Colby felt terrible. When he woke up, his limbs seemed heavy and he was shaking. It took some willpower, but he managed to force his eyes open and found it was evening. After his vision cleared he saw Meili leaning against a tree nearby, her eyes closed.
He tried to speak, but only produced a faint croaking sound. He still managed to get Meili's attention. Her face lit up.
"Colby!"
She made her way over to him, asking: "How are you?"
Colby coughed before managing to respond.
"I feel ... not very good. It's like..."
He stopped. He had been trying to remember what got him into this situation, instead he recalled something else.
"Meili, I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Why are ... Oh." She stepped forward as if she wanted to hug him but stopped herself. She looked miserable.
"No, Colby. I'm sorry. What I said was... Well, I shouldn't have said it."
"You were right, though. I could have helped."
"You couldn't have. You would have gotten hurt and we would be in a worse situation than we are now."
"But –"
"Leave it. I should be apologising, not you."
Colby closed his eyes, mumbling "Okay." He didn't feel much better, but it was nice to know Meili didn't actually blame him.
"Anyway, what happened to you? I was expecting you to take off, which would have been totally understandable. Instead you return covered in blood and dragging a dead Weedle."
Colby dragged himself to a sitting position.
"A dead Weedle? What ... Oh yeah." The memory of the fight came back to him and he wanted to throw up.
"I ... I killed it."
Meili turned to him, surprise etched across her face.
"You killed it?"
"Yeah." Colby could felt a tear soaking the white fur on his face and desperately tried to rub it away. "It attacked me and threatened to call its swarm so I ... I had to!"
This time Meili did hug him, stepping forward and engulfing him in the soft feathers of her wing. Colby didn't tense up, which surprised them both. He actually found himself leaning into the embrace, although his face grew a little warm.
"You had to. Heck, you probably saved us."
"It's just ... It was horrible." Colby could still remember the feeling of his fangs sinking into the Weedle's neck. How it let out a desperate, gurgling rasp as it tried, in vain, to call the Beedrill.
"I know." Meili looked down at him and when Colby turned his frightened eyes upwards, their gaze met. "I felt the same when I first began to hunt. But, you see, we're on our own now. If we're going to survive in the wild we need to learn these things. That is," And it was at this point that she released Colby and took a few steps back, looking nervous. "If you still want to travel with me after... after all that's happened."
"I..." Colby started, but she cut him off. She was rambling now.
"I mean, this forest has been pretty horrible and I've been no help. I wouldn't blame you, but I don't think I could do this without you. It definitely wouldn't be the same."
"Meili."
Meili stopped herself, taking in a deep breath.
"I will stay with you." He spoke each word slowly, believing that if he didn't take care he would lose his nerve and abandon her.
"You will?"
"Sure." Colby gave a weak smile and nodded, even though deep in his chest he couldn't disagree more.
Traveling became slightly easier after that. By the end of the next day Colby was feeling back to normal, his body having filtered out the toxins, and they were on track to find the next city. Meili was making a conscious effort to keep her temper in check despite the slow progress they made. They would pick their way through the underbrush, trying to find the easiest possible rout for Meili. Occasionally, they would hear a distant crack of what must have been the continuing Pikachu cull. The first time this happened, their eyes met in the dark and a silent agreement passed between them that they would stay put. Neither of them liked it, but there was nothing they could do without getting hurt or possibly killed.
They traveled undisturbed for over a week. Luckily, the local bugs seemed to want to stay away from Meili, injured as she was, and any Rattata that saw Colby with a Pidgeotto just left them alone. This did not hold true, however, when they finally encountered more Pikachu.
They had been attempting to cross a river. Colby could swim the slow-moving waters with little effort but, obviously, things were not so easy for Meili. Their plan had been to find a human bridge or just a narrow part of the stream she could walk across. They were heading upriver when a mass of yellow ran from the darkness and formed a semi-circle around them. Their only escape was into the water and, looking at the sparks playing over the Pikachu's cheeks, they both knew that wouldn't end well.
"What are you doing?" Meili demanded, clacking her beak at a Pikachu who stood a little too close. It just rolled its eyes in response and let a small spark of energy travel to Meili, causing her to jump back with a yelp and almost lose her footing on the riverbank.
One of the yellow rats stepped forward and approached Colby, who backed away as far as he could. The Pikachu didn't attack though. He walked right up to Colby and, to his confusion and embarrassment, sniffed him. A second later, the Pikachu seemed satisfied. He stepped away and turned to the others, saying:
"It's faint, but there."
Colby started, "What are -"
"When did you see Rese?"
"Rese?" Colby squeaked, giving Meili a nervous glance. She also looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Yes. I can smell him and..." The Pikachu circled them, starting to frown as he sniffed the two of them. "And blood." He finished. "He's dead, isn't he?"
Colby looked down while Meili just nodded. Upon seeing this, the Pikachu appeared to deflate. The leader flattened his ears against his head and asked
"What happened? We thought he would have escaped all this."
"Escaped?" Asked Colby.
"Yeah. He ran away a couple of weeks ago; something about our territory expansion. We'd hoped he'd gotten out of the forest before the killing started."
They hadn't known that. They had been aware he wasn't happy with his fellow Pikachu, but not that he was running away. Colby wondered if Rese would have been okay if they had just left him to travel unimpeded. But it was too late now.
"We were traveling with him for a few hours." Meili began. "A couple rangers found and killed him. They think you're a problem."
"We haven't been that bad." The lead Pikachu protested. "We've been driving them away from some areas sure, but we had to. There are ..." He grimaced "There are more humans here than ever."
"There was that one last week." Another pointed out.
"What?"
"That one with the pink can thing. You hit her in the back with a thunder shock!"
The leader frowned. "But she was fine."
"We don't know that, do we?"
"Did they have a Spearow with them?" Meili cut in.
"Yeah. How did you know?"
Meili gave Colby a knowing look.
"We may know them."
Eleanor had been attacked on her trip through the forest and had possibly been injured. Could that be related to the cull?
The Pikachu agreed to let them go after that, much to their relief. Colby and Meili wouldn't have stood a chance if it came to blows.
The Pikachu said the city was just along the river a ways. After two more long days of travel, they found it.
It was distinctly less impressive than Viridian city. Where Viridian had consisted of towering skyscrapers and streets packed with quickly moving people, Pokémon, and vehicles, Pewter consisted of squat stone structures separated by cobbled paths that were only just wide enough to fit the occasional car. Colby liked it, and not just because it meant the forest was behind them. It was quiet and the atmosphere felt more natural.
Meili didn't seem to notice as she bounded forwards.
"Come on! We're going to the centre, then finding the gym!"
Smiling slightly, Colby followed her. What they both failed to notice, was that they were being watched.
Two yellow eyes followed their retreat from the grass. The Pokémon reared up, revealing itself to be an Ekans slithering from its hiding spot.
"Interesting." It hissed. Flitting out its tongue to taste the air where Colby and Meili had been. Without another word, it headed toward the city.
The Pokémon Centre took some time for Colby and Meili to find. When Meili spotted the red building she eagerly hopped inside. Colby expected her to go right up to the desk and demand to be seen, but instead she froze in place, her eyes fixed on a figure in the corner.
"What is it?" Asked Colby catching up and following her gaze. He gasped – it was Celia, the ranger.
"Let's go." Growled Meili, glaring at the ranger; her hatred towards the woman clear in her voice.
"But Meili, your wing." Colby protested as Meili turned around.
"We'll deal with that later."
She began to approach the doors again but grunted in annoyance when she found Colby blocking the way.
"Colby! Get ..." She began but stopped herself. Taking a breath, she started again. "Look, I just don't want to see her."
"Your wing needs to be fixed." Colby insisted in a rare show of assertiveness. When Meili failed to respond, he continued. "It's been over a week, Meili. She can't do anything to you here so please, just get your wing fixed.
Meili looked back at Celia. She had noticed them now and was looking at Meili's wing in guilty recognition and a little confusion. Colby supposed she had expected them to be accompanied by a trainer.
"Fine." Meili finally relented. "But let's get out quickly, okay?"
"Okay." Colby agreed.
As it turned out, fixing Meili's wing wouldn't be quick. The nurse took Meili into a back room and when they returned Meili sported a new bandage and an irritated expression.
"Three days!" She told him, seeming as annoyed as if she'd been told three years. Colby, however, was surprised.
"Is that all?" He asked. He'd figured that the wound would take a lot longer given how bad it had been at first. Once again, he found himself awed by what the humans could do.
"Yeah. We also need to come back here twice a day for her to treat it."
"And..." Colby swallowed. "Will it fully recover?"
"It should.". Meili sounded relieved. "Apparently whatever the rangers did actually saved it."
Colby glanced at Celia, who was still minding her own business and occasionally shooting the two a wary look.
"Well, that's something to be happy about."
By Meili's insistence, their next course of action was to find the gym. Colby pointed out that they wouldn't even be able to challenge it yet but Meili countered by saying that they had nothing better to do so they should just check it out. And so it came to be that, a few hours later, the two were wandering the cobbled streets looking for the gym. Not having a guide or Meili to scout the area from the sky made navigating a lot harder.
They were on what must have been the main street when something caught Colby's attention. He nearly passed it by. It was just a newspaper in the window of some shop, but the picture on the front made Colby double take. It was of a blond-hired man clad in orange and black. He stood amongst a group of similarly dressed people outside a forest, possibly Viridian. The main focus of the picture was a black-haired man, who was also clad in orange and black, but the style made him look more official. Colby found himself wishing that he could read the human text above or below the picture.
"What is it Colby?" Meili asked, coming up behind him and peering at the photo.
"Hang on, are those rangers?" She asked.
"Yeah." Murmured Colby. He raised a paw to indicate the blond man. "And that's Daniel. The one that fixed your wing."
"What's a photo of them doing here?" Meili sounded furious at the fact the group were even being acknowledged. "Is that Viridian?"
"Viridian forest declared safe for travelers once more." Came a third voice.
Colby and Meili both jumped and a second later Meili was pivoting on one foot, good wing extended to send a blast of air at the unknown speaker. There was a surprised hiss, a few thuds and a scraping sound as the stranger reoriented themselves.
"I should have expected that."
Colby also turned. Meili had thrown the speaker an impressive distance, having caused it to hit a sign of an opposite shop. The nearby humans were understandably surprised by this and now a few were backing away from the area. When Colby took in what the Pokémon had been, he wanted to join them.
It was a serpentine Pokémon, mostly purple in colour with a yellow underbelly and piercing gold eyes. He didn't recognise it, but Colby immediately knew this to be some kind of predator.
"Hey! You're an Ekans, right?" Meili questioned, prowling in a distinctly non-avian fashion. "The Pidgey were warned about your kind."
"Sure am." Said the Ekans, slithering round to a more dignified position. Its movements were subtly graceful and it was little wonder it managed to sneak up on them. The fact that it could, though, made Colby nervous.
"Sorry about that, by the way. I was just interested."
Meili was having none of it.
"Curious about what?"
"Well... You see … I heard you mentioning gyms just outside town and thought that..."
"Outside town?" Meili cut him off. "How long have you been following us?"
"Uh ..." The Ekans thought for a moment. "About five hours?" He saw that did little to placate Meili and hurriedly continued. "But not when you went into the Pokémon Centre. And it wasn't close following; just your scents." He flicked out his rounded tongue as if to illustrate this fact.
"And why were you following us? Actually, I don't even need to ask. You were hunting us, weren't you?"
"Meili?"
Meili turned at Colby's hesitant call to see him gesturing for her to step away from the Ekans. The close proximity of the two worried him. Not only could the Ekans easily strike out at Meili, but from his friend's behaviour she might attack as well.
As Meili took a few cautious steps back, the Ekans vigorously shook its head.
"No! I wouldn't hunt you two. I'm not much for that kind of thing since ... Anyway, I heard you talking about gyms and just noticed you didn't seem to have a trainer. Do you have a trainer?"
"No." Colby piped up. "We're just battling the gyms ourselves."
This definitely peaked the Ekans's interest.
"You are? How?"
"We only have one badge so far." Colby murmured, shifting his scarf so that the Earth Badge was clearly visible.
"Wow!" The Ekans surged forwards but hurriedly drew back when Colby shrank in on himself and Meili squawked in warning.
"That's as far as Phil got! Well, when I last saw him, at least."
"Phil?" Meili asked flatly.
"Yeah. It's a long story. I can explain it later, if you like?"
"We were kind of hoping you would just stop following us."
"Oh." The Ekans looked disappointed before its expression switched to one of hope. "But I can show you to the gym?" He offered. "I've lived here for a while so..."
The Ekans glanced between the two as Colby and Meili gave each other confused looks. He actually seemed to want to help for some reason. Colby still wasn't sure, but the mention of the gym brought back Meili's frustrations from wandering the past two hours.
"Okay. Lead the way." and, in a whisper to Colby she added. "Stay away from him."
Colby nodded. He wasn't stupid. It was an Ekans, after all.
"I'm Nigel, by the way!"
The Ekans was now looking back at them, a friendly smile on his face.
"Uh." Meili hesitated, her eyes narrowing before she replied,
"Meilikki."
"And I'm Colby."
"Nice to meet you." Nigel said and, without further ado, began to lead the way.