Chapter 14: A Friend's Mission and Painful Memories

Author's note: A 4 chapter week, I'm pretty generous aren't I? Hahaha, oh yes, i'm just doing this because i just finished up chapter 43 today and i really need to catch up with what i'm writing. Don't be surprised if in the oncoming weeks i post one chapter per day!

The big men standing tall took a step back from the giant blob that is a Snorlax. It ran towards the group and leapt up into the air and landed with a large earthquake. The bikers' Swalot and Magneton were all almost completely knocked out. Lenny's Mightyena quickly finished the Swalot with a Crunch, and Heidi's Eevee finished off the Magneton with a simple headbutt attack. The Weezing still stood strong, and the other bikers knew they could only rely on an escape. After dousing the area with a smoke screen, the motorcyclists quickly drove off and had left the friends to catch up.

"What are you doing so far from the daycare?" Heidi asked.

"Well I was told the Safari Zone needed someone to help that knew how to take care of pokemon for a short while because one of their field men was injured on the job. I was going to be his replacement until he got better, but on my way here I accidentally won a few too many Voltorb flip games against those thugs in Celadon, so they chased me all the way here. I never rode so fast in my life!"

"Leave it to you to get into so much trouble," Jake sarcastically exclaimed. "I see Poochy finally evolved," signaling to his Mightyena.

"Oh, yeah! He evolved just before I left actually! I left my Happiny at home with Alexandra, and on the way here I caught a Houndour!" Leonard threw up a blue pokeball and out came a small tough looking dog. It growled up at the Mightyena, who seemed to scoff and pushed it away. A motorcycle drove past us, the angry guy yelling "Get off the road!" They decided then to move over to the sidewalk on the left side of the road. The conversation continued flawlessly.

"What is it with you and the Dark types?"

"What? They're the coolest of them all!"

"Speaking of which how's your Eevee Len? Has it evolved into an Umbreon yet?"

"No, not yet, but I'm working on it!"

Heidi finally gets a word in, "Wait, YOU have an Eevee too!?"

"Yeah, of course. The best part is it was Green's Eevee's egg! Imagine how powerful my little guy is gonna get!"

Heidi looked in amazement. "GREEN GAVE YOU AN EEVEE EGG?!" Jacob guesses that she knows about the legendary Champion Green who was dethroned after 1 week by his rival Red, who gave the title back and continued to train on his own. "I WANNA SEE YOUR EEVEE! CAN MINE PLAY WITH IT!?" She was up in his face now.

"Alright! But its not like it is any better than your Eevee!" He puts down a Yellow and Black ball, an Ultra Ball. I guess he seemed it befitting that a good pokemon has a good pokeball. Out came an Eevee slightly larger than Heidi's own, with a small spiking of its hair instead of the cowlick most Eevees had. It recognized its fellow species member and they started to frolic on the cement path. Len returned his other two pokemon and Snorlax, now asleep, was returned to his ball as well. Heidi, now curious about Len's Eevee, asks, "Wait, why did Green give YOU of all people an Eevee egg?"

"Well Heidi, when he showd up to the daycare and saw an Eevee playing in the yard, he stopped and started talking to me about Eevee. He was explaining to me how his Eevee evolved into an Umbreon after 4 years of being his very best friend. When he mentioned the Umbreon I went on for about 10 minutes about how much I would die to have one of my own, and he gave me an Eevee egg! Apparently his Umbreon and a Jolteon got a little friendly at Oak's and they had this egg, and he was walking around waiting for it to hatch. He just happened to see the Eevee we were taking care of and because he stopped I became the lucky owner of his Eevee's son!" He told the story with much gusto, as usual, with Heidi hanging on every word.

"Wow! You are so lucky!" she said with amazement in her voice. "Having a champion's pokemon's egg makes you, like, related to him!" Jacob and Len laughed at her suggestion.

They began walking towards Fuschia again, the two Eevees skipping ahead of the group. Alexandra came back out and perched itself on Jacob's shoulder again, a large smile on its face.

"Please! Please, can you save my Gligar!?"

"I'm sorry, we don't know what's wrong with it."

"But you have to save Gligar or he's going to die!"

"The most we can do is make him more comfortable-"

"But you're nurse Joy! You're supposed to make pokemon better!"

"I'm sorry little boy, I'm so sorry, but this is all we can do."

The boy cries into the foot of the bed his Gligar is lying in. All he can do is wail as his Gligar slowly fades away from this world. What seems to be the faded image of his older brother puts his hand on his shoulder, "He was a great pokemon. He loved you as his owner. Be strong for him." The older man leaves the room and leaves the boy crying at the bed, alone and frightened. His Torchic forces its way out of the pokeball and onto his lap. It also starts to shed tears for its friend.

"HAH! OH. Oh... That dream again..." It was midday as the boy in the dream, now older, awoke from his nap on a bench in Saffron City.

"You shouldn't torture yourself like that."

"I promised myself I would never lose anyone again."

"That may be so, but you can't dwell on the past."

"Stop trying to sound like a cliché from an anime or something."

"It's true though. Clichés are created for that reason."

"Just shut up. Please." The Blaziken next to the boy lowers its head and re-enters its pokeball. "Just shut up..."