She woke up with nightmares of her parents.
That was all Leu could remember of her parents anymore: dead, right in front of her. The tails cut off, the skin removed in some places, and their soulless eyes staring back at her whilst she could do nothing.
She swore that it wouldn't happen again, especially now that she was in a team of apparently super powerful pokemon. She didn't want to be the weak one again, the one in need of saving.
The Mareep looked around the darkened pokemon center room, everyone else still asleep. The Feraligatr slept right next to the bed, while the Jumpluff and Crobat took up some room on the queen sized bed as they snoozed. The Pidgeot and Sudowoodo slept right next to the door, as if they had been on guard duty and fell asleep in the process.
Her trainer, though, wasn't asleep. She was awake on the bed, staring at the door as if contemplating something. Eventually, she got up as quietly as she could and went for the door. Curious as to where she was going without any of her pokemon, Leu quickly followed, half hobbling to keep weight off of her back left foot that was tightly bandaged..
The chase lead Leu through the brightly lit, warm building to the bitter cold and eerily quiet outside with lots of odd looking buildings and a tower in the distance. Her trainer seemed to be freaked out by the silence, but pressed on anyways towards the high tower. Leu followed as quick as she could, though her left foot started to give off a throbbing pain.
She ended up in another building, only lit by candles here and there with monks protecting the passage through. As soon as her trainer talked to them, they stepped aside, and the Mareep quickly ran past them as they continued to stare at her trainer. The passage went for a while, but eventually came out right next to the large tower that was surrounded by trees that had leaves of all hues of red, orange, and yellow. Halfway between the passage and the tower was a man with yellow hair and purple attire, focusing on something.
". . .M-. . .Morty?" she finally spoke up, and the man turned. He looked her up and down before sighing.
"So that's what you look like as a girl. . ." he trailed off.
". . .You knew?"
"I know a lot of things, Arella. I can see things that others cannot," he explained, "Like that fact that a Mareep followed you here from the Pokemon Center."
Leu was startled when both her trainer and the man stared straight at her, but quickly shook off the feeling and hobbled over to her.
"I also know you two have the same drive, but. . .I want to hear it from you."
"I. . ." she stammered as she started to speak, "I want to get better. I want to stop being a nuisance to my own team when things get bad. . .I. . ." she paused, "I want to fend for myself when something beyond their power comes for me."
He smiled, "Let's get started then."
He would have freaked out, but waking out without Arella was starting to become a tradition. A very annoying tradition that made him feel like she didn't think of them as a family anymore, but, a tradition nonetheless.
Matthew didn't blame her when he noticed Leu was gone too, however. If what Daniel told him was true, the poor thing was probably just as scarred, if not more then his own trainer.
At this point, that was saying something.
He decided then he might as well look for them a little bit, to make sure she wasn't trying to kill herself or something. He chuckled as he left the room, noticing that both Daniel and Harris were right next to the door, asleep as if they were up all night ready to protect her from anything.
He walked down the hallway as quietly as he could, trying to size down his stature a little so he didn't intimidate every single person he came across, but it was quite hard when he was a seven and a half foot, pure muscle Feraligatr. He had realized that fact a while ago.
Matthew was so busy thinking that he almost didn't notice his own trainer in the breakfast area, the chair to the right of her being occupied by an Ampharos and the other was occupied by. . .Morty, of all people.
It, however, did not take long for Arella to notice him. She quickly waved him over to her table, smiling as she did. . .something he hadn't seen in a while.
"Morning Matthew," she greeted her starter as he walked over, "Is anyone else awake?"
"Not that I know of. . ." he replied, eyeing Morty the entire time, ". . .Where were you last night?"
"I couldn't sleep," she glanced over at the Ampharos, ". . .Neither could she, so I asked Morty for help with my training."
Matthew found it hard to believe she was sitting at the same table with the ghost gym leader, let alone asking him for help with training. Daniel could vouch for him, she was terrified of ghosts and did not want to go in that gym.
Unfortunately, the only one that saw the worst part in person was dead.
"Where are you heading next?"
Morty himself interrupted his thoughts, and it took him all he could to not scowl at him, at least not in the presence of Arella.
"We're heading off to Blackthorn," Arella smiled back at him, "It's the only gym badge we're missing."
". . .Blackthorn." Morty's gaze suddenly went distant, gaining him confused stares from both Arella and the two pokemon currently with her.
"Morty?" Arella finally asked after a while, hesitant as she did. That seemed to do the trick though, since his gaze fixed back on Arella as he snapped back into reality.
"There's. . .Arceus, how do I put this?" he glanced nervously around the room, then leaned in closely, forcing Matthew to move in closer to hear what he had to say, "There's been some rumors about her. . .cheating, recently."
"Cheating?" she gasped.
"Shhhh, not so loud," he whispered, "I'm supposed to have a neutral opinion on all league matters and keep my mouth shut about this."
"And why would that be?" Matthew raised an eyebrow.
"It keeps gym leaders from being at each others throats," he sighed, "the leaders are influential people, but if we had strong opinions about league matters, including other leaders, they may start using their influence to make another leader look bad, and then that leader will do the same back, and then others will join in," the gym leader shook his head, "Its kind of a check and balance thing."
"So what about the next gym leader?" Arella bit her lip.
"As I said, there's been. . .rumors that after being beaten by a trainer, she claims she'll only give a badge up if they pass some trial which is supposedly impossible. When any of the trainers complained to the league, she just says that they didn't beat her in the first place since they don't have a badge to prove it," Morty's voice lowered, "I mean, she's always been kind of a. . .sore looser, but this is a definite first. . .theoretically."
The trainer didn't have any more time to ask Morty about the 'theoretical' cheating, since only moments after he was done someone called his name. He turned for a split second, whispered that he had to go, and was gone in a flash, leaving her, Leu, and Matthew to themselves, thinking.
"Arceus damnit," she suddenly stood up, "I've been through gender-switching, torture, and death since I started this journey. I'm not letting a little cheating end it."
So, it's been a while. . .About a year if I remember correctly, or at least getting there. I don't think I ever told you guys, but my computer with my ROM, my notes, everything died last November and I haven't really written since. I have this chapter and another left that I posted up on Nuzlocke that I didn't post here and that's probably going to be it, but who knows? Thank you again to everyone for your support ^_^
