Chapter 15: Gym battle Aftermath
(From the perspective of Kitsune, the ninetales)
My body was numb. I felt weak and tired. My eyelids were too heavy to open. I could barely move. What had happened? …I remember. I had been hit quite badly in a gym battle. Not just once, all three attacks had hit hard without giving me a chance to brace myself. How long had it been?
"Kitsune!" I heard the voice. A human female's voice, punctuated with sobbing, but it sounded familiar… Lilac, "I've should have never made you fight in that gym battle. You've been unconscious for more than a full day. Please wake up from whatever dream you're having, I don't think I could handle it if your twitching this time wasn't you starting to wake up. I failed as a pokémon trainer, but I don't want you to suffer because of it… You were too weak to have the operation to allow you to breath fire again. It's all my fault."
"I'm fine," hearing my own voice sounding much better than I felt, helped me regain some strength. I tried to stand up; the numbness had faded enough to feel that Lilac had just moved to avoid being in the way. It felt as if I was rocking side-to-side, unsteady on my feet. It was unacceptable to show such weakness. I tried to compensate, but all I managed to do was fall.
A giggle. She wasn't worried anymore. If I hadn't been told what sort of mental tampering she had been through, I would have probably ignored the mood change.
"You need to rest, not try to be perfect the moment you wake up," Lilac stroked my fur, and then hugged me, "opening your eyes might also help a bit. We're on a boat again, so I can't blame you for falling over. Most people do when they aren't expecting the boat to sway. Just relax a bit. Too much stress will make your fur fall out."
I opened my eyes. Something was in-between my paws. It was small, yellow, with red cheeks, black ears, and black bent tail. A pichu… No, it didn't smell like one. I had to bite it to be sure my sense of smell wasn't deceiving me. No blood, no flavour of anything to suggest it was edible or was ever alive.
"I got you that while I went shopping with Ryan. A nice little toy for you," I finally looked at her. It would have been startling if I weren't aware of how humans wore clothing. She was no longer wearing pink. Her shirt was an aqua blue and her dress was a dark purple, "he thought it'd help you relax. He's been quite helpful, though he was a bit keen about getting us on a boat to Dewford. He couldn't battle against Roxanne because of how badly you hurt that geodude, and he wanted us to go with him to the next gym… I have no clue why he wants to keep us all so close to him."
Ryan wasn't stupid enough to let me get out of his watchful eye. With what I knew I could easily destroy him. He can't even afford to get rid of me because there is no telling who else I told… It was then I looked up at the room we were in. It was small, too small for comfort. The walls were just white, and the floor was too. It didn't feel like we were alone in the room, but I was too weak to try looking around.
"Whatever happened to Omega and that stupid absol who thinks he's psychic?" I asked chewing on the toy I had been given. There was a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye. My mind was probably playing tricks on me. Ignoring was the only option, "that absol made three predictions and all three times he was wrong. He must be feeling quite down upon realizing how useless he is…"
I remembered Biohazard, the umbreon who had fought before me in the gym battle. Why should I think of him? Why does it feel like his defeat was my fault? No one could have survived what he went through.
There was a creaking sound. It was an unnatural sound and thus most likely from a man-made object. Perhaps it was the door, but I wasn't facing in that direction. There was a movement in the air, and I could smell the presence of Ryan, yet there was also the smell of a pichu, though it was probably in my head again.
"I just came in to check on you two," Ryan's voice showed no angry, hatred, or fear as someone at the mercy of another should feel. How dare he act like I wasn't a threat, and even sound concerned? "Omega and Katar are both showing some improvement, and I've got Thorn to entertain Biohazard. That umbreon is too energetic for anyone else to handle. How much improvement is Kitsune showing?"
It couldn't be possible. I wanted to shout it out. He had to be dead. This whole thing had to be a dream if he was alive.
"Kitsune I forgot to mention what else happened while you were unconscious," Lilac seemed to ignore Ryan, just talking to me, "we found out why Biohazard got his name, more specifically I was a little slow on figuring it out so Katar found out first hand. Katar fell ill quite quickly and he's still recovering, though he wasn't too bad compared to you. I did make a little potion that'll make us all immune to such effects in the future but it takes a few days to build up the immune system. This was while you were recovering in your Pokéball, since with all the walking around we were doing it would have been inappropriate to have you out."
My Pokéball? …Yes, I had told her she could try if I failed the gym battle but I never expected to lose or for her to have the nerve to do such a thing. I don't feel bound to her will because of it. Still the ball may become quite an inconvenience if Lilac also develops the nerve to keep me in it.
"Omega, on the other hand, seemed fine till he got on this boat. I never thought he'd get sea sick, but it happened anyway. Ryan offered to take care of them, plus Biohazard so I could spend all my time with you. Quite nice of him, especially with how you'd pick on them if you got better first, and they'd do the same to you."
I felt another presence, apart from Ryan, Lilac, and hallucination of a pichu that now seemed to brush against my fur. I forced myself to turn towards Ryan and the door. A Skarmory stood silently behind him.
"Ah, so this is Kitsune. I thought you said she was supposed to be a good fighter?" it looked towards Ryan, whose face was turning red, then towards me with its cold, cruel eyes, "so, Ninetales, what happened? What made you ruin my chance of fighting in the gym battle and yet fail to get a gym badge yourself?"
"Thorn, what are you doing here?" Ryan seemed surprised and shocked at the skarmory's presence, "you're meant to be watching Biohazard!"
"He… um… knocked himself out on me," Thorn seemed to grin. Pokémon don't grin like that unless they learned it from a human, "just like you said he did against Roxanne's Geodude."
"We'd better check on Biohazard, I think he's hurt or something," Ryan spoke as he turned to the door, though Lilac got out first as she didn't waste time repeating what the skarmory had said, "Thorn you keep an eye on Kitsune. Do a better job than you did with Biohazard."
He closed the door behind him. I was alone with a pokémon I didn't know, while not being strong enough to fight back.
"It'll all your fault, you know," Thorn laughed, circling me, "I was looking forward to a good fight, but you got there first and ruined it. Then I got stuck with babysitter duty with that insane umbreon. He is the most annoying creature I have ever met, especially since it's so hard to get a hold of him to punish him. He was always going on about how he is immortal, nothing can touch him, claiming the fact he escaped the gym battle with only a few cuts and bruises. How can one faint and be removed from battle with so little injuries? He's your fault because if you were better he'd be annoying you instead of me…"
"Please, you really think you can make connections between events," I couldn't help myself; it would have made me seem too weak if I didn't, "you're clearly too stupid to think this through properly. You didn't get to fight a gym battle because Ryan was foolish enough to let me go first. You were stuck with Biohazard because Ryan is such a nice guy. Yet, it is really your fault more than Ryan's. It is you who allows yourself to be a slave to him. Also you are the only one with metal armour to protect yourself from Biohazard, thus it is your feathers fault too that you had to look after him."
"That's enough!" Thorn screeched, flapping his wings and chagrining at me. I was knocked over and he stood on my belly, rear end towards my face, talons digging in. The weight on one of them increased as he lifted the other one to grab one of my tails. He squeezed it tight, "time for you to suffer, I wonder why your kind protects your tails so much. I bet it hurts quite a lot when they are squeezed."
I wasn't strong enough to push him off. I tried to focus a thousand year curse for him to suffer but it didn't come. I felt like I was about to pass out from the pain. I actually got a glimpse of a pichu trembling in a corner of the room, frightened of the violent skarmory. The pichu began to spark…
The flash of electricity hit Thorn directly, and I felt it go through me as well, or more like just through my fur. I should have felt a shock too, but all I got was to see the skarmory stumble off me.
"Over here quick," I whispered to it, knowing now that it was real not an illusion. Why it was here wasn't important, "he'll kill you once he recovers."
The pichu ran, and the smell of fear was stronger now. Escaping an angry pokemon that'd eat it once it recovers by running to another pokemon with sharp teeth is probably scary. Not like my kind ever went through things like that, we are just superior and don't suffer like weaker species. I got back onto my feet as quick as I could, and with a small pounce, caught the pichu in my jaws. I let go and held it with my paws along with the toy one, just in time to hide it from Thorn.
"Who shocked me?" Thorn screamed, anger as was expected. Of course a mere pichu couldn't of done anything more than cause pain for him, "show yourself!"
"Hey," I could feel more energy coming back to me, not enough to put up a fight, but enough to make my tails wag. What I said next was more of a joke than a lie, though I couldn't tell why I would say it. It wasn't the time for jokes and it's not like I had any reason to protect the pichu, "I though Ryan told you about me. I can't breath fire but I can manipulate lightning."
"You're losing a tail now. You should have just fainted instead of trying to fight in your state," he jumping on me again, though this time I resisted being knocked over. I held to pichu tight, pushing on its chest only just enough to make it impossible for it to make a sound. A sudden pain in one of my tails came once again. It was different this time, it felt like a sawing sensation. It felt like there was also a hot liquid oozing over my fur around that tail. He was chewing my tail off.
The door creaked open again and Thorn let me go. There was a moment of shocked silence.
"Oh, uh, Ryan!" he tried to cough my fur out of his beak, "What are you doing here?"
"I came to check on Kitsu-is that blood on your beak? Thorn, did you bite Kitsune!" Ryan ran to me, looking all over me, not noticing I now had two pichu toys, before noticing one of my tails was what was injured.
"No, it wasn't like that. You see-"
"Thorn, you tried to bite her tail off! There's nothing else that you could have been doing besides that. Go get Lilac, I'll try to stop Kitsune from bleeding everywhere."
The real pichu tried to whimper as I tightened my grip on it to help deal with the pain of Ryan tending to my tail. It had already proven worth more than the toy one… No need to ask for its name, it'd only make me feel guilty since it'd only be a friend till I got hungry.
Till then, I had to keep my snack hidden from all others.
