Disclaimer: Still don't own pokemon! Go away! (after leaving a review first of course ;;;) BTW according to some of my friends, Kurou only means 'claw' in my own little world. Ah well, I don't really feel like changing it so I'm just going to keep it the way it is, k?
Riku was surprised to wake up and find herself still clinging for dear life to the tree. Groaning, she sat up and winced as her back and other sore joints cracked loudly in the still, morning air. She sat blinking the bright sunlight for a while, trying to figure out why she had been sleeping outside instead of in her tent. Looking around, she realized her growlithe was nowhere in sight. "Eh…What happened to my camp?" She said aloud, looking very, very confused at the blood splattered on the grass. Her eyes came to a rest on the houndoom-like creature sprawled out in the grass. For a long time, she just stared at it, her eyes growing wide.
"Oh my god!!!" She shrieked, memories of the previous night's events hitting her like a ton of bricks. "Ember!" She cried, crashing through the underbrush in search of her beloved growlithe. Riku searched frantically, thrusting branches aside as her eyes scanned the ground for the little fire pokemon.
"Growl…lithe…"
"Growlithe? Where…?" The girl delicately pulled apart the thorns of a nearby bush and found Ember trapped within its clutches. Carefully, she pulled her pokemon from the brush and cradled him in her arms. "Phew…just fainted…Not injured too badly…" She sighed in relief.
Riku sat in the shade of the tree for several hours, stroking Ember's soft fur and desperately thinking about what she would do when she got back to the camp. She had planned on going back to the camp a while ago, but…what if it was still there?
She stared off into the distance, biting her lip as she tried to decide what to do.
Ten minutes later…
"So, what's a kid like you doing out here so early in the morning without any supplies?" Officer Jenny asked as Riku they sped down the street on her motorcycle.
"I got lost for a while…" She answered. "…Someone I know is hurt pretty badly so I didn't want to move him too much. I left him back at my camp."
"Do you want me to get help--?" Officer Jenny asked before Riku cut her off by quickly saying, "It's okay. Really!"
"Okay then." The officer said, turning back to the road. "We'll reach Goldenrod in another two minutes."
"What??? SO I wasn't that far away from Goldenrod? And I spent a week out here, lost in the woods???" Riku exploded, realizing she'd spent so much time walking in circles around the city.
"Well, you're not the first pokemon trainer to get lost…But it would be a lot more helpful if you had your pokegear with you…Oh! You do have it with you. See this button here?" Officer Jenny said, pointing. "Wait a second…you don't have a map card for it?"
"A what?" Riku asked blankly.
Officer Jenny pulled her hat down a little before replying, "The map card is pretty much just a digital map of the area. It's much easier than carrying a load of maps around. Uh…You should probably buy one when you get to Goldenrod City."
"Okay…"
The rest of the trip was spent in silence as they zoomed down the path to the city. Riku couldn't help but feel extremely awkward, realizing how very little she knew about pokemon.
"I'll be waiting for you outside." Officer Jenny said as she parked the motorcycle. "No doubt you'll need a trip back to your camp."
"Thank you so much!" Riku said, turning red and bowing repeatedly. "I'm really sorry to have caused you so much trouble…"
"No problem." The officer said brightly. "Now, you really might want to buy that map card…"
"I will." Riku said as she entered the Goldenrod department store.
Riku creapt back into her camp and was surprised to see that it was deserted. "Kurou? …Are you still here…within 20 miles of this place?"
She walked around for a while, all the while trying to figure out where he could have gone. "Honestly, how far can you travel with injuries as bad as his?" She noticed a set of paw print in dirt, and desperately hoping it didn't belong to one of the houndoom from last night, began to follow them. The prints ended after a few steps, but Riku just kept walking in the general direction the prints had been going in.
Kurou sat in the shallows, shivering as the cold water soaked his bloodstained clothes. His head drooped so much that the tip of his nose was practically touching the surface of the water. His blood red eyes stared sadly at the reflection in the water. A houndour had come for a drink not so long ago, but freaked out upon seeing Kurou there and, remembering what had happened last night, quickly fled the scene.
His pointed ears perked up a sound behind him, but he made not move to see what it was. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the scent of whatever was behind him away from him. He bared his fangs and growled deeply, warning the intruder to stay away from him.
"Kurou…"
He froze upon hearing Riku's voice, but did not turn around. He simply allowed his head to droop lower than ever. His eyes fell and his hung down in front of his face. He trembled when Riku knelt down in the water next to him and rested her hand on one of his curving horns.
"Come one…don't look so sad…I won't hurt you..." Riku said softly, stroking the boy's sleek hair. "Come out of the water…you're definitely going to catch a cold and make yourself feel even worse."
Kurou made no response and did not acknowledge that he had heard her.
Riku lifted his chin and forced Kurou to make eye contact with her, but he simply averted his eyes and refused to look at her. "I'm not that ugly, am I?" Riku asked jokingly.
Kurou slowly shook his head, but his eyes remained dull.
Riku sighed. "Okay, I can either drag you back to my camp, or you can walk back yourself. I'm not going to leave you here by yourself."
The boy refused to move, his eyes locked on some random tree in the distance.
"Grrrrr…" Riku grabbed the extremely surprised boy by the tail and began hauling him up the slope in spite of his yelps of protest. "I've already told you before: I'm not leaving you here! Come on! Either I pull you by the tail or you walk back yourself! Which will it be?"
Growling irritably, Kurou limped back up the path, wincing in pain whenever he put too much pressure on a wound.
'How the hell can he still be moving around with injuries like that???' Riku thought again. She was about to follow him when he noticed a small pouch partially hidden by the bushes. She picked it up and noted the tiny photograph on a key chain. The photograph was of a young boy, an older man and woman, who were most likely to be the boy's parents, and a houndour. The little boy had short, black hair (and long bangs) that stuck up a lot on one side and innocent, bright, blue eyes. He grinned happily as he proudly displayed a pokeball as his first pokemon, a young houndour. The little pokemon licked his face eagerly. The older man ruffled the boy's already messy hair as the woman next to him looked on, smiling as well.
'Someone must have lost this…Should I leave it here and hope they'll come and find it? Or should I turn it in?' Riku thought, glancing at the picture again. She suddenly stared hard at the picture and couldn't help but realize how familiar the boy in the picture looked…like she'd seen him somewhere before…She thought hard, but couldn't quite put her finger on it and eventually gave up. "I'll just keep it with me for a while…"
"Come on out, Ember! Dinner time!" Riku said, tossing her pokemon into the air. In a flash, the growlithe had appeared beside her and was hungrily devouring the pokemon food. She brought a bowl of soup over Kurou, who was curled up on the other side of the fire. Working swiftly, she removed the bloodied bandages and quickly replaced them with new ones. "Sorry I disappeared like that. I had to get some supplies from the department store…" Riku said, spraying the potion on his wounds. "This might sting a little…"
Kurou growled a little as she sprayed the medicine, but stayed still.
"I guess this is why you wouldn't tell me anything before…?" Riku asked, getting up to get herself some food.
Kurou didn't respond, but the tip of his tail twitched when she asked the question. The sad look he gave her pretty much said, 'You don't hate me?'
"What happened to you? Were you always like this?" Riku questioned, rather curious about the topic. "Hm? Why are you pointing at your throat and shaking your head? Are you choking on something from the soup? OMG! Kurou's choking! Quick! How do you do the Heimlich maneuver???"
Kurou desperately waved his arm, trying to get the panicking girl's attention. He gasped for breath and coughed as Riku successfully pulled off the Heimlich maneuver on him. He struggled free and managed to grab the frantic girl by the shoulders. Kurou gave Riku a soft, reassuring growl and waited until she'd finally calmed down.
The boy sighed, taking his clawed hands off her narrow shoulders. 'Rookie trainers seem to always freak out about the littlest things.'
"Sorry…" Riku muttered. "I'm obviously very uneasy about being out here by myself. I assume that you pointing at your throat means you can't talk?"
'It's very difficult to.' Kurou scratched out in the dirt with one claw. 'It's possible…but it's really not worth the effort.'
"I see…Eh…I'll assume that your…shifting between forms is…'normal'?"
'As normal as shape shifting gets…' the boy retorted.
"Can you return to your human form? It'd be a lot easier to talk to you like that." Riku said.
'Sorry. I can't control the changes. I might be able to, but up until now, I've never really had a reason to shift into either form of my own free will.' Kurou wrote. 'I'll tell you more whenever Mother Nature ever decides to let me change back. Then again, considering how unnatural I am, Mother Nature probably doesn't even care if I ever go back to normal.'
"Aw…don't say that. You're making me really depressed…"
'But it's true.'
Riku cuffed him lightly, "Stop being saying that! It's not true and you're only making me really depressed." She tossed a thick blanket over Kurou's head, leaving the boy to untangle himself from it (somehow managed to get his horns caught in it).
Riku got up and walked over to Ember, gently scratching the pokemon behind the ears. She lay down on the other side of the fire and closed her eyes, muttering 'good night' to Kurou. "If you're hungry, there's some more soup in the pot."
Kurou's eyes softened as he watched Riku chest rise and fall with each breath she took. He grunted in pain when he got up, but the potion had already healed the worst of his injuries so he wasn't suffering quite as much as before.
Ember had curled up against Riku and was nearly asleep when he heard the sound of paws padding softly against the grassy floor. He peeked out of the corner of his eye and was startled to see the strange boy approaching. The little pokemon didn't trust the boy and was about to attack him if he dared to hurt his master in any way. He was about to rise to his feet, but decided to wait until the last second to surprise the boy if he really did have any harmful intentions. Instead, Kurou took the blanket Riku had given him before and covered the girl with it. He then limped back to his spot across from her and slumped down on the soft grass, his tail swishing back and forth in a pleased sort of way.
Looking back to his master, Ember saw her lip curl up in a smile as she snuggled deeper into its warmth.
Ember was utterly confused. Houndoom were some of the most aggressive and fiercely independent pokemon he knew of, yet this houndoom boy was showing that he cared about Riku. What's up with that?
A/N: Kind of a slow chapter, ne? Sorry, but I honestly couldn't think of too much to write about…yet… It'll get more exciting once I get them to a somewhat more populated area (next chapter).