Dagda laid the woman's head on the ground, looking to her hands and frowning at the sight of blood, something that always had him on edge. He looked across the field at the horror before him, wondering exactly what it was.
The creature looked like a diabolical, unnatural fusion of two creatures, a thick, sturdy lizardine tail and rear legs covered in grey and black spirals and markings. The spines of the tail were on the inside, the tail curling in a crescent shape.
And instead of coming to a point, at the top of the tail was a gigantic, grey and purple head, something with a large crested forehead. It was like an ancient fish, something that reminded him of a larger, less friendly looking Relicanth. It had small front fins dangling down, the horror looking like a bad science experiment that caused unspeakable damage to everything until slain.
Dagda watched it blink, the massive creature almost eight feet in height, allowing it to tower over him should he get closer. It looked around, breathing shallow as it moved it's head about. Dagda had yet to go for a Pokeball, and he realized that he should.
The creature looked to him and tilted it's eyes. It blinked, looking to the woman who helped restore it to life, her injured body laying prone with blood coming from random wounds. The creature took it's first step, and Dagda immediately grabbed Ozzy's Pokeball and tossed it, the crimson wolf rising and glancing about to get an understanding of everything.
"Hey! What's the big idea, dumbass?" Ozzy barked, the creature blinking, rearing it's head up in confusion before lowering it again, slowly. "Wh… what is this place?" it asked, speaking in an odd tone, Ozzy narrowing his eyes. "The bloody chick restored you from fossils. It's probably been millions of years since you last saw the sun." he said, and the creature looked to the ground.
He began to wave her head slowly, like a bell being rung. Many things seemed to pass through his mind, and he eventually let out a shallow breath. "I will help." he said, and Ozzy narrowed his eyes, watching the creature walk past him, stomping towards the woman, Dagda fully aware that Ozzy was in control of the situation.
"What Pokemon?" he asked, looking from Dagda to Ozzy as he walked, and Ozzy narrowed his eyes. "You've never seen a human before, huh?" he asked, and the Pokemon looked to the woman, who laid on the ground with shrapnel in her flesh. His eyes glew dimly, the shards coming out of her flesh slowly as she grunted at the pain. They floated away from her, clattering to the ground.
It's tiny front fins moved, coming as close together as they could, a ball of green water forming between them. The Pokemon dropped it on the woman, the blood and dirt falling from her wounds as they glew, slowly closing up. "Survive, she will." he said, and Ozzy nodded. The woman groaned, shifting in her unconscious as she began to come to.
She looked up, seeing the huge headed Pokemon, a giant fish's ahead atop the tail of a lizardine Pokemon. She smiled, rising to her feet and touching one of his front fins. "You're the most handsome Dracovish I've ever seen." she said, and the Pokemon made a noise, as if he was happy.
"What exactly is a Dracovish?" Dagda asked, and the woman looked to him, the Pokemon seeming rather content just swaying back and forth as he listened to the odd creatures that had no scales. "Dracovish are powerful Water and Dragon type Pokemon from ancient times. It's said that they went extinct only because they hunted too much." she said, and Dagda hummed. He walked up to the creature, who seemed rather wary of him.
"What is he?" it asked, looking to Ozzy. The crimson wolf narrowed his eyes. The Dracovish had an odd sense of caution in it's actions, one normally reserved for when a predatory Pokemon with a type advantage appears. The kind of fearful caution that bug types have around bird Pokemon, or that fish Pokemon have for larger aquatic threats like Gyarados and Huntail. It was odd.
"He's fine. He's my friend." he said, and the Pokemon looked to Dagda, who was smiling. He didn't like the smell of this one, it was something he'd never smelled before, but he nodded, understanding that someone with that calm of a body and a smiling face did not wish him harm.
"He had you restored from fossils. I'm pretty sure that you'll be joining us as we travel." he said, and the Pokemon hummed, looking to Dagda, finding something rather off about the boy. "Okay."
"Hi there. My name is Dagda. Are you okay with coming with me?" he asked, and the Pokemon looked to the wolf, who nodded calmly. He looked back to the human, nodding cautiously. Dagda reached into his bag, pulling out a black ball, something that looked like a weird egg to the prehistoric Pokemon. "I'm going to catch you now. Just relax." he said, and again, the creature cast a gaze to Ozzy, who explained with a bark.
Dagda tapped the Pokemon in the head with the ball, watching it be sucked up as the ball closed. It soon popped, and Dagda smiled. He looked to the woman, who seemed rather concerned with her destroyed machine. "Thank you so much, Miss. I'll make sure to tell my sponsor to help you out, since I feel bad for your machine." he said, and she smiled, waving to the boy as he began to walk away. What a peculiar child, she thought.
She noticed that the Pokemon he had with him, at least the weird wolf she'd never seen before, was more of a friend than a companion. It was as if he was one of them, like he himself was some form of Pokemon.
Dagda soon, within the hour soon, reached the next town. Called Stow on Side, it was a small town with very few houses to it. They had beat up roofs, worn, sometimes rusty metallic things that reminded Dagda of lasagna noodles. Dagda noticed that there was a number of street vendors, finding it rather adorable that a couple stalls seemed to be run by Maractus, the Pokemon dancing about, trying to draw the attention of the few people that moved back and forth through the town.
Dagda soon noticed a huge staircase, and he looked past it, seeing the Stow on Side Stadium in all of it's glory, segregated from the rest of the town. It was huge, and it was something that looked unnatural, like it was put there for no honest reason. It was purple, something that made Dagda wonder exactly what kind of gym leader he'd be facing.
He noted that the sun was beginning to set, the orange sky giving way for the first hues of the night, something that looked like it fit with the stadium, as if it's purple coloration was designed to contrast from the town's browns and oranges.
He wondered if there was anything like a motel in the town, and he walked about, looking for one, noticing that all of the houses seemed to be just that. Single family dwellings, all of them. He sighed, scratching his head and humming. He noticed to the west of his current position another ladder, heading over to it and seeing a small plateau, a steep thing that Dagda didn't really feel comfortable resting on. He climbed back up, sighing to himself.
"Lookin' for something?" he head, blinking when he looked to his left, behind a group of houses. He saw the oddest looking thing. It was a tall, strong looking Pokemon, purple in color with yellow markings about itself. It had two huge horns pointing sideways, a pair of smaller horns atop it's head flanking an electric mohawk coming from it's skull.
On it's chest were six, purple colored organs, pulsating like muscles along to the beat of his heart. Standing at this Pokemon's side was another Pokemon that looked identical, save for a few differences. It had a single large horn on it's head, and instead of being yellow with six organs, this one was blue with four organs. They looked like a pair of brother, and Dagda wondered if they were the ones that spoke.
"A place to sleep." he said, the two Pokemon looking to each other. "Whattaya know, the damn horse lied to us." the yellow one said, his blue brother humming. "Could have grown since. It was about a week ago." he said, the two looking to Dagda.
"You can understand us, right?" the yellow one asked, and Dagda nodded, finding it rather odd that they'd ask that. He assumed that 'the damn horse' referred to Sleipnir, meaning that these two were the pair of Pops' Pokemon he had yet to meet, Hendrix and Trujillo. They all spoke perfect human, didn't they?
"That makes this easier. We got a friend here in town you can stay with for the night, long as you do us a favor." he said, and Dagda rose a brow, looking to the blue and purple Pokemon. "A favor?"
"Yeah. Hang out wit us tomorrow. We wanna get to know ya. Heimdall had to think you were damn special to let his son hang with you." he said, and the yellow one nodded. "Trujillo is right. And besides, we can help you out around town. Show you the one or two sights to see." he said, and Dagda nodded, cautiously agreeing.
With the moon high overhead, Dagda glanced out the window of the small house they stayed in. Turned out that the tiny abode was owned by one of the Maractus, a hyper intelligent thing that understood human business very well. Dagda's Pokemon lazed about, Otis, Danzig and Marko all looking at the odd prehistoric Pokemon, who sat happily, glad to be surrounded by so many Pokemon. Dagda looked to the Pokemon as well. "I never gave you a name, huh?" he asked, and the Pokemon looked to him, still bobbing back and forth, content.
"I think I'm gonna call you Petey." he said, the Pokemon seeming to laugh at that. "Quite the team." Trujillo said, and Dagda smiled. "Thanks. I just hope that I can beat the gym leader without too much trouble. Never know when I'll end up battling some idiot like Team Yell's goon squad." he said, and the brothers looked to each other.
"You should be okay, long as you use this one." Hendrix said, pointing to Danzig, the weasel blinking and tilting his head. "The gym leader here is a kid named Allister. His sponsor is a life insurance company, and he'd actually a Ghost specialist." he said, and Dagda held back a laugh, finding it rather amusing that a ghost type gym leader would be under the employment of a life insurance company.
"You said 'kid'… how old is he?" he asked, and the two brothers looked to each other. It was a looked with a hidden meaning, one Dagda couldn't decipher. "Who knows. He's somehow held the title of gym leader for a little while despite his young age. Bet he's younger than you." he said, and Dagda blinked. If Dagda was going to battle a child, why was it that Mr. Felix made such an odd request?
Dagda found his dreams rather odd that night. Instead of his normal dreams, him spending time with Evil and Fairy or him facing off against faceless titans, he had another dream. In this odd, utopian dream, the world was as the books he'd read spoke of.
He dreamed of spending time with many Halflings, able to see them as teachers in school, lawyers in the court, priests at a wedding. It was rather enjoyable, and it made him feel all the more convinced that he should aid Pops and Mr. Felix is curing the region of it's stuffy, linear aura and traditions. Although, one other thing about his dream was odd.
Once again, he dreamt about having a little brother. A smaller, younger male that looked up to him, idolized him. It was a feeling that he liked, but he wondered why he kept having this same dream. In his mind, he thought about his next performance, against the ghost type gym leader. He realized that this dream is what he should draw from.
Instead of his normal character, the villain that destroyed Kabu in mere minutes, Dagda thought of acting out an older brother, the kind of character that playfully goads the best out of his opponents. When he awoke, he knew that he had to rehearse for the fourth performance of Laverre's Galarian Warrior.