This is another guest chapter by GoGoTenda.

Ryan's Intermezzo: Part the First

I ran a hand through the mid-length brown hair that sat atop my head, feeling the warmth which the sun had imparted upon it. Kitsune was walking a few steps in front of me, throwing a glance over her shoulder every couple of seconds. It seemed like odd behavior for someone like her. I suppose it could have been me making her uncomfortable coupled with the fact that Lilac was nowhere in sight. We'd split up awhile ago and gone different directions on the dreadfully small Dewford Island. With any luck, we'd at least be a few miles away from each other. In a hope to get Kitsune more comfortable, I quickened my pace until I was even with her. Then I remembered that I needed to get her to trust me a bit more; she didn't seem to like me at all. As friendly as I could, I simply asked, "How are you?"

"Just fine, even though your pokemon have tried to do serious harm to me in the last three days." At this point, it was obvious that any sort of friendly relationship between us would be just about impossible to attain. Still, it was better to try than to just give in to the hopelessness of it all.

"Kitsune, I'm truly sorry about what happened to you. Thorn had no right to hurt you the way he did, and Sketch knows better. Please let them, and myself, make it up to you." As Thorn and Sketch's caretaker, I did deserve some, if not most of, the blame, "now, however, is not a time when I can really do so. We need to find somewhere secluded so you can go spend the week with as little disturbance as possible. Earlier, I found a nice spot in the forest where we could spend the day." Kitsune said nothing, but dropped behind me a bit so that I could lead.

The street we were on turned from poured concrete and asphalt to just the concrete. The buildings faded away and turned back to trees and low plants. There was the soft, constant noise of some bird pokemon chattering, maybe even a mankey howling in response. Eventually, the cement became a dirt path through the ever thickening wood. Great trees were all around, but the wind still carried the scent of saltwater from the beach that was always nearby on this tiny island. I turned off the path and started to creep through brush, knowing that Kitsune was following me even though she was staying silent, true to her species.

Crowded branches gave way to a nearly circular clearing covered by some of the greenest grass I'd ever seen. Little wildflowers poked up every couple of yards, and there was a fairly large sized patch of clover off to the right. I walked into the middle of the clearing and turned to face Kitsune, spreading my arms out. "This is where we'll be staying for awhile." She seemed happy enough to be out in the open air, which made me feel a little better. "Now, I know you're here mostly to get away from the like of Biohazard, but there are other tasks at hand. Lilac would like me to try and teach you a few things about obedience. She'd like me to teach you how to behave and take basic commands, which I'm hoping Cinder is teaching her how to give. I'd like to run you through a gambit of simple orders to see how you react…unfortunately, I couldn't find any treats in town that I thought you might like, and the other options were far too cruel." Lilac and I had almost bought a collar that tightened slightly at the press of a button, but it looked too dangerous and painful for me to actually put on a pokemon. "Now, Kitsune," she had started looking away, "sit."

There was a bit of a pause in which Kitsune obviously thought the command out. It shouldn't have been so difficult to interpret the word 'sit', but then again, human words were sometimes hard to translate. In the end however, Kitsune obliged; she sat down on her hind haunches and looked at me. "Is that it?"

"No, of course not. Lay down." The instant I said it, there was tension in the air. Kitsune's eyes narrowed into a glare, and my ears caught a low growling noise which must have been her. I never thought she'd respond so aggressively towards what was essentially a natural thing to do. I hoped that she wouldn't break out into violence, even though she was probably more than halfway there. "Kitsune, just lay down. This is for Lilac, remember?"

Her eyes narrowed in a predator's glare, causing my heart to beat a bit faster. There was also a noise, a sort of low growling sound emanating from her, "I don't lay down for anyone, especially not for you." She continued to stare at me with a hint of viciousness. Kitsune was a wild ninetales, after all.

"Come on, Kitsune. It's one little command, then we can move on." Between my words and her actions, there was significant gap in which the air itself seemed to hold its breath. Grudgingly, she lay down on the grass, but kept her head up so she could keep an eye on me. Previously, I would have tried the 'roll over' command…but it would be a very bad idea now. Instead, I forced a smile and said, "that's quite enough for right now. Why don't you stand up so we can get to relaxing."

"Is that a command?" She smirked sarcastically, enjoying my increasing discomfort. Of course it wasn't a command; I just wanted to not put her or myself in a dangerous situation.

"It was a request, unless you'd like me to keep giving you orders." That did it, for she stood up and shook herself a bit. Good; I had once again avoided a near disaster, even if I'd been the one causing it. Some things just didn't change, and my accidental self destructive tendencies were some of those things. "As for the relaxing part, Sketch requested that he have time to play with you." Personally, I was against it, but Sketch can hardly be stopped when he's got a notion into his little furry head."

Kitsune seemed to accept this proposal, so I grabbed the pokeball that contained the smeargle. I squeezed it a bit, releasing the pokemon inside. The white light resolved into a smiling Sketch who then bounded forward to Kitsune. "Kitsune! We get to play for a whole week! Aren't you excited?" Yup…I was just thrilled. Kitsune obviously shared my sentiments, but didn't let it show.

"Yes, of course I am." Kitsune smiled and brushed Sketch with a tail, drawing giggles that shook his small frame. She then walked a few steps away until he followed her, then a few more steps, and a few more after that. Soon, she was leading him around the clearing, tails twitching away from his eager hands. It was a dangerous game; if rumors were true, a ninetales could curse those that pull its tails. Kitsune seemed like the type that would do just that, too. I bit my tongue to keep from speaking, and hoped to Lugia that Sketch wouldn't manage to catch her.

Then he tripped. Sketch stumbled over his own tail, making a weak cry of surprise before crashing to the ground. Before I could react, Kitsune had turned on him, crowding over him and doing…something. I couldn't see through her tails, which had covered Sketch from view. Imagining pulling Kitsune away to find the bloody remains of a friend, I rushed over and pushed the tails away. Sketch was looking up at me sheepishly, as Kitsune had held him down started to lick the minor scrape the fall had resulted in. She was trying to clean the wound, despite how utterly superficial it was. Sketch winced as her tongue ran over the broken flesh; scrapes rarely hurt unless touched. I couldn't help myself, I needed to ask. "Kitsune…what are you doing?"

She blinked once and stopped licking. "…I don't know." Kitsune got off of Sketch and stepped away to allow him to stand. He did so, brushing himself off and examining his injury. After reassuring himself that it was really nothing serious, he noticed a wingull nearby and went off to chase it. Kitsune looked up at me, "I honestly don't know what happened. It might have been maternal instincts brought on from being in heat."

"That would certainly explain it. Though, it isn't very normal for a ninetales to care for a smeargle." I threw a glance over my shoulder to make sure Sketch was thoroughly distracted. The wingull was shouting at him while attempting to hop away, which only provoked Sketch to follow it. I turned back to Kitsune. "Ninetales typically hunt smeargle; they're actually one of the fair few predators who even attempt it." Besides having somewhat toxic paint, smeargle were also pod animals adept at defending one another. Since they learn attacks from the other pokemon in the area, smeargle know what they're potential hunters can do and thus create rather ingenious strategies for fighting them off. Ninetales, however, are crafty enough and rare enough that most Smeargle have no idea how to handle them.

"What? Are you saying I'm abnormal for a ninetales?" …not exactly, but yes, that was the general gist of what I had said. I said nothing out loud, which she assumed to mean 'yes'. "Because there are plenty of things you do that are abnormal for a human." Like what? I thought I was pretty normal looking and acting. Besides, she didn't know me well enough to see any flaws, right?

"Such as? Please go on; I'd love to learn about how different you think I am."

"Well, first off, you tend to refer to your pokemon as anything but. It's 'my partners' or 'our team', unless someone else talks about them as 'your pokemon' first. Treating pokemon as equal is a very odd thing for a human to do, especially one appearing as young as you." She had me there, but it wasn't a big deal. Most people would have just assumed that I care about them deeply, which I did. If anything, it made me appear loving and proactive, not unnatural.

"The next thing someone might notice is your lack of scent. Humans tend to smell to pokemon such as myself, and while you do have some scent, it's not a human one." That was the biggest give away I had, for sure. But Cinder always said that I didn't have a scent at all, and it was my understanding that Ditto as a species were scentless no matter what form they were in, with the occasional exception.

"What're you talking about, Kitsune? Ditto don't have any scent at all. If anything, I'd smell like the people I'd been around recently."

"No, there's definitely something there. It's faint, but that doesn't make it any less real." How could she possibly smell something that didn't logically exist? Ditto only produced scent if they were in the midst of mating, and even then it was only a pheromone of a form they were in. A natural ditto had no smell, period. Kitsune was probably mistaking someone else's scent for something she thought was my own.

"Even if you do smell something, there's no way that a human could tell. Only a pokemon with a sensitive nose and a sharp mind would put it together, and even then they wouldn't be able to tell a human. Although…Lilac does have an extraordinary grasp on Pokespeech. She's among a handful of humans across time that have been able to understand pokemon so well…" Now that I seriously thought about it, her knowledge of the pokemon language couldn't be natural. Sure, she may have spent her life with Eevee, but that was one fox-type dialect. With the knowledge she should possess, understanding even related species like Katar or Omega was an impossibility. There was something more to the story; that was for sure…

Just then, there was a gleeful yell from Sketch, who had managed to wander out of the clearing. "There's a beach! Look, Ryan!" I already knew there was a beach nearby, and I thought the salty air would have been enough of a give away. Still, I turned away from Kitsune to look towards Sketch's voice. He must have chased the Wingull all the way to the sand without me noticing. I started walking towards where I thought he was.

"Come on, Kitsune. He won't let us rest until we go to the beach." I cast a glance over my shoulder to check that she was following. She looked like she was thinking about joining me, but also about being somehow disobedient. I tapped a pokeball at my waist. "This one's yours, Kitsune. And I know you don't want to go back inside." No one did, ever. It was a terrible feeling, being trapped inside that tiny little space with no idea what was going on outside. You were cut off from the world with nothing but an empty blackness to keep you company. I hated to use it as a threat, but I couldn't let her just do what she wanted. Kitsune glared at me slightly, and then started walking along behind me, keeping the pokeball within her sight.