Edited 9-17-15

Disclaimer: Don't own Pokémon besides for a few of the games.

Chapter Forty Four

We spent the first day in Goldenrod getting in some last minute training for our chosen pokémon line-up for the eventual gym battle. It was something I was becoming accustomed to doing when reaching a town that held a gym, not to say I was against the habit. Nathan was still trying to get his Geodude to evolve before his match, his being scheduled a half hour after my own, so he was not exactly complaining about my want to wait an extra day, either.

Already we had seen Trainer's come into the center with dejected looks, having lost to the gym leader, Whitney, so we both wanted to be ready when it became our turn to face her.

We trained together on the outskirts of town, though to be more accurate, we trained in the same general area. With Nathan still having a certain fondness for battling other Trainer's as a form of training his pokémon, I liked to keep with my own version of training.

While letting out all of my current pokémon to join in on the training, I let Growlithe, Noctowl, and Horsea train at their own pace after giving them some basic instructions while Nidorino, Poliwhirl, and Raticate stuck with me in hopes of getting them as ready as possible for the next day.

For attack moves, I had Raticate work on its Crunch and Hyper-Fang, using the surrounding trees as its target. Poliwhirl I had try and improve its aim with both Water Gun and the still shaky BubbleBeam, having it take aim at a particular grouping of leaves high up in one of the tress and work on shooting them down with one move, and then move onto another high up grouping of leaves and attack with the next move. Once Poliwhirl felt that it had a decent control over its BubbleBeam and improved with its Water Gun, it was to move onto trying out Body Slam, getting a better feel of its new physical strength with its evolved form.

When it came to Nidorino, I had him work on his Horn Attack and Fury Attack with spouts of Poison Sting in between, also having him use the surrounding trees as a target.

It was at times like these I honestly felt bad for the trees that my pokémon attacked, and could not help but wonder if the reason for so many fallen trees were because of Trainer's like myself letting their pokémon use them for target practice. I would not be surprised if that was the case, though.

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Nearly two and a half hours later, I gave a loud whistle, calling back my pokémon. With Horsea having been training within a close by pond, one that was well within my sights so that I could keep an eye on it, I only had to wait for Growlithe and Noctowl, the rest of them already gathered around me.

Noctowl was the first of the two to return, the large flying type landing up above the rest of us on a tree branch, giving a low trill of a greeting before going about and preening its equally as large left wing.

Five minutes, another two whistles later, and having started to grow impatient, I crossed my arms across my chest and scowled at the general area that Growlithe had left in. Giving another quick look over my current surroundings, I gave an annoyed huff and dropped my arms to my side.

"Okay, guys, looks like we get the fun job of looking for Growlithe ourselves, seeing how she refuses to come back on her own," I grumbled out, not at all pleased with the situation. My exhaustion was starting to get the best of me.

Walking over to where Horsea was waiting in the pond, I bent down and scooped the small water type and held it against my chest securely, not ready to return it when it might have a use out of its pokeball.

Looking over at the rest of my pokémon, I sighed lightly before splitting them up. Sending Nidorino, Noctowl, and Poliwhirl in one direction, Horsea, Raticate, and I headed off in the other.

Having chosen the direction Growlithe had headed off in, I was partially hoping to simply find my wayward pokémon sleeping underneath a tree somewhere and call it a day after giving said pokémon a chew out.

As such, when Raticate paused in its movements ahead of my, its ears and tail twitching, I had to hold in a groan and fight back on yelling out 'now what?!' to the sky as if it was the one at fault.

Raticate quickly looked back at me, shifting from side to side as it spoke rapidly at me, seeming to have forgotten I was unable to understand the language of pokémon. Horsea, still in my arms, seemed to get what Raticate was saying as it gave a squeak of a noise in response, wiggling in my hold as it looked up at me, its mouth starting to produce vague whistle like sounds. Blinking, I gave another look at my anxious looking Raticate who was turned back to where we were heading, then looked back at Horsea who was still making that weird whistle-like-noise. Suddenly, it clicked within my head just what they were getting at and I wasted no more time in bringing one hand up to my mouth, my other hand cradling Horsea like one would a baby, and gave three sharp whistles.

With that out of the way, I got Horsea back into a more comfortable position and nodded at Raticate who was once again giving me an anxious look. Without further hesitation Raticate took off and I was close on its heels. At our pace it did not take long to reach where Raticate wanted to get to, and at even a glace around the clearing I could understand why.

There were two other humans present, both male and if I had to guess around fourteen or fifteen of age. They both wore black shirts and black baggy cargo pants, the only difference in their outfits being that one had dark red patched seemingly randomly placed on his pants, the other's being whole.

Each had a pokémon out and in front of them, one being a large Golem and the other an angry looking Electabuzz, sparks of electricity running along its body.

When I spotted Growlithe, my heart leapt into my throat and it felt as if the air was knocked out of me. Then I felt nothing but a burning hot anger, a fury similar to the one I felt when Nidorino had been taken from me.

My proud, ever so proud, pokémon was pushed up against a large tree, crouched low with her bloody fangs bared. Her once smooth and clean red and cream colored fur was matted and stained with her own blood from gashes and smaller cuts along her sides and one upon her back. Her front left paw was limp, her body weight being supported by her right leg.

Forget just angry, I was pissed and ready to defend my pokémon.

With a silent snarl I took long strides into the clearing, my furious gaze pinned on the two teenage boys who had just noticed my appearance. Knowing that Raticate would keep either of the other two Trainer's Pokémon from attacking me, I zeroed in on them and only them, practically hissing out my words.

"What in the hell do you two think you're doing to my pokémon." Despite beings posed as a question, it did not sounded anything like one, my tone being more of an 'I'm pissed and you're the reason why'. As I spoke I took much slower, more precise steps towards the two, continuing my glare and snarl of a look. I finally stopped a forth of the way into the clearing, the two teens being roughly a dozen steps ahead of me now.

One of the two, the one with the red patched on his pants, gave a wide eyed look at me, his mouth opening and closing, no sound coming forth. The other boy, though, returned my glared though not nearly as fierce as he eyed me and gave the briefest of look over to Raticate at my side and Horsea in my arms. As if thinking the two of them could take me on without trouble given my present pokémon, his confidence looked to grow as his glare turned into a smug look, his arms crossed against his chest.

"You're pokémon? Heh, not much of a pokémon, is it? Be thankful that we're taking it off your hands." His tone was that of pure arrogance, one that suggested he was used to getting his way with people. His friend, after losing the shock of my sudden and rather angered appearance, took after the cocky teen and crossed his own arms, though a hint of caution was still present under his own smug look.

I said nothing in return, simply stalling for time at this point. I knew the rest of my pokémon would get here soon enough, and with them, the better chance of beating the two teenage boys into submission.

"What's wrong, sweetheart, nothing to say," the boy who first spoke taunted, his look turning into a leering one as he none to casually looked my body up and down.

Disgust was added in with my cold fury, making my glare all the fiercer as I bared my own teeth at the two.

"Forgive me if I don't exactly like talking to trash such as you." A movement in the branches above us made me glace up ever so slightly, just enough to catch sight of Noctowl, who returned my stare with a just as ferocious one, clearly understanding the situation. A movement out of the corner of my eye clued me in on the fact that Nidorino and Poliwhirl were present as well.

Looking back at the two slightly peeved boys, I gave the cruelest smirk I could manage, which was not exactly all that hard, and began calling out orders, all the while keeping eye contact with the frowning boy with red pant patches.

"Hyper Fang, Horn Attack, and Confusion on yellow. BubbleBeam and Water Gun on brown." My pokémon wasted no time in jumping into action, Raticate darting forward to deliver a Hyper Fang to the Electabuzz who was still too busy staring down Growlithe to notice the incoming attack, much less Nidorino who came charging in from the opposite side of the enemy pokémon.

Raticate's attack hit first, its overly large yet menacingly sharp teeth sinking into the other's side which brought forth a cry of pain. With its job done, Raticate let go of its target and got out of the way of Nidorino who not even seconds later rammed full speed into the Electabuzz, sending the pokémon flying a good few feet before rolling to a stop, poison leaking from its received wound. Without missing a beat, a pink outline surrounded the dazed and injured pokémon, it being lifted a few feet into the air before being turned upside down and slammed head first back onto the ground, knocking out the Electabuzz.

At the same time as this was going on, Poliwhirl literally jumped into the clearing and pounded the surprised Golem with wave after wave of BubbleBeam, not letting up on its attack despite the Golem crying out its own pain as it tried to back up only to trip and land on the ground with a hard crash that had the ground shaking just the slightest. In my arms, Horsea took aim at its target and let loose its Water Gun, nailing the other pokémon on its side and following its actions, also not letting up on its attack.

Growlithe, having not gotten to the point she was in without fighting back, had been able to weaken the Golem enough to where in no time at all the two combined water attacks had the large pokémon down and out as well, unable to get a chance in fighting back.

With the two teen's pokémon out of the way, Poliwhirl walked over to me without having to have been asked and took Horsea for me, allowing me to stalk towards the gaping boys, my hands clenched into tight fists.

The teen with the red patches was the first to snap out of his daze, snarling at me as he yelled out. "You son of a bit-" I cut him off by a solid punch to the jaw, putting as much weight into it as I could since that was all I would allow myself it terms of physical violence on my half.

His head snapped to the side as he stumbled back a few steps and would have tripped much like the Golem had done if not for his friend catching him, much to my irritation.

Ignoring the pain in my hand, I leveled my glare on the second teen, said boy once again staring at me wide eyed as his friend let out a pathetic moan in his lack grip.

"You'd do well to stay away from my pokémon in the future. Next time I won't be so lenient." I did not wait for an answer before I spun on my heels and made my ways over towards Growlithe, who by this point was content to lying on her stomach, following my movements with her eyes. Not even bothering to hold back my wince, I tugged my backpack off my shoulders and set it next to me, trusting my pokémon to watch my back for me as I tended to Growlithe as much as possible before recalling her to her pokeball, no matter how much she would no doubt hate it even when injured to such a degree.

Ignoring the sound of movement behind me, my pokémon's combined growling nearly covering it, I sprayed the worst of the gashes and cuts with disinfection, moving onto a hyper potion on the worst of the wounds in hopes of getting them to at least stop their bleeding. With one hand spraying on the medicine, I used my other to gently rub small circles on the top of Growlithe's head, it being the only place that did not look hurt in some way or another.

"There now, you're going to be okay," I spoke softly to my pokémon as I worked, though if my words were meant to comfort her or me I was not sure. Nonetheless, I continued speaking to her just loud enough for her to hear, only pulling my hand off her head long enough to grab the next bottle from my bag. Before long, I had done as much as I could with my limited supplies and was forced to recall my partly healed pokémon with a sad smile.

Sighing, I collected up all of the used bottles I had used and place them back into my bag. With that done I stood and turned to face my pokémon, unsurprised to find the two boys gone from the clearing.

Praising my pokémon on their impressive teamwork, I recalled them one by one until I was left alone. With another heavy sigh I ran my hand through my hair before making my way back to Goldenrod at a light jog, wanting to get to the center as fast as possible.

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