"Speech"

'Thought'

"Pokespeech"

Alright guys, this is where it gets interesting. If any of you guys have read another story called "The Beginning of a New Future" by SilverSuperiority (which I really recommend), you might find that the story from here on is a bit familiar~

That's all I'm going to say. For now, enjoy the story~!

8:00 AM AEST 22/08/2019

I kept running, towards nowhere in particular. All I wanted was to get out of there, away from the grasp of the trailing officer. Trips and falls hindered my escape, and my state of mind wasn't helping either. I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn't risk getting caught like my family had been. With my current speed, that fate was soon becoming reality. I knew I had to speed up.

Or I could play it smart.

Seeing an alleyway up ahead, I ran closely along the buildings, then made a sharp turn into the darkness, where the cop was sure to have difficulty. My eyes darted around instinctively, taking note of the surrounding walls and ledges. And then, as if on autopilot, I could only feel myself lifting off the ground, swiftly balancing on the clotheslines, bouncing from one onto another, until I managed to land safely on a rather clear rooftop. Turning around, I could see the bewilderment in the man's eyes, as I walked out of view then collapsed on my side, still shocked from what I had just done.

'How the hell did I do that?!'

I brought my paws up to look at them, acknowledging that these soft little paws were what had gotten me out of danger. I placed them over my face and groaned into them, feeling my tail straightening up as well. I then turned on my back to face the sky with so many things going through my mind to list. But unfortunately, that moment of tranquility was short-lived.

I quickly shot up as I heard grunting to my right, looking over to see the arms of some officers climbing up. I cursed under my breath while quickly getting up and running away, again. Seeing a pond nearby, I began heading towards it. Being confident about my ability to swim, I planned to shake those fatties off there. I found that while I had been able to run quite fast before, I was able to run at unbelievable speed in this body. Not only that but jumping across rooftops was easy as well, not that I had been doing that before. Somehow, seeing people walking around and living their life from above gave me some weird feelings of happiness and thrill, and that brought a smile to my face, albeit quite faint.

But I was getting kinda distracted, which almost resulted in me falling from a 3-story building. That wouldn't have been very good, would it? Luckily, I managed to focus in time and strained my legs just enough for me to make the jump across. This continued for about 5 or 10 minutes, with me leaving a huge gap between the officers, until I had reached the final building of the street. Walking cautiously towards the edge, I looked down to see that I could never have jumped down, even if I tried. So, I started to look for another way. I looked back to see that my pursuers were still miles away, and that they looked to be tuckered out already. So I decided to just calmly look around. Eventually, I found a fire escape ladder to the side of the building, which I then realized was an apartment complex. And while the police hadn't been a problem then, I still hastily made my way down the stairs, step by step.

I thought I was safe when I got to the bottom. I even considered abandoning the plan with the pond. But life wasn't gonna be easy on anybody right? Obviously not to me, because immediately after that a few police cars pulled up next to me, blocking the width of the road, forcing me to run the other way which was conveniently towards the pond.

'Man, I thought I was safe for a moment there. How many of these guys are there? And how long are they going to chase me?'

I hurriedly ran towards my destination, this time more calmly and determined. I spotted some pedestrians nearby, mostly humans but with some Pokemon scattered as well, so I called out to them for help, "Help! The police are after an innocent citizen!" Midway through, I realized that I must've sounded so silly, since most of them couldn't even understand what I was saying apart from some yips and variations of "Espy" or "Espeon". But I think the message was understood, since some of them ran opposite of me to block some officers. While it did hinder their progress a bit, one guy still got through the "barrier" and continued to sprint towards me with aggression in his eyes. Looking back and seeing that, I gasped and started running even faster, hoping to outrun him like I did before. Unfortunately, that guy seemed to be fit as hell, since he was able to almost match my speed.. or maybe I was just tired.

'Oh shit, shit, I'm getting tired! This is bad. This is so bad!'

"Hey, need any help with your pursuer there?" I snap out of my thoughts as I hear a feminine voice calling out to me. I looked around confusedly until someone caught my eye. She was a.. purple(?) Sylveon and a cute little Vulpix beside her. But it was not time to be confused, I was scared and being chased, so I nodded quickly to her, desperately asking for help. She then signalled for the Vulpix to hide, while quickly heading under the bridge. I caught onto her plan pretty quickly and forced my legs to run much faster, slowly increasing the distance between the man. I shut my eyes tight until I heard a loud "Oh shit!" behind me, followed by a hurtful splash. When I heard that, I was surprised and almost tripped over myself. Luckily I stopped just in time and looked back to see the Sylveon dragging the man back to shore.

I slowly walked over while catching my breath, "T-Thanks for that, you have no idea how scary that was! I thought he would catch me for sure!" I then noticed the Vulpix behind her and felt a bit of regret, "I-I'm sorry, I didn't notice that you had your son with you! I wouldn't have asked if it meant putting a kid at risk!" I was feeling really sheepish at that moment, but thankfully the Sylveon didn't seem to mind and motioned for me to relax.

"While I appreciate the thought, I couldn't just let him chase you until you got too tired to run anymore." She then paused a bit, and I swear I could see her eyes widen a bit, "A-And he's not my son, he's my little brother! His name is Troy," The Vulpix, now known as Troy, just giggled as I joined in with a nervous chuckle, blushing at my silly mistake. "So, why were they after you? Were you in one of the exclusion zones?" I sadly shook my head.

"Apparently I broke rule five even though my entire family was transformed… I was the only one to escape, as I saw them being loaded into a large truck." Talking about it now, I couldn't help but feel a bit emotional. I almost shed some tears even.

"Well, at least they're all together, and your last memories of them were of a loving family… My mom and dad were very angry about me having transformed, and my brother here didn't fare much better." I just stared at her in a mix of sadness and shock, not knowing how to respond to it. The little Vulpix didn't seem to fare any better as I saw some tears emerging on the corners of his eyes as well.

She then suddenly wrapped her feelers around both of us, pulling us close for a hug. I can't say I wasn't surprised, but I was just too sad to feel so. I started to think about my situation. There I was, no family nearby, just me and two other Pokemon also on the run. I felt.. pathetic, and lost. We sat there for a few minutes just hugging and crying, but I somehow managed to pull myself together first, as I wiped my eyes and she did the same to both hers and Troy's.

"Sorry, I kinda let my emotions get ahead of me heheh, guess it's been rough for all of us." The Sylveon nodded in agreement as Troy climbed onto her back and sat on it. We all looked over to where the officer was lying and began walking away from him. "So where are you two off to anyway?"

"My plan was to leave the country if I can, or at the very least the state. My boyfriend lives in the US, so I'll try to meet him over there."

"And how do you plan to leave? I didn't think there were any flights that would be heading over there"

"Well, we'll be heading over the border, to South Australia, from there we'll either get a boat or plane from there, hopefully, someone is willing to take us…"

"Well, I hope they do, but do you have anyone else here that can take you in if you can't leave the country?" She solemnly shook her head.

"Unfortunately the only people I ever really got to know were my family and my best friend's family, but she…" She then sighed after ending at a rather weird note. I got a bit curious but kept to myself as she continued, "Let's just say that's not an option anymore…" She wiped away a tear as we continued walking.

"That's too bad, and I'd presume your family is not an option because of the rules here?" She nodded slowly at my question.

"That, and our parents probably wouldn't take us back anyway…" She suddenly scrunched her face up, seemingly deep in thought. To me, it seemed kinda cute somehow. Feeling a bit frisky, I casually remarked to her,

"Heh, you know you look quite cute like that." I then winked as she gave off the desired effect, a deep blush adorning her cheeks. Her brother seemed to like it as well as he giggled atop his sister's back.

"Big sis' face went wed!" She groaned and tried to change the subject.

'Cute'

"So how about you?" I cocked my head in confusion. "Do you have any plans?" I blinked a few times as I carefully contemplated on an answer. Unbeknownst to me, her blush just got a bit deeper.

"Not really, when I was running away I just wanted to get away from that officer, I'm just glad I decided to run to this park since I have no idea how long I could run from him."

"You could come with us mistew Espeon!" I heard Troy say cheerfully. "I'm suwe big sis doesn't mind, wite?" He gave her an adorable face like he's begging for a lollipop, and she gave a nod.

"That's really kind of you, but I don't want to be a burden"

"You won't be a burden, as they say, the more the merrier!" She smiled back at me as I couldn't help myself but smile back as well.

'Man that's a cute smile'

"Then I'd be happy to join you!" We continued walking down the path as I stopped when I suddenly remembered something. "It just occurred to me that we never introduced ourselves! My name's Dan, and I'm 15, how about you two?"

"My name's Nova, and I'm 17, and this is my little brother Troy who's only 2, although I think it would be best if we changed our names, to help get other people off our trail, kinda like a code name?" I acknowledged that decision with a thoughtful 'Huh' and began thinking for them.

"Well, it's nice to know your names, but do you have any ideas for names?" She shook her head as I continued to think. "Well, how about Crystal for you, and…" I looked over at Troy thoughtfully while he looked at me, cocking his head in confusion. "Well, you're very cute, so your name should reflect that in my opinion… Now I know you aren't a Zorua, but how about Zora?" His eyes then lit up as the Sylveon pondered about the name I suggested.

She looked back to her brother, who looked very happy with the new name, seemingly checking if he liked it, while I chuckled at his cute antiques. "So how about you Dan?" I put a paw under my chin as I thought for a moment before shaking my head.

"I don't think it'll be necessary, besides, I like my name too much!" I giggled as all three of us walked down the path, sharing laughs as quietly as we could.

10:22 PM AEST 23/08/2019

We'd been walking for a while now. Looking up at the sky, the serene orange hue gave me some peace of mind, bringing a smile to my face. Troy was starting to get tired though, as notified by a hearty yawn, so I got to finding a place to rest. Luckily, I found a creek just near the main road we were walking along, so I told Crystal to head over together.

Getting near the body of water, I pondered over how I was going to quench my thirst, ultimately deciding to just dip my mouth in first then figure it out then. I felt a bit silly at the time, so I just decided to open my mouth wide as well as leaning forward slightly to let the water in, then close it in quick movements. This went on for an.. embarrassingly longer time than I'd liked, making Crystal giggle at my "skill" and offered to help me with it, after waking Zora up. I must've blushed so bad then, but I still accepted it gladly.

"There has to be an easier way of traveling, constantly needing to hide is not doing me any good, I feel like I'm going to have an anxiety attack at any moment," Crystal commented as she bent down to have a drink herself.

"Agreed, but how are we going to travel then? Maybe at night?" I suggested as she mulled over it a bit, then looked over at Zora,

"That's a good idea, but what about Tr-Zora? He does need sleep after all,"

"Well, maybe he could do what he has been doing? He's had naps on your back throughout the day, I heard his cute little snores!" I giggled at that fact, followed by her. Then she turned to Zora for his opinion,

"Is my back comfy enough for that to work for you? I don't want you to get a bad sleep because of this," He gave a small nod as she sat down and looked at me. "Alright then, so we'll start traveling at night, seems like it would be safer and we'll need to hide less, which will be good, but should we have a rest first? I feel fine for now, but what about you?" I nodded.

"I'm fine with pulling an all-nighter, plus that means we'll get out of here faster, which would be ideal." She nodded at the plan as we all stood up,Zora getting back on his sister's back. Crystal then looked back at the water,

"Maybe we should get some water bottles too, just so we can have water for the road?" I nodded once again as we moved out, aiming to find a store for us to get a few water bottles.

Around 4 hours later

As we approached another town, things looked a bit bad, with police cars blocking either intersections or a whole road, and it didn't seem like they were being lazy either. That's why I, "leader" of our group, volunteered to go scour the neighborhood, finding paths that weren't being guarded, while also not too difficult to traverse through. I asked Crystal and Zora to stay still and wait for me to return. But if I was gone for too long, then they'd go on ahead without me.

As I began to explore, I found out that while police were plenty here, that didn't mean most of the residents were transformed. In fact, most of the houses I sneaked past sounded very lively inside, and that kinda saddened me a bit. Ultimately though, I focused on the task at hand and took note on the map I carried with me, drawing out an alternative path that we could go through. So with the success, I returned to the group, seeing Crystal texting with someone,

"Who are you texting there, Crystal?"

"Huh? Oh it's just my boyfriend, I was just keeping him up to date with our situation."

"Alright then, but I think you should put your phone away, I've found a way out. Follow me."

Around 5 tiring hours later

We'd been walking for so long now, and all I wanted was to sleep, or at least rest. But I was not in a position to complain at the time, as I looked back at the pair of siblings trailing behind me, noticeably slower than yesterday. Not wanting to make them walk any longer, I was determined to find us a shelter. Luckily, it didn't take too long. I called out to Crystal,

"Crystal, I think I've found a good place to rest for now! It seems there's a den that was made by a fox that may have been abandoned." I'd had my fair share of encounters with them before, so the scent was quite recognizable. I stood next to the entrance, looking out for any dangers as they went on ahead, as I entered soon after. The interior was a bit messy due to disuse, but I wasn't going to complain. At least it was big enough for all of us without being cramped.

Seeing Zora curling up safely next to Crystal, I distanced myself away from them a bit, letting them have their privacy. At that point, I wasn't sure if they'd wanted me to get that close yet. As I curled up myself and started to drift off, I picked up a tinge of worry somewhere, though I couldn't tell for sure.

Maybe it was Crystal? No, she was already asleep by then.

—END OF CHAPTER—

As always, every review is very much appreciated! ^w^