"Ok, let's see here…*opens his backpack* Leaves, twigs, rocks, charcoal..." Riolu checked out his backpack's contents quietly to recall what he was looking for in that groove
"More wood" He mumbled and directed his gaze to the sky "After noon and before nightfall, definitely 've got plenty of time"
He ventured around the forest until he chanced upon what looked like a route "This should be… mh… 203?"
The jackal took a moment to scan his surroundings and then dropped down from the tree he was hiding in.
The entire area was filled with a calm atmosphere, the few humans that were either just passing by or waiting for an opponent seemed to enjoy that relaxing stillness, some of them were even sleeping under a tree's shadow peacefully.
The tall grass tuft beneath the his hiding place made a perfect coverage, so Riolu dropped down to have a better look around.
By peeking his head outside the tall grass he spotted a pond and something that looked like an information plaque.
"PPs? Stuff that I already know everywhere…" Riolu commented and started heading back to the tree of before, intending to find a less exposed place where he could gather sticks and punch down a tree for logs.
At least this was his plan, everything was going normally until he felt an uncomfortable sensation from his aura appendages...
"Could it be?" The fight-type recoiled "No, no it can't be, this ability is unique to pokemons like me..." When he felt the source of the sensation approaching, he hastily climbed up a tree, tightening his grasp on the wood as he felt three distinct beings approaching even closer to him.
"No, NO! ..." He yelled in his mind when he saw three human-like figures beneath him, sitting down by his hiding place.
Riolu was shocked by what his eyes just saw and perfectly matched the perception of before, although, something wicked awoke inside of him, something that he tried to forget long ago and with his return, made his eyesight blurry.
This simple feeling transformed into something more, that sensation made the painfullest memory stored into his mind come out from his subconscious brutally, so violently that it generated an uncontrollable anger, making Riolu's heart beat faster and his blood boil.
Losing briefly his mind and without even thinking anymore he dropped down the tree with an aura sphere in his hand, using it to raise the dust from the ground with the clash.
Those three got so scared by the sudden noise and the shockwave produced by the jackal that they leaped forward, landing on the grass path, and turned around standing on their backs.
When Riolu took control over himself he already had an aura sphere in his paw, breathing heavily and pointing the orb to the face of the special being in front of him.
Desperately trying to recover his bearings he closed his eyes, trying to vanish the sphere held and to lower the level of his aura, but since he could no more handle the situation, he couldn't focus enough to control his power and so he smashed the sphere again on the ground, raising once again the dust in order to cover his escape.
He ran for ten good minutes, but the feeling of being chased by something didn't leave him, so after some more minutes spent trying to leave behind his chasers, he stopped at the edge of a small clearing, by a nostalgic-looking tree and turned around towards his pursuers.
The sensation our fighter had was right, indeed he had a pokemon tailing him and right as Riolu stopped by that large tree, the pursuer stopped too, four meters from him, his cheeks sparkling with electricity in a fighting stance, ready to attack
After a small breath that orange mouse menacingly inquired "Why have you done that? What were you even thinking of doing to them?!"
Riolu barked his response with all the rage stored into his body "How does that feel? Being trapped into one of those cursed red spheres?! Does that burn? The feeling of becoming a human's TOY!"
That pokemon changed his facial expression in surprise for the harsh answer and tried to reply "I…" then picked up with decision "Humans are not bad! I and my trainer constructed an-"
Riolu interrupted him yelling "You can't even imagine what your owner's kin took from me! Took from my friends! Took from us! You just can't understand! YOU CAN'T "
And kept shouting "You can't!" until he gradually ran out of voice, going from a yell and ending up with a whisper, then he felt on his knees in despair, managing to wet himself just with how much tears he managed to cry.
All that scene was in complete contrast with the surrounding landscape, filled to the brim with peacefulness and tranquility, yet it hosted Riolu's drama, making his voice resonate like if he performed into a theatre.
The bystander of that performance was thunderstruck, but it wasn't over, Riolu in a final effort to dispel his anger, with his last lump of rage focus punched the tree he was standing by in a fraction of second, snapping it into two parts, and draw from the wood his arm now covered in woody splinters and cuts. His rage now fully transformed into psychological pain and deep desperation
The fighter looked down, spotting a puddle made with his tears and with blood that dripped from his arm, the reflection of his proud face shone into the pool of reddish mud and with a burst of his leftover pride he yelled to the orange pokemon "Don't you dare following me! Or I'll break each single bone of your body like twigs!"
Then he used his dust technique to get away, leaving on the ground a trail of blood and tears as well as his footprints, too much distracted to care about them.
After a long run towards nowhere Riolu leaned onto another tree, his fur became wet with tears and blood and because of that was feeling cold, so he cleaned his arm of the splinters and patched it up with a rag stored into one of his belt pouches.
"Never again..." he whispered to himself with a feeble voice, covered his face with both his paws "n't even recognized what I was aiming at! What I even thought of earning from... That..."
As he finished saying that, his arms fell limply from his face to his hips "Always been a crybaby, isn't that right?" he said to himself and dried his fur with a piece of cloth this time stored into an external pouch of the backpack, ready for use.
"The stuff..." He recalled and opened his backpack, checking its contents hastily.
"Alright, all here..." said with a half-relieved face, but still with the signs of that intense experience bending his expression.
But before he could look around, he heard some bushes moving, just tilting his head a little to the left was enough to spot the source of the noise, it was that mouse again, but he didn't look angry, his face was different, he looked more worried than else.
Riolu curtly said "Do as you like, I wish not to speak" and looked off to the ground on his right, abandoning the prospect of fighting and *breaking each single bone of his body like twigs*.
"Listen dramalord…" That Raichu started and slowly approached to the fight-type "...Humans ain't that bad, believe me… I'll prove my point by introducing you my mas- friend..."
At that correction Riolu's scepticism raised, leaving the mouse with a well deserved grunt from the pokemon he tried to convince "Oh, come on! Trust me!"
After shooting an extremely sharp glare at the orange electric-type, Riolu's thoughts shattered when he sensed the same feeling of before.
"'Are coming!" the fighter said and with a jump, hung on a branch of the tree he was leaning on.
"What?" the Raichu took a glance behind, thinking that the Riolu was talking about wild pokemons, as soon as he turned again towards the fight-type he already got all up on the higher branches of the tree "Wait! Where are you going?!" the mouse yelled and gestured him to come back.
"No time for you, I've got to go" Riolu quickly broke off the conversation and started jumping from branch to branch in the same direction as the source of the feeling, avoiding the three unidentified beings by travelling above them.
The mouse tried again to follow him, but was inevitably left behind because Riolu was much faster at jumping than running.
He juggled from tree to tree until he got again to the clearing of before and, after a small glance back, seeing that he successfully left his pursuers behind, Riolu headed towards the spot he had to meet with Zorua and Electivire with the stuff he gathered in his trip.
