So. I've been gone for a while, haven't I? I mean, yes, of course, we all knew the answer, go ahead a berate and blame me. But being an at home student during this virus has been weird for me, and one of my part time jobs is an essential and they no longer care about overtime. So I've been a bit busy ever since the pandemic response kicked in, late as it was.
Special thanks, as always, to maycontestdrew for reviewing!
Anyway, here's chapter the 20!
As the four left Slateport, Luke knew that he would miss the port city. Rather, he'd miss eating lunch with Syd every day, and just being around her in general. Getting to see Patti and that she was healthy and doing well also took away a weight of anxiety that he hadn't realized he'd been holding in.
She had waited until the next to last day to do it, but Syd had given him Bastion's pokeball. The red on the sphere had turned pink from constant use and hardships, and the metal was scratched to hell in most places, chipped in others.
But the familiar weight, the feeling of holding that ball in particular brought the Unovan comfort in a way that only being near Sydney could compete with recently. He had no idea if Bastion was actually stronger than Gojira or Heracles, but he trusted Bastion more than any of his other pokemon at this point. The experiences they'd shared, the battles they'd won, it was all a consequence of having been around Bastion longer than the others.
Even when he couldn't actually feel the ball, like that moment as they approached a house just beyond the outskirts of the city, knowing the ball was in his hip-pack did wonders for Luke.
The rain that poured down over the four as they walked? Not as much.
"Hey, I know we haven't gotten as far as you wanted today," Julia said to him as she sloshed through the mud to catch up, "but why don't we see if we can stay there for a while? The rain should ease up in a couple hours." She was motioning to the house which, although it had its curtains drawn, had light leaking from the windows.
"I'm with her," Brendan said from a few feet behind, "maybe even stay there long enough for our boots to dry? The trip between here and Mauville is shorter than between the other cities we've been to, but this is miserable."
May, for her part, hadn't complained a single time about the weather or the slightly ambitious pace Luke was setting. Judging from the way her feet seemed to drag a bit though, she didn't want to be out in the wet any longer than she needed to be.
"How do you know it'll ease up in a couple hours?" he asked as they drew closer to the building, "Because the clouds aren't agreeing, and there isn't enough wind to move it past us that quickly. I think."
Franz chose then to splash in the biggest puddle he could find, sending mud and even more water into his trainer's boots. There was absolutely nothing he would change about the playful pup. But sometimes his playfulness got the better of him, and onto Luke's nerves.
"It's the way storms like this work," May chimed, shielding her eyes from the fat droplets, "they pour for a few hours, then settle into a drizzle for a day or so. Are storms not like this in Unova?"
"Not remotely," the blue-eyed boy said as he made his way toward the building, "this region is weird. Now that I know that, my vote is also for getting inside to wait out the rest of the downpour."
His Poochyena yipped suddenly as a ball of green shot out of the grass nearby to tackle the dark type. Franz kicked it off with relative ease as the Electrike rounded for another tackle.
It took a moment for Luke to realize, but the wild wanted to play with Franz instead of attack him. Which the Unovan could understand for the most part. Canine pokemon had a reputation of being playful with strangers, especially the basic evolutions. Growlithe, Poochyena, and Lilipup, were popular pets and beginning pokemon for that very reason. But they were generally different in the wild, forming packs and generally keeping to their own playmates, suspicious of other groups and strangers.
The two kept rolling in the mud and water as the humans made their way to the door, the rookies shooting glances at the pair of dogs playing.
"He should be fine," Luke said to comfort them, although by their faces it didn't do much, "Franz is strong, and we'll be right inside to spring out and help him. 'Sides, whoever's house this is probably doesn't need it to smell like wet dog and be covered in mud when he shakes out his fur."
Brendan shrugged and knocked on the door, which opened on its own. "Hello?" he called out as he stepped inside, followed by the other rookies, "Anyone home? We just want to get out of the rain for a while."
Luke didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit as slid his backpack off at the door and stepped inside, slipping Bastion, Gojira, and Heracles' pokeballs from his hip pack to his vest pocket. Common sense told him that people didn't just leave their houses open and unlocked in the rain. Intuition told him a house like this shouldn't be this far outside the city, needing to walk four hours just to get to the outskirts. Instincts told him to get out.
"Guys," Luke said, keeping his eyes on the still open door as he backed into the house, "we didn't get permission to be in here, this could constitute as trespassing. I'd rather be wet and innocent than slightly less wet and a criminal." He could still hear Franz's playful yelps outside, although it was hard with the sound of the rain pounding the roof over his head.
They didn't respond. The Unovan teen's instincts kicked in as he dropped to the floor and rolled to his right, hearing the whistling of something above him. He chanced a look into the room to see the rookies all passed out on the ground, three humans and two pokemon standing behind furniture. The pokemon were a Golbat and a small green pokemon with red and blue flowers in place of hands. When he paused his roll, the teen noticed a thin green film on the floor and a sweet taste on the air.
"Freeze it all, sleep powder," he muttered as he pulled his soaked t-shirt over his mouth and nose, his eyes starting to water. Thankfully, when one was around it as much as he had been over the past few years, they built up a tolerance to it, similar to his slight resistance to psychic damage. Although a strong enough concentration of it would still knock him out for a while or being around a small amount for too long.
Luke reached for a pokeball when the first light flashed from the Golbat's eyes and the humans started moving toward him. He screwed his eyes shut to stop the confuse ray from disorienting him any more than he already was and opened the first ball he grabbed.
The chirp from the center of the room let the Unovan know it was Rebecca that got released. Not a good match-up on either pokemon, assuming the flower was a grass type, but it'd do for the moment as something thin and strong grabbed his hand, stopping him from sending out anyone else.
Assuming it was a vine, Luke sprang to his feet and dropped his shoulder to charge in the direction he thought one of the humans was in as Rebecca started moving around the room. The soft, fleshy resistance gave the teen the satisfaction of having hit one of them.
The satisfaction was short lived as something stabbed into his upper arm, immediately making him woozy. A needle. They'd injected him with something, some kind of drug to either kill him or knock him out.
His shirt slid from his face, and the last thing he was conscious of was a burst of the sweet-smelling powder being blasted into his airways.
Julia woke up to something scratchy and wet being dragged over her cheek. She opened her eyes and was face to face with Franz, the Poochyena whining nervously before giving a yip of elation when she scratched him under his chin. She'd seen Luke scratch him there as a reward for when he did something well.
The Electrike from earlier was behind Franz, a growl low in its throat. She reasoned that it might think she was trying to hurt its playmate. No sense in trying to calm it down at the moment though, Franz would be enough to keep it in check. She hoped.
Her brother and May were knocked out on the floor on the other side of the small room, maybe a three-meter square. It was only furnished by a string connected to a lightbulb above, the room's only source of light other than the slightly cracked door the pokemon must have come through.
Speaking of pokemon, the steel-eyed girl quickly checked her belt, horrified to find that none of her pokemon were there. She quickly checked the younger teens' belts too, with the same result.
As she shook the two in an attempt to wake them, she realized Luke was absent from the room. He wouldn't have just sent Franz and the Electrike to find them, he would have come himself. If he realized what had happened.
Actually, what had happened? She remembered walking into the living room of the house, dripping wet, and some flashing lights, but nothing after that. Was it a pokemon? A pokemon attack? Something had ambushed them, and then took their pokemon.
Was it somehow connected to the person or group that had told Brawly to kill Luke's team? Or had it been random? It didn't really matter either way, her goal was the same. Wake Brendan and May up, find Luke, get their pokemon, and get out.
The first task wasn't going too well until the Electrike came over and placed a paw on Brendan's stomach before shocking him. Julia wasn't sure if it was the electrical stimulation or the pain, but it opened her brother's eyes right up, gasping for air.
Franz growled at the other canine before licking May's face, clearing it of a light green powder before he yawned, stumbling onto May's face. That's when the younger girl managed to wake up, sitting up fast enough to send Franz flying almost a full meter away.
"Wha-Franz?" the girl asked, looking at the pup first before looking around the room, "Brendan, Julia? What happened?"
Brendan opened his mouth to speak, but ended up retching instead, the contents stained green.
"Keep it down," Julia hissed at her brother, "I have no idea what's going on, I only just woke up too."
Footsteps came close to the doorway, which Franz positioned himself in front of. The Electrike soon jogged up beside him, sparks flying from his fur. With no idea what was about to come through the door, Julia wasn't too thrilled that all she had between her and it were a Poochyena and an odd wild Electrike.
A growl came from low in Franz's throat as the hair on his neck and back stood upright. Julia's eyes widened as the growl got deeper in pitch as he began to glow black.
It wasn't the first evolution she'd seen, but it was the first time she'd seen a dark type evolve. Oliver had glowed a silvery blue when he changed forms, Salazar a bright green. Dart had been underwater and obscured from her sight. Julia had assumed they glowed based on what color they were.
But it looked like tendrils of shadow were wrapping around the pup, consuming the light in the room, before bleeding away to reveal the Mightyena Franz had become.
The man who opened the door didn't have the chance to call out before Franz slammed into his stomach to wind him, leaving him gasping for air. Then Franz took the man's shoulder into his mouth and did his best to bring his teeth together.
This time, nothing stopped the man's scream as he passed out from the pain, accompanied by the crunch of his bones in Franz's jaws.
Brendan was the first to move, lifting himself up from where he'd vomited and running into the hallway, bracing himself against a wall beside Franz. May moved next, a horrified look on her face as she stepped over the unconscious man's form to stand next to Brendan. Julia was last, peeking her head around the doorway first as the Electrike ran between her legs to stand beside Franz.
It was a decently long hallway, with a line of doors on the right side. The room they had been trapped in was the last door on the hall. At the opposite end was a staircase. Surprisingly, nobody seemed to be coming to investigate the scream.
"Franz," Julia whispered, "can you take us to Luke?"
A soft whine came from the dark type as he started to make his way toward the staircase, the rookies and Electrike following. He led them up the stairs where he paused, sniffed the air, and pushed a door open, padding softly to the right after the door.
He continued leading them until he reached a door that he scratched at. Brendan tried the knob, finding it to be locked.
"Drown it all!" a voice echoed from the other side of the stairway they'd left, "All you've got to do is erase the tag without releasing the pokemon! I've seen you do this so many times before, what's taking you so long?!"
The rookies approached the voice with their two-pokemon army and peeked around a corner to see three men and a woman standing around a machine with a pokeball on some kind of sensor, similar to what PokeCenters used to read life signs while a pokemon was still in its ball. In the corner of the room a set of lab equipment was arranged on a table, several portable stoves being used to heat something Julia couldn't quite see.
"Dude," the man in question said, sliding a pair of wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, "these balls are different, man. The coding isn't what I'm used to working with. Besides, if I rush it the ball opens and we have to deal with whatever's inside, like the Poochyena you wasted."
The man with the glasses motioned to the corner of the room opposite the lab set-up, and Julia's heart was about ready to crumble. Her Chocolate lay in a bloody heap, sightless eyes watching the one's who killed her. Julia had to use both hands to cover her mouth to keep a sob from escaping.
"I don't care they're different, you're supposed to be good at this! You used to work for the Devon Corporation for the Sky's sake!" the man in the middle shouted into the tech's ear, spittle flying onto the other man's face, "We need to get these processed and shipped, we already got paid and spent it! It's like I'm the only one here who cares about not getting killed."
"C'mon man, chill," said the woman as she reclined on a couch, "worst comes to it we sell the whole batch to pay them back instead of getting our own highs from it. Not our fault you wasted a trip on the fighty one."
"You, know what, screw it," the tech said, setting the nest ball he'd been working on to the side and reaching for a dusk ball, "I'll try one of the other ones, they might be easier to crack."
Once his fingers touched the dusk ball, Franz bolted into the room, knocking the table with the balls and tech over. Usopp, Salazar, Cinder, and Zatarra exploded into the room in flashes of light when their balls fell on the release trigger.
The four thieves managed to send out a Roselia and a Golbat, although both were quickly made unconscious between the trainers pokemon and the Electrike.
"Where's the key to our friend's room?" Julia asked the four, who had moved to put the couch between them and the six pokemon, "And no sudden movements."
Without saying anything, the man who'd been shouting fumbled in his pockets to toss a key at her, which Brendan caught.
"Get him out," she told her brother before turning back to address the strangers, "as for you, what in the name of the Sea and Skies are you doing here? Some people come knocking to get out of a storm in wet season and you kidnap them, the fuck is that about? And when you can't figure out a way to steal their pokemon, you start killing them?"
The tech raised his hands in what Julia assumed was supposed to be a placating gesture. "We weren't ever going to kill you girlie, and we didn't want to kill the pooch either. Just trying to look out for numero uno, ya' know? We got guys breathing down our necks over here."
"In what way does that justify kidnapping people and stealing their pokemon?" May asked, green eyes filling with something that didn't seem to fit her face. Julia wasn't sure she'd ever seen this particular expression on her friend. "You all are sick, twisted people. You couldn't make it in the world so you turned to crime."
The angry one laughed. "Oh, we made it in the world, farther than any of you ever will. Then the people above us decided to bend us over and-"
"Uh, Julia?" Brendan's voice asked as he came up behind her, "Luke is kind of the wrong color."
"Oh shit." The woman mumbled as she looked past Julia.
Oh shit was right as far as Julia was concerned. True enough, the teen's face and exposed skin was tainted a slight, sickly green, his lips and nose swollen. His breathing came in small, strained wheezes, eyes rolled into the back of his head. At this point, she was pretty sure she'd be throwing before they managed to leave the house if the boiling in her stomach was anything to go by.
"By the mount and sea," May muttered, "what did you do to him?"
"He was fighting back." Angry said, his face not expressing concern, "So we dosed him with the concentrate and Petal gave him an extra puff of the raw stuff. I knew he could take it since he didn't fall asleep right away like the rest of you did. Kid's got some resistance to the stuff."
"You mentioned something about not wanting to die earlier," Brendan said after he laid Luke down on the floor, "who would be attacking you?"
The woman shrugged. "No telling. Macho has us behind on a couple of payments. Besides, we aren't telling you little shits anything."
Brendan shrugged back at her. "Fine, you won't say anything to us. Maybe you will to the officials."
Julia hadn't surprised either her brother or her friend when she volunteered to be the one to wait for Luke to wake up in the hospital he'd been taken to after they'd called law enforcement. Instead, she was surprised when after half an hour of waiting another girl rushed into the tiny room, only acknowledging Julia's presence with a blink and small nod.
Long brown hair on a short pale woman, glasses in front of brown eyes. She fit the description Brendan had given her for Luke's friend from Unova perfectly.
Instead of taking a seat next to Julia, the woman leaned against the opposite wall with eyes locked on the trainer between them. She was trying to keep her face impassive, but a number of ticks gave away her anxiety. Chewing on the corner of her lip, drumming her fingers against her thigh, and blinking just a bit too often.
"So, you met Luke back in Unova?" Julia asked after what felt like an hour of the two of them watching his sleeping form. The other woman didn't look up, but confirmed with a nod. "What's your name? He doesn't talk much about, well, anything from there."
"Sydney," The Unovan said, finally looking across to Julia, "and I assume you're Julia? He's told me quite a bit about you."
"All good things, I hope?" the steel-eyed girl said, locking eyes with Sydney. Brendan had mentioned she was short, but by the Sky the other girl was tiny.
Sydney snorted in a brief laugh. "He never has only good things to say no matter who he's talking to or about. Or he just doesn't say anything at all. I'm sure you've noticed that though."
"I mean, yeah." Julia said with a tiny shrug, "I guess I wanted to know what he told you about me. He doesn't talk about himself all that much, sort of was going for some insight."
The other girl shrugged. "I'm not in the business of sharing what people tell me in confidence, good or bad. There are enough gossips without me being one of them."
"Worth a shot," Julia muttered before looking back at her unconscious friend. "How did you guys meet? It was total coincidence for us, and I don't really think he'd be traveling with anyone if he hadn't run into us."
"I was performing in Nacrene City, at a café he happened to stop in at before his gym battle." She explained, eyes returning to Luke's green tinged face, "His friend invited everyone there to come watch his fight, said they wouldn't want to miss it, then something about it being the best tier-two battle they would ever see. So I bit, went to watch, and he won pretty handily. Then the friend who invited everyone won just as quickly."
Sydney took a pause to sigh, closing her eyes and looking to the ceiling. "Then I got a call back for a gig in Castelia City. The next day I might have, umm, taken a wrong turn in the forest, got completely lost. He happened to run into me after he also got lost chasing after his friend who'd run ahead of him. We kind of stuck together from there for a while. It was random, but it was fun."
"Huh," was the best response Julia could come up with, "he really does just sort of run into people, doesn't he?"
This time, Sydney's laugh was high and bright, "I guess you could say that. Always getting tangled up in things that have no business with him. If destiny exists, whoever made his must have had a field-day."
The Unovan woman stepped toward Luke's bed, holding one of his hands in both of hers for a moment before letting it rest against the mattress again. "Regardless, it's getting late, visiting hours are almost over, and I need to practice. I'll probably see you here tomorrow."
Luke hated waking up in hospitals. At least this time there wasn't anyone literally standing over him to conk heads with. However, there were several downsides. A light cast had been placed around his left wrist, apparently it hadn't finished healing in the time since being fractured outside Petalburg. Additionally, his shirt, vest, belt, and hip pack were gone, although they had left his cargo shorts where they were. Several needles were in his right forearm, connected to bags filled with something he had no clue about.
Then again, even if he'd been conscious and informed when they were inserted, he probably still wouldn't know what they were. His expertise with regards to injuries had never been in healing them.
There was also something in his right hand, corners digging into his curled palm. It was a crumpled piece of paper, with a curling script that he easily recognized as Sydney's. After his eyes managed to focus enough to read it, he sighed as a knot of tension untied itself within him. She had Bastion, Gojira, and Heracles, although not the hip-pack itself, which meant that the 'dex was missing.
When he thought about it, he had no idea how he'd ended up in the hospital in the first place. There was the Electrike, the house, the strangers, and then he got dusted. All of which happened in the morning.
"Franz." He muttered, staring at the ceiling, "he must have gone to get help."
After a few more minutes of lying there, Luke carefully reached over and pulled the needles from his arm and grabbed the plain white t-shirt that was placed at the foot of his bed. He dressed to the sound of the machines whining that they weren't connected to a body anymore. He looked at his reflection in one of their screens to see two blue eyes looking back at him. Good.
Checking out of the hospital by himself was a hassle, only made worse by his Unovan documents taking longer to process and verify. Plus the clinic, not hospital as he'd been told by the secretary who was currently doing his paperwork, was running on a skeleton crew for the moment. His bag, pokeballs, and hip-pack were all given back to him when he'd finally gotten out of the building. Luke opened his 'nav to see several messages. Two from Bel that he'd never responded to, four from Julia, and one from Sydney.
JC: Don't know when you'll see this, but Franz evolved, don't know if you'll check your 'nav or pokemon first
JC: Your friend from Unova caught the Electrike for your since they wouldn't let it in your room in case you're wondering what the great ball is doing with your stuff
JC: The doctor said it might take as long as a week for you to wake up, and B decided that was too long to wait, so we're heading toward Mauville. We'll be fine though, you don't need to worry or race after us, he was just impatient, and we didn't feel like putting up with it
JC: We're heading out, see you in Mauville
The last one was from two days before, according to the time stamp that accompanied it. Push came to shove he could blame the headache and irritation on waking up from getting dusted. That's definitely where his agitation was coming from.
Sydney's was just telling him to stop by her apartment before he left town so they could talk. She didn't say what they'd be talking about, just that they needed to do so. Joy of joys, he could feel the headache getting worse.
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon as the Unovan made his way to Syd's apartment, orange strokes painting clouds pink. He'd have to wait at least until tomorrow to set out after the rookies, putting a solid three-day distance between them and him.
Not much of a chance to actually catch them on the route itself, too much space to cover. If he were to book it, Luke might be able to beat them to Mauville, but that wouldn't actually do much to keep them safe in the wilderness between the two cities.
Which meant he'd need to try to track them down in the wilds, hard as it might be considering the area he'd need to cover and the wet weather.
The teen's shoulders dipped slightly in a sigh before straightening again. The rookies might be a handful, but he knew how to use a bag to make loads easier. Besides, he had two hands.
"They'll be fine without me while I catch up," Luke said to himself. Even to his ears it sounded hollow. "They'll have to be."
Trying to trick himself was nothing new to the Unovan.
As always, if you want to know something, have a question/comment/concern/quandary, drop a line. I haven't had the time to write much, but putting down a few sentences to answer a question? I can squeeze that in every so often.
Regardless, the tag I always put at the end of my chapters is even more important now that before in a manner of speaking. Not the being gone until I'm back again. Seriously, stay safe y'all. Don't take risks with COVID, Corona Virus, Big 'Rona, whatever you may want to call it.
Peace. Stay safe. Wash your hands.