"Where No Pokemon Trainer Has Gone Before"
Chapter 4: The Search
"Has there been any news, Officer Jenny?"
"We're still looking, but we haven't found anything new. All my sisters in Johto have been notified as well, in case Felix some how ended up there. Don't worry, we won't stop looking."
"Thank you so much Officer Jenny."
"You're welcome."
Amy Johnson hung up the telephone and stared at the blank screen. Felix, her daughter, was gone. It had been only a few days, but Amy could feel that something was wrong, terribly wrong. What with some witnesses saying that a huge storm had come out of nowhere and just as quickly vanished, along with her daughter...
Felix, her only daughter: The tomboy, always trying to prove that she's better than her brother, Philip. {Must be the red hair} she thought, {just like my mother.}
Felix's grandmother had been a famous pokemon master, who had traveled all around the world and won dozens of badges. She had a fiery temper and a strong force of will that led her to the top. She had even been offered a position on the Elite Four, but she turned them down. She had been a good mother and a great grandmother, always pushing her children to do their best. But she had died in a car accident when Felix was five years old.
Amy began sobbing, at thought of her lost mother, and her possibly lost daughter. Tears dripped down her face and onto her clothing. {I have never been out of contact with Felix for this long before. She always used to call me on the phone, right before she went to bed, just reassure me that she was okay.}
Strong arms wrapped themselves around her, and Amy grabbed onto her husband and held tight. "I can't lose her, Alex. I can't!"
"Don't worry," Alex replied, soothingly, "she'll be back before you know it." {Where are you, Felix? What has happened to you?}
{Patrol duty: Probably the most boring thing in existence.} Yunt grumbled mentally.
He and a mixed group of about twenty humans and gnolls, humanoids with the head of a hyena, were patrolling the area near the Surague Escarpment. It was a wild, untamed land; the ONLY wild, untamed land in all of Thay. There was nothing of value in the lands, and no one almost ever came here. "Almost" was the key word here, for in the past year, he and the men he commanded had seen only two things worth mentioning to their superiors: a blue dragon, an adult by the size of it, carrying off a deer to its mountain lair and a group of adventurers who had gotten really, really lost.
The report of the blue dragon had gone to Tharch Pyrados, who was probably planning an expedition to kill the dragon and bring back its treasure to fill her coffers. Yunt and his men had quickly massacred the adventurers, once they verified that the adventurers had no ties to the Red Wizards of Thay. Their bodies and equipment were given over Pyrados as well.
{That greedy bitch,} Yunt thought angrily, {she might as well be a dragon for all that she covets treasure.}
"Commander," someone growled, and Yunt glanced over into the face of one of the gnolls in his command.
Tral was the head of the gnolls in the group, for the sole reason that he was a flind, a subspecies of gnoll, notable for being shorter and smarter than normal gnolls. What Tral said represented the opinion of all the gnolls, whether they actually agreed with him or not. He was short for his kind, just a few hairs over six feet. His skin was covered by red brown fur and his eyes sparkled with an intelligent and malicious spark.
"What?" Yunt replied emotionlessly. {I don't know what this is about, but it can't be anything important.}
Tral didn't answer immediately, instead he inhaled heavily and said, "blood."
Yunt frowned, considering the flind's word. Gnolls, and flinds for the matter, had a sense of smell as a good as a dog, and they could track very well by scent alone, making them some of the better trackers in the world.
{Still, it could just be a dead deer, or rabbit,} Yunt mused. {Might as well go see. Probably won't be as boring as things are now.} Aloud he said to Tral, "Pass the word to take a break for a few minutes, then grab some men and lead."
Tral spread the word and grabbed two humans and a gnoll. While the rest of the group stopped, easing off their packs and weapons and grabbing a bite to eat or a swig of water, Yunt and the other three followed Tral as Yunt left the trail and held his head up high, drinking in the air and the scent of blood.
After five minutes of crashing through the brush, they came upon the remains of a battle.
Near a small pond lay several humanoids, most human, all dead. One of the bodies had been hit with fire. {Magical fire} Yunt decided, having seen similar damage done before by an angry mage. Nearby was a pile of more bodies, all with great chunks torn out of their bodies. Yunt examined the bodies closer and whistled softly at what he saw: chain mail, shredded into ribbons.
The wounds were too wide for a sword, and there were no stabbing wounds. None of the wounds really fit with an axe either. They were probably made by claws of some beast. {But} Yunt frowned, there were no bite marks, and nothing seemed to be chewed off. {So that means either the beast wasn't hungry, or these men were torn apart by undead.} Yunt quickly looked around, expecting hoards of undead to suddenly surge out of the woods, but the woods were peaceful, and the sounds of birds chirping in the air.
Yunt turned to Tral, who was also searching the bodies, and said, "Did something alive or dead do this?"
"Alive," Tral growled back, "but I don't recognize the wounds. Or some of the tracks," he gestured to the bank surrounding the pond. Yunt knelt down and looked at the impressions and was puzzled. There were several different footprints, and many of them he couldn't identify. Two that he could identify were an impression of a bare foot, small and narrow, of a child or an elf, and the other was a shoe, but it had a weird sole like no type of footwear Yunt had ever seen.
The other tracks definately weren't human. There were three different clawed footprints, one walked on four legs, and the others walked on two legs. There were also some paw prints, like that of a cat or dog. What was most strange was that the paw prints, the four-legged footprints, and the smaller of the two-legged footprints didn't go anywhere. From what Yunt could tell, the bigger two-legged footprint walked away downstream, along with the shoe print.
"Yunt," one of the humans called. Yunt stood up and walked over to the bodies where the man was standing. "They're mercenaries, with Red Wizard's coins in their pockets. And another set of tracks lead off that away," he pointed perpendicularly away from the stream. "And that person was running."
Yunt shook his in confusion. "Something happened here, and I want to know if it has any bearing on us. Get the rest of the men here," Yunt ordered the man. "We are going to go hunting, and kill whatever did this, before it finds us and decides to kill us as well."
"But sir, what if it's something of a Red Wizard's?"
"Then we go tell Pyrados and let her deal with the Red Wizards, with us somewhere else at the time."
"Yes sir," and he strolled off.
Yunt looked back at the pile of bodies and remembered the old saying, "Be careful for what you wish for, because you just might get it." {I wished, and I got it. I only hope that I will live long enough to wish again.} Yunt sighed, and began searching for more clues.
[Author's Notes: After putting in a Red Wizard of Thay in the last chapter, I decided that I might as well put Felix in Thay. This means that she is in a place that is equivalent to Hell on the Prime Material Plane. I haven't decided exactly WHEN she is in Thay. I'll figure that out later if it ever comes up.]
Chapter 5 ought to be up before Christmas, but that is all I will promise you...
Chapter 4: The Search
"Has there been any news, Officer Jenny?"
"We're still looking, but we haven't found anything new. All my sisters in Johto have been notified as well, in case Felix some how ended up there. Don't worry, we won't stop looking."
"Thank you so much Officer Jenny."
"You're welcome."
Amy Johnson hung up the telephone and stared at the blank screen. Felix, her daughter, was gone. It had been only a few days, but Amy could feel that something was wrong, terribly wrong. What with some witnesses saying that a huge storm had come out of nowhere and just as quickly vanished, along with her daughter...
Felix, her only daughter: The tomboy, always trying to prove that she's better than her brother, Philip. {Must be the red hair} she thought, {just like my mother.}
Felix's grandmother had been a famous pokemon master, who had traveled all around the world and won dozens of badges. She had a fiery temper and a strong force of will that led her to the top. She had even been offered a position on the Elite Four, but she turned them down. She had been a good mother and a great grandmother, always pushing her children to do their best. But she had died in a car accident when Felix was five years old.
Amy began sobbing, at thought of her lost mother, and her possibly lost daughter. Tears dripped down her face and onto her clothing. {I have never been out of contact with Felix for this long before. She always used to call me on the phone, right before she went to bed, just reassure me that she was okay.}
Strong arms wrapped themselves around her, and Amy grabbed onto her husband and held tight. "I can't lose her, Alex. I can't!"
"Don't worry," Alex replied, soothingly, "she'll be back before you know it." {Where are you, Felix? What has happened to you?}
{Patrol duty: Probably the most boring thing in existence.} Yunt grumbled mentally.
He and a mixed group of about twenty humans and gnolls, humanoids with the head of a hyena, were patrolling the area near the Surague Escarpment. It was a wild, untamed land; the ONLY wild, untamed land in all of Thay. There was nothing of value in the lands, and no one almost ever came here. "Almost" was the key word here, for in the past year, he and the men he commanded had seen only two things worth mentioning to their superiors: a blue dragon, an adult by the size of it, carrying off a deer to its mountain lair and a group of adventurers who had gotten really, really lost.
The report of the blue dragon had gone to Tharch Pyrados, who was probably planning an expedition to kill the dragon and bring back its treasure to fill her coffers. Yunt and his men had quickly massacred the adventurers, once they verified that the adventurers had no ties to the Red Wizards of Thay. Their bodies and equipment were given over Pyrados as well.
{That greedy bitch,} Yunt thought angrily, {she might as well be a dragon for all that she covets treasure.}
"Commander," someone growled, and Yunt glanced over into the face of one of the gnolls in his command.
Tral was the head of the gnolls in the group, for the sole reason that he was a flind, a subspecies of gnoll, notable for being shorter and smarter than normal gnolls. What Tral said represented the opinion of all the gnolls, whether they actually agreed with him or not. He was short for his kind, just a few hairs over six feet. His skin was covered by red brown fur and his eyes sparkled with an intelligent and malicious spark.
"What?" Yunt replied emotionlessly. {I don't know what this is about, but it can't be anything important.}
Tral didn't answer immediately, instead he inhaled heavily and said, "blood."
Yunt frowned, considering the flind's word. Gnolls, and flinds for the matter, had a sense of smell as a good as a dog, and they could track very well by scent alone, making them some of the better trackers in the world.
{Still, it could just be a dead deer, or rabbit,} Yunt mused. {Might as well go see. Probably won't be as boring as things are now.} Aloud he said to Tral, "Pass the word to take a break for a few minutes, then grab some men and lead."
Tral spread the word and grabbed two humans and a gnoll. While the rest of the group stopped, easing off their packs and weapons and grabbing a bite to eat or a swig of water, Yunt and the other three followed Tral as Yunt left the trail and held his head up high, drinking in the air and the scent of blood.
After five minutes of crashing through the brush, they came upon the remains of a battle.
Near a small pond lay several humanoids, most human, all dead. One of the bodies had been hit with fire. {Magical fire} Yunt decided, having seen similar damage done before by an angry mage. Nearby was a pile of more bodies, all with great chunks torn out of their bodies. Yunt examined the bodies closer and whistled softly at what he saw: chain mail, shredded into ribbons.
The wounds were too wide for a sword, and there were no stabbing wounds. None of the wounds really fit with an axe either. They were probably made by claws of some beast. {But} Yunt frowned, there were no bite marks, and nothing seemed to be chewed off. {So that means either the beast wasn't hungry, or these men were torn apart by undead.} Yunt quickly looked around, expecting hoards of undead to suddenly surge out of the woods, but the woods were peaceful, and the sounds of birds chirping in the air.
Yunt turned to Tral, who was also searching the bodies, and said, "Did something alive or dead do this?"
"Alive," Tral growled back, "but I don't recognize the wounds. Or some of the tracks," he gestured to the bank surrounding the pond. Yunt knelt down and looked at the impressions and was puzzled. There were several different footprints, and many of them he couldn't identify. Two that he could identify were an impression of a bare foot, small and narrow, of a child or an elf, and the other was a shoe, but it had a weird sole like no type of footwear Yunt had ever seen.
The other tracks definately weren't human. There were three different clawed footprints, one walked on four legs, and the others walked on two legs. There were also some paw prints, like that of a cat or dog. What was most strange was that the paw prints, the four-legged footprints, and the smaller of the two-legged footprints didn't go anywhere. From what Yunt could tell, the bigger two-legged footprint walked away downstream, along with the shoe print.
"Yunt," one of the humans called. Yunt stood up and walked over to the bodies where the man was standing. "They're mercenaries, with Red Wizard's coins in their pockets. And another set of tracks lead off that away," he pointed perpendicularly away from the stream. "And that person was running."
Yunt shook his in confusion. "Something happened here, and I want to know if it has any bearing on us. Get the rest of the men here," Yunt ordered the man. "We are going to go hunting, and kill whatever did this, before it finds us and decides to kill us as well."
"But sir, what if it's something of a Red Wizard's?"
"Then we go tell Pyrados and let her deal with the Red Wizards, with us somewhere else at the time."
"Yes sir," and he strolled off.
Yunt looked back at the pile of bodies and remembered the old saying, "Be careful for what you wish for, because you just might get it." {I wished, and I got it. I only hope that I will live long enough to wish again.} Yunt sighed, and began searching for more clues.
[Author's Notes: After putting in a Red Wizard of Thay in the last chapter, I decided that I might as well put Felix in Thay. This means that she is in a place that is equivalent to Hell on the Prime Material Plane. I haven't decided exactly WHEN she is in Thay. I'll figure that out later if it ever comes up.]
Chapter 5 ought to be up before Christmas, but that is all I will promise you...