Chapter 6: Disobedience
"Floon!"
"Quiet, you are my Pokemon now, whether you like it or not, Eye," Ceres hissed, dragging her newly obtained Drifloon behind her as she walked.
"Floon!" Eye screeched again.
Ceres ignored his cries and rather feeble struggling, as well as the occasional attacks he sent her way. They were all weak gusts of wind and attempts to startle her. Neither seemed to faze her however.
Her other Pokemon watched the scene from a distance, with expressions ranging from pity to amusement on their faces.
"Plup…" Shelly muttered, trailing slowly behind her trainer. Certainly there were better ways to introduce a new team member.
Tabitha chirped something jokingly from above her, something about worrying too much, or being too soft-hearted.
Shelly didn't think there was anything wrong with caring a bit for your teammates.
"Zuu," hummed Marrow. It was difficult to tell if she was paying any attention to the situation at hand.
Soot remained silent, falling a bit behind the others, but still staying close enough to them as to not get lost entirely.
"Here we are," Ceres announced, without any true enthusiasm, "Eterna Forest, where time stands still." She smiled slightly, and Eye twitched uneasily, staring into the murky forest at the strange, still fog that would likely never fade.
Marrow caught up to them about then, followed closely by Tabitha and Shelly, and finally, Soot.
"Marrow, Shelly, Tabitha, Soot, Return," Ceres droned, and three of the Pokemon returned to their pokeballs almost instantly.
Ceres gave her a single, disinterested glance. Plucking the Prinplup's pokeball out of the drawstring bag that carried them, Ceres turned to the Prinplup, and held it out to her.
"Return," she repeated.
A red beam shot out of the pokeball, but narrowly missed Shelly as the Prinplup jumped out of the way.
"Prin, plup?" she asked.
If Ceres understood, she gave no indication that she was eager, or even willing, to answer the Pokemon's question. She remained utterly silent for a moment, and then attempted to return the Prinplup again.
Shelly dodged the pokeball's beam once more, and repeated her question: "Prin, plup?"
Ceres stared nonchalantly at the Pokemon, then dropped her pokeball and began to walk into Eterna Forest, a very confused Drifloon being dragged along behind her.
For a moment, Shelly stood her ground. Her trainer wouldn't actually just leave her there.
When Ceres began to fade into the fog, the Prinplup panicked, clumsily scooped up the pokeball with her wings, and ran into the forest in pursuit of her trainer.
Everywhere she looked there was endless, murky fog. Ceres was nowhere in sight.
"Plup!" she screeched, dropping the pokeball that she was carrying "Prinplup!"
Her own cries echoed back to her.
"Prinplup!" she shouted, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She scooped up the pokeball she had dropped, and ran off in a random direction, screeching at the top of her lungs in hope that someone would hear her.
After a long while, she was too tired to run, and her throat hurt from shouting. She collapsed in the cold, dewy grass, the pokeball the held falling out of her grasp once more, and rolling a ways away.
"Plup…" she wheezed.
For the longest time, it was silent. Her eyes, already half closed from exhaustion, shut entirely. The last thing she heard before losing consciousness was a faint, "Return."
For a few moments, Ceres stared down in silence at the pokeball she held. Then she minimized it, and dropped it wordlessly into the pouch that held the rest.
She tugged faintly on the arms of the unwilling Drifloon that she was still pulling around.
"Let's keep going," she said dully.
Eye kept trying to fly in the opposite direction.
"Floon!" he shouted, tugging randomly in an attempt to escape, "Floon!"
Ceres ignored him, and easily pulled him along as she walked. She was anticipating a relatively quiet and uneventful walk through the forest. That is, quiet except for the Eye's cries.
The forest had other plans.
"Excuse me!" a voice called through the fog.
Ceres didn't stop walking.
"Excuse me miss! Um, hello?"
She kept up her even pace, and the speaker soon caught up with her.
"Hello miss, um…I was wondering…could you help me get through the forest?" She turned her head slightly to see a woman with long, braided, green hair. "I heard that a frightening group called Team Galactic was about, and…I'm afraid to travel through this forest on my own…"
Ceres stopped briefly, met the woman's worried gaze, then nodded vaguely, and began to walk again.
"Oh, thank you! Don't worry, I'll keep your Pokemon healed up…and I'm Cheryl, by the way."
"Floon!" Eye said, still struggling to escape, and now trying to get this Cheryl's attention, in hopes of getting her to help him escape.
"Oh dear…don't you think you should let that Drifloon go?" Cheryl asked, and Eye attempted to nod in agreement, although it was difficult considering that his body wasn't separate from his head. "He doesn't look very happy…"
Eye tugged in yet another random direction, as if to emphasize his point.
Ceres wasn't listening. She was focused instead on a small bud-like creature that had wandered into their path.
"Eye," she said, "Use Gust."
The Pokemon glared at her, and sort of shook its head.
"Return," she muttered, surprising the Drifloon, and easily recalling him to his Pokeball. "Tabitha-"
She was cut off as a round, whitish object flew by her, and struck the Pokemon she had been hoping to capture, exploding as it did so, sending the tiny bud flying off into the fog.
Ceres turned to glare at Cheryl, and the pink, blob-shaped Pokemon beside her.
"What?" Cheryl asked innocently, "Didn't you want to defeat that Budew?"
Tabitha chose then to come out of his pokeball, wondering why his name had been called when there was no opponent for him to fight.
Ceres blinked, and her expression returned to one of neutrality. "It doesn't matter. At all."
The same fate befell the next few Budew that the two stumbled upon, and after the fifth Budew Ceres had planned to catch fainted; she turned to Cheryl once more, the omnipresent black rings on her arms glowing faintly blue, a glow barely visible in the fog, but present nonetheless.
"Is there a problem?" Cheryl asked, looking genuinely confused.
For a moment, Ceres looked faintly angry, replacing the seemingly out-of-place impartiality that usually accompanied her glares.
The bluish glow faded as quickly as it had appeared, and the faint spark in her eyes was gone.
Ceres didn't answer Cheryl's question, turned on her heel, and kept walking, Tabitha flying right by her, ready to attack the next Budew they found before Cheryl's Chansey got a chance to.
The rest of the forest, however, seemed to be entirely devoid of any Pokemon.
After a long while, the fog began to thin slightly, just enough for the forest's exit to become visible.
"Oh…we've finally made it…I have to thank you somehow…" Cheryl muttered, her expression blank for a moment. Then she smiled. "Chansey, Egg Bomb!"
Tabitha let out a startled squawk as the attack hit him, the explosion sending him flying back several feet.
To Ceres, he was only faintly visible in the fog. Only visible enough to see quite clearly that he did not so much as stir after hitting the ground.
"Why did you do that?" Ceres asked, not sounding as if she truly cared to know the answer.
"Your journey ends here 'Galactic Commander'," Cheryl said, in a voice that was distinctly not her own. "The Forest will not let you pass!"
"Soot, Rock Throw," Ceres ordered calmly. In a flash of white light, her Geodude appeared, only managing to scoop up a handful of earth before she was thrown backwards by an Egg Bomb. She, however, was not down yet, and she flung the dirt and pebbles that she'd managed to scoop up at the Chansey.
The pink Pokemon seemed barely phased.
Another Egg Bomb sent her flying into a rocky ledge, where she laid quite still.
Ceres stared blankly at Cheryl and her Pokemon for a moment.
"Giving up?" Cheryl asked, a cruel grin appearing on her face, "Then, Chansey, use Egg Bomb once more!"
As the attack hit, a white light obscured the battlefield. When the glow faded, it was apparent that the attack had not hit its intended target.
A confused, but utterly unharmed Drifloon floated just in front of Ceres. "Floon?" he asked.
Cheryl laughed, a beautiful but terrible sound. "You'll fight me with a Pokemon who refuses to listen to you? Who wishes to escape? Run along little Drifloon…"
Eye seemed to notice then that he was free to go. He attempted to fly off, only to get hit by a second Pokemon Ceres had apparently released at the same time as him.
"Zu," chuckled Marrow, grinning a sharp-fanged grin at Eye.
The startled Drifloon attempted to attack the Zubat with Gust, but at the last second, Marrow swooped around Chansey, turning sharply, and instead of its intended target, the Gust was sent towards Cheryl instead, distracting her long enough for Marrow to sink her fangs into Chansey.
The Pokemon panicked, wasting a few Egg Bombs by flinging them randomly at where she hoped the Zubat was.
"Zu, zu," Marrow taunted, biting the pink blob again.
"Chansey!" screeched the Pokemon, tossing another Egg Bomb at the Zubat as she attempted to fly away again.
At such close range, the attack couldn't miss, but being so close to the explosion, Chansey was also hit.
The Chansey was still conscious when it hit the ground, and rolled a little ways away. She was not conscious however, after being hit by a few last, panicked Gust attacks from Eye, who was quickly recalled just as the Pokemon fainted.
Before Cheryl knew for sure what had happened, Ceres, had recalled almost all of her Pokemon, and was headed towards the forest's exit, dragging Eye along behind her.
"Budew!" Cheryl shouted, and instantly the forest was alive with very angry looking buds.
"Dew!" they cried simultaneously.
One of the bud-like Pokemon leapt out of the trees surrounding the exit, snatching Eye away from Ceres.
"Since this Drifloon seems so keen on helping you, perhaps it should die with you!" Cheryl shouted.
Ceres stopped suddenly, the faint blue glow returning to the rings around her arms. In her moment of indecision, a wall of Budew blocked the forest's exit.
She turned suddenly, and ran after the Budew that had taken Eye. Many other Budew had joined it, and the groups of bud-like Pokemon were all cackling, and sprinkling orange spores over the frightened and trapped balloon.
Ceres snatched the Drifloon out of the reach of the Budew, and instantly felt her hand go numb where the orange Stun Spores had touched it.
She turned to try to run, but found her path blocked by Budew. Everywhere she looked, the same Pokemon stared back at her with hate-filled eyes.
"Dew!" they all shouted.
"Now, you die!" said Cheryl from somewhere amidst the mass of Budew, "You've nowhere to run!" A gleeful laugh followed these words. "Now Budew, finish her!"
As Stun Spore rained down upon her Ceres quickly recalled Eye, who had been starting to slip from the loose grip of he paralyzed hand, clung tightly to the pokeball, and did something that Cheryl certainly didn't expect. She ran directly through the wall of Budew, Stun Spore beginning to coat her body, newly inflicted scratches glowing faintly purple from the Budews' Poison Point, and out of the forest.
"No!" screeched Cheryl. The hundreds of Budew began to follow her, but, upon reaching the edge of the forest, rebounded as if hitting an invisible wall. After doing so, the hatred faded from their eyes, and they looked around, confused, before scattering, and returning to their homes.
"…No matter," Cheryl finally muttered, "She'll surely die of poisoning…a shame about those poor, confused Pokemon of hers."
None of the nurses could explain how the girl could have possibly made it to the center. Shallow, but poisonous scratches covered most of her body. None of her Pokemon were in any shape to fight. The paralysis alone should have stopped her long before her combined injuries had.
None of the nurses could explain it, and none of them expected her to survive.