Disclaimer: My story is based in the pokemon world. I don't own it.
A/N: Okay. I REALLY apologize. This woman is ruining my story! She comes in, kills people, and then kidnaps- well, you'll see. Still, it's as good as any way to start off the story, so I suppose I'll still let it go where it will.
Please note that Nasa is almost four feet high when she stands. She's close to 'evolution', as some call it.
Words in the actual chapter: 2341
Total: 10917
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4: Captive
'Tis thus we heed no instincts but our own, Believe no evil, till the evil's done. Fr., Nous n'ecoutons d'instincts que ceux qui sont les notres. Et ne croyons le mal que quand il est venu.
Jean de la Fontaine
The two shots rang through the forest, their sharp rapport startling birds from the trees. Through the rush of wings the woman came forward, easily stepping over Skyva's mangled head. Mahe leapt onto the felled avian's shoulder, pausing a moment before leaping once more onto the ground, her large paws making no sound as they touched the ground.
Annie was far too startled by the suddenness of the attack to even scream, backing into the same tree she had been attempting to climb moments ago. It didn't seem real; it couldn't be! This was just some nightmarish dream...
As the woman strode towards her, her pistol trained evenly on the girl, the fact of it dawned on her. I'm going to die... just as Skyva did... she's going to kill me...
"You... murderer...!" she whispered, her brown eyes wide. "You killed her! Why-"
The woman did not come nearer, her unwavering gaze holding Annie as still as the pistol in her left hand. "You have something that I want," she explained cooly as Mahe hissed. "Don't make me repeat myself, girl-"
"I don't have anything!" Annie cried, her voice shrill. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
The woman tensed, and Annie flinched, expecting a blow or a bullet. When it did not come, she dared to open her eyes, though she still could not bear to look ahead. Skyva... she was not overly fond of the pidgeot, but she never thought... she never wished for her to die! This was wrong, this shouldn't be happening! "Please... please don't kill me," she whispered, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
--The scent of nidine is about her,-- the ocerot told the woman, neither of them moving. --But are you certain she is the one?--
"How many human/nida pairs would there be in this forest?" the woman replied tartly, not sparing a glance to the feline. "What-"
Annie's brain no longer heard her. That boy... he had a nidorino with him... didn't he take something? The realization dawned slowly. That boy had been in a hurry- could this be the reason? 'Then, he takes it and runs off, and now we've got hunters on our trail.'
Hunters on their trail... that must mean... She killed Skyva for no reason!
And she'll kill me, too, no matter what I say, she realized slowly. It doesn't matter. I'm going to die. And she's going to find out that I don't have whatever it is, and then she'll go after him if I say something. She'll go and kill him, too!
"Stop!" she screamed suddenly, causing the two to blink. "Killing me's... you won't get what you want. I've hidden it, and if you kill me I won't tell you where it is."
From within her pokeball, Nasa mentally rammed her head against the ground. There were many stupid things that Annie could have said, but this was among the dumbest of them all. Perhaps she wouldn't die right away, but what would happen when the female lost patience? No one could stand up to torture forever. Annie had just bought herself a world of pain with those words.
She listened to the exchange further when suddenly a wild impulse struck her. Without giving it any thought, she cast herself forward, feeling her body reform from the energy that it had been and took off into the thickest of the foliage. She did not have to look back to know that she was pursued, but it did not work as she had hoped. There were… two of them?
The woman watched her partner bound off after the nidorina, an unpleasant smile clouding her face. "Was that your plan?" she asked softly as Annie screamed Nasa's name, fearful for her friend's life.
She needn't have worried.
- - -
A nidorina is the middle stage between pup and adult, and is famed for being as temperamental and ungainly as a teenager. The forearms, though they were never long to begin with, have not lengthened with the body as the hind legs grow in power and length. This places the nidorina somewhere in-between two- and four-legged running, depending on the stage of her growth. Nasa was near the adult stage, and it showed in how she often carried herself, preferring a two-legged stance.
When she ran, however, it was in an uneven lope, fore and hind legs touching the ground in a swift four-beat cadence, nothing near the speed that a nidoran could achieve if she needed to, and the ocerot was gaining ground swiftly. A nidorina's horn was not as large as the nidorino's, but the venom carried in the barbs along her back and in her bite was twice as potent. The ocerot knew this, and was hesitant to close with her. Mahe's hesitation decided Nasa.
She spun around as the ocerot leapt over a fallen log, her beak halfway open, her stance wide as she rose to her hind legs, keeping her head down and the horn at the ready. When Mahe's hind feet touched the ground she used them to pivot off to the side, trying to find a weak spot in the nidorina's defense. The fight had begun.
An inner part of Mahe warned her that this was not a fight that she could win. She had no poison resistance, and the nidorina was tougher than she was. This was not a fight that she wanted, but if she did not carry out the woman's wishes, she'd easily be the next one on the ground, a hole through her skull. If she left, the woman would hunt her down. She'd seen it happen before, when she was a cub, and it was not an experience she wanted to undergo.
It was not out of loyalty or love that Mahe listened to her; it was out of fear.
Nasa stayed in one spot, turning as the ocerot moved around her at varying speeds. Mahe skidded to a halt, feigning one way and then darting in to the left in an attempt to slash at Nasa's hardened withers; Nasa spun around and almost grazed the feline with her horn. Neosaur and feline watched each other for a long time, sizing the other up, and each time the ocerot danced in, Nasa was ready with claw or horn or beak.
At last, the smaller pokemon leapt at the larger one, her claws slashing vicious scores in the nidorina's side. This was no regulated match, where the attacks were pulled back before contacting and the magical residue alone was allowed to contact. This was a full-out fight, and both sides knew it. Nasa bellowed, ramming her head as hard as she could into the ocerot's shoulder.
Both pulled back, bleeding profusely. Of the two wounds, the feline had received the worst one, and Mahe retreated as Nasa suddenly took the offensive. The left foreleg was useless; the toxin had spread to the nerves and forced them to relax fully. Mahe couldn't even pull it up to get it out of her way.
Again Nasa lunged, and again Mahe retreated, this time with a set of clawmarks on her cheek. The ocerot backed away, hissing in both pain and anger, as the nidine warbled her challenge.
Finally, bloody and beaten, Mahe slunk away, slowly returning through the forest to where she knew relative safety lay. Nasa watched her go, a final churring click of her beak signaling her announcement of victory as she sat down to attend to her own wounds. From the back of her throat she worked up a whitish foam, spreading it with her tongue and the tip of her blunt beak into the slashes across her side, allowing it to seep into the gashes and solidify, keeping the wound from insects and disease.
Once it had been attended to, she stood, shook her head, and trotted back the way she had come, following the scent of her opponent. One down, one to go.
- - -
Annie stood by helplessly as one by one, each of Annie's things was rifled through and tossed aside. She groaned inwardly, a part of her thinking just how long it would take her to repack everything where it was supposed to be, though the mundane thought seemed a little odd when weighed against her current position: tied to a tree and held at gunpoint. "I told you, it's not here," she started, causing her captor to glance up.
"It had better be," the huntress replied, returning to her task. "I'm quite close to losing my patience, understand, and that is not something that would be a pleasant experience for you. Or is that what you're trying for?"
A loud, high warble filled the air, almost birdlike in its sound, but Annie knew at once what exactly had made that sound. It was not something the 'dex would translate; only by virtue of their years together did Annie know the call for what it was. Hope filled her heart as she listened; it was a call that one nidine would make to another of her herd. Since Annie and she had been together since the two of them were but children, there was but one conclusion she could come up with.
She had only to buy them enough time...
The warble came again as the huntress stood. "What does she say?" When Annie hesitated, she dealt her a savage backhand to the face. "Answer me!"
She wouldn't call like that if she was under attack or if she was running. That means...
"She's won!" Annie blurted out loud, not aware she was speaking until she said it. A plan was forming as she continued. "That's a victory cry." Please come, she begged silently. Hear it, nidine, hear it, please-
A second warble, deeper and more distant, answered the first, and the woman glanced away for a moment. "There are two of them?" she wondered aloud, dashing Annie's hopes against the rocks. If she lost the element of surprise, she'd quite possibly lost everything.
"Um… nidines can make a large variety of vocalizations," Annie offered quickly. "They can make it sound like there's a whole herd of them when there's only one. It's a... survival tactic?" she finished with a sheepish grin, knowing how lame her explanation sounded.
"And you knew it, didn't you? You tried to fool me into thinking it was you! You little bitch - you let me believe- and let them get away!"
Annie closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
- - -
Pohi was out and on the ground the moment he heard that call. It touched something far deeper than any words or thoughts could penetrate, a deep instinct set within him and his ancestors for millennia. His large ears lifted, listening to her.
Fala wheeled, coming to a stop with a protesting whinny. Will saw nothing but Pohi, rigidly still and listening. Suddenly his companion's chest inflated as he rose to his hind legs, tilting his head upward and replying in his own guttural warble.
"What is-"
--We go,-- Pohi announced, his voice leaving no room for contradiction. --She calls.--
"What? Poh, what's gotten into you?" Will demanded as the odd trilling sound came again in a pattern different from what he had just heard. Pohi gave a short cawing bark, and then set off at a lope towards the sound. --If I go alone, then this is where we part, Will,-- he called back. --Maybe we'll reunite somewhere, maybe we won't.--
"Damn it all!" Will cursed as he watched his friend bound away into the thicket. "Well, Fala? What now?"
--We follow,-- the equine replied, following the trail back the way they had come.
Quickly they overtook the nidine, and as Will recalled him as the ponyta put on speed.
"I know I'm going to regret this..."
- - -
Hearing her call answered, Nasa changed her call to request aid. This, too, was answered with an affirmative Kyip!
Falling silent, she waited for him to come, hoping that they wouldn't be too late.
- - -
Despite her calm exterior, the woman's nerves were beginning to wear thin. Though she would be the last to admit it, she was beginning to become a little nervous. Where was Mahe? Why did she not return? What exactly had that thrice-damned nidine done to her?
Adding to the fact that she had begun to suspect a trap was being formed for her, she was all but calm. She'd acted rashly, and she'd had done to her just what she had intended to do to this girl. Now the trap had been closed on her instead, and she couldn't leave...
Slowly she felt her resolve begin to waver as she tossed aside the med-kit in disgust. "I'll not ask you again," she snapped, turning her full attention back to the girl. "Where is it?"
Her pockets had yielded nothing, and she was loath to search in other places it could possibly have been stashed away. Besides, unless this girl's eyes lied better than her tongue did, which was quite unlikely, she did not have it. Her edge had left her. She was outmaneuvered, and she knew it. If she killed the girl, she lost her bargaining chip. If she didn't...
Quickly she slashed the rope that held Annie to the tree and pulled her roughly to her feet. "You're coming with me, girl," she hissed, dragging Annie along behind her as she ran.
Annie tried to scream for help, but she found she had barely any breath for running, let alone for crying out. Her hands bound behind her, she ran in the direction of the river, the woman dragging her along by the elbow.
- - -
Dex entry: Nidine
A nidine is any of the nida-strain, from nidoran to nidoking or queen. This is one of the neosauran strains, in a similar vein as sauropods like tropius or troodontids like raptyrith. In appearance, a full-grown nidoqueen resembles a two-toed, four-fingered hadrosaur, the supposed plates on the chest from the canon art being muscle over two chest bones in the real creature. In height they range from five to six feet; in length they have been measured at over twelve. Like hadrosaurs, the nidines are plant-eating creatures, able to stomach almost anything. Their most-relied upon defense is their venomous barbs and horn, though their sheer power can deliver crushing blows.
Definition: Neosaur
The ancient dinosaurs had long ago either gone extinct, or evolved to suit the changing climate. Survivors of saurian descent can be found worldwide, with shapes and elemental affinities varying just as much as any other scientific class. Dragons such as the charma family fit into this category, along with nidines and the ambush predators known as tetrasaurs - bulbasaur/ivusaur/venusaur. These modern-day creatures are, like the dinosaurs of old, neither mammal, avian or reptile, but a bit of each. Their classification: neosauria.
