Disclaimer: I don't own pokémon
Chapter Thirty Five: Night fight
I woke up in the middle of the night, I had bolted upright for some reason. I froze instantly before slowly turning my head to see if I had woken anybody, luckily no one was awake though much more movement and Evona who had rolled up next to me would if she hadn't already, my foot was on Lyro's tail too. If I were to go, now would be the time. I thought to myself, but how would I tell them I wasn't just ditching them because I felt like it? Maybe it would be best to tell them in person, if they didn't like the idea I would leave the next night if I didn't get any other ideas.
"What's going on?" I heard a sleepy whisper, I restrained myself from yelping and jumping in surprise. I looked up to where the voice had come and saw the girl up in the treetop.
"Nothing." I said simply. I didn't want to talk to her at all, let alone about this.
"Translation, something big. Though I have a feeling even those two don't know about it." She said with a thoughtful and curious look on her face as if she expected some insight.
"Go back to sleep before you wake everyone up." I said before decided to take the risk of getting out of bed, I heard a slight groan from Evona's side and froze.
"Where are you going?" I heard Evona mumble before her head emerged from the fur around her neck, I let out a sigh.
"Just a walk, trying to find some normality." I said, the "normality" I was talking about was back at the guild. She raised an eyebrow "Go back to sleep the booth of you." I told them before getting up fully and heading away from the clearing. As far as I was aware now only Zreka would think about disturbing my peace, yet that wasn't comforting since I knew that was a big possibility. The forest was silent aside from the odd conversation among hoothoot and noctowl. I wandered aimlessly for a while before considering the possibility Evona or the girl didn't go to sleep and instead decided to wait, me being gone for a while might trigger a reaction for some reason or another. But my mind flickered over to the question of why the girl was still there before flickering over to why I was even doing all this, it would have been more simple if we never met dark day or even joined the guild. That Mew and Celebi duo could find someone more eager or heroic to do the job, celebi being time travellers they had all the time in the world. Then I looked back to my shifty moods and personalities, it was like I was having a mid life crisis, though that was entirely possible given the circumstances, bar the part about it being the middle of my life unless you only counted what I had in memories and I was going to die in a few weeks. I woke up from my thoughts for some reason, my eyes flickered about for any signs of a threat and finding none. But then I noticed I had a shadow, not only that but it had a green halo.
I spun around in an instant to find myself face to face with a giant green and bi-pedal lizard with a thick and darker green tail from which in three directions protruded leaf like extensions at regular intervals, a red strip went across the front of the stomach like a belt above it powerfully built hind legs, the feet of which ended in claws, its arms having the same sort of things for hands, before the hands on the forearms stood out two wing like extensions that looked in the shape of a leaf. These were pulsing with a green light and steadily growing, I looked up at its sharp face to see two eyes staring back. it lifted its arms and crossed them in front of its face, a moment later it lashed out at me with them.
"Ahh!" I shouted out in pain, a sharp stinging sensation in the shape on an X was felt on my chest, from it I felt odd trickles of something warm. In response I sprung back towards it with one paw it my hip, I landed in front of the towering creature many knew as the king of the forest before jumping straight up and striking it under the chin, the creature didn't budge, the end of my paw hurt from the attack though and I landing on the ground whilst clutching the injured paw.
"I was sent for a weakling like you?" the sceptile spoke up before spinning around and slamming its heavy tail into my side, the bristles of the tail swiped across my chest which made it hurt more. I felt my feet lift off the ground before hitting a tree at an odd angle and falling back to the ground, I opened my eyes to see him coming around for another swing, I quickly ignited my aura at my foot and swung around to counter with blaze kick, as the two attacks collided there was no contest, I didn't have the mass to compete with the huge pokémon and my foot was knocked back which sent me spinning onto the ground. I saw the sceptile pull out a pale blue gem which began to glow as he did. In an instant he leapt to a tree top and then to another, with each leap the gem glowed brighter. Then he began to leap to branches closer to me in an amazing display of acrobatics, the gem then began to lose it solid form and melt away in the sceptile's hand, its fluids slowly creeping over his body and the parts it had covered began to trail of a faint and pale blue stream of energy begin them. As his whole body was enveloped the liquid glowed brighter before being absorbed into his skin which began to glow brightly, the trail behind him intensified. I watched stupefied by the sight, that was until his gaze flashed my way, as he rebounded off the next tree he shot at me with amazing speed I side stepped as clear of him as I could be he reached out and grabbed me, before swinging the arm that held me into a tree, with me between the tree and his hand. He then let go of me and made two more rebounds before coming back and slamming himself full force into me. I fell to the ground weakly and watched as the glow faded, the attack felt lethal and painful in a sense that it was powerful but also unpleasant on another level, I recognised the jewel that he had pulled out as a flight gem, so that attack could have been acrobatics, and with that jewel's power behind it the attack was stronger than a hyper beam. With him having a lethal attack on me and the only attack I had that threatened a grass type like him being blaze kick which I simply didn't have the mass to pull of effectively all I could do was dodge if I recovered in time. Back up wasn't going to come fast enough so I would have to pull through on my own. The sceptile stood before me with a merciless look on his face, he prepared his leaf blades again. He swung one in an arc towards me, knowing a clean dodge was out of the question I quickly formed two gauntlets. As the attack got close I reached out and clapped my hands to either side of the attack, the attack was stopped completely with the leaf blades trapped between my paws, it had stopped it for the moment but I was slipping and the sceptile was pushing harder. In this time I had forgotten about his other arm which suddenly came around my other side. Something sharp slammed into my side and dug in to my skin to a certain extent as I tumbled over. Taking him on from a distance was impossible since all I could do was throw measly balls from force palm which he did who knows what, attacking him at his range would be worse since I was completely in his range and he was out of mine, so that left the risky alternative of entering close combat. His limbs would be too long to reach me comfortably.
I leapt at him with a growl that came out rather puny, he seemed startled my the sudden motivation and attack but recovered quickly enough to swipe his claw across my chest and effectively send me back to where I came from. I struggled to my feet just in time to leap back and avoid another swipe, I leapt at him again before his swipe came to an end and attached myself to his body with my legs before letting loose a rapid fire of jabs from my paws which were protected by my metal gauntlets.
"Rah!" I heard him shout angrily. It seemed as my onslaught did little more than annoy him and I sensed an attack so I grabbed his right shoulder and let go with my legs, the result had me swing onto his back before repeating my last assault on the back of his head. He hunched over in an attempt to get his head out of my range though that didn't work, unfortunately he was easily able to shake me off and I once more fell to the ground.
Thinking this through logically and directly didn't seem to do much except waste my time and make him mad, thinking back most of my battles had been won with last minute desperate and reckless attacks, I didn't see why it shouldn't be that way now. Most of those battles involved that ability, it hadn't kicked in for a while and didn't look like doing so now, but they also had a tendency for big booms and big blazes. Scanning through my attacks for anything explosive and fiery I came up with force palm and blaze kick. I needed to amplify them booth, that meant increasing the size of the orb I use in force palm and most likely setting myself alight. I closed my eyes to concentrate as no doubt I would need to, a second later something grabbed me around the neck before lifting me off the ground and holding me against a tree, the sharp edges of the claws dug into me skin and I resisted the urge to cry out in pain, instead focusing my aura and gathering every ounce of it I had. I felt it pool up just under my stubs and in my chest. The concentration of energy felt painful rather than exhilarating but I kept my concentration, I felt an external energy build up and opened my eyes slightly to see one claw behind the sceptile was pooling an electric green energy, it seemed similar to the shadow ball used by the gengar except it was green and had tendrils of mist coming into it from all around us in the forest adding to its size. Now or never. I thought to myself as my eyes snapped fully open and my felt the aura which had been pooling in specific areas burst throughout my body before an invisible spark in my chest set it all alight. I heard an agonized cry from the sceptile as the inferno that consumed me burned its claw, I dropped to the ground smoothly while the sceptile took a few steps back as it was unable to stand the heat. I saw the sceptile burst into a wild inferno for a brief moment before returning to normal, that was a sign of a residue burn from the energy I had let out. I held my paws out in front of me with each ones palm facing the other, between them a ball of clear emerald green energy formed with a smooth surface covering the orb, within it were no dark or light patches, just a consistent green. The orb quickly swelled with the energy from my reserves to something easily able to fit me. I fired it off quickly at the now panicking sceptile and leapt into it as it travelled towards the green lizard. Before I reached him I formed another orb for force palm between my paws. As my outer shield collided with the sceptile's chest there was a huge explosion which sent a shockwave of energy through the surroundings, the sceptile staggered back and barely held his ground, I followed through by thrusting my paws out at him and slamming them into his chest with the orb of energy pooled up in the palms sending another but less violent shockwave as well as a bright beam of light in almost every direction that wasn't behind the palm itself. I felt his body give way though no thud of his body hitting the ground was heard and I continued with my final attack which I hoped would end the battle. I pulled my arms over and behind my head before tossing them in the opposite direction while clasping them together to create a spinning momentum as I slammed them into his chest. As I made contact all of my reserves gushed to my front paws and combusted in one take, the explosion sent my flying back into the familiar pains of striking a tree trunk. I closed my eyes during this to shield them from the blast. I flopped down face first into the dirt with every inch of me aching inside and out. My joints felt pained and weak whilst my back felt like something sharp was digging into it from the repeated thrusting into the bark of trees, the other sensation was the physical burns from being alight on my skin and the painful sting of the overflow of aura. I opened my eyes a crack to see the sceptile laying motionless on the ground with smoke rising from and around him.
I groaned before using my last ounces of strength to push myself off the ground with my paws, as they came into my sights I saw the grey singes hanging onto the ends of my hairs before falling off as I moves, in some places there were some glowing tips which I quickly snuffed out, my fur was left ragged and uneven as well as matted down against my chest and neck there the sceptile had lashed out at me or his claws had done other damage. The foul stench of burst hair or fur lingered around me. I forced myself into a sitting position in time to see the sceptile vanish as I had seen dark day do once before. I surveyed the damage around me, many trees were left with blackened trunks scorched by the burst of fire and energy. Above the spot where the sceptile had been the branches were bare and black as well as smouldering, in some places grey ash hung onto the carcass of the branch it used to be a part of. Why did I have to cause this? I thought to myself as I felt a tear trickle down my cheek, I respected trees for living beings purely for the fact that they were and that they seemed to lack the greed of people and many pokémon. I felt a strange and unexplainable connection to them and causing the damage I had here hurt me emotionally, I remembered back to the battle with virizion how I had risked being killed to stop the fire. I pushed those thoughts aside as I noticed a glowing ember on one branch and focused on its aura before draining it away, there was an instant result as the ember dimmed and turned into a deep black piece of charcoal which broke off a moment later. These pokémon Zreka is sending are only getting stronger and soon he might send more than one at a time, maybe even go after those around me. I thought to myself as another tear rolled down my cheek, I can't put those people and their pokémon in danger just because I rely on them for food, I especially can't risk harm to Evona and Lyro. But I'm not in a condition to leave now, or even walk. I thought to myself as I restrained the urge to burst into tears, over the past month I realised I had just been bundling trouble after trouble up somewhere and it was getting to much. I heard a rustle of fallen leaves nearby, I knew it could be friend or foe but I was to weak to do anything, I had even lost the will to fight back, maybe if I let them…do what the want with me…they will leave everyone else alone. I thought to myself, it was a false hope and I knew it but it was hope never the less and I prepared myself for the events I predicted