I do not own Pokémon.
But I do own Vincent, and all the other characters that doesn't appear in
the game.
If you want to use Vincent or any of the other characters, you have got to
have my permission
A Grey life
Chapter 9: Twin Falls
You should know these things before reading my story
" " people speaking
( ) a person's thoughts
Vincent awoke to the sound of heavy rain smattering the tent, desperately trying to reach the tents inhabitants. He wasn't cold since the sleeping bag did it's work and Sara had crept even closer to him, warming his bare chest with her arm and her body heat radiated from her own bag, onto his. Making him even warmer.
He didn't have anything against it. In fact, he liked it. He had never been like this before. He had never been so close to anyone so that he could feel their warmth.
There he was, taking use of another person when he had been standing on his own two legs his entire life.
Thinking about it, he wasn't so sure wether he liked it or not.
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Three more days and nights passed quickly.
Every day, Vincent, Sara and Wendy came closer and closer to their destination. The town of Twin Falls. The first town with a gym.
Every night, they slept the same way. Wendy on the left, Sara in the middle and Vincent on the right. For some reason, Sara always crept closer to Vincent. One night, he had even changed places with Wendy to see what way she crept. To his surprise, she always made her way to him.
He assumed that she sub-consiously made her way to the warmest place. In this case, him.
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They were walking on a road in the middle of nowhere. Yellow fields with grain ready to be harvested surrounded the road in every direction, only making room for farms that lay scattered around the plains like patches on an old blanket.
The heat radiated off the pavement, seeing it in the air above the road plus the fact that they were sweating floods made them painfully aware that they needed water. Crickets sang furiously, making the walking almost hypnotic. After walking for nearly six hours and with the water already used up, they needed a place to rest and fill up their reserves.
First up the extremely long hill was Vincent, wearing the thin, green shorts that he and Sara had picked out. He had taken off his shirt after the first hour of walking since the heat was unbearable.
Second, was Sara. She wore a pair of shimmering blue, tight bicycle shorts that stopped about halfway up her thigh and a white top. Like usual, she had her hair in a ponytail.
Shortly after, Wendy appeared with a sweatshirt tied around her waist and the jeans shorts made this morning since shorts was the best for this kind of weather.
Wendy stopped at the peak of the hill, digging for her waterbottle. Only to find it empty.
"Can I borrow some water from anyone?" She looked from Sara to Vincent and back to Sara again.
"If I had some, you could have it. But I'm all out too." They both looked at Vincent, who just flipped his open bottle upside down. Nothing but a few minimal drops leaked onto the grund and disappeared right in front of their eyes.
"So... the situation is this: we are walking in the middle of nowhere in this blasted heat with no water." Wendy looked dumbfounded
"Great! We can't go on much further with no water! We'll get dehydrated. And that ain't fun. I've been there! If we don't drink alot every day, then we have to stay at one place and just recover for a full day. A whole day just thrown into the river..." Wendy rambled on
"There's no need to do that. Look down there." Vincent pointed down to a scar in the landscape.
"A valley. There should be some water down there." Sara looked at Wendy
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Wendy steered her steps at the gorge, excited to finally get to still her thirst.
The distance proved to be further than anyone of them could imagine, so when they did reach their destination, it was dusk.
But Vincent had been right, there was water there. A small stream lined the bottom of the gorge, filling up a small pond no more than twenty meters across. The pond had green leaf-trees of a kind neither of them knew, nor cared about, lining the water edges. The trees hung over the water like they were reaching for the cool, clear liquid. The trio stopped for the day and dropped their packs nearby the lake. Preparing to set up the tent.
"Who are you to have found the secret gym of the Twin Falls?" A woman clad in animal furs stood on top of a cliff in the water. It looked like she had been living in the wild a long time. The only thing that looked normal was the capture balls around her wrists.
"This is a secret gym?" Vincent whispered to Sara.
"Yup. It was hidden to prove more of a challenge for trainers and their Pokémon. We were supposed to go into the town's Pokémon center to get clues but I guess we won't need to do that now..."
"We are travellers coming freshly from the Pokémon academy in the south. We seek to challenge the leader of this gym." Sara answered the woman
"All three of you?"
Both Sara and Wendy looked at Vincent, who just nodded in approval.
"I will try my best." He had thought of it for a long time and figured he needed the experience.
"Then you will all follow me to the leader's domain and the location for the fights."
They did as they were told and followed the strange woman, who had leaped off the cliff and was now standing in front of them.
A little bit into the forest, the landscape was beautiful. The stream had hundreds of black mossy rocks in it, that along with fallen trees and branches who still had leaves growing out of them, created bridges across the cold water. The steep slopes on both sides of the water were covered with brown, dead leaves that had fallen from the massive beech-trees. The trees stood bent and twisted, creating a roof of green leaves over the gorge. Both the slopes and trees measured more than thirty meters in the air, making Vincent suddenly feel very, very small.
As they passed through the beautiful nature, Wendy couldn't help but notice that it looked like the stream had been eating it's way down in the ground over the course of thousand of years, making this scar in the earth.
As they rounded a corner, they could hear the sound of furious water at it's peak and they found themselves walking towards a pair if waterfalls. Vincent eyed the falls. The short one, about four meters high, was below a large plateau, constantly filled up with water from the larger fall, streching eight, maybe ten meters in the sky.
On the upper fall, in the middle of the stream, there was a throne carved out of stone and decorated with both sea shells and fern. The arm rests had two pokéballs fitted in them.
(Gym time...) Vincent stood still, with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Who art thou to have defeated the trainers and quests on thy way to the secret Gym of Twin falls?" a heavy female voice, seemingly coming from everywhere asked them.
The woman that lead them to the falls dropped on one knee and stared at the ground "These are trainers coming from the Pokémon academy in the south. They are all looking for a gym match with you, oh leader."
"Then they shall have it." Out from the back of the throne, a woman with black hair and green clothing that none of the trio had ever seen before stood up. She had the appearance of a queen, yet simple like all the clothes came from the forest. She took both of the balls out of the throne sockets and leaped down the fall onto the plateau below.
"Who shalt be the first to perish under the power of my Pokémon?" She had her arms to her hips.
(She doesn't impress me with old english and speakers hidden in the bushes!) Vincent took a step forward
"I am" Wendy spoke up just as Vincent opened his mouth.
(Fine... get beat up. See if I care!)
"Very well then." The leader motioned for the plateau with her arm "Thou shalt come up here. This is where thou art defeated."
Wendy didn't say anything, just started walking up towards the plateau and her first Gym match.
"You have to follow me now. You are not allowed to watch the match." The weird-looking woman from before led them away.
"Good luck Wendy!" Sara yelled and waved towards her friend.
It didn't take long for Wendy to come back from her fight with the leader, soaked in water. Immeadiatley, Sara and Vincent stood up. Vincent looked at her, trying to read her of any emotions or something out of the ordinary in her body language, like pride. But there was nothing that he could really put his finger on.
"How'd it go?!"
"She told me that I couldn't tell before both of you had fought her. And, she also told me to send you next." She looked over at Sara, who immeadiately had a serious expression on her face.
"I'll do my best." Sara walked away to her oncoming fight.
While Sara was duking it out on the plateau, Vincent stared intensively at Wendy. He had never found anyone that was this hard to read! She could totally change the way she acted and looked. She didn't even give the hint of a smile to show that she had won, or act mad and irritated because of a loss. No walking proudly because of a win. He was completely dumbfounded.
It didn't take long for Sara to return either. She too, completely soaked.
But Sara wasn't like Wendy. Sara was very easy to read. She had an extremaly small smile across her lips, just noticable but it was there. And she kept her head high. Sara had won. "Vincent, your turn." Sara wringed the water out of her hair as she spoke
He just walked by her, didn't even look at her "Congratulations to your first badge Sara."
She looked at Wendy with eyes the size of plates and her mouth open a little
"How did he know that?!"
Vincent walked up the path to the plateau with Slate's minimized Pokéball firmly in a fisted hand.
(I will not lose. No way! If Sara can do it, so can I.)
When he reached the plateau between the falls, he saw that it wasn't really a plateau, it was a battlefield covered with water, even the white markings where there to state the borders of the Pokémon. And on the other sides, the leader stood.
"I welcome thee, Vincent Grey to my domain."
He raised his left eyebrow "Apparently, you know my name woman. I assume your assistant gave you that information. But since you know who I am, I want to know the name of the one I am going to beat."
She let out a sinister laugh "Thou art wrong in so many ways, trainer. My assistant does not need to provide me with any information! She is merely a guide to the trainers who have managed to find their way here. I get my knowledge from the water that passes in my stream. Everything that my water has heard, goes directly to me."
(What a fruitcake...)
"Very well then, what have the water told you more besides my name, woman?"
"Thou have bathed in my source of knowledge, and thus, allowing me to hear thy thoughts for the moment. And forcing thou to listen to mine."
"What did my thoughts tell you then?" He found it quite amusing to play with this sorry excuse for a leader
She looked him in the eyes and spoke with a silent, knife-sharp voice that made his skin crawl
"You are yearning to find out your purpose in this world since you were so violently thrown out of your own. I specifically told you that there is no place for you here."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing! This freaked out woman was the thing that he heard in the water? No! Not true. She was a pitiful liar.
She sighed "If only that was all... I know how you got here, trainer. And I also know a way for you to return."
He felt his fuse burning faster and faster, dangerously close to ignite the bomb that was himelf.
"Then tell me how I get back."
She stared at him and giggled. "You get your way trainer. I will tell you how to get back where you belong."
Vincent stood up straight, paying close attention
"If..." She held her finger in the air "You beat me in a two on two battle."
"Slate and I will easily beat whatever Pokémon you have. You might as well tell me right now!" He enlarged Slate's Pokéball and threw it into the arena.
The Machop stood in the water, ready to fight whatever she tossed at them.
Without a word, she tossed a ball already in her hand.
As the bright neon light faded, Slate's opponent became visible.
"May I introduce... My Octillery. It will be the last thing your weak Machop sees before he faints."
"Bring it on!"
"Octillery!" Blast that pitiful Machop with a water gun!"
"Slate, don't move!"
The gray Pokémon turned his head and looked at his trainer who stood calmly, arms folded on his chest as usual. But the short Pokémon got a feeling of fear as he beheld his trainer and companion. Vincent's eyes were fixed on the person in front of him and his eyes were a furious black.
Slate never had time to turn his head back around and got hit by the water stream with full force. He was slammed into the solid rock wall behind him and as the water slowed down, he sunk down on his knees.
(...I need to be careful. That Water gun wasn't as weak as I had expected.) Vincent was surprised
"Get up. I know you can take more than that." He needed to be strong. He needed to appear as he already had the win in his hand. Then, he would find out the way to get back into the world he belonged. And then, he would decide if he would get back or not.
Vincent leaned in on his soaked Pokémon and whispered "Let's get physical!"
"Karate Chop!"
"Octillery, another water gun if I may?" The squid-like Pokémon reered back it's head and spewed another devastating spray of water at the forth-coming Machop.
"Slate. Get out of the way and do a Low kick!"
Slate threw himself to the left just as the water came straight at him. Using the momentum, he swinged his leg at the Octillery's head, forcing it to stop with the water assault.
"Now, Karate Chop."
Just as the Octillery could see straight, the first thing it saw was the hand of Slate come crashing down on it's hard head.
"Octillery! Constrict it!" the trainers voice was not even phased. Her Pokémon had taken two hard blows to the head and she was still talking like she was winning.
(She's doing the same as me... Playing it cool and trying to psych me out. You've met your match! No one can ever affect me with petty mind games!)
Octillery had already jumped on to the back of Slate and was squeezing the air out from his lungs with it's strong tentacles.
"Slate! Take it easy. Focus your energy."
Slate concentrated and tensed all the muscles he had worked so hard to build up. He bent his arms upward at the same time as he heaved in air into his lungs.
"Harder!" Octillery did as it was told and squeezed as hard as it could, trying to squeeze the life out of the strong Pokémon.
Vincent didn't need to tell Slate what to do. Even if he did, it wouldn't help. It was a struggle between a Machop and an Octillery. The question was: Who would get tired first? Several minutes passed as the Pokémon were pushing against each other, giving it all they had
Slate knew that if he exhaled the air he had, he would loose. But it was becoming harder and harder every second not to.
"Come on! I know you will win! It's a weak Octillery, Slate! You are the strongest Machop there is. You can't loose!"
The encouraging words from the person that meant the most to him sent Slate over the edge. He used whatever power he had and flung his arms out, causing the Octilllery to let go of him and fall to the ground behind him.
"How interesting. I've never seen anyone break out of a Constrict before. Too bad you won't win... Ice beam."
Slate was panting heavily and his arms hurt from the move he had just pulled. Even if Vincent had ordered him to get out of the way, he couldn't. But the Ice Beam wasn't heading for him. It struck the water in front of him and froze it solid. All of the previously moving water on the plateu was frozen and created a barely noticable mist that soon vanished. "Now Octillery. Octazooka!"
(Not good!)
"Dodge it!"
Slate tried to jump to the left but he couldn't. His feet were stuck in the newly formed ice.
The water hit him with incredible force straight to the face. He was pushed backwards and the back of his head slammed into the hard ice.
It would have been so easy to just stay down. But neither Slate nor Vincent believed in the easy way.
"Get up and punch your way out!"
Slate stood up again, raised his arms and slammed it into the hard water on either side of him with full force. The ice cracked but he was still stuck.
"Again!" He repeated the moves but this time, even harder.
The ice flew in every direction and the very tired and very pissed Machop raced over the slippery ice heading for Octillery. Slate grabbed the two front tentacles, one in each hand and lifted it in the air, slamming it to the ice. But he did not stop there. Slate, furious about the low trick that had been pulled on him threw the dazed Pokémon into the very same stone wall he had crashed into in the beginning of the match.
Octillery slumped down on the ground. It was knocked out.
"Great job Slate." Vincent held out his companions Pokéball and was ready to press the recall button.
"Trainer, weren't you listening? I said a two on two battle..." She had already released her second choice. In front of her stood a large, spiky and blue/gray Pokémon.
"Give it your best shot. However, I would bet my money on Cloyster."
(Is she mocking us?!)
"Karate Chop it!" There was only one problem. Slate was exhausted. The hurt he previously felt was nothing to what he was experiencing right now. His knuckles bled from the ice, his chest hurt from the squeezing and he was dizzy from the Octazooka to the head. In short, Slate was in pain.
The speed he had before was gone. He nearly jogged over to the large Pokémon, panting like he had lungs the size of peas. His eyes didn't have the spark in them anymore. They were half closed and as he landed a punch on the Cloyster with the force of a newborn child, he passed out.
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The girls had already gone asleep for the night while Vincent took a walk and cleared his mind. How was he supposed to beat that trainer? Slate didn't even have a chance against her second Pokémon! But if he had more Pokémon too, then he could withdraw Slate after the Octillery had fallen and throw out a second, fresh Pokémon! He needed battle experience that was for sure. He had to train Slate more, find more Pokémon and train them to be the strongest they could ever be!
As he approached the tent with small, light steps trying to make as little sound as humanly possible, he quickly turned to his right as he heard something. And stared at the familiar contures of Wendy.
"Wendy, when did you wake up?" He walked over to her
"I never fell asleep." She kept her eyes focused out into the darkness all the time, listening and imagining the water somewhere in front of her.
She looked at him and patted a mossy stone next to her. "Sit down."
He did, just not next to her. He sat down a little further away.
(What's going on?)
Wendy changed her eyes from the dark water up into the sky while grabbing hold of her knee and leaned backwards, rocking back and fourth.
"They're beautiful aren't they?"
"What?"
She pointed up into the sky "The stars."
They were indeed beautiful, he knew that. He had spent several hours just staring at them at home in his backyard. And he would do it again! He just had to beat that leader...
He didn't look up. "Maybe."
"Ha! I'm not stupid you know! But from the look of it, it seems that Sara is."
He looked up at her face, trying to read her emotions. If he could do that, he would know her intentions. But to no avail. (Blast this darkness!)
"What are you talking about?"
"I've been watching you Vincent. And I've been watching Sara too. You pretend to be this tough, non-caring guy. But you are not. Underneath that macho shell of yours, you are much more vulnerabe then you want to believe. You have shielded your heart from the outside world. And my theory is that until now, no one has been able to penetrate that shell."
"Until now?"
"Until the day you met Sara."
Silence
"She has gotten to you. The second night, when you slept in the tent, she put her arm around you right?"
(How does she know?!)
"...yeah... You were awake?"
"I was awake, yes. And I saw that you tried to pull her away, but you didn't. And every night since then, she has been very close to you in her sleep. Correct?"
"Yes but that's just because she is drawn to my body temperature. Nothing else. And I can't push her away because then she would wake up." He didn't like this. Apparantly, he had been read just as easily as he read people. It was an uncomfortable thought... He felt like he didn't have any privacy.
"Okay, If you say so. But just consider this:" She stood up and walked over to him, whispering in his ear.
"Are you sure she was asleep?"
All the hairs on his neck rose. He had shivers along his spine. His eyes were wide open.
(She wasn't asleep? Then that means... she held me and slept so close to me because she wanted to. No, she is the kind of gilr that is on love with love. She just have to have someone. But she wil not have me! I stand alone!) He placed his face in his open palms as he relized that he had become quite fond of having her next to him. To feel her warm skin against his. He hated the thought that he actually had become attached to someone.
But how could Wendy know if she was awake or not? Had Sara told him? Did she see it? Did she just guess...?
It didn't matter. He knew what he was going to do in the morning.
I knew this chapter took a really long time to finish and I am sorry about that. I hope you liked it. I didn't... :p
Tell me what you think of my work using "that" button.
Yes... that one :) / Yorun
A Grey life
Chapter 9: Twin Falls
You should know these things before reading my story
" " people speaking
( ) a person's thoughts
Vincent awoke to the sound of heavy rain smattering the tent, desperately trying to reach the tents inhabitants. He wasn't cold since the sleeping bag did it's work and Sara had crept even closer to him, warming his bare chest with her arm and her body heat radiated from her own bag, onto his. Making him even warmer.
He didn't have anything against it. In fact, he liked it. He had never been like this before. He had never been so close to anyone so that he could feel their warmth.
There he was, taking use of another person when he had been standing on his own two legs his entire life.
Thinking about it, he wasn't so sure wether he liked it or not.
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Three more days and nights passed quickly.
Every day, Vincent, Sara and Wendy came closer and closer to their destination. The town of Twin Falls. The first town with a gym.
Every night, they slept the same way. Wendy on the left, Sara in the middle and Vincent on the right. For some reason, Sara always crept closer to Vincent. One night, he had even changed places with Wendy to see what way she crept. To his surprise, she always made her way to him.
He assumed that she sub-consiously made her way to the warmest place. In this case, him.
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They were walking on a road in the middle of nowhere. Yellow fields with grain ready to be harvested surrounded the road in every direction, only making room for farms that lay scattered around the plains like patches on an old blanket.
The heat radiated off the pavement, seeing it in the air above the road plus the fact that they were sweating floods made them painfully aware that they needed water. Crickets sang furiously, making the walking almost hypnotic. After walking for nearly six hours and with the water already used up, they needed a place to rest and fill up their reserves.
First up the extremely long hill was Vincent, wearing the thin, green shorts that he and Sara had picked out. He had taken off his shirt after the first hour of walking since the heat was unbearable.
Second, was Sara. She wore a pair of shimmering blue, tight bicycle shorts that stopped about halfway up her thigh and a white top. Like usual, she had her hair in a ponytail.
Shortly after, Wendy appeared with a sweatshirt tied around her waist and the jeans shorts made this morning since shorts was the best for this kind of weather.
Wendy stopped at the peak of the hill, digging for her waterbottle. Only to find it empty.
"Can I borrow some water from anyone?" She looked from Sara to Vincent and back to Sara again.
"If I had some, you could have it. But I'm all out too." They both looked at Vincent, who just flipped his open bottle upside down. Nothing but a few minimal drops leaked onto the grund and disappeared right in front of their eyes.
"So... the situation is this: we are walking in the middle of nowhere in this blasted heat with no water." Wendy looked dumbfounded
"Great! We can't go on much further with no water! We'll get dehydrated. And that ain't fun. I've been there! If we don't drink alot every day, then we have to stay at one place and just recover for a full day. A whole day just thrown into the river..." Wendy rambled on
"There's no need to do that. Look down there." Vincent pointed down to a scar in the landscape.
"A valley. There should be some water down there." Sara looked at Wendy
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Wendy steered her steps at the gorge, excited to finally get to still her thirst.
The distance proved to be further than anyone of them could imagine, so when they did reach their destination, it was dusk.
But Vincent had been right, there was water there. A small stream lined the bottom of the gorge, filling up a small pond no more than twenty meters across. The pond had green leaf-trees of a kind neither of them knew, nor cared about, lining the water edges. The trees hung over the water like they were reaching for the cool, clear liquid. The trio stopped for the day and dropped their packs nearby the lake. Preparing to set up the tent.
"Who are you to have found the secret gym of the Twin Falls?" A woman clad in animal furs stood on top of a cliff in the water. It looked like she had been living in the wild a long time. The only thing that looked normal was the capture balls around her wrists.
"This is a secret gym?" Vincent whispered to Sara.
"Yup. It was hidden to prove more of a challenge for trainers and their Pokémon. We were supposed to go into the town's Pokémon center to get clues but I guess we won't need to do that now..."
"We are travellers coming freshly from the Pokémon academy in the south. We seek to challenge the leader of this gym." Sara answered the woman
"All three of you?"
Both Sara and Wendy looked at Vincent, who just nodded in approval.
"I will try my best." He had thought of it for a long time and figured he needed the experience.
"Then you will all follow me to the leader's domain and the location for the fights."
They did as they were told and followed the strange woman, who had leaped off the cliff and was now standing in front of them.
A little bit into the forest, the landscape was beautiful. The stream had hundreds of black mossy rocks in it, that along with fallen trees and branches who still had leaves growing out of them, created bridges across the cold water. The steep slopes on both sides of the water were covered with brown, dead leaves that had fallen from the massive beech-trees. The trees stood bent and twisted, creating a roof of green leaves over the gorge. Both the slopes and trees measured more than thirty meters in the air, making Vincent suddenly feel very, very small.
As they passed through the beautiful nature, Wendy couldn't help but notice that it looked like the stream had been eating it's way down in the ground over the course of thousand of years, making this scar in the earth.
As they rounded a corner, they could hear the sound of furious water at it's peak and they found themselves walking towards a pair if waterfalls. Vincent eyed the falls. The short one, about four meters high, was below a large plateau, constantly filled up with water from the larger fall, streching eight, maybe ten meters in the sky.
On the upper fall, in the middle of the stream, there was a throne carved out of stone and decorated with both sea shells and fern. The arm rests had two pokéballs fitted in them.
(Gym time...) Vincent stood still, with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Who art thou to have defeated the trainers and quests on thy way to the secret Gym of Twin falls?" a heavy female voice, seemingly coming from everywhere asked them.
The woman that lead them to the falls dropped on one knee and stared at the ground "These are trainers coming from the Pokémon academy in the south. They are all looking for a gym match with you, oh leader."
"Then they shall have it." Out from the back of the throne, a woman with black hair and green clothing that none of the trio had ever seen before stood up. She had the appearance of a queen, yet simple like all the clothes came from the forest. She took both of the balls out of the throne sockets and leaped down the fall onto the plateau below.
"Who shalt be the first to perish under the power of my Pokémon?" She had her arms to her hips.
(She doesn't impress me with old english and speakers hidden in the bushes!) Vincent took a step forward
"I am" Wendy spoke up just as Vincent opened his mouth.
(Fine... get beat up. See if I care!)
"Very well then." The leader motioned for the plateau with her arm "Thou shalt come up here. This is where thou art defeated."
Wendy didn't say anything, just started walking up towards the plateau and her first Gym match.
"You have to follow me now. You are not allowed to watch the match." The weird-looking woman from before led them away.
"Good luck Wendy!" Sara yelled and waved towards her friend.
It didn't take long for Wendy to come back from her fight with the leader, soaked in water. Immeadiatley, Sara and Vincent stood up. Vincent looked at her, trying to read her of any emotions or something out of the ordinary in her body language, like pride. But there was nothing that he could really put his finger on.
"How'd it go?!"
"She told me that I couldn't tell before both of you had fought her. And, she also told me to send you next." She looked over at Sara, who immeadiately had a serious expression on her face.
"I'll do my best." Sara walked away to her oncoming fight.
While Sara was duking it out on the plateau, Vincent stared intensively at Wendy. He had never found anyone that was this hard to read! She could totally change the way she acted and looked. She didn't even give the hint of a smile to show that she had won, or act mad and irritated because of a loss. No walking proudly because of a win. He was completely dumbfounded.
It didn't take long for Sara to return either. She too, completely soaked.
But Sara wasn't like Wendy. Sara was very easy to read. She had an extremaly small smile across her lips, just noticable but it was there. And she kept her head high. Sara had won. "Vincent, your turn." Sara wringed the water out of her hair as she spoke
He just walked by her, didn't even look at her "Congratulations to your first badge Sara."
She looked at Wendy with eyes the size of plates and her mouth open a little
"How did he know that?!"
Vincent walked up the path to the plateau with Slate's minimized Pokéball firmly in a fisted hand.
(I will not lose. No way! If Sara can do it, so can I.)
When he reached the plateau between the falls, he saw that it wasn't really a plateau, it was a battlefield covered with water, even the white markings where there to state the borders of the Pokémon. And on the other sides, the leader stood.
"I welcome thee, Vincent Grey to my domain."
He raised his left eyebrow "Apparently, you know my name woman. I assume your assistant gave you that information. But since you know who I am, I want to know the name of the one I am going to beat."
She let out a sinister laugh "Thou art wrong in so many ways, trainer. My assistant does not need to provide me with any information! She is merely a guide to the trainers who have managed to find their way here. I get my knowledge from the water that passes in my stream. Everything that my water has heard, goes directly to me."
(What a fruitcake...)
"Very well then, what have the water told you more besides my name, woman?"
"Thou have bathed in my source of knowledge, and thus, allowing me to hear thy thoughts for the moment. And forcing thou to listen to mine."
"What did my thoughts tell you then?" He found it quite amusing to play with this sorry excuse for a leader
She looked him in the eyes and spoke with a silent, knife-sharp voice that made his skin crawl
"You are yearning to find out your purpose in this world since you were so violently thrown out of your own. I specifically told you that there is no place for you here."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing! This freaked out woman was the thing that he heard in the water? No! Not true. She was a pitiful liar.
She sighed "If only that was all... I know how you got here, trainer. And I also know a way for you to return."
He felt his fuse burning faster and faster, dangerously close to ignite the bomb that was himelf.
"Then tell me how I get back."
She stared at him and giggled. "You get your way trainer. I will tell you how to get back where you belong."
Vincent stood up straight, paying close attention
"If..." She held her finger in the air "You beat me in a two on two battle."
"Slate and I will easily beat whatever Pokémon you have. You might as well tell me right now!" He enlarged Slate's Pokéball and threw it into the arena.
The Machop stood in the water, ready to fight whatever she tossed at them.
Without a word, she tossed a ball already in her hand.
As the bright neon light faded, Slate's opponent became visible.
"May I introduce... My Octillery. It will be the last thing your weak Machop sees before he faints."
"Bring it on!"
"Octillery!" Blast that pitiful Machop with a water gun!"
"Slate, don't move!"
The gray Pokémon turned his head and looked at his trainer who stood calmly, arms folded on his chest as usual. But the short Pokémon got a feeling of fear as he beheld his trainer and companion. Vincent's eyes were fixed on the person in front of him and his eyes were a furious black.
Slate never had time to turn his head back around and got hit by the water stream with full force. He was slammed into the solid rock wall behind him and as the water slowed down, he sunk down on his knees.
(...I need to be careful. That Water gun wasn't as weak as I had expected.) Vincent was surprised
"Get up. I know you can take more than that." He needed to be strong. He needed to appear as he already had the win in his hand. Then, he would find out the way to get back into the world he belonged. And then, he would decide if he would get back or not.
Vincent leaned in on his soaked Pokémon and whispered "Let's get physical!"
"Karate Chop!"
"Octillery, another water gun if I may?" The squid-like Pokémon reered back it's head and spewed another devastating spray of water at the forth-coming Machop.
"Slate. Get out of the way and do a Low kick!"
Slate threw himself to the left just as the water came straight at him. Using the momentum, he swinged his leg at the Octillery's head, forcing it to stop with the water assault.
"Now, Karate Chop."
Just as the Octillery could see straight, the first thing it saw was the hand of Slate come crashing down on it's hard head.
"Octillery! Constrict it!" the trainers voice was not even phased. Her Pokémon had taken two hard blows to the head and she was still talking like she was winning.
(She's doing the same as me... Playing it cool and trying to psych me out. You've met your match! No one can ever affect me with petty mind games!)
Octillery had already jumped on to the back of Slate and was squeezing the air out from his lungs with it's strong tentacles.
"Slate! Take it easy. Focus your energy."
Slate concentrated and tensed all the muscles he had worked so hard to build up. He bent his arms upward at the same time as he heaved in air into his lungs.
"Harder!" Octillery did as it was told and squeezed as hard as it could, trying to squeeze the life out of the strong Pokémon.
Vincent didn't need to tell Slate what to do. Even if he did, it wouldn't help. It was a struggle between a Machop and an Octillery. The question was: Who would get tired first? Several minutes passed as the Pokémon were pushing against each other, giving it all they had
Slate knew that if he exhaled the air he had, he would loose. But it was becoming harder and harder every second not to.
"Come on! I know you will win! It's a weak Octillery, Slate! You are the strongest Machop there is. You can't loose!"
The encouraging words from the person that meant the most to him sent Slate over the edge. He used whatever power he had and flung his arms out, causing the Octilllery to let go of him and fall to the ground behind him.
"How interesting. I've never seen anyone break out of a Constrict before. Too bad you won't win... Ice beam."
Slate was panting heavily and his arms hurt from the move he had just pulled. Even if Vincent had ordered him to get out of the way, he couldn't. But the Ice Beam wasn't heading for him. It struck the water in front of him and froze it solid. All of the previously moving water on the plateu was frozen and created a barely noticable mist that soon vanished. "Now Octillery. Octazooka!"
(Not good!)
"Dodge it!"
Slate tried to jump to the left but he couldn't. His feet were stuck in the newly formed ice.
The water hit him with incredible force straight to the face. He was pushed backwards and the back of his head slammed into the hard ice.
It would have been so easy to just stay down. But neither Slate nor Vincent believed in the easy way.
"Get up and punch your way out!"
Slate stood up again, raised his arms and slammed it into the hard water on either side of him with full force. The ice cracked but he was still stuck.
"Again!" He repeated the moves but this time, even harder.
The ice flew in every direction and the very tired and very pissed Machop raced over the slippery ice heading for Octillery. Slate grabbed the two front tentacles, one in each hand and lifted it in the air, slamming it to the ice. But he did not stop there. Slate, furious about the low trick that had been pulled on him threw the dazed Pokémon into the very same stone wall he had crashed into in the beginning of the match.
Octillery slumped down on the ground. It was knocked out.
"Great job Slate." Vincent held out his companions Pokéball and was ready to press the recall button.
"Trainer, weren't you listening? I said a two on two battle..." She had already released her second choice. In front of her stood a large, spiky and blue/gray Pokémon.
"Give it your best shot. However, I would bet my money on Cloyster."
(Is she mocking us?!)
"Karate Chop it!" There was only one problem. Slate was exhausted. The hurt he previously felt was nothing to what he was experiencing right now. His knuckles bled from the ice, his chest hurt from the squeezing and he was dizzy from the Octazooka to the head. In short, Slate was in pain.
The speed he had before was gone. He nearly jogged over to the large Pokémon, panting like he had lungs the size of peas. His eyes didn't have the spark in them anymore. They were half closed and as he landed a punch on the Cloyster with the force of a newborn child, he passed out.
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The girls had already gone asleep for the night while Vincent took a walk and cleared his mind. How was he supposed to beat that trainer? Slate didn't even have a chance against her second Pokémon! But if he had more Pokémon too, then he could withdraw Slate after the Octillery had fallen and throw out a second, fresh Pokémon! He needed battle experience that was for sure. He had to train Slate more, find more Pokémon and train them to be the strongest they could ever be!
As he approached the tent with small, light steps trying to make as little sound as humanly possible, he quickly turned to his right as he heard something. And stared at the familiar contures of Wendy.
"Wendy, when did you wake up?" He walked over to her
"I never fell asleep." She kept her eyes focused out into the darkness all the time, listening and imagining the water somewhere in front of her.
She looked at him and patted a mossy stone next to her. "Sit down."
He did, just not next to her. He sat down a little further away.
(What's going on?)
Wendy changed her eyes from the dark water up into the sky while grabbing hold of her knee and leaned backwards, rocking back and fourth.
"They're beautiful aren't they?"
"What?"
She pointed up into the sky "The stars."
They were indeed beautiful, he knew that. He had spent several hours just staring at them at home in his backyard. And he would do it again! He just had to beat that leader...
He didn't look up. "Maybe."
"Ha! I'm not stupid you know! But from the look of it, it seems that Sara is."
He looked up at her face, trying to read her emotions. If he could do that, he would know her intentions. But to no avail. (Blast this darkness!)
"What are you talking about?"
"I've been watching you Vincent. And I've been watching Sara too. You pretend to be this tough, non-caring guy. But you are not. Underneath that macho shell of yours, you are much more vulnerabe then you want to believe. You have shielded your heart from the outside world. And my theory is that until now, no one has been able to penetrate that shell."
"Until now?"
"Until the day you met Sara."
Silence
"She has gotten to you. The second night, when you slept in the tent, she put her arm around you right?"
(How does she know?!)
"...yeah... You were awake?"
"I was awake, yes. And I saw that you tried to pull her away, but you didn't. And every night since then, she has been very close to you in her sleep. Correct?"
"Yes but that's just because she is drawn to my body temperature. Nothing else. And I can't push her away because then she would wake up." He didn't like this. Apparantly, he had been read just as easily as he read people. It was an uncomfortable thought... He felt like he didn't have any privacy.
"Okay, If you say so. But just consider this:" She stood up and walked over to him, whispering in his ear.
"Are you sure she was asleep?"
All the hairs on his neck rose. He had shivers along his spine. His eyes were wide open.
(She wasn't asleep? Then that means... she held me and slept so close to me because she wanted to. No, she is the kind of gilr that is on love with love. She just have to have someone. But she wil not have me! I stand alone!) He placed his face in his open palms as he relized that he had become quite fond of having her next to him. To feel her warm skin against his. He hated the thought that he actually had become attached to someone.
But how could Wendy know if she was awake or not? Had Sara told him? Did she see it? Did she just guess...?
It didn't matter. He knew what he was going to do in the morning.
I knew this chapter took a really long time to finish and I am sorry about that. I hope you liked it. I didn't... :p
Tell me what you think of my work using "that" button.
Yes... that one :) / Yorun