Chapter 13:Learning to paint?

From the perspective of Katar, the Absol)

Staying the night in a cave with two humans can't be too bad. The girl, Lilac, certainly seems nicer than I'm used to. Weak too. She is important, to the ninetales, the mightyena, my original master, and now it seems even this new human. Who is she really, beyond her name and her past? I sense that she does not bring chaos and she does not bring order, at least not by herself, a nexus perhaps, but of what?

Still it doesn't explain why she, and the vixen are so willing to welcome me, inviting me to stay with them for the night. I'm sure I shall find out, and at worse my life will go back to the way it was.

"Omega!" I look up to see Lilac giving the mightyena a hug, tears rolling down her cheeks. Omega looked surprised and unsure about what to do, quite a boring reaction, as most mightyena's would have mauled a person who surprised them instead of trying to think the situation through. Quite boring, "I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but just can't help it. It was my fault that you had to go through that. Please forgive me."

Kitsune was a bit too quiet. I took a quick glance her way; she had a similar confused look as Omega as well as a spark of jealousy. This could get interesting, though it should have already gotten into a violent situation with the emotions involved. Was that fox to concerned about harming her human to tear apart Omega? At least it'd happen sooner or later anyway, as soon as Lilac wasn't hugging him. Perhaps I couldn't see it happening in my mind because Omega is unimportant in the whole scheme of things. Certainly a flaw in my abilities.

"Ryan, you never told me what you were doing here." Lilac looked up at the other human. Omega started to fall asleep! Tiredness should have made him more vicious, yet he fell asleep instead, "you may have saved Omega's life, but Kitsune saved your life and that of all your Pokémon, so I should at the very least knew a bit about who she saved," she finished with a childish giggle.

"Me? Well, I'm traveling through Hoenn for the Pokémon Leaque," there was only a hint of nervousness in Ryan's voice. I was not perfect at understanding humans, but I got the feeling he wanted to change the subject so he wouldn't have to lie too much, "I haven't been to any gyms over here yet, but my partners and I got through the Johto Circuit and made it to the top ten in the tournament over there. I'm sure they'd be glad to meet you."

"I feel I should introduce my Pokémon… I mean they technically aren't mine… I don't actually mean that either, as it'd just be weird for wild Pokémon to travel with a human," Lilac was nervous about meeting more Pokémon, "the ninetales is Kitsune and the mightyena is Omega, as you probably already managed to pick up. The Absol is called Katar, though I don't think I'd like to call him that for too much longer as it might remind him of his previous trainer… um… That's about it, I think it's your turn now."

"Your name is Kitsune? That's a wonderful name, very beautiful," Ryan looked towards the fox as if memorizing every detail so as making an exact copy would be possible if required, before giving both Omega and I the same treatment, "Omega and Katar. Got it. Nice to meet you, guys."

"This is Sketch, a smeargle, in case you've never seen one before," Ryan said, releasing a Pokémon, though it was no surprise that it was in fact a rather normal, though young, looking Smeagle. The red paint tail wasn't too rare, so it probably wasn't worth me noticing though I did anyway.

"Hi! I'm Sketch!" the smeargle seemed to speak a bit energetically at first, till he got a fright when Omega looked up at him sleepily and growled a rather pathetic growl, "you're scary. Stop it."

Sketch looked like he was about to cry because of how frightened he was, though it only took him a few seconds to quickly dash over to hide behind Kitsune. I watched with my eyes wide open, as a minor twitch, unnoticeable to the untrained eye, indicated Kitsune was going to attack the young Pokémon. She didn't, and the glance she gave me and the way her tails slowly wagged told me why. She wouldn't attack because I'd enjoy it too much. Yet still she had wanted my company for this night.

"Wow, Kitsune. Your fur looks soft and warm," Sketch couldn't have been aware of the destructive power he was so close to, too powerful to predict, since he showed no fear, seeming to forget about Omega instantly. Yet he somehow didn't reach out to touch her fur, too bad as since her tails were closest to him it would have been her braking point, "don't you get really hot in that?"

She broke. A quick spin, and she easily got the smeargle by the throat before anyone had time to react. She held him partially in the air as she began to lay down, and soon she had him back on the ground, holding him like a piece of meat she was about to eat.

"Kitsune, let go of me! I don't want to hurt you!" I couldn't believe it, not only had she not instantly snap his neck or rip his throat out, but by the way his voice was still strong she wasn't even squeezing hard enough to give him breathing troubles. Of course he did not see it this way, and electricity started to spark off his paws, "fine, Kitsune. If you won't let go, I'll make you."

"Sorry about that, Kitsune is just a bit playful. Really, she'd never do any harm to anyone," I hadn't even noticed Lilac had let go of Omega, though I knew she was lying about Kitsune's innocence. I could feel she had killed in cold blood before, and would bring a destruction that the world would remember till the end of time. Fear is always a good motivator for support. Surprisingly Kitsune just let Sketch go when Lilac got to her, and Lilac picked him up in her arms, "don't worry Sketch, as long as you don't get too close to Kitsune she'll never force you into these little games. In fact she only did it because you'd be scared, be brave and she actually can be quite nice."

"You seem nice, Lilac. We should be friends. Can we be friends?" He seemed to think Lilac was good enough protection from Kitsune, and was already calming down already. Lilac looked comfortable too while cuddling such a small Pokémon.

"I hear smeagle like to paint," Kitsune didn't give a chance for Lilac to answer, and Lilac did actually look like she would have. Yet humans can't understand Pokémon. A little more insight on why Lilac is important would be nice, yet it isn't everything. If Kitsune doesn't want Ryan to know about Lilac understanding Pokémon then he probably doesn't already know and there is some other thing important about her, "I could always learn, as one such as I would love to leave a lasting mark that humans would recognize as mine. Painting is sure to have some other purpose too."

As close to apologizing as I've ever seen a ninetales do, though she was probably had a selfish reason for doing so. Lilac slowly put Sketch on the ground with a smile, "Ryan, don't interfere with this at all, I think they'll manage to become friends quite quickly now and I don't want to risk ruining it," things were getting less and less promising to get interesting by the moment.

"Sure, I'll teach you to paint! It's really easy, I'm sure you can do it," quick to forget what had happened he began to draw on the ground, probably ruining his tail paint with the dust that covered the ground. He'd learn.

Kitsune tried to copy the technique in silence; though her strokes showed signs of her trying to improve on what she was seeing. Her ears stopped being as perked up as they were only a moment before, a ninetales hates being seen as a fool and I didn't need to look to know that all she had managed with to shift the dust of the floor and messed up one of her tails.

"You need paint to paint, silly," Sketch laughed hysterically, luckily he stopped painting or he would have ruined his work and he held his tail out towards Kitsune, "rub your tail against mine then try painting, it'll work better"

"How hard is the paint to get out of fur afterwards?" a ninetales would never risk ruining their fur, unless for something really important, like revenge, "you wouldn't want to ruin my fur, would you?"

I caught glimpse of Ryan and Lilac out of the corner of my eye. They were both watching, both looking like they were trying hard to resist saying something. In fact it seemed like they both were reframing from commenting on what Kitsune had said. Is it even possible to find two humans that understand Pokémon in the same place? No, it wasn't. I must be wrong about one of them.

"It comes right out," Sketch lunged his tail towards one of Kitsune's, splattering it with paint. A smeargles fur is meant to resist being stained with paint, he was doomed now even with his ability to make his action look completely innocent, "now let's see what you can draw."

I heard the running; everyone else knew Sketch was in trouble as they watched Kitsune fail to wipe the paint off on the ground. Omega leapt between both of them, turning his head towards Sketch, "Run," he growled, and it was amazing how quickly Sketch started crying in fear and running to Ryan.

But a ninetales is actually more likely to seek out revenge on a running target; it is bravery that makes them back down. Lilac managed to tackle Kitsune and hug her round the neck, thought this barely slowed her down. Kitsune shook around a bit, forcing Lilac's weak hold on her to fail.

"He painted one of my tails!" Kitsune's growl sounded demonic, at last some excitement. It even looked like blue flames were arching off her tails, swirling round into balls. One of these blue fireballs began to burn away the paint. Will-o-wisp. Kitsune's tails started wagging again and she rapidly calmed down, "well I can't breath fire anymore, but this technique I can use and always wanted to. And they said my early evolution made it impossible. Thanks Sketch, but if you paint my tails again I won't forgive you… I wonder…"

A blue fire ball drifted to the tip of one of her tails, which she then touched to the ground. "…I guess I'm ready to learn from Sketch when he feels safe around me again, it looks like nothing I've seen before and certainly not what I intended," she laughed.

I walked over to look at the two pictures… A picture of a very crude red ninetales, looking quite cute considering how terrified Sketch should have been of Kitsune. The other one was a round burn mark in the ground, though there was a strange symbol in the middle of it, but I could quite make it out from where I stood. I took a few steps closer. It was a symbol humans often use to mark areas they ruined with wastes, it meant biohazard.

"I don't think anymore introductions would be safe tonight, and it'd probably take too long any way judging by the results of this intro," Lilac giggled, as she sat on the ground where she fell after being shook off, "we're all getting tired and everything, and the storm should pass right over during the night. Since we have no fire you may still wish to have your Pokémon out to snuggle with for warmth but then we might get kept awake all night as they introduce themselves to each other. We also should wait till we get to a Pokémon Centre so as any accidental injuries will be quick to deal with."

Snuggling up with someone else through the night? A new experience, and it shouldn't soften me up too much.

"Katar," Kitsune barked at me, "you sleep with Omega, I really couldn't stand him being around Lilac and I think I might be developing a conscience because I didn't want to leave him cold by himself. If he wakes me up then you'll suffer, too bad I didn't get to see all of Ryan's Pokémon as I'm sure some of them would love to know how much you wanted to watch him die."

"Sounds fine to me," Omega leaped on me, knocking me over into Sketch's painting which was still wet. Even though he was tired I had failed to notice him circle around me to attack like that. How could I have lost so much skill so quickly? "You haven't said a thing all night, but it's right for the two most dominant to sleep together."