Team
Scyther - especially female scyther - are used to working as part of a team. The difficulty in incorporating a wild scyther into a trainer's team lies in transferring their loyalty from their old clan to their new one.
It was mid-afternoon when the five scyther left. They ran without talking as mid turned to late, and afternoon began to turn to evening. Shining Blade called a halt as the last of the sun painted the western sky.
"We can't stop," Long Claw growled. "We have to catch up to my daughter!"
"We need to sleep," Shining Blade told her firmly. "It won't do us any good to catch them exhausted."
They spent the night where they were, not bothering to keep watch. Only one thing would dare to attack a group of healthy, adult scyther at night, and the only human nearby was the one they were chasing. Long Claw woke up as soon as the sun lightened the sky over the trees, and she woke the others up. She was anxious to keep going, but Shining Blade refused to go until they'd had something to eat and as Long Claw was hungry, she didn't argue. They hunted, and they ate, and they set off again. It wasn't yet midday when they found the remains of a campsite.
The ashes of the fire were cold, but fresh. If they hadn't stopped the night before, they wouuld have caught up. Long Claw was furious.
"And then what?" Shining Blade snapped. "Hungry, half-asleep, in the middle of the night, we fight a charmeleon, a pidgeotto and who knows what else?"
"An ekans," Sharp Fang said, crouching down and sniffing the bare earth. "An electric-type - pikachu, maybe? No scyther. There's pidgeotto and charmeleon, but I don't know if they're the same ones..."
"Charmeleon aren't exactly common," Smooth Stroke said.
"They're gone now," Shining Blade said. "We know we're on the right track. Let's go."
They kept running. Occasionally an unwary ratatta or pidgey would happen upon them, and the scyther wouldn't pass up the chance offered to them, though they weren't formally hunting. In the early afternoon they came to a small river flowing out of the forest, and they drank and rested for a few minutes before taking a run-up to fly over the river and running on. By the end of the day, they'd seen no more sign of their quarry, but even Long Claw admitted they had to stop. They were all tired, Swift Flight most of all. He'd been keeping up gamely all day, though his bruised muscles had vehemently informed him they needed rest to heal, and he was asleep as soon as he got the chance to lie down.
Long Claw lay awake as darkness fell. When the sun had sunk fully below the horizon she quietly stood up and looked south, searching for the glow of firelight. The night was as dark in that direction as any other. "We're coming, my daughter," she whispered. She expected to have trouble getting to sleep, but she was more tired than she realised and wasn't awake much longer.
Long Claw's daughter felt as though she were almost asleep. There was the same timelessness, the same comfortable darkness, the same sluggishness of thought and feeling that nothing was really important. She didn't remember what had happened to get her... wherever she was, but only because she didn't think about it. She didn't think about much. She didn't seem to have much of a self to think with, but that didn't matter. She wasn't happy, exactly, but she was content, away from any sort of bodily upset or unhappiness. Time sped past at a crawl; after an eternity of no time at all, it was over.
It was like waking up suddenly from a pleasant dream. The darkness lifted, though not completely, turning to dusk. She found herself lying on the ground, confused and hurting. Her head hurt. Her leg hurt - both legs, in fact. The burns all over her body hurt, which reminded her of... the charmeleon...
"Hi," a voice said. "I'm sorry I had to hurt you. I've got a potion for you-"
She didn't really register the words, but the voice was enough to have her sitting up, scythes at the ready, ignoring the redoubled pounding ache in her head. She didn't trust her legs to hold her if she tried to stand, so, sitting, she glared up at the charmeleon and the human, who was still talking.
"I'm sure you'll like me, once you get to know me." It was holding something out to her. She hissed at it. It bent down to her leg. "I'll just fix this up for you - hey!" She had swiped at it as soon as it came within reach. "Don't you want healing?"
"Go drown yourself," she snarled.
"I'm trying to be nice," the human said. She just hissed at it again, and it gave up. "You talk to her, Ruby." It touched the charmeleon's horn and wandered off a short distance, closer to a small fire that the young scyther only now noticed.
The charmeleon crouched to be at her level, just out of scythe range. "You're not doing yourself any favours behaving like this," he said calmly.
She bared her teeth and didn't answer. She could feel the blood oozing out of the wound on her leg.
"Fine," the charmeleon said. "Don't let us heal you. Sit here and suffer all night."
"It was you who hurt me!" she snapped. Her arms ached. A nastier burn on one shoulder stung furiously.
"Yes, and now my master is offering to unhurt you," he said, "and you're not letting it."
She didn't want it anywhere near her. She didn't want either of them anywhere near her. "Just give me some berries and leave me alone."
"We don't use berries out of battle," he said bluntly. "It's potion or nothing. Well?"
It hurt. She hated herself for being so weak. "Fine," she spat.
The charmeleon called to the human, who looked up from what it was doing and hurried back to them. "Don't try anything," he warned, miming slashing at something. "That human's safety is much more important to me than yours."
She didn't know if she could have attacked it anyway. She let her blades fall down by her sides; she needed tham to help support her anyway. She felt light-headed, dizzy. She wished her mother was there, or better yet that she was back at home. The human squatted in front of her again, cautiously holding out to her the same unfamiliar item as before. She made no attempt to stop it. It sprayed some liquid from the thing on the deep scratch on her leg.
Sweet blessed relief.
The pain from that particular injury just disappeared. She could see the gashes closing, though by now it was almost too dark. It was better than berries; this potion stuff was magic. "Do my other ankle," she mumbled. The human ignored her, instead spraying a burn on her abdomen. She could have taken its head off with a blow; it was close enough now and not at all prepared for an attack, but it didn't even occur to her. "No, here." She wriggled the limb in question and winced as the offended joint sent a wave of pain up her leg. The human continued to pay no attention.
"It can't understand you," the charmeleon said. "Here." He tapped the human's shoulder to get its attention, then tapped her ankle. The human seemed to understand; it gave her ankle a good spray before going back to more visible injuries. She sighed. The magic worked even through plating. "Anywhere else?" the charmeleon said.
He seemed nice enough now, but she didn't trust him, with his steely claws and his thick, muscled tail... "My head," she said. "The side. Where you hit me." He missed the accusation, or at least didn't let it bother him. She tensed as he walked around behind her, but he just caught the human's eye and gently touched her head, then moved back where she could see him. She breathed in some of the mist the human was spraying, and felt her head clear.
The human sprayed her last few singes and bruises, and sat back on its heels, smiling. "See, I'm not so bad. I'm going to call you Emerald, okay?"
"No," Long Claw's daughter said. "You can't name me. You're not my matriarch."
"Good!" the human said - proving fairly conclusively, as far as she was concerrned, that it had no idea what she was saying. "I'll get you some food. You can have some of Topaz's, you'll like it, you're part flying-type..." It wandered back to the campfire.
"You'll get used to it, sooner or later," the charmeleon said. "I'm Ruby. Welcome to the team."
There was a flash of light over by the fire. Ruby turned to look. Long Claw's daughter watched him. He started to walk away, and she was on her feet and running in an instant. "Citrine!" she heard him yell. "Over there!" but she ignored it; nothing could beat a scyther at a flat run, and in the dark she'd only have to get out of sight - but she didn't even manage that: there was a rodent's squeal and a wave of electricity hit her. It didn't hurt, but all her muscles froze up and she fell.
"Emerald?" the human called. "Where is she, Citrine?" She tried to get up and run again, and found that she couldn't make herself move. She fought down rising panic. She was paralysed.
A raichu, faintly glowing in the dark, trotted into her field of vision. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't hurt you, did I? I tried not to, but I've just evolved and I'm not used to it yet."
Long Claw's daughter snarled at her, masking her despair with anger. She'd been so close!
"Oh dear," the raichu said. "I am sorry. Come on, come back to the fire and have something to eat. You can walk if you take it slow."
Long Claw's daughter was successful at standing up slowly and walking slowly back to the fire and the human. She had no choice, really. The raichu, for all her apologies, clearly wasn't going to let her escape. The human was waiting for them, holding - another potion, it looked like. It sprayed her with it, returning to her control of her limbs. She considered bolting again, but the raichu was right there and she'd only get another zap. "Don't run off like that, Emerald," the human said. "I don't have a lot of parlyz heals, and I shouldn't have to be unparalysing you." It patted her. She moved her head away. "I've put some food out for you." It sounded hurt. Ruby gave her a look. She ignored them both.
"I'm not hungry," she said, sitting down where she was.
The human shrugged and did something and there were two more flashes of light that resolved themselves into an ekans and a pidgeotto. The ekans glanced around briefly, paid no attention to the young scyther, and slithered over to a row of bowls on the ground. The pidgeotto looked around too, and saw Long Claw's daughter. "You did get her. Well done, Ruby."
Swift Flight had broken the pidgeotto's wing - snapped the bone clean through. She'd seen the angle it made, bent back on itself. This was the same pidgeotto, and yet it couldn't be! This pidgeotto was stretching undamaged, perfect wings and folding them back up without the slightest hint of injury. She remembered the potion, reforming muscle and skin and chitin like the wounds had never existed. Wing-bone broken... in the wild, that pidgeotto would have died. She caught herself staring and stopped before the pidgeotto noticed.
"What's she like, then?" the pidgeotto said.
"At the moment, she's sulking," Ruby said clearly, his voice carrying beautifully. "Citrine stopped her running away. Her name's Emerald." He beckoned to her. "Come here, Emerald."
She was still scared of Ruby, so she did as he told her. The pidgeotto was bigger up close than she'd seemed fighting Swift Flight, and it made the bug in the scyther nervous.
"This is Topaz," Ruby said. "That's Amethyst over there," - the ekans didn't even look up - "and Citrine. Topaz, Citrine, Thyst - this is Emerald."
"My name's not Emerald," she said defiantly.
Ruby sighed. Topaz cocked her head. "What is it then, little bug?"
"I-I don't have a name yet," she admitted. "I wasn't old enough..."
"We have to call you something," Citrine reasoned. "Why not Emerald?"
Why not? Because the human had chosen it. Because it should be Safe Hold who named her. "Emerald's not a scyther name."
Ruby snorted. "You're not a wild scyther any more. You think Topaz is a pidgey name? The master's decided to call you Emerald and there's no point trying to argue with it." She opened her mouth to argue anyway. He cut her off. "Just deal with it. Now, I don't know about you, girls, but I'm hungry and I would like to eat my dinner without hearing a lot of whining." He sat down in front of his bowl and started to eat. Topaz and Citrine seemed to agree with him, as they found their bowls and started eating too. There was one bowl left. Long Claw's daughter didn't move.
After a little while Topaz looked up from her meal, which was already half gone; the pidgeotto ate fast. "You going to eat yours? I will, if you don't want it."
"Fine," the scyther said. "Go ahead."
"Don't mind if I do..." Topaz sidled around her bowl and closer to the extra.
Citrine - not Ruby, but the kindly Citrine - rounded on the pidgeotto, glowing more strongly than before. "Don't you dare!" she snapped. "Taking advantage of a child, you should be ashamed. And you," - she redirected her anger at the child in question - "you are not helping yourself in any way. Come here, and just bloody eat something!" Her cheek patches sparked.
"Ground yourself, Citrine," Ruby said calmly.
The raichu huffed and buried the tip of her tail in the ground. A pulse of electricity shot down her tail and dissipated in the earth. She relaxed. "Sorry. I'm not used to the charge buildup. I've just evolved. I mentioned that, didn't I?"
"You still can't eat Emerald's food, Topaz," Ruby said, seeing Topaz bolting the last few chunks of her meal with her eyes on the scyther's.
"She doesn't want it," Topaz grumbled.
Long Claw's daughter turned away and pretended they didn't exist. She didn't care, she didn't care, but the problem was she was feeling hungry, and she couldn't bring herself to go and eat now. She didn't want their food, their name, their company. She wanted to go home. Her thoughts ran in circles over this same miserable ground until the human finished the meal it had been quietly eating.
"I'm going to go to bed... oh. Aren't you hungry, Emerald?" She extended her zone of pretended non-existance to the human. "Sure? Okay, you have been in your pokeball."
"I'll eat it!" Topaz said, looking at the human, then at the food, then at the human, then at the food, her meaning clear even without words.
"Um..." the human said. "Oh, go on then. I suppose we shouldn't just waste it."
The ekans spoke for the first time. "You'll be too fat to fly, pidgeotto." Topaz made an indignant noise, but was otherwise too busy gorging herself to reply.
"Anyway," the human went on, "I'm going to bed. I probably shouldn't leave you out at night, Emerald, not for a little while, so..."
She didn't understand. She was being left out already, and that was fine, as she didn't want to be included. The human took something off its belt, there was a sudden flood of light, whiting out everything, and -
The darkness was soft and comforting. There had been something... important? No. If it was, she would remember.