Chapter thirteen: The First Wave

Early the next morning, Richan was awaken rudely by a howl from a certain specie of pokemon, which usually means war. Toby, who was awake the whole night, hung his head low. He gave out a wake-up call to his pack, who are all soundly asleep. Each one sleepily yawned, and stretched their white fur-coated bodies.

'There it is...the howl of war...' was all Toby said. Richan just looked him. 'Richan, wake up the others, the ones from your group.'

'Oh, got it,' was all Richan said before he turn, and started to wake up Beai. 'Beai, Beai! Wake up. It's all about to start...'

'Hmm...? Richan...? What's wrong, what's near?' Beai groggily asked, rubbing her closed amber eyes.

'The battle, that's what, we need to wake up the others, fast. We don't have much time left. You go and wake Onia, I'll take care of the rest.' Richan marched up to Toby, and watched with him. As soon as a small cloud of dust rose, Richan commanded,'Beai! They're close, and they might be here in about 2 minutes at this rate!'

Beai, who heard what Richan said, started to nudge Onia a bit harder and faster to wake her up. 'Gah! Enough, I am awake already!' Onia boomed sleepily, snapping open her amethyest eyes. She yawned, and rubbed her eyes.

'Onia, Richan told me to wake you up because they're near, the attack that is,' Beai explained as Onia was trying to regain energy. After hearing Beai explaining, Onia's eyes snapped open in shock. 'Onia! Are you even listening?'

'Yes, I'm listening,' Onia replied while she got up, and stretched her leaves,'you just yelled it in my ear.'

'Girls! Enough chit-chat, it's alot closer than I thought!' Richan lowered his head and thought, they're pratically here. Richan's heart went -Kadamp- at the thought of the attack. Blood, sorrow, tears, everywhere in each direction. The scent of death hovering all over, and the remains of dead pokemon rotting from decay and maggots. All those thoughts made Richan shiver in fear.

The cloud of dust grew, and grew in a rapid rate. By the time it was actually near, Onia was fully awake, and the pack was ready for action. It wasn't what little Lea said it was... it was growlithes and arcanines, not houndooms...

One growlithe didn't dare look at the pack, the grass pokemon, and Toby himself. It looked quite guilty, and wanted to hide it's face. That made Richan wonder that either it's scared, or just plain guilty.

Eh? For some reason, that growlithe looks...familiar... Toby thought. looking at the growlithe with suspicion. Sapphire looked at the young growlithe too, along with the rest.

Lea took one look at the growlithe, and was already surprised. This morning, her friend ,Dian, didn't tell her why he can't be her friend anymore, but now she knew. Poor Lea just looked on, not making a slight sound about it for fear that it'll make her cry, and show emotion, the weakest point.

'Ah, greetings Tobias Highwind Bahanswick. It's been quite a long time, so hows it going...old chap?' a voice boomed from the Arcanine/growlithe group. Richan, Beai, nor Onia knew who it was coming from, or what, but Toby knew. At that instance, Toby snapped his ruby eyes open wide, flinched and lost his full focus.

'I know that voice...it's...it's...no way...' was all Toby managed to get out before he was really psyched. 'It can't be!'

'Yes, it's true. Surprise, surprise eh, old chap.' The pokemon revealed itself, and Toby was stunned. It was an old houndoom probably around Toby's age. It was like any other houndoom, except a deep scar at the left cheek bone, and it had an eye patch over one eye, the right eye. The eyepatch gave it an eerie effect that seems to make Richan shiver with both fear and excitement.

'Naraku Himora Pyro...you're back aren't you?' Toby braced himself, lowering his body in attack formation.

'Yes. Here I am, back from the place called hell. Your world that is.' Then, in almost a blink of an eye, Naraku rammed his head, horn and all, at Toby's stomach, causing him to puke out a fluid called blood.'That was what I call pay back. you are a plain soft fool. A fool to believe you can have revenge.'

Naraku turned his head, and said to the arcanine/growlithe group,'kill them all. NOW!' With that, all of them ran with all their might to the absol pack. Each one of the members of the absol pack had a special ability as a weapon that little did the opponents knew about. But the arcanines and growlithes were too fast for the abilities to activate.

Lea tried to run away, but she was knocked over by Naraku. 'My, what have we have here? Tobias' daughter, an eevee? Bah, she's weak enough for me to kill. I'll work on her death, while "daddy" is busy.'

Lea shivered in fear as Naraku readied himself for a flamethrower attack. Lea screamed as loud as she could, but it seems that no one heard her.'Go ahead. Scream all you want, no one'll be here to rescue you anyway.'

But the guilty growlithe, who was the one who didn't dare to look at the pack, heard her scream. Lea? Is that you? Oh my Latios, she sounds like shes in danger! I need to save her!

The little growlithe ran as fast as it's legs can carry it, and stopped by a bush. It heard another scream from Lea, but this time, it was of pain instead of fear. It peeked inside the bush, and saw Lea, burnt to crisps. There was the houndoom, laughing evily at Lea's pain. There were tears in Lea's eyes.

Boldly, the growlithe leaped from the bush, and headbutted Naraku dead on. Lea, who saw her savior, opened her tear soaken eyes, and knew who it was instantly. 'Dian? Is that you?' was all she asked.

'Yes, it's me. Remember what I said about not being able to be your friend anymore? By that, I didn't mean that our friendship REALLY has to be over.' It then turned it's head around, then Lea bursted into tears once again.

'Di..Dian!' was all Lea was able to let out before Naraku rose again...