"I'll walk from here." The heartbroken teenager sitting in the back seat decides her tone rough due to crying but her tears had stopped for the moment half a block back the way they'd come. Besides she had aerie motives for picking this stretch of roadway to get out of the too-quiet car anyway. Mainly to see if the 'bro talk' she'd heard after stopping by her locker after her last class was right.
Given who it had been between Maggie had little doubt it had been a lie. But to just abandon a Pokémon like that. Just because it was 'too tiny and weak' for the supposed-to-be trainer's liking…..
For a fraction of a second she thinks her father will simply keep driving given the quick flex of his fingers against the wheel but then he gives a slowly exhaled breath before the car was pulled over to the roadside without a word, the doors unlocked, the car's trunk opened.
Maggie didn't bother trying to catch her father's eye as she steps out from the car dragging her backpack with her as she heads around to the trunk for the bag her angry father had thrown together for her before kicking the teenager from his house less then a full hour before.
Given the weight when she gives an experimental tug Maggie gave a quick breath of thanks for the act of packing what money the teen had been saving in his mission to get his 'abnormal' daughter out from under his roof. Seems now instead of buying herself even the most basic of beginner gear for becoming a true Pokémon trainer as she'd hoped it looked like Maggie's small fund would be put towards more basic needs than following her father in being a gym leader.
Something to eat once she'd gotten to the closest town, maybe a bed for the night at a Pokémon center.
"Your aunt is expecting you." Her father says when Maggie had closed the trunk and started back towards the front of the car. The man finally spoke for the first time since his world-shattering 'You shamed me' declaration before coldly kicking his only child out of the only home, she'd ever known at the young age of fourteen.
Maggie's continued refusal of a Pokémon partner since she turned eleven, he could forgive but the fact he'd found out from her classmate that Maggie was gay, and she was out on the street in the most literal of terms.
From the passenger seat, her father's Pokémon partner Hawlucha eyed her with an even darker glint to its usual unnaturally hardened glare.
Maggie was proud when only a few more tears slid down her cheeks when her father dives away leaving her alone in the coming twilight.
"Now, where is that outcrop that juice head was talking about?" Maggie wondered to herself as she shifted both her backpack and the duffle bag of clothes into a more secure hold against her shoulders as she stared out at the shadowed expanse of both darkened forest and rocky roadway.
Keeping track of time isn't something Maggie concerns herself with after she'd cleared the first line of darkening trees
How long she'd been walking after she'd cleared the tree line Maggie couldn't say only that before long, she'd needed to wrestle her phone from her backpack to use as a flashlight so she wouldn't trip on the uneven ground before a rustling ahead of her draws her focus from looking for that key point her jerk head classmate had bragged about abandoning his Pokémon. Maggie would have shaken it off if it hadn't been for the whimper that followed then a beat later the tiniest spark of a fire as the saddened whimper sounded once again. The human teenager lowered the lighting as she followed the noses.
What she saw broke her heart.
The jock hadn't been kidding when he'd said the poor thing had been on the small side as the Houndour huddled as close as it could to the small collection of twigs the shivering pup had managed to drag together for some semblance of fire for warmth as it waited.
Waited for a trainer that wouldn't be coming back for it.
'You take the time to hatch a Pokémon from an egg, yet you abandon it the first chance you get." Maggie huffed deciding then and there if she ever saw that jock again, she'd break her hand punching his face.
Maggie felt her heart break all over again as she set her own scrapped-together belongings down to dig in her backpack for the last half of the granola bar and the last few sips left in her water bottle, she'd decided on after gym class.
As she predicted the huddled Pokémon seemed to brighten at the sight of her phone's low glowing light as Maggie inched closer only for the tiny thing to growl in attempted warning when it realized Maggie wasn't the one it was waiting for.
"Easy little one, I'm not here to fight." Maggie tells it not that she thinks the scared pup of a Pokémon believes her as she gently sets down her offerings just in hoped-for sight of the 'demon puppy's attempt at a fire before retreating. "He won't come back for you, little one. And truthfully, he didn't deserve you even if he did." Maggie says hearing the low rumblings of the little one's stomach as she forces herself to back away at another attempted intimidating growl from the worn-out Pokémon.
"You need it more than me, little one," Maggie says seeing the dark eyes pup eyeing her curiously after realizing not all of the hunger rumbles were its own.
It was clear when the Pokémon's hunger won out over keeping up its attempts in intimidating the human teenager. The only problem was when a slithering shadow uncoiled from the underbrush at the scent of a meal. Or if Maggie was seeing the hunger in its eyes as she once again dropped her bags in favor of scrambling for a weapon the serpent type was more eyeing up the undersized pup for its dinner.
Going by the tiny nicks and cuts along its purpled scales Maggie guessed this wasn't its first attempt at gobbling up the smaller-than-average fire type.
"Just try," Maggie warned swinging a freshly grabbed stick like the thing was a sword.
Sure, she was playing a dangerous game considering even a lower leveled poisoned bite was a greater danger to a human than a fellow Pokémon, but Maggie wasn't about to just abandon the little one again.
The serpent hissed now attempting to size up Maggie before another more ominous rustling and an even darker hiss had the human girl's hands shaking around her wooden weapon of choice.
"There's always a bigger snake." Maggie groaned to herself when the much more matured serpent Pokémon slithered out to coil around the lower-powered one. "I'm not letting you have her." The teenager declared to both snakes as she planted herself as solidly as she could between them.
She was just guessing about the little one's gender at this point, but it wasn't like either of the hungry purple-scaled serpents bothered about if she was right or wrong as they both hissed in warning as Maggie raised her wooden stick higher.
A low whimper and a light tug on the cuff of her jeans almost pulls Maggie's attention from the two tags teaming Pokémon attempting to find a break in her defenses after getting a few warning brandishes of the stick held shaking in Maggie's hand.
The tiny Houndour was trying to get her attention. For what Maggie couldn't guess. "Don't worry little one." She promised even as she shivered under the slim guard her jacket gave of the advancing night. The chill was truly starting to get to her as was the fatigue of wandering the woods in the dark after a full day of high school classes and not eating much past her school lunch and half a granola bar before her world had been turned upside down with one phone call from Lisa's parents.
"No, no, no, no" Maggie begged when her phone started beeping in warning of a low battery. "No, please not now.' She begged before the thing shut itself off….right before the larger of the serpents ahead of her striking.
"Maggie."
The sound of her Tia's call mingled with the larger of the two snakes more coordinated attacks as it lunged for her. A single bite easily snapped Maggie's wooden weapon in two before the snake was lunging again this time driving its head into the teen's chest knocking her backward into the hard ground.
The little one who Maggie was starting to think of as nicknaming Luna given the brand of the granola bar, she'd attempted to offer earlier had made rather quick and impressive work of knocking out the smaller of the two snake types whilst Maggie distracted the larger one.
"Maggie, sweetheart this isn't funny where are you?" Tia was calling.
The Houndour now huddled beside Maggie's duffle and backpack attempted a bark in answer as if it were a common dog asked to speak.
Any other time the move would have made Maggie giggle at the moment it proved ineffective as the larger purple-scaled snake started coiling around Maggie's ankle.
Luna tried another attempted howl as Maggie too tried to call out to her searching Tia. The chilly night air stole her breath thanks to the fast-coming winter chill.
The hint of an ember glowed beside Maggie's backpack.
"Maggie."
The serpent was slithering up towards Maggie's stomach now an odd compressive cold mix against the already cold surroundings.
Another small lick of
fire separated from the growling dog-like type's bared mouth the longer the dog watched. Not that the snake noticed now it had an even bigger meal option.
"Luna….run," Maggie called. Something was majorly wrong. Pokémon didn't normally attack humans like this only other Pokémon. 'But if it's Luna or me…" Maggie reminded herself still attempting to get her numb fingers to work in pushing the snake off herself.
And the demon dog did run….
Right at Maggie.
A blended mix of fire and electricity danced like pinpricks along the human girl's skin when the undersized but still intimidating fire type bite down as hard as it could onto the purple-scaled thing holding the teenager hostage.
"Good job, little one."
How the tiny dog type had mustered the energy for not just a combined attack but a knockout one at that Maggie could only guess as the small one hurried around her licking and nuzzling against Maggie's face.
The stinging itch of the snake's last bite to Maggie's hand was making her vision fuzzy as the little one tried even harder to keep her awake.
Luna's squeaky barks were growing more frequent as Maggie's eyes flutter in her effort to stay awake as more icy cold set into her bones.
"Maggie."
Her Tia had found her after all. "Saints you've been bitten." The other woman gasped her phone light making Maggie wince as it was shown over the tired teenager.
"Thanks, little one." The teenager yawned as the tiny Houndour curled itself against her chest in an attempt to keep her warm. "Luna," Maggie whispered
The Houndour against her chest crawled upward nuzzling under the fading teen's chin with a low whimper.
"Hang on Maggie, you hear me. Hang on." Her Tia pleaded then a following "Geotto get her to a hospital." After the telltale pinging whoosh of a poke ball being tossed out comes muffled to the teenager's ears.
Luna was still a grounding weight against her chest as the rush of wings sounded before everything truly fades away.