arroyo a few minutes later, she was covered in dirt and left a small trench, looking to have tumbled on the way over, like she'd been punted off into the distance.
Falling to my knees, I made a promise of sweat, tears, and blood.
"I… will not let this happen again. I will not see you guys defeated, lying helpless by my actions." I stared ahead resolutely, a new requirement joining my greatest ambition.
Breathing deeply as I attempted to forget my troubles and enjoy the rapidly fading sunset, I relaxed marginally with the knowledge that nothing could poss-Not going there. I smiled bitterly, knowing that I was fighting a losing battle if I'd reached this stage again. Guess I'm gonna have to let you out again soon, huh? I thought with the bitter taste of melancholy stuck to my tongue. You're damn right ya're gonna have ta' ya little bastard. I could hear His bloodthirsty grin at my thoughts. Ya can't escape from the Tempest, now don' test-a me. What could possibly go wrong with letting little ol' me out hmmm?
I still remember last time you crazy bastard. I snapped back irritable as a freshly woken Ursaring. You just about killed Ash with your crap. I seethed as hot rage bubbled up once more. My jaw clenched as I tried to force Him back out and just relax again. I'll let you out in the battle, now leave.
At that He chuckled deeply with a wide grin, but you nee-
"SHUT UP" I screeched, fed up with his BS after all that the day had been.
After a bit more chuckling he finally left. I clammed up and gave in to my urge to get back to the Pokemon Center and just… get away from this for now. I wasn't prepared and I had no way of dealing with it, so I wouldn't. Not yet.
Ready to call it a day, I turned back to find Sting looking at me concernedly. I couldn't give a damn if I wanted to.
Walking past and asking whether he and Skorupi wanted to go in the ball or walk back, they both elected to walk, one on either side of me.
Not in the mood to protest, I just trudged along, noticing but ignoring their glances at me. Whether they hated me, were concerned they'd got stuck with the wrong trainer or what have you, their glances were no reassuring. So they were ignored. I did not need to be more unstable right not.
Aside from feeling like I'd been stabbed in the back by my idiotic self from about an hour ago, there was nothing wrong when I drifted to sleep inside the room after getting Arroyo healed and having the three sprawled across the room wherever they pleased.
The day was finally over but… something had been left behind, I could feel it. Not something physical, but something… holding something in place it felt like.
Not in the mood to ponder with Him lurking in the depths, I dragged myself into a deep sleep.
End Chap 2
A/N I've been wondering whether you guys(all four of you lol) would prefer shorter chapters with less words or slightly longer chapters with more words in it, the story should actually progress about the same pace either way it's really just preference. Again pls review I'm starving for them. Also, leave any suggestions or Con/Crit for me, I'm trying to make this a good(and entertaini~ing) story instead of a lazy story.