Disclaimer: Yep, I STILL don't own Pokemon, or the universe created by the geniuses at Nintendo. All I own is the personalities of the characters and Violet—and Rory belongs to Alan G. Zendra.

I figured that I oughta thank you guys for all the views and the reviews—you guys really are the best, you know that? You guys keep me going on with this! D

Chapter VI: Considerations

--

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

"We're almost there."

The announcement was proudly stated by Violet as she, wearing a grin on her face almost the size as the brim of her hat, stared out before her. The trees that once crowded the forest and blocked out the light were starting to break apart, allowing the dirty path tracing through the grass to lead beyond the forest to the destination that Jax and Violet had risked life and limb to reach.

Pewter City. They hadn't seen it yet as it was kept elevated by platform by platform of squat steps, arranged like a miniature staircase beside the swaying patches of tall grass and bushes. But as they broke through the forest, privately celebrating their arrival, the light turned to silvery streams as the moon hung in the blackened sky, twinkling perforations speckling the air. Night time. And after the events that haphazardly occurred hours ago, neither of the travelers were in the mood for even more wandering when their feet still throbbed and their eyelids grew heavy.

Violet stumbled slightly, rubbing at her eyes. "Am I the only one who feels exhausted?" she asked sarcastically, plucking a small bit of crust from the corner of a green eye. "At all?"

Jax folded his arms, shivering from the cold atmosphere as an errant breeze slapped his body. "Not really," he admitted, "But I just think we should go to the Pokemon Center to spend the night…"

Violet raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. "Why do ya say that?" she asked, tilting her head.

Jax merely glared weakly in response, his eyes too tired to make a credible scowl. "Oh, lemme think," he said sardonically, even his trademark sarcasm being as low as his voice. He pointed to Violet's hat as he crossed his free arm over his belly. "We still have little miss Murderer in our company, remember?"

The girl defiantly set her hands on her hips. "Isn't she in the PokeBall?" she asked, then said snottily, "It's not like she can break out…"

For a moment, an almost drearily glaze spread over her eyes, and she bit her lip as her mind pondered the situation that she hadn't thought of. Keeping her teeth clamped on her lip, she muttered a, "Can she?" Her eyes moved from side to side suspiciously, her eyebrows furrowing.

Jax's palm pressed against his face as he managed to swallow a yawn before it exited his throat. "Listen, no matter how sealed she is," Jax started, removing his hand and pointing a finger towards Violet, who was now holding the Pikachu's PokeBall in her hand and glaring at it, like she was about to start to interrogate it. "She still tried to kill us."

Violet's eyes moved up to Jax, and she blinked curiously before her gaze returned to the PokeBall. "You're right," she conceded with a sigh, much to Jax's surprise, "But hey…" Suddenly, the enervated look on her face dissolved under another confident grin, and she slipped off her backpack and unzippered it as she set it on the ground, just enough for the Kakuna's' head to pop out. "Zeeg, what do YOU think?" Violet asked.

At that moment, Jax felt like finding something large to bludgeon Violet with as she expectantly waited for the Kakuna's response.

"Violet, for the love of God, he can't talk," Jax said, every word in his sentence laced with annoyance.

And true to Jax's word, Zeeg said absolutely nothing as Violet continued to stare relentlessly at him, up until her expression brightened as she completely ignored Jax. "What was that?" she asked, lifting the Kakuna to her ear like a conch shell.

Instead of hearing the ocean inside of it, apparently, Violet heard something as her expression widened. "Yes?" she repeated, almost incredulously, but her short-lived unconvinced attitude faded a few seconds after she held the Kakuna out in front of her. "He-" she began, her voice nothing short of resplendent, "Said YES."

All Jax could do was stare in disbelief at Violet, trying to keep his jaw from dropping.

--

Five minutes later, they managed to organize a camp out of some of the blankets that Violet had bundled up in her backpack's bottom, and start a fire on a pile of sticks Violet clustered together with Jax's tail flame. Taking her seat on a rock, Violet set her backpack on her lap and happily petted it as Jax sat nearby, looking utterly sordid and somewhat cheated from Violet relying on a mute Kakuna.

But those dirty glances hardly lasted a minute before his eyes shifted to the PokeBall resting near Violet's thigh on a small ledge on a neighboring rock. Narrowing his eyes, he managed to keep himself from growling at the suspicious PokeBall. I don't care what Violet says, I'm going to stay awake until I'm absolutely positive that that Pikachu won't break out, he determined, struggling to keep his eyes awake and focused on the PokeBall.

Suddenly, Violet stretched her arms languidly over her head, mouth opening wide in a yawn. As Jax's eyes snapped to her, Violet zippered the backpack shut and set it aside, walking to the blanket she was going to rest on with the Pikachu's PokeBall in hand. "Jeez Jax, it's late," she said, her voice heavy, "Aren't you going to bed?"

Jax's sea green pupils managed one last glance at the PokeBall in Violet's hand before he said firmly, "I'll go to sleep eventually," he said, secretly hoping that he wouldn't end up falling asleep. When he was absolutely sure that the Pikachu wouldn't break out, THEN he would rest. "Just rest, alright?"

Violet rolled her eyes and held up her hat, tucking the PokeBall in its respective pouch besides Jax's and Zeeg's. "Suit yourself," she said, trudging toward her blanket with her hat in one hand and the backpack in the other. "See ya tomorrow," she set the hat near her blanket, while she kicked off her sandals and laid down on her makeshift bed, clutching the backpack as she scooted aside just enough for Jax.

Jax sighed and let his vision droop down to his legs, hanging beneath him. "See you then," he echoed, his voice low and drowsy. As he watched Violet shift to and fro until she reached a more comfortable position, he felt his resolve start to fall along with his eyelids, especially when she fell asleep.

And she's a loud snorer, Jax thought as he rolled his eyes back into focus, blinking back the fog blurring the world around him the best he could.

--

Several Hours Later…

At long last, Jax was starting to reach the end of his rope when the first hour had passed. Lasting through the second was utter torture when Violet's snoring failed to keep him up. But finally, during the third, he had fallen off of his rock perch and lay sprawled out on the ground, chest moving up and down rhythmically with barely any noise coming from his mouth.

He remained asleep, until he heard the sound of fabric shuffling. Eyes snapping open, he sat up and glanced around, until he noticed the vibrations rattling the pouch of the Pikachu's PokeBall. This time, Jax was unable to keep his jaw from dropping as it snapped open on its own accord, light arcing through the air and slowly forming the body of the Pikachu, the red color draining as the painted Pokemon blinked and looked around her surroundings, looking neither sadistic nor dangerous, her expression unreadable.

Jax narrowed his eyes as he carefully watched her from afar, remaining as still as possible under the pretense of still being asleep. So long as she was unaware of his movements as he scrutinized her, if she tried anything funny he could easily pounce her and take her down. He'd fought her before, and he was almost completely confident that he could find her weakness this time.

That was, if there was a 'this time'. Her expression no longer looked unreadable as she looked down at herself, but shocked instead. Jax raised an eyebrow at this—here he was expecting for her to immediately assault the nearest person who was nearby. What startled him the most was when, after brushing her fingers over her berry-markings (which had been smeared after the fight with Jax, he remembered) and returning the fingers with a stare at the purple coating the brick-colored, subtle hue that covered her body, was the absolutely shocked way she experimented with her body.

"Oh my God," she said aloud, then whirled around to determine her surroundings. The moment she saw Violet she nearly cursed again as she turned back around, clasping her hands over her mouth. The Pikachu turned her head around once again peeking at Violet, an incredulous look on her face as she stared at the loudly snoring girl.

Jax's other eyebrow escalated to the top of his head as well. What the hell is she doing? He thought, carefully opening one eye by an inch. Even then, she hadn't made a single violent movement, and only looked as shocked as she was before. Once more, she turned around and looked at Violet without even noticing Jax, her shoulders sagging and ears drooping, depressed.

"Jesus Christ, girl," the Pikachu muttered quietly, her ears falling yet another inch, to the point they were fully pressed to her surprisingly muscular shoulder blades. "Jesus Christ..."

Without any change in her expression she held up her PokeBall and pressed the button, the spherical contraption opening with a snap as the two halves popped apart, disappearing in the beam of red light that pulled her back into the ball.

And all Jax could do was stare at the PokeBall as it rolled a few centimeters through the grass.

What… the HELL… was THAT? Was the only thing that he could possibly think at the moment.

--Morning—

Green and blue eyes fluttered open with a yawn, her head tilting to the side to evade the sunbeams glowing down from every direction onto her face. "Just five more minutes," Violet groaned, rolling onto her stomach and pressing her head against the buffed, rolled-up side of the blanket she used as a pillow, her slight snores muffled by the comforter.

"No, you're gonna wake up NOW," a feminine voice spoke in the smothering darkness of her closed eyes.

The girl instantly shot up to her knees, glancing to and fro startlingly, her eyes wide. "What was that? Who's talking?" question after question was fired out until Violet's energy faded, and her shoulders lowered as she whispered out, "…Are you a ghost? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LEAVE ME ALO—"

"Oh SHUT UP," the voice hissed, and Violet's eyes opened once again, wearily looking at the short, multi-colored figure before her as the exhaustion-induced blur dissolved from her eyes.

Violet slowly turned her head down from the perked, scarred ears and the rainbow-streaked, spiky strands of headfur until her eyes finally met the single, hazel eye that wasn't concealed by her greasy hair. "AAH!" Violet gasped, leaping back (and unceremoniously landing on her rear, forcing her to kick herself back with frantic movements of her legs), holding her arms defensively in a cross over her face. "DON'T KILL ME! I HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR! LIKE I HAVEN'T STARTED MY LIFELONG DREAM AS A PROFESSIONAL WAILORD RIDER, OR TO CONQUER THE KANTO AND RULE IT AS AN IRON-FISTED, MERCILESS RULER, OR--"

The Pikachu sighed and slapped her palm against Violet's mouth, muffling the rest of her pleading. "I'm NOT gonna kill you," she affirmed, shaking her head so fast that her ears flopped and her bangs swung from side to side of her face.

"You're not?" Violet repeated, shocked, until her eyes narrowed venomously at the Pikachu, lifting a finger to jab right at her chest. "Oh no. You can't fool me with that. DESPITE POPULAR BELIEF, I'm SMARTER THAN I ACTUALLY—" she stopped mid-sentence as she realized that she unintentionally insulted herself. "…Wait…"

Acting before she could continue her tirade, the Pikachu blurted out, her eyes wide beneath her bangs. Instead of what Violet expected as murderous intent, there was an almost serious, beseeching look in her overshadowed eyes, as she stared up in Violet's heterochromatic pupils. She clamped her mouth shut and coughed into her hand, carefully listening.

"I just want to talk. That's all," the Pikachu explained. "I'm not lookin' for trouble."

Violet sighed and seated herself on another, moss-covered rock. "You'd better not be," she said almost threateningly, then, after a second of seething, continued, "What do you want?"

The Pikachu's ears wilted altogether as she claimed her own place on a severed tree trunk, folding her legs. She no longer looked stoic, but rather almost sheepish or embarrassed, finding it hard to meet Violet's gaze for all but a few minutes before she forced her head to look up and her ears leveled to a medium angle, her multi-colored bangs scattering in front of her eyes.

"I wanted t'ask ya if you were the person who healed me," she was able to articulate, trying her best to decipher the surprised expression that flashed Violet's face.

"The one and only," Violet said, thumping her fist proudly against her chest before her face lapsed back into a glowering stare, most likely after remembering the events from yesterday. "Even though you beat the crap out of my Charmander."

At the memory of Jax's battered body, Violet winced and nearly withdrew, questioning her wisdom in keeping the Pikachu along after what she did. But some part of her, buried beneath the resentment, still retained its strength through its suffocation. It was honestly interested in bringing the Pikachu along with her, and no matter how hard she tried to ignore it and crush it into just fragments, it drilled its way out and shouted at her.

It was probably the only thing that kept Violet from just forgetting what she told Jax yesterday about a strong Pokemon altogether and telling the Pikachu to leave. Instead, she just focused on the guilty look on the Pikachu's face, which seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the emotional quagmire she was trapped in.

"Yeah, about that," she said numbly, "I…" Again, she couldn't bring herself to look at Violet, who could only raise an eyebrow at her nervousness until she finally sighed and said, "I'm sorry."

There was a five-minute moment of silence wherein Violet had almost fallen off of her unofficial rock throne.

It was broken by Violet raising her eyebrows and repeating in a stunned, aporetic tone, "…You're SORRY?" She tilted her head. "Oh… well… jeez," she rubbed behind her neck, mauling her already abused lip, "…Why're you telling me this, exactly?"

That was, if she had any ulterior motives. The Pikachu's ears laid back again, and she explained with as much fervor as she could manage. "I want to make this up for you," she said to an alarmed Violet, "Ya saved me even though I tried to kill ya both…"

Much to Violet's shock, the Pikachu's eyes were watering and brimming with tears, something that Violet was never comfortable with around just about everybody, and wasn't prepared to handle with now as the Pikachu started openly bawling. Clenching her teeth and holding up her hands, she thought it was because she had somehow reached a tangent that was painful for the Pikachu, until she learned that it was because, much to her shock, was completely touched.

Wiping away some tears from her now completely smeared and drizzling purple and orange markings with the back of her hand, she sniffled, "Nobody's EVER done that for me! Especially not a HUMAN!"

Violet stopped dead in the middle of trying to scoot herself off of her rock to just listen, and absorb the best she could. Her words smacking her face like a verbal bullet, she blinked and stared at her blankly. Still completely startled, Violet uttered a low, 'uhhh' as she searched for the right thing to say to the humbled Pikachu. She finally settled on, "You're welcome?" Which sounded more hesitant than sincere.

The Pikachu, however, took it for a realistic response and continued sniffing, ignoring the wet stains of different colors on the back of her hand's tousled fur. "Nononono," she rambled, waving her paws, "It's not welcome. No. Not until I can set things straight here!" The Pikachu's determined tone somehow managed to pluck Violet out of her state of petrified confusion into one of even more, livid confusion, the girl staring confusedly at her.

The Pikachu quickly clarified, "I ain't goin' anywhere until I return the favor, chief," she said, leaping up onto the rock and poking at Violet's freckled cheek, the girl squirming slightly. "I ain't goin' NOWHERE until I pay ya back."

With that and a nod, as though approving to herself of her resolution, she gave a wide, full-toothed grin of yellow-rooted ivory. "Come on, please bring me along?" she asked with a whimper, "I'm realllll good at fighting, y'see, so I can be, like…" she snapped her fingers as she searched for a suitable title, but when one floated into her head her entire expression brightened even more enthusiastically. "I can be like your bodyguard!"

She leapt off of the rock and landed on her feet, giving a flashy spin just to dramatize it. As she whirled around, she stopped to a skidding halt with just the slam of her foot's toes against the ground, still facing Violet. The Pikachu clasped her hands in front of her pleadingly, eyes widening and sparkling with almost babyish cuteness as she repeated, "Pleaaaaaaase?"

Violet mutely stared at the Pikachu from her rock, looking twice as disturbed from before at that moment. A more megalomaniacal side of herself was pleased of the idea of her own bodyguard and an excellent addition to her burgeoning team, but the other part of her still slightly distrusting of the Pikachu remained adamantly opposed to her introduction into the group. This same megalomaniacal side also encouraged her erupting into an evil laugh at any given moment, which actually did sound appealing. Decisions, decisions, and as the Pikachu's eyes widened by another faction, she hurried her thinking until the answer came swinging around and thwacking her right in the face.

--Five Minutes Later—

"You did WHAT?"

The sound of Jax's voice resonated around the field, startling birds from their nests and making Violet, who had taken the brunt of it all, shake for a good ten minutes before she started rubbing around the insides of her ears with her pinky.

"I told ya, I decided to keep the Pikachu as part of the team!" she exclaimed, gesturing to the rodent in question, who happily grinned and flashed the peace sign with two, stubby yellow fingers at Violet's side.

Jax hadn't witnessed anything during the previous meeting between Violet and the Pikachu, having fallen into a deep sleep near the blankets after he had dozed off, his sleeping period becoming elongated from how late he had forced himself to stay awake. Even then the signs of fatigue had reared their ugly head on him, but Violet wasn't sure if the crankiness was just part of his personality, or from getting an unsubstantial amount of sleep. Needless to say, after he woke up to see the Pikachu he loathed and the Trainer he loathed even more starting to forge a partnership, he was in need of an explanation.

And he was not happy with Violet's decision in the slightest bit.

"How could you DO THAT?" Jax shouted toward Violet, snarling through his teeth, "After all the crap she's done to us, even!"

Violet bit her lip and tried to come up with something right on the spot that would pull her out of Jax's line of fire, but, instead, had to rely on pretending he was in his underwear in order to keep herself from being intimidated. Just, too bad that tactic made her burst into a fit of uncontrollable snickers. And too bad Jax didn't wear any underwear. In the end, she decided to just say the truth. "Jax, she KNOWS what she did was wrong and she wants to make it up to us. I know you're pissed at her, but this could really work out!" she tried.

Jax almost made his voice leap several octaves out of indignation. "HOW could this work out, exactly?" he demanded with the slightest twinge of sarcasm in his voice, "WHAT is she going to do that would make me oh so magically forget the fact she almost KILLED US?"

The Pikachu raised her paw almost like a schoolchild would in the middle of a class before being called on, then, as the attention was shifted to her, she said pleasantly, "I can outrun most larger Pokemon so I can go to other towns really quickly, not to mention…" she gave a devious smile, "I'm really darn good at stealin' ice cream from vendors."

Both Jax and Violet exchanged stares—the former looking no less angry than he was before, albeit with confusion, and the later looking as interested as someone could be from her proposition. "So there ya have it," Violet said, patting the smugly smiling Pikachu on the shoulder (and nearly getting a splotch of green berry juice on her hand for her troubles) and letting a grin of her own pass over her face, "In the name of ice cream, she's coming with us."

And with a cry of "onward!" Violet marched down the path to Pewter, the backpack's many trinkets jingling at the slightest gyration of her bones, leaving behind a befuddled Jax, and a Pikachu whose face had masked itself into that of stone.

Jax sighed in defeat, grasping his head in a vague attempt to shake the headache that had just formed in his head like a cancerous, roiling stormcloud, and could only mutter, "Sooner or later Violet, I'm going to end up squishing your face with a pillow in your sleep," he mumbled quietly, then shook his head and started to go after her before he was interrupted with a grimy paw resting on his shoulder and pulling him firmly back.

Jax let out a yelp as he was yanked around, his body maneuvered until he was standing in front of the Pikachu, both their faces meeting. One was set in a snarl, the other was fixated into a stoic mask, and the electricity that crackled between their eyes, linking them among the tension, was a testament to what they thought and knew about each other, and how much they were holding back.

It was Jax who broke the glare contest between the two with another shake of his head, and sighed, "Don't tell me this some kinda charade to blow both me and Violet sky high…" he muttered, sounding more affronted than worried.

The Pikachu shook her head, brushing some of her bangs out of her face so she could get a good look at Jax, and so he could fully see the melancholy look on her painted, smeared face. No matter what she did to try and push her large, spiky bangs away, they just seemed to droop in an oddly aerodynamic moptop, like they were illustrating her mood. Either way, they irritated the Pikachu more than helped accentuate her.

Giving one last bat to a strand of purple-highlighted hair before it bobbed back into place, she returned to looking back at Jax, who was watching her spectacle with a vaguely amused look on his scaly maw.

The Pikachu started, "Hell no," she said to Jax's theory, putting her hands on her hips with an almost punctuating bump that made her tail quiver like a stiff lightning rod, "If I wanted that I woulda done it a long time ago."

Jax narrowed his eyes as the mental image of the Pikachu electric-shocking both him and Violet until they were just charred, flaking messes, rotting away in some pocket in the forest to never be disturbed by wandering adventurers, and only to be picked away at by hordes of meandering carnivores…

Jax nearly smacked himself on the forehead to both scold him for thinking such an atrocity, and to knock it out of his head and into the abyss where it belonged. Apparently the Pikachu somehow had known what he was thinking, or at least knew by some intuition that he wasn't thinking something pleasant. Frowning, she lightly tapped her knuckles against Jax's chest, bolting him out of his reverie.

"No," she said curtly, and then her face took on an expression completely similar to the one she had used for Violet as she felt her heart sink and wallow in shame. "Besides, I want you to forgive me too, especially when you've had the worst from me."

In response, Jax was left completely silent, but still analyzed the Pokemon behind his startled expression. She didn't seem to be very deceitful, but he hadn't known her for a while—Hell, the longest he had known her was when she was trying to zap away at him as she terrorized Violet and Jax through their trip in Viridian Forest. Maybe there was a possibility that there was more to that?

Time would tell. But Jax had one thing in mind in the future: if she were to revert back to the insanity-driven Pokemon that he had confronted and nearly died to, he would have no qualms in drenching her with fire again.

Either way, Jax was going to keep an eye out on her, and slowly began to wish that things would turn out for the better.

When the Pikachu spotted the change in his anger to thoughtfulness, she patted him on the shoulder as she strode past him, tail swishing stiffly in the air with every loping step. Jax watched her as she departed, ever more apprehensive of her, almost expecting for her to blast a tree down with a well-aimed Thunder Shock or start running about on a rampage. His mind kept coming up with mental image after mental image, flicking through his head like a morbid slideshow, until he was again interrupted by the Pikachu.

"Hey!"

Jax glanced up, somewhat rattled after his tread through the possibilities that her presence presented. Unknown to him, his face had gone pale, and as the Pikachu bounded down the steps, she zipped over to him in a yellow blur, her face up against his. "Whazza matter?" she inquired, smirking evilly, "Feelin' scared already?"

At this remark Jax hastily jolted himself out of the claws of his idle thinking and snarled. "Hardly, Pikachu. Don't you have certain blue-haired girls to bother?" he responded harshly.

The Pikachu only laughed, her arms folded in front of her furry chest. "Oh, gotta love ya," she said sarcastically with a roll of her hazel eyes, "And that sense o' humor of yours, too."

To Jax's great relief she simply turned away as the apprehensiveness once more crackled between them like razor-sharp strands of static. Sighing and drawing his hand down his face, he muttered a choice curse word under his breath and started his trek forward, remaining behind the speedy Pikachu at all costs. He relished all of two minutes spent without her annoying him, when suddenly, she hurtled around on her heels and dashed right in front of him, stopping barely a few centimeters from Jax, who had stopped himself instinctually at her approach.

"By the way," she hummed in a sing-song, "My name is Rikki. Figured you oughta know this, 'cos I'm tired of being referred to as a freakin' dog."

She turned her back on him for the last time, and, twisting her upper body around, she casually waved to Jax, and with a hearty "Toodles", she sprinted back up the platforms, purposefully showing off with more spectacular flips and well-timed bursts of speed, as she left Jax behind in the dust.

Oh yes, Jax thought as he could only stare at the retreating form in retaliation, leaves and blades of grass drifting to the ground among the clouds of dust still floating away in the air around him, I can't stand her.

Chapter VI Completed…

Author's Note: Sorry if this chapter ended up being boring, but I decided to put something with character development in this. I don't think I would have had enough time for Rikki to forge a partnership with Jax and Violet before they arrive in Pewter.

By the way, one of my current art projects lately has been working on profile pictures for each of the characters, which will be included with special information about the characters, and have full-colored images for you to look at as well. They'll be hosted at my Deviant Art account, where I currently have the black and white version of Violet's picture up, but I warn you, it probably will be a while before I complete them.

Trivia: Rikki's face paint is actually kind of a tribute to Tira, who has purple warpaint stripes on her body. The difference is though, that Rikki scribbles all manner of unusual markings and colors, not just purple stripes. Also, Rikki uses berries to make the paint she uses for her markings.