We'll be taking a break from eerie weirdness this chapter to focus on the pokemon, especially the new persian. That doesn't mean there still aren't oddities and worrying things in this chapter, but they're not as noticeable and not what we'll focus on.

Don't worry, next chapter should be back to normal. Whatever that is.

The persian reappeared on grass, in what smelled closer to the forest she knew.

When she reappeared, the boy was in front of her, and because he had been there the other two times as well, she came to the conclusion he was to blame. She would have jumped at him, except she had just been about to do that a second ago and it hadn't worked. She shrank down defensively, feeling the thick grass under her paws. She still wasn't used to that, and it only made her feel worse, like she was on unstable ground. She waited for him to do something.

She was hungry, starving. She licked her jaws, staring at the boy. He smelled like he'd taste poorly, a smell she would have called chemical if she'd known the word, but he was still meat, and she was hungry enough to eat carrion.

He seemed to turn his back, but she didn't move. Who could tell if those were really his eyes? He was covered in bright patches, he could be looking out from anywhere. She heard a sound something like pebbles falling, and then he turned back and she could see he was holding a shiny thing with brown stones. He set it on the ground and backed up. It smelled somewhat like a mixture of his smell and the guts of prey, but the scent was more familiar than his. She stepped forward and gulped it down. The texture was strange, hard and rough, scraping her throat, yet somehow it tasted like food and not rock. She finished it and then stared back at the boy.

"Empty? Are you still hungry?"

She growled softly instead of answering. He walked forward again, and she backed up as he dropped more pebbles. She ate those as well and her hunger receded.

When she did nothing more, Elliot recalled her and set off.

-

-

Elliot had missed Viridian. He'd crossed too far up, and wound up somewhere between Pewter and his intended destination.

By the time he'd gotten through the mountains it was around five. He was slightly tired from hiking up and down the hills, and knew it'd take him a while to set up camp and eat. He decided to stop.

He gathered wood, cleared an open space, and had Howler start the fire. Then he began releasing his pokemon.

The persian growled, low and rumbling. As humans tended to do, Elliot interpreted this as aggression, a forerunner to an attack. He held her pokeball ready, prepared to recall her if she did anything. He didn't understand she was frightened.

When she had fought the growlithe before, she had been slightly delirious, and focused on simply scaring it off. She hadn't had the opportunity to examine it the way she normally would. Now that she did, the alienness was striking.

He was obscenely proportioned, blubbery and round, fatter than a newborn. His fur was wrong somehow, so wrong she couldn't even tell exactly what it was, too fluffy maybe, and yet not properly thick. He stared back, his eyes filled with all the intelligence found in the braindead.

It was just too strange. If he was closer to what she knew, she might have been able to look at him the way she had the pokemon of the area, dimwitted, slightly overfed, not dangerous, easy prey. But he magnified the traits to such a degree she couldn't even see him as an abnormal growlithe, the way she had the pidgey and other small creatures. She was scared.

((What's wrong?)) asked a voice. She jumped backward, staring at the new speaker. She'd been so surprised by the growlithe she hadn't noticed that a murkrow was there as well. Her eyes flicked back between the two, trying to watch both, ready to attack the moment they moved toward her.

When they didn't, she calmed slightly. She focused on the speaker, as the growlithe wasn't doing anything. ((He's- he's-)) she stammered, then stopped, trying to figure out how to say it. It was something so basic she didn't even know what words she could use. ((What is he?))

The murkrow looked at her oddly. ((A growlithe.))

((I know that!)) she snapped, fear and uncertainty making her temper flare.

((Then I don't know what you mean,)) said the bird. He wasn't worried by the fact she was clearly volatile. He was perched on a branch, out of her reach, and if she tried to climb he'd fly off.

((He doesn't think!)) she screeched, taking refuge in anger. Being so close to the demented growlithe was making her skin crawl with revulsion. She might have lunged at the bird but that would take her closer to the – the thing.

The growlithe had failed to pick up any of the subtle clues that she be should left alone – her puffed tail and flattened ears, the horrified look in her eyes as she stared at him, her snarls. He wagged his tail – she jerked at the motion – and barked happily. The meaningless babble was too much. She crept backward, tail tucked tightly against her side.

((Are you really scared of him?)) asked the murkrow. ((He's harmless. Can't you tell how much weaker he is?))

She took her eyes off the growlithe again to stare at the bird, now beginning to fear him as well. ((Can't you see?)) she said, her voice growing frantic. She shuddered. ((He can't speak! Why can't he speak?))

((Is that all you're upset about?)) said the murkrow, sounding disdainful. ((It's just a child. Can't you tell that either?))

The persian's eyes flicked back to the growlithe, who had grown bored and started to wander away. It was bigger than any growlithe she'd seen before. And that fat wasn't puppy fat either. Puffed like a rotting corpse. ((None of my sisters were born that bloated,)) she told the bird. ((Nor that big.))

((Your sisters?)) he repeated, sounding curious. ((What do you mean?))

((My…sisters,)) the persian said, unsure of how to make it clearer. ((The children of my mother.))

((You were kept with them?)) The disdainful tone returned. ((Couldn't your owner sell you?))

((I had no owner,)) she growled, taking the first half of it as an insult rather than the second.

((Don't be ridiculous,)) the murkrow said. ((Everyone knows wild meowth don't keep their young that long.))

((Stupid Bird,)) she said, turning away from it. With the growlithe gone she was calmer.

The boy was watching her. She noticed this at last, with the growlithe no longer so pressing. She turned to him and noticed there were two more. A small black dog and a round puffy thing. She'd seen puffballs before but never heard their names, they were too easy to kill for that. She'd never seen the other pokemon.

The puffball was nothing she cared about, just the same as the other strange-smelling, bland-tasting prey she'd found. The little dog, though, had bright, inquisitive eyes, reminding the persian of her second sisters. The puppy barked at her, fluffy tail wagging, and she took this very differently than she had when the growlithe tried it. She walked toward the dog, leaning forward carefully, so they were almost nose to nose. She held her breath, not wanting to scare her. The dog sniffed, then tried to lick her face clumsily.

She purred gently, licking at the dog's messy fur. She reminded the persian so much of the kittens. She hadn't seen anything like them since she left.

The murkrow cawed off in the background mockingly. ((Scared of a perfectly normal growlithe but you like that thing?)) he said.

((Thing?)) she demanded testily.

((Didn't your last trainer teach you anything?)) said the bird. Before the persian could say she hadn't had any trainer, Caw continued. ((Well, mine did. That pokemon's not from the area. Doesn't even exist in the books, I know.)) He sounded proud, for some obscure reason. ((Probably something the humans made. Something that'll kill you when you turn your back or curse you for a thousand years.))

She growled at the bird. ((I've eaten things like you,)) she hissed.

((I don't care if your trainer had you beat murkrow before. He won't tell us to fight. Don't you know anything? That's not how it works.))

((Stupid Bird,)) she said again, and resumed grooming the small dog.

Elliot, quite wrongly, took the returning silence to mean they'd worked things out and were all friends now.

Sono, the spearow, trilled happily from another tree branch, enjoying the air. She had missed notice by the persian.

Elliot began to set out food. The two birds came over first, pecking at the pellets, then Howler. The jigglypuff came next. Din smelled the food and trotted over, and the persian followed slowly behind. She realized that her stomach was empty again, although she did not feel hungry.

"You need a name," Elliot said, watching the persian walk slowly and smoothly over the grass. "How about Prowler?"

Prowler, who did not care what he called her, made no response.

"Okay then. Prowler."

With that decided, Elliot left to get water for his own meal, Howler trotting devotedly at his heels.

He returned to see Prowler engaged almost idly in a staring contest with Caw, who seemed to be taking it quite seriously.

"Hi guys," he said. "Everything okay?"

The persian stared at him. It was starting to get slightly unnerving. She hadn't displayed any recognition or even acknowledged his existence since she'd snarled earlier. It was like he was just part of the landscape.

Caw flapped his wings and flew over, landing near him.

"So what were you talking about earlier?" Elliot asked, pouring water into a pot over the fire. "I couldn't really make it out."

Caw was used to this. He focused on keeping his voice sharp and clear. ((The persian wanted to know what the growlithe was. She claimed several impossible and outrageous things. That was all.))

"What things?"

Caw's feather's ruffled irritably. He dragged his beak through twice, abrupt preening, before answering. ((The persian claimed she had known her sisters. This is not true. Meowth leave their mothers within a few weeks. Several young may occasionally be present at the same time, if a new egg hatches before an older child departs, but they would not remember this. This was proven by Professor Palm.))

"Oh, um, okay. Where'd you learn that?"

((Some of my trainers have been interested in those things.))

((Stupid Bird,)) Prowler muttered.

-

-

"Okay, Prowler," Elliot said, voice loud.

He didn't know what he was doing. He was acting out the part he'd seen happen, when the trainer tested his new, powerful pokemon's skills. He felt he should, because it seemed like it was what you did.

The persian could understand him. He had fed her, and for that, she would wait.

"I want you to use slash on those trees."

She would wait. Not necessarily obey. She watched him calmly. Her demeanor remained unchanging. She did not even acknowledge the order.

"Come on, Prowler," Elliot said. The pokemon was testing him, he was sure, but he felt the same frustration talked about in every trainer's tale he'd ever heard. Now he understood how maddening it was to be given such a seemingly arbitrary test. What did the pokemon want him to do?

She spoke to him, questioned him. She asked who he was, why he was telling her to do this. She did not know what he wanted with her. She knew a little of trainers, had heard her own kind's tales about them. But their motivation in pokemon tales was that of the fae in human's tales, namely, what motivation?

"Are you trying to tell me something?" he asked, and she snapped her jaws in irritation. He was a child, she decided, stupid like her second sisters.

"Persian," she said. ((Yes.))

"Does that mean yes?" he asked, and she was gratified to see his face reddened afterward, as if he realized what a poor job he was doing. "Um…shake your head for no, and nod for yes."

She stared at him with quiet bafflement. Move her head for both yes and no? She wondered for a moment why she was warned so much about humans, then realized a moment later that, stupid or not, they had nearly killed her.

"What's wrong?"

The persian flopped down on the ground, stretching out uneasily on the over-soft ground. She yawned, closed her eyes, and tried to nap.

"Prowler!" he wailed.

One eye opened. So inept. So weak. Yet…endearing somehow. Helpless. She stood back up, walked toward him. He tried not to back away.

Not stupid, like the horrible growlithe. He was inexperienced, weak. But he had fed her, hadn't he? Helped her, clumsily, but he had helped. She knew her leg wound had been bad, knew her sisters had died from less.

She had tolerated her second sisters' games. This was no different. She walked over to a tree, scratched at it easily. He smiled happily, thinking he had passed the test and gotten her to obey him. He recalled her and headed onward.

-

-

Viridian had never been large. It was a city only because of the presence of a gym, which, for no discernable reason, had chosen to form there, and was no different in size or appearance from many of the larger towns. It was a quiet place.

Gabrielle had told him not to go to the gym there, but when he investigated, he saw it was closed anyway. He thought that was strange.

As he left the building, he met another trainer, the same age as him, who challenged him to a battle.

"But a double battle," his opponent said. "With two of your pokemon fighting at once."

He agreed. That was what you did when someone challenged you.

"-ler!" the persian heard. She found herself on flat ground, rough like broken stones. There were two pokemon in front of her, a gloom and a weepinbell.

And the growlithe was next to her. She yowled, jumping to the side to avoid contact.

The other trainer laughed. "I heard growlithe and persian don't get along well," he said. "Guess that's true."

"Y-yeah," Elliot said, flushing slightly. Having his pokemon act like that wasn't as bad as actual disobedience, but it still made him look like a bad trainer.

The persian didn't care about that. Her pelt was crawling with disgust.

"Howler, use flame wheel on the weepinbell! Prowler, slash the gloom!"

"Solar beam! Acid!"

The gloom settled onto the ground, sunlight gathering. Prowler ignored this, moving toward it from the side so she remained a good distance from the growlithe. She scratched at it lightly, raising long gashes in its strange flesh. It slumped down into greater inactivity and she ignored it.

The growlithe had won as well. He approached her, and the only thing that made her sink back rather than attack was her revulsion at the idea of touching him. She growled, and he stopped.

The two were recalled again.

-

-

On Elliot's map, Viridian was on the very edge of the left side, with nothing beyond it. He'd heard Johto was over there. Figuring it wouldn't hurt if he took a few extra days before getting to Cinnabar, he'd gone west, only to meet a Jenny at the edge of the city.

She'd told him no one was allowed past, and he didn't argue.

He'd been on his way by early afternoon.

He wasn't sure why, but the scene in the city stayed with him. Not what the Jenny had said, exactly.

But the realization that the entire western half of the city was walled.

I don't think this chapter was that good, sorry…

Next chapter: Advice is good, isn't it? A shame people tend not to listen.