Pokémon: Agent of Entei

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Pokémon is not mine, but my Characters are.

Nurse Joy didn't even give us a second glance before handing the keys back over. With the rest of the day off, I figured I might as well grab my pokemon and head out to train. It had been quite some time since my last training session with my pokemon. How time seems to fly. Unlike Jesse and Harold I had lots of energy. I walked out the front sliding glass door and unleashed my pokemon. The pack materialized and came to attention quickly, all the dogs lining up and sitting down in a neat row with militaristic ease. Holdin the Magcargo, Xiuh the Heatmor, and Tanner the Magmar all glanced towards me for a moment before heading off in different directions. "Hold it!' I called after them. Tanner turned and came back, looking curious, but the other two kept going on. Just as I was about to move after them, a loud roar rent the air and Frash landed before them in a cloud of dust before leaning forward predatorily and roaring right in their faces.

Xiuh beat a hasty retreat back to me, but Holdin curled up into his shell like a real snail would. I didn't know he could do that. Frash gave Holdin's shell a good kick and he rolled back into line. Ignacia, my new Rapidash whinnied at Frash nervously and I pet her mane to calm her down. She didn't line up, instead opting to move a little ways away and eat the pokecenter's grass. Bruce, my Torkoal, simply glanced at the line and then back to me expectantly. "Oh no," I told him, "We're doing this, and you're going to do it without a treat." I told Bruce. Bruce seemed to give it some thought before finally blowing off some built up steam from the back of his shell and lumbering into line.

I quickly dex'd the squadron of pokemon, learning most of them hung closely around level thirty five, give or take some levels. They were all strong, but I needed to focus on getting them accustomed to their new forms, seeing as almost all of them had evolved to their final forms. They needed to become familiar with their moves as well, so that they could learn to use them in more specialized ways. Frash, once again my strongest pokemon, had been off hunting and power training himself in the wilderness ever since the recent battle. That he knew to show up here was probably a tip off from a legendary or good ol' fashioned instinct. He was close to reaching level sixty, making a staggering gap between my strongest and second strongest pokemon. But there was still much for him to learn, and soon he was going to be needed to carry me and perhaps one or two other people around on his back. Upping his strength and improving his flight was going to take rigorous training. But before that, I had to figure out what to do for the other pokemon.

I set my pack to train their non-fire moves, hoping to broaden their skill sets. They were all readily quick to learn new tricks, so they took to learning one of their oldest and least used moves with gusto. Now that I finally was outdoors somewhere, the move dig had come back into play, and they quickly set to filling the pokecenter's back yard with large holes. Xiuh and Holdin were resistant to training, so I gave the both of them a good glare, and when that didn't work, I got Frash to encourage them to work on their defenses. Bruce seemed to be doing his own thing, manipulating his steam and smoke. It was clearly a well used training exercise, and I wodered if his last trainer, the agent of fire from five hundred years ago had taught it to him. Thinking like that depressed me, so I left him to it and moved onto Ignacia. I had her work on her defining element, her speed. She took to running great loops around the pokemon center, and dancing through the fields of holes from the dogs to improve her footwork. I had Tanner work on learning to vary his fire power. He was literally made of magma, and I didn't want him to hurt anybody or any pokemon that weren't trying to kill me, so it was important he learned control. I had him working on the basics, holding in his heat, hold this rock without melting it into slag, try to keep your form contained without fire rolling off you, that sort of stuff. Finally I turned back to Frash, ready to teach him how to fly. It didn't occur to me until I was on his back that he hadn't ever really been that fond of me, and had come close to trying to kill me several times.

Frash leapt into the air diagonally, clearing twenty feet straight up from his powerful hind legs, his wings shooting out to snatch the wind. And then we were off, and I could only hold my arms around his neck and pray my fingers didn't slip as Frash shot into the air at extreme speeds. "Down, Frash!" I screamed into the wind, but Frash couldn't hear me over the current. Te wind whipped through my hair and blinded me, scratching at my eyes. I couldn't hear anything over the dull roar of the wind, and my skin was quickly going numb. I clenched my eyes and held on for dear life. Suddenly it was very cold and very wet. I opened my eyes to see we had been surrounded my darkness. For a moment I was totally nonplussed, before my quick mind realized we had flown into a cloud. Then we shot out of that too, still climbing. Above the cloud layer it was a whole new world. Below us rolled on an endless sea of clouds. The only thing up here was Frash and I, the sun and the clouds below us. Still Frash climbed higher. I tried to protest, but found myself too curious, to overwhelmed to say anything. I wanted to see how far up Frash could go. I wanted to see whatever it was he was showing me. I wanted to see more of the strange world above the clouds, and I wanted to get closer to my own power source, the bright sun in the sky. Up here, it felt like I was the only thing that existed. Frash roared again, filling the emptiness with his proud defiance before he climbed higher still.

I began to get concerned when we hit the stratosphere. Exiting the Troposphere was a messy, turbulence filled affair. We buffeted off the upper wall several times before we slipped in smoothly, Frash slowly carving his way up into the next level through sheer willpower and upper thrust. We shot clear through, and our unmolested moment slung us upwards. Frash quickly corrected and leveled off. Apparently he would go no further, and I honestly doubted we should try. Frash flew silently, and for the first time in my life, I found him being almost… respectful. I wondered why that was, but then I took a look around. Up here, the sky was black, sound did not exist. Frash beat his wings noiselessly against the sky. It should have been cold, but pressed up against my fire dragon I did not feel it. The blue sky lay below us, and the black reaches of space lay above, reaching down to greet us innocently. The stars were out above us, ignoring the law of day and night. I opened my mouth to whisper, but found myself unable to find words.

We must've been up there for an eternity. Frash used very little energy to fly up there, where gravity was slightly lessened. He only beat his wings once a minute it seemed like to me. I looked down at Earth and was able to see the actual curvature of the earth, and the edges of the earth revealed themselves to me, far off in the distance. Frash flew gently and reached up to tap my foot with one arm, and pointed off in the distance. Far way in the direction I was looking, I saw golden light. It was infinitly far away, hovering below us, attached to the continent below from a high mountain. "Is that The Hall of Origin?' I asked Frash in an awed voice. He grunted softly and we continued on towards it lazily. It lay far below us, down in the actual Troposphere, the first or final wall between earth and space. Down there lay our world, full of noise, sound, sights and activity. The hustle and bustle of everyday life, the roar or the world, the nature, the land, the life. Up here was a silent, vast, empty world, full of untouched beauty and yet still so alien. Was one better than the other? The dragon below me shifted a little, and we began a gradual spiral back down towards the world we knew. I shivered, not from the cold, but from the thoughts up here. Up here I felt like an intruder, an uninvited awkward guest in someone else's house, hoping not to be noticed unless I could catch the attention of the owners.

We had just begun leaving the ozone, the upper reaches of the Stratosphere when I heard it. A long, loud, bellowing roar that seemed to come from far away, across the sky. It sounded pained, or lonely perhaps. I recognized it to be a legendary, the sky dragon Rayquasa. As the sad roar washed over us, I tried to imagine living up here, effortlessly flying above the clouds so far below. With absolutely no contact or comforts. There was nothing up there but solitude and the vast empty space. Maybe it was beautiful, but it was not built for anyone to live in. There were no houses, no claimed spaces. Every stretch of sky was as empty and void as the last. Rayquasa must've been so lonely. "Think we can meet him?" I asked Frash as we descended. Frash glanced back at me like, 'What, you crazy?' before we skipped off the top of the Troposphere a few times. Finally sinking through it and slipping away from the empty world above the clouds I heard that long somber cry once more, and then we were gone.

Hitting the cloud barrier a ways down again was an unpleasant sensation. For any of you who have ever looked up and wondered what it would be like to sit on a cloud, you can answer your question by getting a washcloth, wearing it so ragged and thin you can see the threading, and then absolutely soaking it in as much cold water as you can. There was no resistance as we slid into the ocean in the sky, and I knew to take a long breath before we went in. Air was scarce in clouds after all, just like all the air above the Troposphere was tinged with ozone and made you feel refreshed but like you hadn't actually gotten enough to breath. We quickly shot through layer after layer of clouds before honing in on the land we came from. Frash had surprised me with his stamina and ability. He was much better than I expected. I had had my doubts he would even come close to the clouds. I wondered vaguely if the puffy white clouds actually were dangerous to Frash, what with his tail of fire. Probably better to not test that, in case the same could hold true for me. I wouldn't want to get elementally sick from a combination of water and air up here on Frash. If I threw up on him he'd probably throw me into another volcano from the ozone layer. Or, even worse, he could climb to the top of the ozone layer and push me into the next highest up layer, the mesosphere. That would not be good. Fire needs air to burn, humans need air to breath. My deadliest weakness would double fold kill me as I would suffocate twice as fast as a regular human. Maybe? I wasn't willing to test.

Frash homed in onto our take off area, shooting downwards at speed so fast my skin felt like it was peeling off. If I had though going up was bad, coming back down was twice as bad. Aside from my skin peeling back on itself, my eyes dried out, but I couldn't close my eyelids. My grip on Frash as slipping as we exited the upper layers of the Troposphere. It was suddenly, very, very cold. The clouds we were sailing through didn't help. Plunging through the last cloud he could find on the way down, Frash roared again, stretching his neck out and shooting fire from his mouth for no other reason than to show off. Unfortunately for me, I had had my hands on his neck, and him stretching it out tightened up some shoulder muscles, and I was bucked straight off Frash.

Freefall was terrifying for a good five seconds before I orientated myself. Okay, that way was down, the clouds were up. I threw my arms out and slowed my descent. I slowed, and stopped spinning. Frash fell lethargically alongside me, simply watching with lazed interest. I probably looked funny to him, who was able to fly. As soon as I got the hang of the slaw fall, I tried to bank my way over to Frash by turning my body to the right a little, slowly moving myself over towards Frash. He watched until I was in arms reach of his wing, which he lightly smacked me away with. "Hey!" I yelled at him, but it was snatched away by the wind.

Okay, so he wanted me to free fall. I snapped my arms to my side, leant my front downwards, and shot straight towards the earth. Frash tucked his arms and wings in and fell right alongside me. Since the distance I had from the ground was still at least a mile or two to fall, I relaxed. Surely Frash knew that if he didn't catch me Entei or some other Legendary would be sure to put him down? Hopefully. Now probably wasn't the best time to tell him, and I wasn't that sure they would. Maybe if I died they'd take my Pokémon and give them to the next best recruit for fire, and push him off in my spot? Up here was as good a time as any to think. How much did the legendaries care about us? They'd gone through thousands (?) of champions, perhaps hundreds of generations. True, not every legendary took on champions, and Arceus was only just now telling those who'd never taken a champion before they had no choice, because of the threat of the Encroaching Darkness, but more had raised champions than not. Were we important in the grand scheme of the legendaries, or just pawns? To Arceus, were other legendaries pawns as well? Was this all some big game to God?

Was this how soldiers felt all the time? Was this just because I was an idiotic teenager playing with the supernatural? Ah great, now I had depressed myself and made myself feel like a wuss. Normally I have Jesse to do that for me. Frash gave a slight roar and I looked up (down) from my ponderings to see we had only a few hundred meters. I maneuvered my way over to Frash's back, latching on as he threw his wings open and caught the wind. We were moving so fast and with so much force I thought Frash's wings might break. Surely if he were feathered he'd have had them all torn out by the force we exuded as we changed from vertical to horizontal. Frash roared another challenge aloud, laughing his great defiance as we transitioned. And suddenly, it hit me. We weren't going to level off, nor did Frash intent to.

"Frash you gods damned idiot!" I screeched as Frash roared another laughing defiance and shot his feet forwards. Fifty meters, twenty, ten, five. IMPACT.

We hit the ground so hard it buckled around us. Frash roared again, so loud the air shook and the earth trembled. I had numbed over, but I was sure as hell going to feel that in the morning if I didn't get some serious fire treatment. Frash continued to roar loudly, his way of laughing without the proper vocal channels. My teeth seems to have come loose in their bearings, my legs were jelly. How didn't Frash's bones buckle under that impact? We hit the earth like a comet, as we might have well been. Frash sucked in another great lungful and shot off his brightest hottest fire into the air, bright acid green mixing with draconic heritage blue. If I could have found my tongue I would have muttered showoff under my breath, but it seems I was still much to shaky. I finally was able to move my arms a little bit, releasing my death grip from Frash's shoulders. Unable to move my numbed legs, I simply tilted a little to the side and slid straight off Frash's neck and down his shoulder, coming to rest at his foot, still paralyzed as I had been riding him. Frash gave an amused snort and bathed me in the bright green fire. It took a full five seconds for feeling to return to my legs, at which point I shakily sat up and glared balefully at Frash. He laughed some more at my plight before grabbing me with one great clawed hand and dropping me on his back before leaning forward like a T-Rex and marching forward, wings outstretched towards the town, up the hill.

I must've fell asleep from my exhaustion on Frash's back, because when I woke I was draped limply over Frash's back and he was marching up the hill towards the center. He was actually being rather quiet, so I sat up to make my wakefulness known before I hopped off his back. To nobody's surprise, but Frash's amusement, my legs gave like jelly and I landed on my posterior. If somebody in town had seen us, it'd probably be something to haunt their nightmares, given how dark it was. I got to my feet and held my knees until they stopped rattling together. I was as unbalanced as if both my legs had fallen asleep and I had pins-and-needles. I didn't want to give Frash the chance to gloat some more at how shaken I was, so I slowly moved up the hill, not letting myself take any help or resorting to crawling. It was painfully slow going and Frash was repeatedly snorting in amusement as he glanced at me.

I was halfway up the hill, finally starting to get the hang of walking again after having my brain rattle around in my head from the impact when I was knocked off my feet. For a moment I had no idea what was going on before I noticed Flare had bowled me over. The rest of the pack quickly ran over to me, and I used Ripper's neck to pull myself up and hobbled along as the pack raced back and forth from the center to me. Victini landed on my shoulder again, and seeing my hair, started fiddling with it, trying to comb my windswept hair back into position with his little three fingered hands. "Stop." I told him as I waved absent mindedly around my head with my arm, trying to wave the persistent little fairy off. I glanced at the doors to find Jesse and Nathan both staring down the hill into the dark at me, smiles attached to their faces.

When I finally got before them and stood, all my Pokémon at my back and started withdrawing them they finally spoke up, mocking me lightly with their smiles, and knowing tone. "So I knew you'd gone out to train your Pokémon, but imagine my surprise when I came out to find your dogs had ripped up the whole center's grounds!" Nathan told me as he stood smirking. "I just thought I needed to get your out of your funk." I struck back airily as I put Ripper and Sune back into their pokeballs. "Jeez Jack, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were one of the two objects creating sonic booms up and down the sky today. Take a look at your hair." Jesse ribbed me (literally, leaning forward to jab me with her elbow in fun) as she leant forward and stood up on her toes to mess my hair up more. Victini made a slight disapproving tone and went back to styling my hair again, trying to fix the damage. Nathan let out a guffaw and pet Bones absentmindedly as he laughed at the state of my hair and clothes. In retribution I returned Bones next, leaving him petting the air. "You smell like ozone." Jesse told me disapprovingly. "Where's Harold?" I asked, trying to distract them. "Sleeping, or trying to. I think he's been dealing with nightmares." Nathan told me, letting the smile slip off his face as he put a thoughtful frown on. "Nightmares?" "Something about team mates falling from the sky." Jesse told me sardonically. "Not that you would know about that Jack? Or that boom noise from earlier where all the trees uprooted themselves in the forest for twenty feet, and a whole acre of trees had their leaves and needles fall off?" Harold added playfully. "How'd you know about that?" I asked, honestly unsure of how they knew what the impact sight looked like. "Oh see, after the first boom I got out my stargazing telescope. Imagine my delight in finding the first living meteorite!" Nathan told me gleefully. "So you can't even bring yourself to care that I literally plummeted for a mile or two?" I asked Nathan, putting a pleading tone in my voice.

"Oh Jack, don't even try it. You can't burn, and with how ho you must've gotten, you could've hit the ground and healed the damage away." Jesse threw in as Nathan smirked some more. "I think you're severely over estimating my healing powers." I told them, frowning. "You're on the news you know." Jesse told me happily. "Errr, what?" I asked, caught off guard by that one. Was this another joke, or real? "The local news, seeing as they don't know about the battle, only the resulting fire, has been on the lookout for strange happenings. They think it's all paranormal. But a kid and a Charizard falling from the stars? Little hard to miss, especially when you guys broke the sound barrier, came back through it, and then broke it again." Nathan explained. "I don't remember breaking the sound barrier even once." I told them, confused. "You seem to have a thing for head trauma don't you?" Jesse asked me. "Well, I can't see how you missed it, but it was clearly you two. The contrail's clearly show it as you two. Frash can really move it, but I guess that's just because Frash is Frash. I don't think he would settle for less." Nathan told me as he pulled me inside. I placed the last pokeball in my belt and walked in with the other two. Nurse Joy, watching the small Computer Screen on her desk, glanced up at me, and then back down at her screen for a moment before looking up and taking in my state. "Hi there!" I told her in a chipper tone as I walked by, heading up the stairs. I heard a faint swooning and then a soft crumple as Nurse Joy fainted. The other two quickly ascended the stairs behind me and we split up for our separate rooms.

I got into my room, took a shower, washed my face with hot water until color had returned to my face, and threw my clothes in the washer and dryer. Hopefully ozone is an easy scent to get rid of.