Chapter 7: Those who kill

At the end of the route, there was a cave. And next to the entrance, the group of self-proclaimed Katila's friends was chatting. There was no possible way to avoid them, but she was starting to accept that this kind of thing was going to keep happening, whether she liked it or not. She rolled her eyes.

"Hey" she greeted them.

"Hello, Katila" Trevor greeted back "How is your dex going? Mine is great! There are lots of pokemon around here"

"Fine, I guess" the girl replied " It's not really my thing, to be honest"

Tierno laughed. No one loved the pokedex as much as Trevor. "Well, will you fight with them?" he asked while looking at Kalm and Serena, excited to see an intense battle.

Katila was confused then. "Will I?"

Serena laughed, uncomfortable "Well, you see. I know it's not been long since we last fought, but my brother wanted a chance against you as well so... How about a double fight?"

"I... well, fine" Katila accepted, without a real reason to say 'no'. Both siblings smile and prepare to fight; and then sent a fletching on Serena's side and, much to Átok's surprise, a quilladin. Not that Shenshi had suddenly stopped being weak to fire, but evolving was more that the braixen had given her credit for. Along with the fire pokémon, Katila sent out the ivysaur.

It seemed like an interesting fight, until something went wrong. Átok was about to attack the fletching went something inside his mind broke. Katila could almost see how his curse awoken and he suddenly throw too much fire to the flying pokemon. The trainer ordered him to stop, but the braixen had fallen in a trance, and didn't hear or obey her. The other trainers were paralyzed in surprise as well, and Katila started to panic. The fletching would die if Átok wasn't stopped. Now.

A pokeball opened and a gyarados pounce on the braixen, covering him with his huge blue body. Átok tried to fight him at first, but suddenly stopped, snapping out of trance for some reason. The gyarados was groaning at him, more worried than angry; and set the confused braixen free when he felt than he had calmed down. Then, the water pokemon seemed to realized he was surrounded by strange people, and shrank in shyness. But the other trainers weren't exactly watching him. The fletching had burnt to death, and Serena was crying over its dead body.

"Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" Katila muttered, watching them.

She didn't know if they had listened to her, since any of them looked but Kalm, who gave her a sad nod, but that was enough. There was nothing she could do anyway. She retrieve the startled braixen as well as the shy gyarados*, who had been caught in the Parfum Palace, and entered the cave.

There, Miya gave them yet another bloody accident when she was unable to control her killing need and made a poor wishmur explode. Katila decided not to catch anything there, yet she did catch an inkai once they were out the cave, and kept going until they reached the next city.

Ambrette Town was a nice and small place. Katila would have preferred if there was more vegetation around, but she couldn't complain. It was probably one of the nicest places she had been. And the beach was a plus. It had been a long day, so she went to the sea and let her pokemon and herself rest around the place.

The next day she remembered that Sycamore had asked her to investigate about the mega evolution, so she went to the famous laboratory the city had. Katila was sure that the lab was very famous. But she was even more sure that, no matter how famous it was, it would never attract tourists. Too boring.

The lab didn't have a lot of researchers, and they seemed really busy and not that interested in answering her questions, so she took their piece of advice and went to the Glittering Cave looking for a fossil expert. The only thing those researchers seemed to know about evolution was that special stones were needed, something she already knew, anyway.

Katila almost gave up going to the cave when she discovered that she had to ride a ryhorn to get there, but then she saw a female hippopotas hurt on the way there, and she wanted to help her. The trainer didn't have a reason at all to do that, since she was a firm believer of the law of the survival of the fittest, but caught her in order to heal her wounds anyway. She may even become a part of her team later. And being already halfway through, she kept going until reaching the cave. There, a female machop insisted in going with her because she seemed strong, and Katila shrugged her shoulders and caught her too.

The cave was dark, but it had shining mineral scattered around that lit the cave with a faint blue light. Everything seemed quiet, so she went inside. After walking for a while, she found a weird man completely dressed in red. Katila liked the color, but there was something weird about the man and she didn't trust him. Her suspicious were confirmed when the man looked at her.

"Well, well. What do we have here? A nosy little trainer as come poking around."

"This cave is not yours" she replied, annoyed by his tone. Who did he thought he was?

"Ha! We're Team Flare, which very name makes people tremble in fear! You better get out of here, kid"

Now she was officially pissed off. She hated when people underestimated her. "Bring it on, smartass!" she replied, as she let Hana out of her pokeball. The Team Flare grunt sent out a houndour, but it was no match for the fairy type. The zubat was more difficult, but weak anyway. The grunt didn't seem to care about losing, thoug.

"Don't get too cocky, girl. I'm not the only one here" he told her when he lost.

"Then I'll beat the shit out of all of you" Katila replied.

Katila found the fossil researcher and asked him about the mega evolutions. However, the scientific didn't know much about it neither. Katila sighed, knowing that she shouldn't have had hope, but the man, seeing her disappointment, offered her one of two fossil pokemon he had revived in order to study. Katila chose the tyrunt. That thing could become a dragon, and he was an Y. The scientific wouldn't probably live long if he kept that pokemon with him. Then the man suddenly left, remembering he had to go back to the lab to do something and leaving the trainer alone there. Katila's face showed her confusion, but she had nothing to do there anyway, so she started walking towards the entrance.

Two Team Flare grunts appeared out of nowhere, with a croagunk and a scrafty with them. The previous grunt was smiling with them, too. A smirk that said 'Told ya, girl'.

"So you are the little one who let the scientific go. Do you have any idea of how much money have we lost?" the woman started, with a dangerous tone. The croagunk jumped towards her, and Katila avoided the attack going back. She felt the stone wall behind. The Team Flare grunts smiled when they saw she was trapped.

"Do I look like I care" she answered back, sending Átok, Hana and Yamiora out without thinking about it. But the third grunt was faster than he seemed and run through them to reach her while they were fighting the other pokemon. He grabbed her arm when he saw that she had reached a pocket knife to defend herself.

"You shouldn't play with that. It's not a toy, you know?" his pokemon were terribly weak, but he was physically stronger than her. She needed to think fast and she couldn't, and let her instinct control her body. She dropped the knife. The action seemed stupid, but it surprised the man, who weaken his grab for a few seconds. Katila then head butt him on the face and grabbed again her knife. The man, furious, leaped on her.

Katila and the grunt's face froze at the same time, but for different reasons. The man had a terrible face, with his eyes opened and mouth with surprise. The trainer could feel a warm sticky liquid falling over her hand. A metallic and salty smell hit her with strength: blood. One second later, she flinched, surprised and confused about what had happened, and the weapon got out of the Team Flare's member's body, and a lot of blood started to pour. The man fell on the floor, not moving an inch. He was dead.

Katila felt the cold wall of stone behind her and fall on her knees. She was shaking madly and her head was spinning uncontrollably. She turned herself to rest on the wall, facing it. She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth, panting. She had killed him. She had killed him. She had killed him. She started shaking even more. The feeling was so overwhelming she thought she would cry. SHE had killed him. Katila bite her own arm, fearing she would start crying. Her mind recreated the scene over and over. The grunt attacking her while her pokémon were fighting his partners. She stabbing him on the chest by accident. He stopping moving (living) abruptly and falling to the ground. Blood spreading everywhere; making his clothes redder tan before. He attacking. She stabbing. He falling. Blood everywhere.

He. She. Stab. Blood. Death.

Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.

And, then, a light touch on her shoulder by an orange flower. Katila was dragged back into reality so suddenly she gasped. The touch calmed her; but she hated it. Katila breathed deeply before she confronted her dangerous pokémon, to make sure her mind was clear enough to control them. Átok and Yamoira were staring at her, bright blue Y over their eyes. But Hana was on the human side, and they wouldn't dare to hurt her. Katila was safe... for the time being.

But then, the ground started shaking, and she heard dozens of heavy footsteps. Pokémon and human looked at the cave they had behind them; where the scientific had been doing whatever he had been doing. A horde of furious ryhorns were running towards them. All of them froze one second, their brains working out what was happening; and then Katila stood up and shouted.

"I hate ryhorns!"

All of them started to run towards the exit, the cursed pokémon no longer showing their blue marks. They barely made it alive after several rock falls that almost blocked them inside or smashed them. They all collapsed at the entrance and Katila swore she wouldn't go inside that cave ever again. They went back to the pokémon centre.

Katila slept bad. She dreamt of blood and kills. First it was she and her pokémon the ones who went to a populated village and started murdering everyone until any human or pokémon wasn't breathing anymore. Then they would be suddenly running away from a mass with the very same intentions until they were caught and killed; only to start over again. Katila woke up extremely tired and early; and couldn't sleep again. She was in a bad mood.

She left Ambriette Town early, hoping that her way by the beach towards the next city would calm her nerves. It worked, and in a few days she arrived at Cyllage City, were the second gym awaited her. Her pokemon had been training on their way, so she decided that they were ready to face the leader already. They slept in the Pokemon Centre than night and went straight to the gym after a breakfast.

Once Katila entered the gym, she stared at it, stunned. It was a rock climbing wall. It was a huge rock climbing wall, and the leader was at the top. And she could hear water falling, so she supposed that there was a waterfall somewhere near. She took a deep breath and started climbing and swearing in a fifty-fifty ratio. When she reached the top, she saw the gym leader getting up.

"Welcome, challenger" grant started, but he was cut off by Katila, while she sent out her lucario.

"You. Fight. Now!" she demanded.

Grant looked at the pokemon, his smile fading away.

"He does know fighting types, right?"

"Yes, and I also have a water type and a fairy type pokemon with plant moves"

After hearing that, Grant sighted, visibly annoyed and throw her the badge.

"I don't want you to murder my pokemon. You're free to go."

Katila looked at him, surprised, but didn't reject the gift.

The gyarados: In game, I am ahead of the written story and I already have two medals. And I got the rod, went back to the Parfum Palace to get the magikarp and went back again to Ambrette Town; but I decided to spare you the boring backtracking.

Badges: 2

Deaths: 0