Mirene: I'm gathering more readers for this fic, yay! I'm really happy! I've been getting a lot more reviews and alerts and favorites for this story, and it totally gets me psyched to write the next chapter which I'm sure everyone has been waiting for! (: Well, don't want to keep you waiting now, so I don't own Pokemon. It's a bit rushed so there might be a shitload of mistakes. Enjooooy!
Chapter 3
The thunder's percussion rumbled in Touko's ears.
N was too close at the moment, and the rage in his eyes were not in the least bit invisible as Reshiram steadily gained speed. It was now almost certain that he would catch up to them and capture the two in no time. The only way the two would be able to get out of this is if one became a decoy and the other escape.
'Touya, again, when I come back—you shall be minced into minccino meat.'
"Did you say something?" Cynthia asked as the two were still trying to get away despite the closing distance between the two sides.
"No," Touko lied, handing her a pokeball. "But take this. It's a trained abra and it'll get you to the base pronto."
Cynthia caught it as Touko flung it towards her. "And you?"
"Only one abra," she explained quickly. "Just tell Touya when I get back-"
"He'll be minced into minccino meat."
Touko paused, her mouth gaping. "How the hell did you-"
Cynthia laid a finger to her lips, silencing her as she handed a pokeball to Touko. "Take this. A pokemon for a pokemon in return. Trust me, it should do you much good if you ever have to face him sometime later. It's my favorite pokemon," she smiled.
"Cynthia," Touko started, "I can't take this-"
"Well, take it. If you want to return it, you'll have to get back to headquarters safely. Abra, go!" Cynthia shouted as she released the abra, instantly teleporting the blonde to the base in a flash of magenta glow without needing to be told for it knew a tasty treat would be waiting at the base for it. Touko grimaced as she realized that the spiritomb stayed with her, guiding her unfezant along as Reshiram summoned a whirlwind with its wide wings.
"Shit!" Touko cursed as the strength of the wind caused the spiritomb to falter, along with her unfezant. Slowly, they were being halted back by the whirlwind, entrapping them in the center of the wind storm. From behind was a very happy and haughty N, who had caught up during the ordeal. "Damn it."
"So good to finally meet you, Touko," he smiled. 'Again,' he silently thought.
'He knows my name... by looking at my face. Damn. Did I ever see him anywhere?' she wondered as N stared at her for a response. She racked through her brain looking for one.
"Fuck you," she spat, the wind directing the saliva back onto her face. Another colorful word left her lips as she wiped it off her cheek with her hand. "What the hell do you want with me? I'm not even anybody important," she lied smoothly. "I'm only an escort of Cynthia-sama. I don't know who this 'Touko' is."
"Is that so?" N mused. She was quite the actress. He would have almost believed her if it weren't for her being Touko—and he knew everything there was to know about her. It's not creepy or obsessive, it's appreciating and acknowledging a worthy human being. "Then it's fine if I take you?"
"Actually," Touko smirked. "Yes, it is. I don't really matter, you see. The rebel base has plenty of members—losing one lowly person isn't even going to leave a dent on their sides." She put her arms out in mock surrender. "So go ahead, take me."
Too easy. N raised his hand towards her, beckoning her to come forward. "Then-"
"Unfortunately," she cut him off with an innocent smile, "you can't." She instantly returned the unfezant into the pokeball, the spiritomb frantically trying to chase down the girl its master told the pokemon to protect as she went free-falling through the air. She clutched Cynthia's mystery pokemon in her hand. 'Please let my gut be right,' she thought as suddenly, a white wing caught her.
'Right on, gut,' she thought and immediately jumped off the wing again without hesitation, to N's surprise and to her successful plan that he would break her fall, and then she landed amongst the trees. The trees of a certain forest.
The forest right next to his kingdom.
"She's smart," he laughed. "And cunningly beautiful. She is indeed fit to be my queen," he told the deity pokemon.
It seems that she is completely against being with you. For Arceus' sake, she threw herself off my wing in less than half a second. That is not normal.
"The better reason to have her," he grinned even wider. "She is so close to being mine right now. She's practically mine already," he breathed. Not a second later, he immediately gave out orders through his com to the Plasma grunts to search the forest.
"So close," he whispered, opening his palm to catch a raindrop before clenching his fist and breaking the single dew in his hand, bringing the drop closer to his face before licking it.
"Touko..."
Touko sighed on top of a pokemon she didn't even know the name of while the spiritomb hid her presence from passing grunts in search of her. 'I thought my act was quite fooling,' she thought sadly, wondering how he knew her when the organization had done so well to keep her mostly hidden from him. She needed to improve on her acting skills, but she didn't know if she could stand another drama lesson with Bianca-sensei.
"Gar," the pokemon below her whispered. "Garchomp."
"Huh?" she muttered, snapping out of her thoughts.
"Garchomp-chomp. Garrr."
"Are you by any chance a... uhm... grahchump?"
"GAR," the pokemon bellowed irritably as quiet as it could, "CHOMP-UH."
"Garchomp?"
It nodded, almost as if in a sarcastic, bitchy manner.
"Geez, attitude much?" The garchomp huffed and threw her off its back for an answer. "Ow," she muttered as she sat up against a tree trunk, careful not to rustle any leaves or bushes too loudly. "Yes, attitude much," she concluded before shutting her mouth as grunts passed by.
"Where the hell is she? This forest is too damn big," a woman complained.
"I'm pretty sure the other grunts have passed by here before," another man concluded.
"You think she has any rare pokemon keeping her hidden?" the last one spoke timidly.
"I doubt it. I mean, N-sama didn't say anything about that. Like, whether she had pokemon like that or not. Just an unfezant, hydreigon, and... I can't really remember the rest, but they weren't anything special," the woman spat. "I don't really get what's so good about her anyways. She's ordinary-looking. Almost ugly compared to me."
"You're going to get beheaded if he ever hears you say that," the man snickered.
"Hm, nah, maybe he'll see some sense and just marry me," she cackled, and all three of them were laughing away. It was almost completely creepy, so Touko decided to sneak away before the laughter drove her insane. She would never understand grunts. Ever.
Ah, grunts. An idea lit up the lightbulb inside Touko's head.
"Okay garchomp," she whispered to it, who was still giving her attitude, while they continued crawling farther into the forest. "Here is the plan. You too, spiritomb..." she motioned for the spirit pokemon to come closer. It reluctantly obliged as Touko's face distorted into one with an insane thought.
The two pokemon gulped. This wasn't going to be good, was it.
They were up a tree—a very large, ugly, but leafy tree.
Thanks to spiritomb's psychic, of course. They were waiting to ambush some grunts, take a uniform for Touko to disguise herself, and get out of the forest back to the base scot-free. It was brilliant... to Touko. To the pokemon, well, they just wanted to get back to Cynthia. They were uncomfortable around a foreign trainer who didn't even know what kind of pokemon they were. It was quite insulting, actually.
Touko felt bored as the seemingly hours passed. (They were minutes, of course, or at least she tried to tell herself that.) Garchomp was back inside the pokeball, waiting for Touko to call it out. When it came out, it was to immediately take Touko on its back and use dragon rush to attack and then abandon ground afterwards with spiritomb. They had practiced the routine over and over again... verbally.
She sighed, palming the pokeball with Hydreigon in it. She wanted to talk to it, but it was pretty loud and could not stay still. That would cause quite the problem, so palming it would have to do.
"Why isn't anyone passing by!?" she almost shrieked, but forced herself to whisper as if someone would answer her. Of course, there was no answer.
Or so she thought.
"Who is it that you want to pass by?"
"Eh?" Touko instantly flew off the branch into the bushes. Spiritomb growled, trying to hide Touko and itself from wherever the voice came from. The bushes rustled a little and out popped a green-haired head.
'Well, fuck me,' she thought, giving the man a big, sheepish grin. It was N. (So, the minutes were actually hours after all.)
"Strange, I've never seen a pokemon like you before," he mumbled as his hand reached out as if to touch Touko, but instead touched the spiritomb. "Oh, so you're looking for your friends? I don't think... you're afraid of the humans passing by? They're harmless, really..." he continued to murmur and him and the spiritomb seemed to be holding a conversation. Touko was about to speak when the spiritomb nudged her slightly. She knew she should stay quiet.
But really... was N talking to the spiritomb? And understanding it?
Man, if he was on the rebel team, he'd be quite the asset. Unfortunately, the only asset he would ever be was an ass.
"Did you happen to see any other strangely-dressed human girl passing by as well?" Spiritomb shook its head to say no. N nodded and stood up, bowing goodbye to the pokemon before swiftly striding away. Touko peeped out of the bushes, staring at his back.
"He didn't recognize you from the chase?"
The spiritomb suddenly poofed into nothing and another spiritomb was beside her, bobbing up and down in accomplishment. "Oh, let me guess, you used substitute." Spiritomb rolled over in the air carelessly. "Okay... I'll take that as a yes." Honestly, this pokemon was pretty strong, but it was so... bubbly. Cynthia must have tamed it real good.
N continued to move on in the distance, probably around twenty feet away. Should she follow him or maybe stay here waiting for more grunts? After all, information might be uncovered. Important information. Important information that could be used in the long run against the bastard. And besides, there had been no sign of grunts for who knows how long.
"Spiritomb," she muttered. "Change of plans. We're following him."
Spiritomb nodded by blobbing up and down. It was a bit unsure, but the trainer seemed confident. She supplied enough confidence for the spiritomb as well.
"Alright, let's move out."
N was tired. Although he was able to meet a fiery, different pokemon he had never seen before; it had looked a little familiar, he couldn't explain it. It could have been the pokemon he saw before on the chase with Touko and the foreign champion, but he remembered exactly how it looked. The one he found was slightly different, but still different. It was also a little too friendly and bubbly to be the enemy's pokemon.
"Touko..." he murmured, unaware that he was being followed thanks to spiritomb's presence-masking. "Damn. Where are you?" he sighed as he slumped down and laid against a tree trunk. Touko noticed that he had a small backpack with him as he took the bag and placed it next to his side. Yawning, he stayed there, staring into the distance.
Touko swiftly floated through the air with psychic and nestled herself above N on a branch. If she could grab a hold of that bag, she might be able to find something out. Then Touya would have to beg at her feet for forgiveness some more. 'Too much time on her hands to grieve? How's this for spending that time, hmm?'
After some time, N seemed to be completely still. No pokemon went near him or could be noticed anywhere. The sun was going to rise soon.
Dawn approached.
Touko let out a quiet yawn as she noticed that the king was breathing at a slow, paced rate. Was he asleep? Now was her chance.
Careful to not be in his sight, she beckoned the spiritomb to lower her down as her hand reached for the bag. 'Just a little more,' she stretched her fingers as far as it could go, only inches from the handle of the pack. 'A little more...' her fingers could almost touch it. 'Just a little...'
Finally, she grabbed hold of the bag with her index finger, hooked. She glanced at the spiritomb, who was trying to pull her up. It seemed to be struggling after having used the move for such a long period of time. "You can do it, spiritomb," she whispered pleadingly. "Spiritomb, come on. You can do it. Come on."
The spiritomb groaned loudly before pulling Touko up at a slow pace, obviously exhausted. "Great! Good job, spir-" she began before tumbling down onto N. A firm hand was on her arm, being the culprit that had pulled her down. "Sp-spiritomb! C-cover me!" she whispered, but N smirked.
"Pokemon can't use two moves at once, you know. With that psychic move being used for hours, it's a wonder it didn't faint yet. How cruel to not even let it rest," he muttered, quickly grabbing cuffs from his bag and cuffing her to him in a flash. "And you thought it was covering you? I could see you the whole time."
"Tch!" she yelled, throwing a punch with her left hand. N's right hand caught it easily before catching her lips with his just as easily. She froze as he let go. "Did you just fucking kiss me?"
"Close," he smiled. "You're so close."
"What nonsense are you spouting, bastard!?" she yelled as he pinned her down to the ground. Despite her strength from training, he had pinned down both of her wrists, his knees keeping her thighs down in an unbearably painful way. "Ngh!" she gritted her teeth as his knees ground into her thigh marrow.
"Careful now..." he said, glancing over at the spiritomb, who had fainted instantly after taking a blow from his darmanitan that had sneaked up on the ghost pokemon and knocked it out easily. "You can't use your pokemon now."
Touko stared into his eyes. She was definitely screwed.
Cynthia appeared inside the base, her eyes wide open and pissed off. "Touya!" she yelled, and immediately the area cleared of its members, revealing Touya, Bianca, Cheren, and Juniper.
"It's nice to see you, Cynthia," Juniper smiled until she noticed the pouting, hungry abra next to her. "Excuse me, but why are you here with Touko's emergency abra?" Juniper asked, slightly worried.
"Is she still mad...?" Bianca whined. "That's not cool, man. She shouldn't have just given the abra away, what if she needed it for later?"
"I don't think that she just simply gave it away," Cheren said anxiously.
Touya shrugged. "It's fine, guys. All she had to was get Cynthia and then come back. She's obviously still mad since this was the easiest mission she had ever been assigned, and-"
SLAP!
Touya stared wide-eyed at Cynthia, who had just back-handed him roughly. A red mark was quickly spreading on his face. "Wh-wha?"
"That was for Touko," Cynthia said. "You're going to be minced into minccino meat."
"Touko only uses that phrase when she's pissed," Bianca squeaked.
"What do you mean?" Touya said, angered. "You didn't have to slap me!"
"I did have to slap you, because you gave her no back-up or anything. Do you know what's happening as we speak, trainer?" Cynthia said amazingly calm as she returned the abra and threw the pokeball back to Touya, who sloppily caught it. Cynthia eyed him along with the rest of the people in the room, who had just gathered after having heard the slap echo across the base.
"She's being chased by N on Reshiram. And if my gut feeling is correct, well, I suppose you all better go set up a rescue mission soon," she said, walking off into the hallway, leaving the members to go berserk with panic and fear.
Touya couldn't believe what he had just heard. Touko was...captured?
He slowly exhaled, turning to his fellow childhoods friends and professor, who were surprised that Touya assigned her a mission (he was the head mission assigner after all) without giving her any back-up or at least even informing them about it before she left. He frowned.
"I was too hot-headed... I didn't think about... Guys, I-" he tried to explain, but they were too disappointed to even look at him.
"Back-up is always necessary. Even if it's Touko herself..." Juniper sighed, leaving to go try and set up the rescue mission as quickly as possible.
"Yeah, she can't do much against a Reshiram! At the very least she would have had a decoy to escape had she had back-up..." Bianca cried, running off after the sullen professor.
Cheren glared at him through his spectacles. "Touya... I think you need to have a break, cool off, and then repent by taking some days off until Touko gets back. I think your feelings are getting in the way a little too much lately. I don't think even now, despite her being gone, is an exception to that."
Touya was silent as the room emptied, the silence slowly breaking him. Cheren was right.
What had he done?
Mirene: Na na na~ I have testing tomorrow. Boo studying. -3-
I appreciate every vote on my poll for this story (ON MY PROFILE!) and every review is read and taken into consideration! Thank you to all my reviewers of last chapter: Sweettjrose, Queen Rima, Serenading Blossom, Reviewer, Kiraya, Bulla Tulla, BelieverofManyThings, Fabia12, MonochromeSky16, Sapphiet, Shuugo, Guest, and xKanimex. You guys are just way too sweet! Love y'all.