Chapter 5: Clinging to Dominance!
(From the perspective of the Ninetales, Kitsune)
"Your Ninetales bit you!" Nurse Joy exclaimed, she was clearly trying her best not to freak out at the thought that I was going to be a problem, "I think you should come in with her so I can give you proper treatment for you injury, it should calm her down a bit… I can guess that this is her first visit to a Pokemon Centre, but still it is odd for her to be acting like that, it's almost as if she feels dominant over you."
I slowly let go of Lilac's hand and licked the wound while glaring at the human; Lilac wanted me to walk straight into the unknown alone, something she had no right to ask from me. Well now she'd have to come with me. That was comforting, but not quite a victory. But it was close enough.
I was having trouble giving a menacing glare. The relief I felt was causing my tails to wag and I couldn't put any feeling into the look. The resulting glare was probably having the opposite effect than I desired.
"Come on Kitsune," Lilac giggled as she pulled her injured hand away from me and headed slowly towards the door of mysterious core of the Pokemon Centre, I watched as a single drop of blood feel from her hand and on to the floor, "I think you'll want this over and done with as quick as possible, since there is no way you're going to get out of this."
Through the doorway we all went, a Chansey came with us. I had completely ignored it until now, in fact I hadn't really noticed it at all as I dismissed it as just another Pokemon enslaved by humans, but now it was clear it was a major part of the establishment. At least it was certain she would know what she was doing when checking to see how healthy I was, but that was only a small comfort as the human named Nurse Joy was still nearby watching.
"Can you fix up my friend's hand?" I asked the Chansey, growling slightly as I kept my eyes on Nurse Joy, "your human seems a bit worried about it, then there's the fact that apparently I need to have a medical check up even though I feel fine."
"I actually thought you'd be a bit of a problem," The Chansey replied in a soothing soft voice, clearly not intending any insult, as she rushed over and started to bandage up Lilac's injury, however I was surprised that Nurse Joy was not coming closer to try to help, "I can tell you're a lot more comfortable with me than my master, really for this sort of check up she isn't needed if you cooperate and there is nothing wrong with you."
It was almost too quickly that she finished bandaging Lilac's hand and had somehow coaxed me on to some sort of table and had begun to rush around me, poking and prodding, checking for anything out of the ordinary.
I watched carefully as Nurse Joy pulled Lilac away from me to talk to her, I couldn't hear what they were saying over the soothing humming of the Chansey but I couldn't complain as it would risk seriously insulting nature's best healers, and news of that could easily spread a bit too far.
"Can you please relax a bit? Your muscles are far too tense. It's as if you're preparing to attack, it's making me a bit uncomfortable," the Chansey sighed, and started to stare at my eyes, but not into them, though she quickly moved on to prying open my mouth. I only resisted for a few seconds, as there wasn't really any point. She took a long look in my mouth, seeming to examine every tooth as well as taking a decent look down my throat. It was then she took a step back and braced herself for singing a mystical song of sleep.
I quickly focused on making fire roll out of my mouth at the Chansey, more to scare it than to do any harm as even on a good day my flames could never burn at a distance, though the effect was nothing like I expected. A burst of steam rolled round my face, clouding my sight. It was clearly a shocking result for the Chansey as she didn't start to sing, of course I was surprised enough that I didn't manage to speak before she did.
"I was hoping you would cooperate fully," she said, it sounded as though she was unsure of what to do next, "there is an important part of the examination that would be somewhat uncomfortable for you if you remained awake. If you were a smaller Pokemon I'd give you a chance to decide if you wanted to stay awake during it but seeing as how I wouldn't be able to hold you still if you get squeamish I can't do that."
"Look, you are not going to be touching my tails," I growled as the steam slowly stopped blocking my vision, and I saw that Lilac and Nurse Joy had rushed over, Lilac looked like she was about to burst out laughing, "they are far to important to let anyone else handle, even a creature like yourself, so just skip that part of my examination," the look on the Chansey's face was of total disbelief, as if she wasn't referring to handling my tails. But what else could she possibly be talking about that could be uncomfortable for me? Then again why would she need to examine at my tails anyway?
"You weren't kidding when you said she had trouble breathing fire," Nurse Joy laughed, as she carried a bowl with little round balls that smelled quite edible to me, "really it isn't too much of a health problem, it won't be able to get any worse but we don't have the equipment here to treat it, that you'll have to go to Rustboro for." She carefully placed the tray in front of me, keeping as far away from me as possible while doing so.
I nudged the bowl towards the Chansey with my nose, "Why don't you have some too?" I failed to hide that I wasn't doing it out of kindness, but I was sure that it was clear why I was suspicious of the food.
"Sorry, that stuff contains meat so can't eat it," the Chansey replied nervously, hopeful realizing that I had caught on to Nurse Joy's little trick, it was a nice feeling watching that look appear on both their faces as Nurse Joy quickly realized as well. Still, it was a waste of food.
"How do you expect Kitsune to eat something that your Chansey won't touch?" Lilac giggled as she asked the rhetorical question and grabbed one piece of the food, tossing it into her mouth. I could see the look of disbelief on the faces of the other two; it was a surprise to me as well so I could only watch as she grabbed a second piece to eat.
Food just sitting in front of me and I was letting Lilac have her share before me, what was I thinking, why was I showing such weakness?
I pushed Lilac's hand out of the way as she reached for a third piece, swallowing as much as it as I could in a single mouth full. It was quite nice; the flavour was incredible though the texture left a little to be desired, it was still far beyond what I expected from humans.
"See? You have to be ready to try what ever you feed a Pokemon to prove that it's safe," Lilac yawned, though there was no way she could be still tired, could there? I continued to eat more of the food, keeping my eyes on everyone else to make sure they didn't try anything, "you see eating a small amount of drugged food would have a severely reduced effect and the Pokemon would suffer any of the effects… I think what ever you mixed in the food is a bit stronger than what I usual give Eevee…"
As Lilac started to drop to
the floor I managed to position myself to break her fall. The food
had been drugged and one glance at the bowl revealed that I had eaten
almost half of it. I had eaten too much to resist its effects. As she
hit me I started to collapse, my vision blurred, and the air was
suddenly feeling quite heavy on me.
The last thing I heard before
passing out was Nurse Joy's worried voice, "For a moment there I
though we'd have to use the tranquillizer gun…"
I opened my eyes; my body felt a bit weak but only in the same way one expects to feel after awaking from an induced sleep, though I quickly realised that my jaws were shut on the edge of the bowl, something that made me spring to my unsteady feet…
"You certainly woke up quickly," the Chansey said, and I spun around to look at her. She was on the other side of another bench, Lilac was lying inert on top of it, "we would have taken the remainder of the food off you but you wouldn't let go of it, so my master decided that she'd let you keep it and what's left of the food. Since there are plenty of other things she needs to do she left me to sort things out here. Your master will soon wake and I'm just here to make sure she understands what happened."
"Interesting that all your muscles are a little large and far denser than any other Ninetales that has ever been examined," she continued as I recovered from the after effects of the food, "the muscles in your tails are especially strong," she giggled as I turned to inspect my tails, though I couldn't see a single bit of fur out of place "my master has absolute confidence that your master knows what she's doing and will take good care of you, but she is concerned about whether Lilac can manage to gain any control in her relationship with you."
I walked over to Lilac, making sure to growl quietly at the Chansey on the way over in an attempt to hide that I was still a little unsteady on my feet, "I suggest you bring me some food while we wait for Lilac to wake, I doubt you'd want to be in the same room as me when I'm hungry… and yes I do expect you to be willing to eat some to make sure it's safe."
"I thought you'd be hungry since you did stay awake long enough to finish what was put in your bowl and now you know not to eat any more of it," she laughed deviously, as she lifted a bowl of food into sight and walk round Lilac to me, "I'll be happy to share my meal with you, my master makes sure I can have access to my own food whenever I want so I'm always in top condition to deal with whatever problem comes my way."
She slid the bowl across the floor to me, its contents did not smell very nice, it smelled far too fruity for my liking… I waited for the Chansey to have a few pieces of the food first before I started to eat, the food was quite bitter yet my nearly empty stomach forced me to eat all that was given to me.
"I'm sorry for tricking you Kitsune," Lilac's voice made me turn my head to look at her, it wasn't possible that she had only just woken up though looking back at the now empty bowl in front of me suggested that I had just been too busy to notice her waking up, "but there could have been serous trouble if you didn't get a full examination… Well we really should be going"
I leapt to pick up the half full bowl of drugged food, though I stopped as it would be quicker to explain myself before she asked, "Look I've been told that the food is still mine and I'm sure there must be some way to remove the side effects it has, it's too good to just leave behind… even if we can't fix the problem with it, we can still use it to fix whatever sleeping difficulties we might have."
It felt like I was submitting to Lilac, like I was saying I was weak. I just had to have that food. I would have to think how to use it later. I picked the bowl up in my mouth and started to nudge Lilac towards the door even though she was already heading that way.
Suddenly the Chansey rushed to a nearby bench, picking up a piece of paper before running back over to hand it to Lilac.
"Here's a note written by my master," she said, as if it was required that she said at least something when handing it over, and then she had just decide to state a simple fact, "it really proves humans are quite stupid when it comes to languages, since Pokemon can understand them and yet they can't understand us, so I'm forced to just hand over a note instead of explaining things myself."
"Hey I consider that I bit insulting," Lilac replied, the annoyance in her voice quickly faded, as she grabbed the piece of paper without looking at it "… um… okay humans just have trouble understanding Pokemon… um… well…"
I started to push Lilac towards the door, recognizing the silence from the Chansey would soon turn into a lot of questions. As we exited through the door I heard the Chansey's voice, weak from shock "Did she just understand me?"
It was a quiet walk, probably because I couldn't talk at all with the bowl in my mouth, and Lilac seemed to realize I wanted to spend as little time in the town as possible and soon we were far away from it heading west. Lilac didn't seem to be traveling at a pace that was comfortable for her, though I could tell that she was only doing it to keep me happy…
"We better stop here," Lilac said all of a sudden, it was only then I noticed that the sun was close to setting, of course I place my bowl down as an indication I agreed "We'll have dinner and then spend the night here, I'm sure you have no objections to that."
She swung her backpack off her shoulders and placed it on the ground a short distance from me and pulled out a container from within it. Upon its opening I could smell that the food within it would be quite nice.
"Now you have a little problem, don't you," Lilac giggled, as she put the container in front of me, before continuing her annoying little joke without any sign of fear, "will you let me have the first share to prove it's safe to eat, thus admitting that I am at the top of the hierarchy, or will you take the risk and eat first. It's not that difficult a decision."
Enough was
enough, how would I ever gain the control I needed over humanity
through the long-term manipulation of her if I ended up nothing more
than a mere slave to her. She belongs to me, not the other way around
and that was something she had to learn.
I charged at her, ripping
the container of food from her hands and head butting her to the
ground, then I dropped on her. It end with my legs going across her
body, holding her still, then it was safe for me to let go of the
container.
"You do have a point," I admitted, barely able to hold back the laughter of how she actually tried to trick me, "but if I fall asleep while on top of you then you'll be stuck there till I wake up, at which stage I wouldn't be too happy with you. Now what could you possible gain from this situation by lying?"
Still that would only sort out future problems, getting back at her for what she had already done would also be required…
"Look, the foods safe," Lilac's trembling was restricted by my weight on her, I had certainly scared her and she was having a little trouble breathing, "I was just joking, you must understand that as you seem to joke around quite a lot when playing with me. I hate being afraid of you, it isn't a way to live and it'll eventually throw us both into depression. I can tell it hurts you to see me scared, though your instincts just numb the pain."
She had a point, if she was always afraid she'd be of little use to me, we needed either some way to make her loyal to me out of something other than fear or someone else to join up with us to calm her down.
There was the sound of something falling over on to the ground behind me, I turned my head to see a large black dog laying unconscious next to the bowl that I took from the Pokemon Centre. It was reasonably clear what had happened, though I would have to make it suffer for eating some of my food, it was just what I needed…
"Lilac, do you think you could throw a Poke Ball at that Pokemon over there," I said as I slowly lifted myself off her so she could move, "I think you'd be more comfortable with someone else around, and it's already weak enough to capture."
"Um… look, it is unfair to catch a Pokemon using drugged food, and Mightyena only obey experienced trainers," Lilac said, almost as confused as she was scared, I could understand why she saw it odd for a Pokemon to want another one trapped within a Poke Ball, "anyway if I had Poke Balls I would of caught one of those Zigzagoon when I had the chance and… um… I was making such a good impression on Nurse Joy that I couldn't risk ruining it by asking to buy Poke Balls from her, and with you around I could walk off to buy them from a store."
Okay time for plan B; get revenge on Lilac for humiliating me.
"Okay, well we can't leave it like that," I said, hoping Lilac would agree with what I was saying, "I suggest we let it sleep with us tonight and deal with it in the morning if it hasn't already woken up and left. Do you see any reason why we shouldn't?"
Lilac merely nodded at the idea, though she made sure to keep me between her and the Mightyena. I could tell she held no fear of it as her eyes were focused on me; she was merely doing it to try to make me feel superior, though it was neither helped or was necessary.
I said nothing more, she'd probably freak out if I told her what I intended. First I'd have to have one paw on its throat all night so if it started to wake up I could add a little pressure to reduce its oxygen supply temporarily so it'd fall unconscious again. Then in the morning I'd let it wake and leave Lilac to deal with it for a while, since it'd have suffered partial suffocation several times during the night it'd pose little danger but still scare her quite a bit. Tomorrow was going to be fun, but I still hadn't had dinner so it wasn't quite time to sleep.
