Sorry that this chapter took so long, but I have been busy ruining my school life. In an attempt to un-ruin it, I will be taking a hiatus from writing until after finals. I apologize to you all, but my school work will always come first. I hope that you guys enjoy this one though, because it's the only one that you'll be getting until May 25th at the earliest.
Chapter 9 – Only you
August 19th
The sun crept over the horizon, slowly bringing its light into both tents. The sky was littered with clouds colored with brilliant, prismatic reds, pinks, oranges, and shades of gold that caused the deep sea to glow in reflection of its perfection. Those who had not been awake throughout the night woke then and emerged from their tents along with the two that had been chased from dreams by the black steads of Hypnos.
Greta, a morning person by nature, greeted the sun by leading Kanta and her Pokémon through basic stretches and kattas as a groggy Zahrah and Anabel watched. Lucy seemed to have sneaked away, but seeing as she had taken her team with her, there was no real cause for worry. She would be fine.
"Zahrah," Anabel began. "I've been meaning to ask, how do you feel about Kanta?" The young psychic said this sentence as though each word was a footfall onto wafer thin ice. The last thing that she wanted to offend the Gardevoir, or worse, her trainer. Despite this tact, Zahrah still looked embarrassed.
"He's... He's my..." Zahrah stammered. She struggled to force more words to Anabel's mind, but each were more inaudible than the last. She blushed as she stopped, bringing her hands to rest in her lap. A few moments passed as Zahrah collected her thoughts through the use of Calm Mind. "Kanta is my trainer."
"Is that all you think of him as though?"Anabel pressed forward gently, whispering of course, so as not to alert the subject of their conversation.
"You know that they're talking about you right?" Greta chided.
"I hadn't noticed." Kanta said sarcastically, dutifully continuing to perfect his stance.
"It's probably because you're topless, I mean, anybody would gawk at your curves." She replied with a snicker, receiving only a glare in response from her pupil.
"I... I don't know how... How to answer..." Zahrah's words were still forced past a wall of her own emotions, but thanks to Calm Mind she was at least able to voice her opinions.
"Do you love him?"
"Yes."
"In what way?"
"I... I shouldn't talk about it."
"It should be fine if it's just us."
"Their talking about feelings." Greta continued to giggle.
"I know, shut up."
"Are you dropping eaves?"
"No, I'm trying to block it out."
"Awww... the bashful little school girl doesn't like the attention he's getting?"
"Shut up." Kanta groaned, continuing his katas dutifully.
"I love him like Juliet loved Romeo." Zahrah replied finally, her cheeks still a bright red, a soft smile now curling her lips. Anabel too blushed at the intensity of her friend's words. "I... I can't.. I-"
"Zahrah, how about we get a little farther from Kanta, maybe that will help you calm down." She spoke in whispers and motioned for the Gardevoir to follow suit. They walked away from Kanta and Greta in favor of the shade that could be found next to the cliff that jutted up from the ground.
"I don't really think that there's any more to say." Said Zahrah as the two of them leaned against the wall of the cliff.
"Wouldn't you just like to talk? Isn't it hard to keep all of your feelings for him under wraps?"
"I don't. He knows how I feel."
"But how does he react to them?" Anabel asked, trying not to make it wholly obvious that she supported the two of them. "Does he ever kiss you?"
"Ye...Yes. We've kissed before." Anabel beamed at Zahrah even as they both turned beat red.
"How did he do it?" The younger girl asked.
"The normal way I suspect..." Zahrah replied, rather confused. She had never thought about there being more than one way to kiss.
"Well, how did it feel the first time?" Anabel pressed, curious about how this phenomena was executed. After all, she had never kissed anyone herself.
"It felt nice. Warm. His hands were a little sweaty, but that was because we had just beaten the Sinnoh league Champion. He was excited."
"That's weird... The way Kanta was talking about things last night, it seemed like he wouldn't kiss you in front of a lot of people like that."
"It was rather sudden... He just ran up to me after I had knocked out Steven's Aggron and he kissed me with both hands. I was so taken aback that I nearly hit him." Zahrah's face was now resolutely red, with no signs of changing back to its usual color.
"Wait.. With his... Hands?"
"Well, yeah."
Anabel thought back to Zahrah's choice of words. I love him like Juliet loved Romeo. Was that where she got her idea of love from? After a minute or so of silent thought from Anabel, she suddenly grabbed Zahrah's hands, lifting them gently and entwining her own fingers between the three that Zahrah had. She looked into Zahrah's face and saw that she had closed what were now tear filled eyes.
"Zahrah, do-"
"Kanta!" Screamed the embarrassed embrace Pokémon as she tore her hands from Anabel's and ran toward the beach. She darted in between Greta and Kanta, currently mid spar, and began sobbing uncontrollably into her trainer's chest as she tackled him.
Kanta could only make out a few legible thoughts amidst her muffled internal cries. Something about "not wanting," "Anabel," and something else about kisses. It gave him very little to go on, and judging by how disconnected the third seemed from the previous two, it was hard to think of this as anything more than a "one of these things is not like the others" game. She was closely followed by Anabel, who knelt next to the both of them, much to Zahrah's dismay.
"Zahrah, I'm so-" Anabel received a slap from the distraught Pokémon before she went back to crying.
"Zahrah... What's wrong..." Kanta said, trying his best to sound comforting despite his confusion.
"She... She kiss... She kissed me!" She replied through sobs. She lifted a delicate hand to direct her accusation toward the girl who she felt had wronged her. Kanta looked at Anabel, shocked by his Gardevoir's words. Greta, not wanting to feel left out, mimicked this expression, followed closely by her Hariyama and Medicham.
"I didn't kiss her, I just put our hands together."
"That is a kiss!" Zahrah replied with the mental version of a scream.
"Zahra, calm down." Kanta said, cringing from the strain caused by the pressure her psychic tantrums caused. "That's not what a kiss is. It's okay, you've still never been kissed..." He continued, trying to console her about her feared loss of purity. More tears came after that, this time from the realization that she and Kanta had never even gotten to first base.
Minutes passed like hours for Kanta whenever Zahrah cried, and with him completely in the dark about the specifics of her turmoil, all he could do was continue hugging her. Greta, her Pokémon, and Anabel, sensing the awkwardness of the situation, went off to start whatever they could for breakfast.
It took a few minutes for Zahrah's cries to become sobs, a few more for them to stop completely. Her trainer used his thumb to gently wipe her tear streaked cheeks as she let out one last whimpering noise.
"What's wrong? Aren't you happy that she didn't kiss you?" Asked the confused trainer.
"No!.. Well.. Yes, but..." Zahrah began, stopping periodically to try and collect her thoughts. "But that also means that you and I haven't either..."
Kanta's eyes widened slightly. Being dumbfounded was his only response.
"And besides, if that's not a kiss, what is?" Zahrah asked plaintively.
"B... Before I answer that, I have to ask you a question. Where did you get the idea that that was a kiss?" He asked, grasping for information.
"Romeo and Juliet kissed like that." She replied stubbornly. "At the party, they put their hands together and that was supposed to be their kiss."
Kanta chuckled softly, gaining only a look of scorn from the embrace Pokémon. "Zahrah, the reason that they were kissing like that was because of the original actors." She tilted her head in confusion, pressing him to continue his explanation. "A long time ago, women weren't allowed to act, so Juliet was played by a man. It wasn't exactly fine to have to men kissing on stage, even if one was dressed in drag, so they had to just press their hands together." He spoke as he stroked her hair softly.
"Oh..." She said before asking her question again. "Then... What is a real kiss?"
"Well... Basically people just press their lips together." The brunette trainer explained as simply as possible. Zahrah looked up at him expectantly, as if waiting for a demonstration. Kanta stood abruptly. "Why don't we go get breakfast?" He asked, quickly changing the subject away from that uncomfortable topic.
Pouting, Zahrah agreed by following Kanta over to the campfire where a newly returned Lucy sat with Greta, Anabel, and their Pokémon frying eggs. This initially seemed like a great thing, but after a few moments it came to Anabel's attention that there had been no eggs in the Pokémart that they had stocked up from. The fact that this realization came at the same time as an exceptionally loud call from some Flying-types in the distance wasn't something that came as a comfort.
"Lucy, where did you get these eggs from?" She asked calmly, listening with worry as the cries of what she could now identify as Fearow grew louder.
"I found them in a nest that had fallen out of a tree." The snake-haired thief replied as she stood, bringing a hand to her belt for security's sake.
"You really are deplorable..." Spoke the only male in the group of trainers as he mimicked the girl he scolded. The swarm of birds now created a small cloud of orange and crimson as they continued to draw in. "Anabel, I need your Pokémon to help Zahrah erect a really thick barrier. Everybody else, you might want to stand back, judging by what we know, this is going to be just about as dangerous as standing in a natural thunderstorm." With a look of mixed shock and cunfusion, Greta, Anabel, and even Lucy followed his instructions as he threw Fiera's Pokéball toward the Fearow. Light filled the area as Anabel and Kanta both released Pokémon.
Kanta waited until the barriers were erected between them and his gleam eyes Pokémon before he gave out his next orders. "Zahrah, use Protect as soon as you see Fiera's feet move. I want it in front of their barriers." As soon as that order was called he looked toward the electric-type that stood with a villainous grin streaked across her face. Fiera relished the chance to try out her new found power out on a living target rather than just some trees. It was obvious that she was ready for battle.
"Fiera, jump in and discharge at full power!" Kanta gave the order with a definitive point and Fiera wasted no time. In an instant her body was surrounded by lightning that shone brighter that the sun. Her mane stood perfectly upright, yellow electricity darting from follicle to follicle as she readied herself with a roar. She darted forward, jumping toward the Fearow that swooped down toward her, jumping off of them as she forced her way to their epicenter. The Pokémon that she made her prey converged upon her, clouding the shining lightning from view for just a moment before they met their end.
Suddenly, the smell of charred flesh filled the area. Birds fell from the sky like rocks, now black from the explosion and lightning strikes that continued to skate along the ground, leaving behind trails of molten glass on sand and barren earth on what was once grass. Force from the initial blast broke through both Zahrah's and Espeon's farthest barriers, creating a sound that was reminiscent of shattering windows.
Fiera finally landed, looking around proudly at the devastation that she had caused. An entire flock of Fearow that would once have required a certain level of exersion now were worth nothing more than a passing glance. One attack and they had all been ripped away from the world. Fiera breathed in the air of her fresh kill. The pure ozone that she had created mixed with the scent of roasted bird beckoned to her to take a taste of her kill's flesh.
"Return." Kanta called, a hint of disgust on his brow, brought on partially by the sickeningly sweet scent that came from the still steaming carcasses of the newly dead beak Pokémon, and partially from the fact that he had just ordered said deaths. Red light flashed from Fiera's ball as she bit out a chunk of a particularly plump Fearow's breast.
Anabel looked in horror at the scene that had just played out before her. Beyond the issue of the cost of life, the sheer power and revelry in the depths of her power that Fiera had displayed was frightening. She hoped that her Pokémon did not develop similar tastes.
Kanta whirled on Lucy, a look of pure rage in his eyes. "How could you do this?! Because of your theft, all of these innocent Pokémon are DEAD!"
"I was hungry and I saw eggs, so sue me." Replied the raven locked woman matter-of-factually.
"You.. You were hungry?" The boy's voice shook uncomfortably as he tried to contain his anger. His temperature rose with every second as his words passed between his lips.
"Yeah, and those eggs looked perfectly alone. Nobody was around so I took them."
"You insufferable, selfish whore! Because of you my Pokémon had to kill! Fiera had to protect us a flock of parents in mourning of their children that will never be!" He yelled as he grabbed the frying pan from its perch. He had reached his boiling point. "All this over a few measly eggs... You just couldn't control your basest instincts and now we're surrounded by corpses." He hurled the pan into the ocean, still filled with Lucy's would be breakfast.
"If you're so god damned hungry, eat the Fearow whose deaths you caused!" Kanta yelled before storming off to attend the boat, Zahrah following close behind.
Lucy scoffed at the idea of eating something that currently smelled so fowl as the charred birds did. "Can you believe that guy?" She asked of her two companions. "Scolding me like he's my parent."
"Maybe he doesn't eat meat." Greta remarked as she collected a few Fearows for later meals. She turned one over in her hand, smiling at the results she found. The Fearow had been superheated enough to have plucked, cooked, and further dehydrated them. They were about the consistency of beef jerky, which meant that they would be delectably chewy. "On the bright side, for those of us that do and you two are just ignoring me."
Despite Greta's happiness at her discovery that the Fearow had been dehydrated rapidly, and would as such be preserved longer, Anabel and Lucy continued to bicker over the merit of Kanta's displeasure.
"God Lucy, can't you ever think about anyone but yourself? You could have gotten us all killed if Kanta hadn't been there." Said Anabel, letting a bit of acid slide over her tongue and into her voice. It was a foreign tone for her, but then, she never was much one to attack people, so it made sense that she would be unused to the tone of voice that she used when angry.
"I'm sure that you, Greta, and I could have handled a flock of Fearow." Came the snake woman's rebuttal. Anabel looked at her as though she had lost her last semblance of sanity.
"Oh. Yes, yes, I'm sure as well that the three of us, with our hugely powerful electric types all around, could have easily dealt with it." The young empath replied with the acidic tone that she was currently borrowing from her opponent. "It's not like all of our Pokémon come from either land or sea, without any of them being able to deal with large crowds. Only having ever dealt with one on one and two on two battles, with one or our entire teams being weak to flying types anyway." Words continued to fly from Anabel's mouth. She pointed to Greta when she brought up the type advantage, but otherwise her arms remained crossed over her chest.
Lucy was paralyzed, she couldn't move, she couldn't speak.
"Yeah. We would have been fine." Anabel finally said as she brushed past her older friend.
"Well," Greta began. "on the bright side, we've got Fearows to eat now." the fighter was obviously pleased with one outcome of this altercation. There would be meat for at least a few days.
Lucy scowled at her other friend for her insensitivity to the mood. Greta only smiled back at her, her mouth stretching so wide that it looked as though she had gained the ability to unhinge her jaw.
Minutes later, the tents had been broken down and packed, the fire stamped out, and the supply trunk was placed back into the boat. The adventurers set out, leaving the beach behind in favor of the berry forest. It was another place that they could restock, and berries could always be used as medicines in a pinch. They set sail, going due west toward the next island in the chain that they were following.
The trip was uneventful and spent in silence. Nobody wanted to speak thanks to the still lingering tension. Better to listen to the waves than the words of those they were uncomfortable with at the moment. Luckily it only took a few hours to reach their destination.
While the sun slowly struggled to climb higher into the sky, Kanta and Greta staked the boat to the shore. Anabel and Lucy placed the trunk onto its all terrain wheels, and pulled it up toward the forest. Once that routine had been completed, the tedious task of berry picking began.
Everyone's Pokémon were loosed upon the abundant forest. Most were happy to enjoy the picking of berries, but Greta's Heracross saw the sap of the trees themselves as a better meal. Zahrah and Alakazam worked by pulling the berries from the trees from the ground, while Greta, Kanta, Anabel, and Lucy climbed into the higher branches to grab what they needed. The work was going rather quickly, with everyone's bags already nearly full after just 30 minutes of work. The compartment in the trunk however, was going to take a bit longer given its size.
The Pokémon of the berry forest payed them no mind as they went about their daily lives. The Pidgey and Pidgeoto hopped from branch to branch and tree to tree along with Venomoth and gnat. The Bellsprout sliced berries from low hanging branches, berries that were soon stolen by the smaller Oddish that scampered about.
The air grew hotter by the minute, and it was silently, but unanimously agreed upon that a break was in order. Anabel took this as her chance. She walked up to Zahrah and her Aalakazam who sat talking in the shade of a particularly large pecha berry tree.
"... too atrophied from my Abra stage." Anabel only caught the tail end of a sentence as she approached, but she could gather that Zahrah had inquired about Alakazam's need to aid his own standing with his psychic abilities.
The young girl waved to the both of them in greeting, receiving a return in the gesture from her own Pokémon, but only a passing glance from Zahrah before she ignored her completely. She was obviously still a bit miffed about the "kiss" that they had shared earlier.
Alakazam elbowed his conversation partner to show his disdain for her present attitude toward his trainer. "Is their something you need mistress?"
"Yes actually. I know that I've asked this before, but times are harder now so I think thank you might give me a more satisfactory answer. I want you to teach me-"
He immediately cut her off. "I cannot do that mistress Anabel." Said the Psi Pokémon flatly.
"Why not?" Anabel began, trying her best not to sound whiny. "If I learned I could help everyone out a lot more! I could help to carry things, and I could-"
Alakazam held a spoon to her lips, silencing her. "You did not let me finish my thought." He scolded. "Which is but a part of why I can not. You are a slave to your emotions and that is something that I cannot be understanding of this plight."
Anabel looked to the ground. It was hard to hear, but she knew it was true. She had always been unafraid to show her emotions, more because she felt that others couldn't keep them from her and that it would be a disservice to them were she to have that one sided advantage then anything else, and it would be against her nature to be any other way. Going against their personality wasn't a good way to train Pokémon, and she couldn't believe that training her would completely ignore that kind of thing.
Her Alakazam chimed in once again. "However, there is another Pokémon that would be the perfect teacher for somebody who's first abilities to awaken were those of an empath." A small smile cracked his lips. It seemed out of place given his usual universally hardened gaze.
"Who?" She asked excitedly, unable to mask her emotions as usual.
Alakazam gestured toward the Embrace Pokémon at his side who had, up until now, been entertaining herself by making leaves dance around a pecha berry as though it was a plant based galaxy. When she noticed the gesture, she was instantly curious as to why she had come up in their conversation, but did her best to stay aloof, continuing the elliptical orbits of her little milky way, but just as Anabel couldn't hide her emotions from anyone, Zahrah couldn't hide her curiosity from either of the Psychics that spoke beside her.
"You would be a perfect match," Spoke the Psi Pokémon. "you both draw your abilities from your emotions, the exact opposite of myself who must push emotion away to be of any use."
"Will you teach me Zahrah?" Asked the empathetic young teen, a hint of desperation ringing in her voice. She needed to become somebody that her friends could depend on. Somebody who would be able to stay alive without her Pokémon. Lucy was street smart, Greta was a martial arts master, and Kanta was a genius who had studied under the great Professor Rowan and as if that wasn't enough, he was learning karate from Greta. Anabel only had her ability to talk to and understand the feelings of Pokémon, and with them having orders to kill given to them by a god, she didn't think that it would be quite as useful as it had been.
"I..."
Alakazam shot her a soft, pleading glance before feeding a thought into her mind. "Please help her. None of us would ever be able to teach a psychic who draws from her emotions as you could." Zahrah still looked reluctant, so he pressed further. "If you help her with this, I will be eternally indebted to you, as will she."
"I.. I guess that it can't be helped."
"Thank you Zahrah!" Anabel said with a smile. "Can we start now?"
"I suppose so... It isn't really that hard, so it shouldn't take long." Zahrah said calmly as she stood. "First," She let the pecha berry drop into her palm, changing the orbit of the leaves into that of electrons surrounding an atom. "think about connecting your soul with the soul of the berry." She explained. "Then think about lifting it."
Anabel nodded resolutely before raising her arm toward her teacher's outstretched hand. She did as she was told. She thought about the berry in the Gardevoir's palm as becoming one with herself, and tried even harder to force it to rise up. This went on for a few minutes before the berry finally shook. It could best be described as trying to have performed a push-up, but having let its arms collapse, it fell again. She focused harder on what she wanted the berry to do.
She lost focus when a sudden gust of wind brought on the foulest stench that she had ever experienced. It was like rotting earth, dung, and flesh. It brought tears to her eyes and caused bile to well up in her throat. She couldn't hold it back for long. Unable to stand, she dropped to her knees and vomited on the grass. She saw Zahrah and Alakazam cover their noses, blocking out the scent completely with a thin barrier.
It wasn't until Lucy screamed that everyone could else saw what was the cause of the scent that assaulted their nostrils. It didn't take long to realize afterward what Ho-Oh had done to the Grimer that oozed along the ground toward them. They were nothing more than acid now. The ground sizzled and popped behind them, it rotted away like they were the horseman of plague.
Kanta yelled some order that Anabel couldn't hear. He was a bit to far away for it to reach her ears, but she saw Greta and Lucy nod as they returned their Pokémon. It was hard to even think with this putrid smell that surrounded them, and yet this physically unassuming trainer was able to yell out commands that could snap Anabel's colleagues out of their confusion. She tried to choke down another torrent of bile that crept up her esophagus and raised her Alakazam's ball to follow Kanta's directions.
"Don't." Zahrah said as she took the Poké ball away from her new pupil. "Kanta wants he and I to erect a barrier. He has a plan."
Does he not have a sense of smell? How could anyone be alright through this? She looked to Kanta as she listened to Zahrah's thoughts flooding her head. "Only you could think of something like this."
