This is a double upload. Chapter 7 and 8 will be uploaded together.
Alexis Berry was lost. She was in pain and she was lost.
She was currently running through Eterna Forest. She didn't know which direction would get her to a Pokécenter the fastest, but she needed to find one. Hell, she needed a hospital for herself too. The sun was close to setting and, if it did, Alexis wasn't certain that she could find her way out of the forest safely in the dark. She couldn't simply bed down for the night either, as both she and the strange Pokémon she had found were in such a perilous condition that it wasn't a stretch to say they might not last the night.
Her own wounds had, for now, stopped their bleeding. She was worried that the tongues of the Ghastly were somewhat poisonous, so she needed to get the wounds treated for infections soon, whether they were bleeding or not. Even though she was covered head to toe in scratches, bite marks and cuts, she was still in a better position than the Pokémon she cradled within her arms as she ran.
"I'm sorry little one," Alexis mumbled with what little spare energy she had to speak, "but we'll go faster with you in a Pokéball."
Alexis slowed her pace and leaned her shoulder roughly against a tree as she fumbled at her belt to unclip a Pokéball. Her hands were shaking as she pressed it up close to the odd Pokémon. She clicked the button and the unconscious Pokémon was enveloped in a red light before it was swallowed into the ball. It hadn't been that heavy, but now Alexis was free to run properly and cover more ground without having to worry about how the environment might have been affecting the injured Pokémon.
It was so unlike her to get lost, too. She liked to explore because she could always tell where she was. It must have been the injuries. She was too exhausted to properly figure out the directions that would normally be second nature to her. She only relied on desperation and her memory. For all she knew, she could have been running in the entirely wrong direction, but she trusted her gut- even if it was currently drenched in blood.
Alexis picked a direction and ran. Sooner, or later, she would have to reach the edge of the forest. Then she would figure out which way to go to get to the nearest Pokécenter. As her feet slammed down, one after the other, her steps heavy with weariness, she thought back to the odd turn of events that had given her the chance to escape.
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She was lying down; the teeth of the ghosts were carving through her like rough knives. She could feel the poison testing itself against her blood, burning away at any open wounds.
The strange fist of the Haunter, present enough to hoist her to what she had thought was her death, but intangible whenever she attempted to fight back. How could someone like her fight against ghosts? She had panicked so much she hadn't even considered pulling out her own Pokémon, but she was glad she didn't. They would only have ended up in a worse state than the strange one she had been chasing.
A ghost, of fear and fury, leaped into the battle to save her. For what? It looked back to make sure she was handling herself, while it put itself in harm's way for her. Then the tide shifted and she was being harried by the Ghastly, once again. She didn't want to be useless, she hated feeling so powerless, but she couldn't do anything. Her belongings, her own being, did nothing to stop the advance of the ghosts. And then the protective Pokémon reached out. It was clearly already hurting, but it seemed to glow and grow around itself, filling the room with light as the shadows themselves appeared to alight with a vengeful fire. She must have been too far gone at the following point, but in the flickering golden-green glow around that Pokémon, she could swear she saw a human. Not the whole person, but glimpses and twitches of a person clawing around the room to beat back the other ghosts. As the others fled into the shadows, the strange Pokémon fell down, exhausted, spent. The glow around it died and the room was flooded into darkness once more.
Instinct kicked in and Alexis ran to pick up the fallen Pokémon, her own limbs screaming out in pain as she worsened her own injuries. She didn't care about herself at that point, though. If not for this Pokémon, she would be dead. It wasn't even a question; she had touched death's door and tasted the air of what comes next. She couldn't let that Pokémon suffer a similar fate- even if it was a ghost. And so, she ran.
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Alexis had to take a breather, even though the edge of the forest was in sight. Night had almost completely fallen at this point and she could see the border to the tree line. She recognized the path the reached beyond. The path to Eterna City. They would have a Pokécenter.
She lurched away from the tree, the thought of the Pokécenter reigniting her efforts.
She had grown up in Eterna City. Her Pokémon journey had been so heavily influenced by her need to explore and, more accurately, get away from her hometown for just a little bit. Living in the same place for her entire life had been a suffocating experience.
How she longed for the overwhelming embrace of home now.
It wasn't long ago, barely a few weeks prior, that she had received her very first Pokémon. A Piplup. She had been so intensely protective and proud of that Pokémon. She named it Letos and the two had a bond stronger than any she could imagine, but she was reluctant to allow it into dangerous situations. She struggled to face even the friendliest of foes in Pokémon battles, for fear of Letos getting hurt. Perhaps it was that reluctance that kept her from releasing Letos inside the chateau. She couldn't risk placing her best friend and joy into a near-to-certain death scenario. She was simply fortunate that the strange Pokémon was there to help.
The lights of Eterna City bit through the night, beacons guiding Alexis home. She had no trees to steady her steps as she forced herself forwards, one foot after the other. She was certain that she was going to blisters after such a trip, momentarily forgetting the array of severe lacerations all over her body. She had been thinking so much about this new Pokémon that she had almost forgotten her own situation.
The ping of the electric doors announced Alexis' arrival as they slid open to allow her into the Pokécenter. She likely looked in a worse state than most of the Pokémon that were brought in, but she didn't care. It was so late at night there was nobody around to look at her in her distraught state. Nobody but Nurse Joy, of course.
"Oh my," Nurse Joy exclaimed, "are you okay? What have you gone through?"
"Please," Alexis asked through strained breaths and a throat that felt like she had been trying to drink sand all day, "this isn't my Pokémon, but could you help it?"
"Not your Pokémon?" Nurse Joy said, quizzically, "but it's in a Pokéball?"
"It was to make the transport of it easier," Alexis tried to explain, "just- could you help?"
"Yes, I can," Nurse Joy nodded gravely, "but it may take some time. If you would like, we have more private seating in the back. I'll get someone to help tend to you while you wait for your… for the Pokémon to heal up, too."
"That sounds ideal," Alexis said, "thank you. Other than the worst ones, and possibly some low-level poisoning, I think I just need a really, really long rest."
Alexis must have drifted into unconsciousness shortly after being led into the back, as her memory quickly shifted from fuzzy to non-existent. One moment, she was struggling to stand upright, the next- she was waking up in an astoundingly clean hospital bed. On the bedside table beside her was a collection of her belongings. Her backpack held most of her items and was propped up against the bedside table, on the floor. On top of the table, however, was a small metal tray with tiny indents. These indents were to stop things rolling around, as on the tray stood her two occupied Pokéballs. One for Letos, her Piplup, and the other containing whatever that ghost Pokémon was.
She turned over in her bed, some of the stitches across her sides and stomach strained to stay together and not snap. She could already tell she was going to make the treated wounds worse, either out of impatience or clumsiness.
Her eyes passed back over the two Pokéballs, waiting there for her to heal back up. What had she gotten herself into?
BigSplosions: It looks like this chapter answers your first question. I guess as well, that we'll see together what becomes of the new Marshadow.