AN: Sorry for being late with this one, i'll try and upload the next chapter in a few days from now. So please enjoy chapter 17 everyone. Take it easy out there.
Chapter 17 – Scavengers
Nimbasa City
Morning, a new day in the city and our first away from the Purrloin's gang. Last night after the train had stopped at Nimbasa City train station, we didn't find any trouble once getting off; no station guards or staff members to slow us down or try to catch us, or wild Pokemon lurking in the shadows while we walked through the city this late of night. It didn't take us long to search for a place to spend the night, the place we did spend the night was behind a café just outside the station providing us with large boxes to sleep in and large cut up cardboard to sleep on. The small alley thankfully had no Pokemon occupying it once we got there. Two trashcans, empty in the corner beside the cafes back door, and surprisingly the cleanest looking alley we has ever been in. so I guess you could say we were in love with this alley from the moment we got here. It wasn't worse than the living conditions of Purrloin's gang, but it was better than nothing, a little cold out, but at least we got enough sleep that night.
"Ah, morning Zack." Aqua stood up and stretched off the cardboard and into the middle of the alley, basking in the suns light. "I take it you didn't get a comfortable night's sleep then?"
"Y-Yeah, really thought last night the cardboard would be somewhat comfortable to sleep on for how thick it was. What a letdown that was… Let's have some food, I'm starving." I opened the bag setting down the remaining food and drink on the cardboard; a bag of potato chips, dried fruit, a half-eaten bag of cookies, a liter of water, and a small boxed carton of Oran juice. Before getting off the train with twenty minutes left until we arrived, we did have some food. I thought we had rationed it all out, that we would last two days with the food we had taken with us. "This is it…"
"Are you sure?" Aqua sat down beside me and looked in the bag, only finding the map book of the Unova region, the sleeping bags we had taken with us. Now I know what you're thinking, why didn't we use the sleeping bags that night? The answer to this is because we forgot about it… yeah… "Wow, we sure did eat a lot more than we shouldn't had done last night."
We had to keep moving soon, but with the food and water we had, it wouldn't last us long. A day from the looks of it. But out here away from Purrloin's hideout in her gang, we couldn't use bottle caps as a currency here, we would either have to find some berries on a bush, or perhaps take some food from a stall set up around the city. Neither Aqua or myself didn't know much about surviving out in the wild, Aqua had her parents for that, and I had no memory of ever being out by myself or surviving out in the wild. "Aqua, before we leave the city we'll have to gather some food and water for the road ahead. We're not going to last long with all of this."
She nodded. "So what do we do? I mean we are not in Purrloin's hideout anymore so we can't use caps to trade for things here. My parents brought me my food when I lived with them. So what; we just search the city for some? But where?"
Where indeed though? This city was large, yet we had no skill on how to live like wild Pokemon in cities, so where could we go to search for some food? Steal some from a marketplace? A store? Find some food lying around somewhere or get lucky with finding a bush full of edible berries?
Nimbasa City – Main Plaza
So after leaving the alley we entered the plaza, our first place to look for some food and water, a pretty large open area with a large marbled Magikarp fountain in the cneter, flower patches in the four corners with benches for people to sit at, a mime with a Mr Mime in a cooperative act attracting several people mostly children. The place had more people than Castelia City had hundreds more both young and old walking with their Pokemon. So walking out in the open we were a little cautious, anxious that one or two of the Pokemon we passed or saw some look right at us were Purrloin's gang members out to catch us, but thankfully none of them were, something we would could relax about after getting some use to. But one thing we didn't relax about too much were the humans staring at us, or rather me because of my white fur and eye.
I'd believe it would come off as a regional variant that had happened to come to the Unova region with a trainer most likely, a rare sight in the Unova region. But us two walking around the city, two wild Pokemon without a trainer we would be up for grabs. It isn't everyday you see a wild starter Pokemon of the region walking around, a shiny Oshawott and especially an alternative colored Dewott. Trainers walking the city would see us and most likely attempt to try and catch the both of us. So how to avoid capture, well hiding wasn't one of them since there weren't that many places for us to hide, no back alleys or cars to hide behind this time, so we had to find some other way to get through the city. So our last choice was to walk with a human going our way; right across the plaza, through the city, anywhere we might need to go we would stick close to a human.
We did find an elderly woman we stayed close to walking through the plaza pretending she was our trainer so the humans wouldn't try to catch us. The woman we walked with didn't' seem to mind all that much while we walked close to her, finding delight that two wild Pokemon approached her like this.
We didn't have any problem while walking through the plaza with that many people staring at us, no random trainer or two approaching the woman and asking her where she got us from and wondering if they would trade their Pokemon for us, and then the woman would say we didn't belong to her and we would be up for the taking, but that never happened.
When we finally reached the corner of the plaza where one of three exits to this plaza was, the woman stopped and looked back, kneeling down to our level and stroked Aqua's ear first and then doing the same to mine before waving and walking out of the plaza. So to make sure no other trainer back at the plaza saw seeing us two alone here, we immediately ran to hide underneath an unoccupied bench to plan out our next move.
"See any good places to find some food or water?" She whispered, watching as a group of humans passed us, unaware of the two of us under the bench. We searched the plaza from where we were for some food we could grab; three humans, a man and two women handing out free samples of crackers with some kind of green paste smeared on it… there weren't enough anyway. There was also a popcorn stand near the mime duo; it wouldn't last long if we managed to grab a box, probably go stale before the end of the day, no we needed food that would last longer. And lastly there were fruit stalls at the marketplace a little walk away from the plaza could be good. A little crowded, but it might work well for us to slip in and out without anyone noticing.
"There's a fruit stall over there, by the crowded section. See it?" I pointed over at the small market were we could see fruits being sold. There were a lot of them, so when we do manage to grab ourselves a handful each, we could last two days or more depending on how well we do later to continue on our search for some supplies before leaving the city. I had never stolen anything before in my life, before I lost my memories, but we needed the food to survive the journey. "We just gotta do the same and find someone to walk with until we get there, grab as much as we can and run as fast as we can and hide somewhere in the city."
"What if we're caught? Should we use our moves" I hadn't thought of that until she said that. If we were caught stealing and running away, surely someone would tell officials about us; a white Dewott and shiny Oshawott stealing from a market so close to Castelia City, word would perhaps travel fast and if Purrloin had connections or gang members within this city already, then we wouldn't be safe for long here.
"We should avoid being seen doing so. We should just go there, take whatever we can before anyone noticed, and then walk away from the marketplace like we weren't here." I looked back to see if anyone walking by looked as though they were heading towards the marketplace. I'm not sure what I was looking for, a sign that the many people that passed the bench were even heading to the market, their looks I suppose? Carrying an empty basket? Yeah, that might work. Or was it just guessing, a guess that this person out of the hundred that passed by were heading to the market, a straight shot there providing us with safe passage? Either way, that's what we did.
I took hold of Aqua's paw as we crawled out from under the bench together and walked beside a young woman wearing a summer dress and straw hat towards the marketplace from the looks of it. She already had an empty basket with her, so we thought she was going to use said basket to fill it up with the fruit from the market, until she made a sudden right turn halfway between the bench we hid under and the market to see she was making her way over to the bakery. We stopped right outside, pretending to be waiting for out 'trainer' or waiting for another human to walk with to the market. Some humans that passed us noticed us standing there, gesturing to their friends to us, friends that had Pokemon out with them, trainers perhaps, some grabbing at their Pokeball belt. But luckily for us the humans walked away back to their own business leaving us two, nervously waiting for a human to walk directly towards the market providing us with safe passage.
Not long after waiting outside of the bakery, a random choice out of a few people walking by we decided to follow a man wearing a suit and tie walking towards the market again pretending to be the man's Pokemon providing him company as he walked, and again the humans saw us walking with the man and hopefully assumed we belonged to him and wouldn't attempt to capture us. We stayed a little bit back away from the man so he wouldn't notice us following him and shooing us away. Although I am not sure what would've happened if he had noticed us following him. I would assume he would've ignored us thinking we were just walking the same direction as him, maybe thinking we belonged to some other trainers nearby getting us to prank someone for some online video or something? I don't know. But I'm glad he didn't, we didn't want to attract so much awareness to us, watching us as we approach the marketplace to see what we do next for us stealing the food to be noticed and alerted to.
Many fruit stalls, many choices we could go for and leave without being seen if we were too greedy or didn't check before taking the fruits. We would probably only be able to carry a handful, place them in the bag as fast as we could and get out of there without causing a scene. With all of these People around the marketplace, the crowd allowing us to blend right in seemed like this would be an easy one. Take as much as we could possibly want and walk out of there totally scot-free.
With Aqua beside me after leaving the man wearing the suit's company, we walked over to the far end stall just near the plaza exit and into the other parts of the street where the baseball stadium and movie theater was. One of two of the closest and possible locations we could escape to if we were seen stealing, one of the places we could stay inside until the heat cooled down. With my right paw I held Aqua's left while we walked closer to the stall, carefully watching the people at the stall; customers picking out various fruits and buying them from the merchant behind the stall. A keen eye watched each approaching customer or browser, especially those that had gotten too close to the man's wares, hands slightly lifting but remained too low for their hands to reach the sweet fruits. We stood at the side of two elderly couple selecting their fruits from the stall; oranges, apples, bananas carefully placed inside a paper bag. The merchant watched the couple, and I carefully watched the merchant, lightly tugging on Aqua's paw to let her know that we could make our move.
The plan was to wait by the stall close to some customers picking out their fruits. One would watch the merchant and the surrounding area for people noticing us stealing the fruit, while the other would pick out some fruit one or two at a time al depending on the situation and place them inside the bag, then swapping our roles around until we managed to get a good share of fruit and leaving while remaining unnoticed.
"Come get your fruit." The merchant loudly said above the loud crowd of the marketplace attracting customers to his stall. "Fresh and delicious fruit grown right here in Nimbasa City all for a good low pri- H-hey! You thieves!" We looked up at the merchant to find him looking right at us as I already had a handful of berries in my paw. Holding Aqua's paw tighter and dropping the berries to the floor, we ran out of there as fast as we could. Swiftly evading the tall legs of the people we passed, avoiding some of their Pokemon as best we could to avoid capture and battling.
"Z-Zack… w-where are we going?" she gasped as we ran together through the streets. "I don't s-see anyone chasing us!"
"J-just keep running. We got to get to somewhere where we can hide for a while." I panted, running now towards the two buildings; Baseball on the left, and the movie theater on the right. We ran to the right down the alley, finding an open door and entering it to find ourselves in a dark corridor and out of breath.
Nimbasa City – Movie Theater
In the movie theatres, hiding in the back underneath the seat from anyone in pursuit of Aqua and I, we ran into this room were a movie was being shown. We sat there trying to catch our breath from all of the running we did, and keeping our hearts from bursting out of our chests from the adrenaline kicking in from almost being caught. After a quick look inside the bag at all of the fruits and berries we managed to take, I was relieved at how much we had thinking we wouldn't mange to get as much as we could, but to my surprise, we got ourselves fourteen berries; eight Oran berries, four Tamato berries… good thing we managed to grab one of those for how spicy they are(!), and two Grepa berries. And for the fruit we managed; five apples, two bananas and three oranges.
"I'm surprised at this amount." I whispered to Aqua showing the contents of the bag to her. "Hopefully we'll last until we reach the next city with all of this."
"We have got food down for now, but we'll need some water first before leaving." She whispered as she reached inside the bag and grabbed the two bottles of water we had left. I thought we had more than that? "Where do you think we could get some more?"
I looked around first at the parent and child eating popcorn and drinking what appeared to be some soda in a cup. It wasn't water, but I guess it would have to do for now. I mean, do theaters serve water or is it just sodas and slushies? "Well, those two over there near the front have a drink in that cup of theirs. So maybe we'll find some drinks to take with us."
"Thank you for saving us!" children screamed in unison on the big screen playing the movie being shown. My head turned towards the screen where the movie was being played. And then I saw a character for the first time seen in my new no memory life but seen many times before I lost my memory.
It was a movie that would've stuck her to the seat and refused to move out of it until the movie had ended two times in a row, it was a movie based on a popular animated series my friend and later mate loved so much; Super Latias. It was a Latias dressed up in a red cape and mask saving people of a city, being this hero everyone in the city adored and looked up to. Besides me and Aqua, there were only two humans, a man and a young girl watching the movie with a bag of popcorn in hand, Latias would've loved to be in there to watch the movie, she would've squealed in delight every time as her favourite character popped up on screen and saving people, almost not caring about the other people watching the movie.
I didn't like the series that much; I thought it was boring and unappealing to me despite being 'forced' to watch it with Latias' tight iron hold so she had someone to watch it with her… almost one thousand episodes long plus twenty movies… but despite having so many memories of this, who it involved, I had no memory of this. Not one fragment or sudden burst of memories of ever watching this show with Latias came to me, like I had never seen this before.
"Wow, a Latias." She said in amazement as she saw the Latias on screen high above the city fast like a jet soar the heavens as she watched over the city… or something like that. "Have you ever seen one up close before? I have when I was young. I heard they are legendary Pokemon from another region. A very rare sighting to be seen in the wild, especially here in this region from what I heard in my neighborhood at the time growing up."
I shook my head, glancing back at Super Latias now stopping as she levitated high above the clouds and watched the horizon over the city. "I don't think so. So when did you see a Latias?"
"Do you remember when I told you, Leafeon, and Noctowl about those monsters that attacked the city on our way to the Savior's building for the supply run?" I nodded. "I remember seeing a strange Pokemon I had never seen before. It was red and white with amber eyes, like that one on the screen." She pointed with her paw when the Latias flew back down to the city to meet with her friends. "I tried asking my parents what it was, but they didn't know what it was. But after a year after the attack, one of the neighbors in my alley approached me with an old newspaper they found in the trashcan nearby and showed me an image of one of the Pokemon that helped saved me. And right there on the middle was the image of the Pokemon with three other humans and another Dewott. 'Latias' is what it said on the paper. I think it was a flying type because it was flying everywhere, I had never seen anything like it."
For a while, the two of us watched the screen. I won't go into too much detail on what the movie was about, but one scene I did notice, maybe even sparked a memory, a little memory awakening from at the back of my head perhaps where all of my memories yet to be remembered awoken inside. It was a small memory, a memory of when I was young no older than ten years old. It was someone's birthday party and I was there standing in the middle of a room next to a red and white Pokemon blurry in my mind as we attempted to juggle with some apples. It might not be important, but it was a nice memory one I remembered smiling at while looking at the screen finding a great sense of happiness and warmth the longer I tried to remember more.
To Aqua, it looked as though I were smiling at the comical situation involving Super Latias and her friends trying to have fun together by attempting to juggle. But I was smiling at the pleasant thought of something I didn't know at the time to be something from my past.
Nimbasa City – Gardens
By the edge of the city, a short walk away from the city exit to move on from Nimbasa to the next, we stopped at Nimbasa City gardens, a place we could see something other than concrete and steel Aqua and I had seen since Castelia City living in Purrloin's hideout for the past month. It wasn't exactly a large area like a public park, it was small like half the size of a football field, or maybe a little smaller than one but it did have a lot of vegetation and tall trees growing here making it all look bigger on the outside, like stepping into a forest growing in the city.
"It sure is nice here." Aqua sighed as she leaned back on the soft grass in the middle of the gardens, taking in the fresh air, a welcome change to the old rotting air inside Purrloin's hideout. "I'd like to ask if we could stay here, but I already know the answer to that, we can't stay because of how close we are to Castelia City."
I sat beside her and agreed. "Yeah. We're so close that we may end up running into one of Purrloin's gang members during another supply run sometime soon, if what they say about Purrloin hunting down those that run away is true; that she'll never stop looking for them, we can never be safe from them unless we get as far away from the city as we can."
"But isn't Nuvema Town close to Castelia City? After looking at the map, it's a two day walk from the city to the town. Do you think that's far enough?"
"Well, maybe after we get there and if we get answers; who I am and my past, we could leave the region." I said without really thinking of it.
"Another region?" She said, sitting up from the grass. "How would we convince your trainer to go to another region?" I shrugged, unsure how we could even try if I had a trainer.
"I suppose charades would probably do to help explain what has happened recently." I thought about telling a trainer I thought I had, trying to explain to them about everything that had happened. I suppose what would happen once we reached Nuvema Town at the laboratory we'll meet with Professor Juniper. Then she would recognize me and tell the others that I had arrived safe and sound with multiple scars and an eye patch over my left eye. "I don't know, but we'll think of something."
I looked to the side of me to see the filled bag full of food and supplies to last us to the next city. We had been lucky on getting ourselves a surprisingly good amount of food, but also we managed to get ourselves a few bottles worth of soda from the store room before we were eventually caught by the staff forcing us to make a hasty retreat from there.
We would soon leave the city before night approaches, but before that we stayed in the gardens, relaxing in peace we hadn't had for a long time. It would be a long journey; a path which we would walk down would be full of all kinds of dangers ahead. I had hoped that by the time we had reached Nuvema Town, once again we would have another moment of peace. The kind of peace Latias and I had originally planned before all of this.
To be continued...
Trivia:
The scene near the end at the movie theater was originally at the baseball stadium while a game was on, but it didn't really have much going on and it would instead the entire chapter would be somewhat of a filler chapter.