Chapter 7: At the End of the Day
Kukui raced back to where he had last seen Litten, his hair drenched and sandals muddy. He found the spot were Litten had walked off, and started following a trail in his memory, visualizing Litten marching away, visualizing the steps it had taken and walking in turn. But fairly quickly Kukui realized that Litten had left too long ago, and tracing it would be impossible. He started frantically searching the area, under bushes and up trees. He tried looking in caves, under rocks, scouring the area for a telltale red and black striped tail, the hint of an ear, or even a thick red whisker, but Litten was gone.
Half an hour of hopeless searching later, Kukui had already given up, but his body kept looking under every leaf, behind every rock, as if it were not ready to give up yet, even though his mind knew that Litten was probably gone forever. He wandered over to some tall grass where he saw some commotion, where he saw a group of about six Yungoos attacking the limp body of an unrecognizable muddy Pokémon. Deep down, Kukui knew it was Litten, it had to be. He rushed forward without a second thought, and reached down to pick up the Pokémon on the ground, but immediately the Yungoos turned on him, biting his heel, ripping the leg of his shorts, and scratching his arms.
"Oh yeah?" Kukui grunted, "That's not gonna stop me." As they ganged up on him, almost bringing his muscular body to the floor, something awakened deep inside him, and he raised his voice to a barbaric shout,
"Get outta here!" He screamed, and the hostile group of Pokémon scattered.
"Litten!" He slipped his hand towards the muddy lump, unmoving in the heavy rain, and found the telling tail, just like Litten's and traced it up to Litten's body, which was, to his surprise, underneath the body of another Pokémon, just as muddy and hurt, but much heavier.
Kukui hoisted the two Pokémon into his arms, and quickly found a shallow cave to wait out the rain in, and he ran inside.
Kukui rested the two Pokémon down on the floor of the cave, wiping back his drenched hair with a muddy hand. He looked back towards shivering Litten and the lifeless lump Pokémon; they needed to warm up and heal up. He thought about returning Litten to his pokeball, but his stubborn pride kept him from doing so; he wanted to win back Litten without needing the pokeball.
Instead, he found a large branch, dry from staying inside the cave and the size of a small trunk, gathered up some get twigs from the ground around it to make a fire; except for the three of them, nothing in the cave was wet. He had finished gathering enough twigs when he remembered that without Litten, he couldn't make a fire.
"C'mon Litten, just one ember attack to start the fire. I'll keep it alive, and you'll feel so much better."
No response from his first Pokémon.
"Please Litten, you gotta..." Kukui trailed off, realizing that Litten was so hurt, it couldn't even save itself. With a grimace, Kukui opened up poor Litten's mouth, and delicately jammed on of the larger twigs down its throat, causing Litten to cough and gag from the pain, embers sputtering from it's mouth, and catching his twigs on fire, just as Kukui had hoped they would.
"You'll thank me later Litten." He grunted, and got some larger sticks, and bolstered the fire with them, slowly building it up to a respectful campfire, just as Hala had taught him. When the fire was stable, he picked up Litten and started running his fingers through the cat Pokémon's matted fur, practically peeling off the heavy coat of mud. Absentmindedly grooming Litten, Kukui sat down against the stone wall of the cave, the uneven rocks cutting into his bare back. As he continued to groom Litten, now working on large clumps still lodged it's fur, Kukui wondered if his friends had experienced such an eventful first days as pokemon trainers. No, he thought to himself, Molayne was probably having a nice and quiet dinner at home, and Bruno was slowly training against weaker pokemon, taking great care to never lose another match. Kukui smiled a bit, resting his still dirty, but not mud drenched cat pokemon on the ground to his left, and picking up the lumpy pokemon he had found with Litten.
"What were you doing, little guy?" He asked the fainted pokemon, starting the process of getting of the thick overcoat of mud surrounding it.
Kukui rubbed his back, sore from the uneven rock wall, and crossed his legs. His adrenaline was dying down, and he was unbelievably tired, his eyes drooping as he transitioned from ripping off the coating of mud to picking off the lingering clumps from the Pokémon's fur. Kukui smiled weakly, listening to the endless rain outside, and drifted off to sleep.
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Bruno waited outside the Pokémon Center emergency room, sitting on a wooden bench, looking in through the glass at Machop getting treated by Chansey. Nurse Joy walked out of the room, a stern look on her face, and opened opened her mouth to say something to Bruno, but before she could, Bruno put up a hand and spoke first.
"I know, it's fine."
"No it isn't fine!" She shouted, "That poor Machop barely hatched, the wounds it has look like they were made by Crabrawler almost twice its level! What were you doing?"
"I was training it against Crabrawler almost twice its level." He responded evenly.
"How could you do that! You're a trainer, you can't just send your Pokémon out to a situation they can't win in! That's irresponsible and cruel!" Nurse Joy looked at Bruno, afraid she may have gone too far, but he simply shook his head.
"I didn't, and I won't." He responded, looking back down at the floor, almost creating a wall of silence, cutting off any further conversation.
With a huff, Nurse Joy went back inside the Emergency Room, and started helping Chansey with healing Machop's back, which was hurt badly. Almost involuntarily, she looked back at Bruno, the fifteen year old giant. He was staring intensely at Machop, and while she couldn't quite make our concern in his face she saw it in his eyes. She sighed, Machop would be okay by morning, but it had a hard lifestyle ahead of it if Bruno kept pushing it like this. She applied the last of the healing potion Machop needed, then quietly motioned to Chansey that it was time for them to go to sleep. As they walked out, she called back to Bruno,
"You're welcome to stay the night in the Pokémon Center, Machop will be much better in the morning."
Bruno grunted something unintelligible in response.
Nurse Joy continued to her bedroom, Chansey yawning loudly to break the silence.
"We're both exhausted, aren't we? Only four days in from the flight from the Sevii Islands and we've been working round the clock!"
She and Chansey were originally from the Sevii Islands, but she dreamed of adventure and excitement even since she was no more than five. So instead of becoming a traditional Nurse like her mother, she became a traveling Nurse, going to different Pokémon Centers to fill in for other Nurses that needed to take a much deserved vacation. From the moment she arrived she loved the Alola region, she loved the air, the Vibrant and happy people living there, and the obliviousness to the terrible war in Kanto and the Sevii Islands. She took bedclothes out of her suitcase and changed into them, looking through the mirror to see her Chansey jump into its bean bag bed, falling asleep instantly, and Joy chuckled, curling up under the covers and kept on thinking about her time in Alola, and Bruno with his Machop. Although they had never met before, she knew who he was, because they day after she arrived, a kind, middle aged man with black hair like Bruno's named Hala had come to welcome her, and had brought her a plate of a fun baked goods called malasadas, and helped her feel really at home in the new region. While they were talking, Hala had shown her a photo of his family, and told her about Bruno and his younger brother, Brawly, and called them the north and south poles, Brawly being as much of a happy kid as his father was, and as for Bruno, Hala had joked, "If I didn't have the most wonderful wife in the world, I would've suspected that he wasn't my kid." She could see now what he meant, Bruno's unsmiling face a sore thumb among the happy Alolans all over the island. She glanced back at her trusty Chansey, sleeping soundly and snoring softly.
"I should do do the same," she thought, closed her eyes, and was about to fall asleep when a huge crashing sound jolted her awake.
"Chan!" Chansey shouted, jumping into the air, startled and awoken by the sudden noise.
Joy put on her slippers, and rushed to the surveillance room, where she saw that the large noise she had heard was from room 2B, where Machop was healing, and the bed was empty. Joy and Chansey rushed down to the emergency room to see what had happened, and found that the bench Bruno was on was vacant, and the window in the emergency room leading outside was shattered, presumably the cause for the crash, and it became abundantly clear that Machop and Bruno had climbed through it and left.
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01L1E was sleeping when she heard the siren of assembly. 01L1E quickly rose off the cot she was resting on, and floated towards the door, grabbing her carrying tube and slipped it over her shoulder as she left. She sighed, the siren had interrupted a dream of her finding a way to the Pokémon world, where she made new friends with the humans. On her way, she got her head cut off for a couple of seconds by 04AR0N, a childhood friend of hers and huge jokester.
"Cut that out, 04AR0N!" She shouted, and then covered her mouth, knowing protesting would be useless as 04AR0N proceeded to take advantage of the unintended pun and slash her head off again, bouncing it in the air before allowing her to reattach it.
"Cmon 01L1E, if you don't stop playing around, we're gonna be late for the assembly." 04AR0N joked, starting to dance away.
01L1E started following him, and then realized her carrying tube was on the ground, the shoulder strap slashed in half by 04AR0N's antics. She picked up the tubular bag with smooth tentacled arms, and sped up to 04AR0N.
"What's in the bag anyway?" He asked, "You go everywhere with it."
"Oh nothing," replied 01L1E nonchalantly, "just some books."
"Let me see," smirked 04AR0N, snatching the metal tube from her hands and slipping a thin arm inside as they continued to float towards the assembly.
"Well well," grinned 04AR0N, "An Introduction to the World of Humans, by Oracle 04K. And also, The Betrayers: the Evil of Solgaleo, Lunala, and the Pokémon of the Human World, by 05W41D." 04AR0N shot a playful glance at 01L1E.
"Someone has a new interest, if I'm not mistaken." He retorted, "Care to explain why?"
01L1E's face reddened, a desire to go to the human world was considered pathetic and queer, and while not forbidden, some had lost friends and jobs, or even disappeared mysteriously, simply by discussing the human world openly without disgust.
"Well," she started, noticing they were very close to the assembly court, "It really a long story that starts way back when-" She cut off, feigning surprise, "Oh look, we arrived, let's sit down."
04AR0N mumbled something unintelligible and sat down with 01L1E in the assembly court, which was a sort of amphitheater or colosseum, watching the royalty enter the middle, and the room erupted with cheering.
The emperor spoke up, and a wave of silence washed over the crowd. "Some of you have made a noble sacrifice today, allowing yourselves into limited servitude to our enemies in exchange for a chance at freeing us all," the crowd tensed up, nobody ever really volunteered, and those who were about to be sent into slavery did not know it until the emperor called their names from the middle of the assembly court.
"02A4N, 02AP, 02AN3, 04A1B15, 04ANN13, 04B52, 04B5, and 04BR4, we applaud your selflessness."
The crowd sighed a breath of relief, barring the few named. 01L1E didn't know any of the chosen names, but she straightened up anyway to hear the remainder of the emperor's speech. "The 128th freedom mission is now under way, I shall explain the details tomorrow, but let me tell you one thing: At long last, it shall mean freedom for all of us Ultra Beasts!"
The crowd erupted in cheer, chanting,
"Long live Emperor Guzzlord!"
"Long live Emperor Guzzlord!"
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