Hello! and welcome to chapter 3, I hope you enjoy, and as always please let me know of any spelling and grammer mistake, how else am I supposed to learn and correct things otherwise?. Also I know there is not much dialogue, but really think about it, Ash is alone, no one to really talk too.
Oh! and I dont own pokemon!


Asked later, Ash would never be able to fully remember that week of agony, or how he had made it back to the campsite, more time spent in pain filled nightmare, sleep was impossible due to the pain, his body passing out was his only relief, oh he tried, poultices of oran a constant need, even the two remaining sitrus berries were sacrificed to the burn, still nothing made a diffrence, his body could only slowly, so very slowly adapt and compensate to the pain.
It was on the 8th day that he regained most of his faculties for more that a few minutes at a time, still wracked by feverish day dreams, he stumbled to the lake and sank into its cooling lapiz depths, sighing out, he lifted his arm and peeled off the latest oran berry crust, underneath he finaly saw the fragment of fang, gritting his teeeth and girding what little strength he had, he groped and pinched at the splinter before almost passsing out from the pain he managed to remove the fragment, slumping and dropping his arm back into the lake he could finaly, finaly! feel the cool sweeet relief soothing the un-natural burn, he knew the pain would never truly fade, all he could do was bear it and hope his body adapted to the pain enough that it woudldnt cripple him.

Dragging himself back to camp he noted his loss of body condition, oran berries were little miricles sure, but only being lucid eough to eat a few a day was not enough, so he continued past his oh so inviting sleeping bag to the berry bushes at the medow, a handful of oran and kebia berries later he returned, the last few strips of the smoked magicarp joined his meager but first solid meal in over a week, slowly and carfully chewing, sipping at the water in his canteen, pulling a face at the staleness, he laid back down, to sleep untill dawn the next morning, raising he could feel an improvement in himself, slowly and stiffly walking to the lake he spent his time bathing himself and washing his sweat stained clothes, the single sentret seemed to chitter at him, after the previous days alarm he had caused, Ash sighed and closed his eyes, trying to enjoy the peace for a few moments, the constant burn and feeling of wrongness on his left arm stopped that however, a constant reminder was scarred into the physical and mental core of his being.

Splashing out of the lake he looked around for any changes since he had gone for his near hour wash, seeing nothing that would warrant a higher level of caution, he lay in a shaft of light letting his body dry off, almost dozing he heard the brood of oddish playing nearby untill one particulay brave or playful oddish stood close enough to lean forward and brush the tips of its leaves over his chest, twitching and unexpectadly laughing at the tickilish contact the oddish ran back to the group calling its name and peeking from behind the watchful gloom, Ash shruged and waved at the young pokemon, knowing by its size it was not much more than a baby, and its leaves where not so sharp yet that they would have left cuts in his skin or left any irritating pollen, never mind any of the various powders upon him, the oddish jumped and seemed to giggle, bending a leaf in an aproximation of a finger waggle, it was as it made its way back that it was hearded by the gloom back to the other oddish and back into the undergrowth, Ash sighed and lifted himself from the forrest floor, walking back to his campsite he saw a tiny caterpie making its way up one of the struts of his lean-to, judging its size as only a week or so old Ash dismissed it as a concern, hanging up his washed clothes he poked at the fire and rubbed his arm, `I should get this seen too` he thought, eyes drifting down to bite scars fresh and vivid on his arm, the few tendrils of flame had left distinctly darker scars than the broken teeth, almost grey they wrapped around his forearm, a delicate tracery belieing the constant thrum of pain that flared at odd times, the place where the shard of broken fang had lodged into the muscle still was not healing fully, breaking open and weeping blood was a common occurance, Ash had sacrificed one of his shirts and a pair of shorts to make bangages, but even with being able to wash and clean as well as he could the strips of fabric, it was not enough, Ash knew he needed to reach proper medical care soon, but before then he needed a pokemon to get to civilization, thinking about what pokemon was around locally and what he could reasonbly catch with only himself and two balls, it was then the baby caterpie fell onto his head.

Ash laughed, notes of hysteria breaking through, well, he knew within a week or two of training, caterpie would be able to eveolve into a metapid, then the tediousness would kick in, for you see, any damage, early or forced evolution to a butterfree could cause irreparable damage to said pokemon, leaving it from slightly crippled to even killing it in the process, he had seen some pictures and even one poor butterfree that had been damaged in it`s metapod stage, the poor creature had half formed wings and was not able to fly, Proffesor Oak and the local nurse Joy had said it was lucky, if, if, he decided, to train this caterpie, he would have to be careful but it would be worth it to have a pokemon with the powder atacks butterfree would know, never mind the low level psycic abilities, the flying type atacks would be a nice bonus aswell, while not the strongest of pokemon, it would be a decent enough partner to start off with, and with it he could prehaps catch another more cambat orientated pokemon, with its status powders that should make things a bit easier, mind made up, Ash promptly took one of his preacious balls and tapped to the caterpie he currently held in the palm of his hand, with a ding and not even a single shake, the 4 inch green worm was his.


5 weeks later Ash was once again changing the now fraying cloth bandages on his am, the scar still prone to cracking and seeping blood, looking over his campsite Ash sighed, magicarp meat hung over the fire roasting, and the berry bushes where as fruitfull as ever, and best in his opinion was the new berrys growing on the sitrus bush, and metapod hummed next to him, a small wiggle of contentment as Ash took a moment to scratch the cocoon, re-wrapping his arm Ash looked at the few utensils and items he had made, not much, just a few bowls and containers, and some badly whitteld forks and spoons, still he was almost happy, another hum from metapod made him smile fully, the little caterpie had taken to his training with gusto, putting its all into everything Ash aked of it, it was still unkown what sex it was, that would be more easily determined once it evolved. Ash could`nt help but chuckle as he rememberd some of caterpies antics, as a young and head strong pokemon it managed to get itself in some rather humerious situations, for exsample, the first time it had used string shot it had accidently got stuck on Ash`s head, then a tree, then one of the quickly growing oddish that would now interact with Ash at the lake, the sentret only escaped being caught up in the gleeful spewing forth of silk the young bug did by scampering high into its chosen tree, chittering angrily then actualy laughing at the comic scene below, it took the rest of the afternoon to untangle eveyone, the oddish still kept remenaints of the silk, waving like banners from its leaves for a few days, happily running around and bouncing the silk like streamers flashing behind the blue plant, providing its own amusment for days.

It was as Ash caried metapod to the lakes edge to play and mock battle with the young oddish a few days later, he noted that the usual sentret scout was absent, no chitter or flashes of brown and black, slowing his walk and turning his head, Ash felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise, it was only seconds later that a commotion of pidgy flew out of the forest screaming alarm into the skies, from the underbrush ran a few nidoran and the brood of young oddish, crying and in a panic, metapod started to squirm, Ash took that as his cue to leave, turning he only made a few paces before a lage swathe of sticky silk hit the tree in front of him covering his path in a giant web.


Panting Ash looked back upon the path he had run, metapod tucked under one arm and the single remaining oddish held to his chest in the other, all the others had been caught in the webbing the ariados spat with abandon, even the ever vigil sentret had been caught, there was nothing he could do, even with his knife it would not cut through the silk, so he ran, leaving the trapped pokemon to their fate, only able to save a single oddish, hearing the clicking of his hunters mandibles Ash once more fled, his route having taken him round the lake and up a small trail near to the waterfall, reacing the top and breaking out into a clearing he tripped,both pokemon crying out as he bloodied his knees and palms, oddish ran, its leaves melding quickly into the long grass and vanashing from sight, Ash picked himself up, looking at metapod his heart sank and bile rose to his throat, metapod had a large crack running along the side leaking a thick pustule green fluid, it was as he was reaching desprately for it that Ash was hit by a flying rope of silk, wrapping round him and anchoring him to the ground, all he could move was one arm and his head, tears pooled and fell, in fear for both himself and his pokemon, ariados stepped into the clearing, eyes glinting, the leaf of an oddish stuck to one of its jaws, covered in blood it fell to the ground with a hopeless squeltch.

It was as the predator scuttled closer metapod screamed and began to glow, the light grew blinding and out of it formed a butterfree, and Ash in the still logical part of his mind saw that it was a female, but she was crippled, one wing bent and torn, underdeveloped, the foot and paw on the left handside also deformed, almost curling into themselves, but her eyes, oh her eyes gowed with unrestrained power and hate, ariados clicked and shuffeled before sending out a gout of silk, butterfree shriked, eyes blazing with psyonic force the web shreded to slivers on the breeze, narrowing it eyes ariados lifted its front legs and slaming them down released a mighty gunk shot, again butterfree`s psybeam detonated it, the small explosion sending small smoking bits of gunk scatered into the long grass, ariados started to charge it`s horn shimering deadly poison, butterfree once again hit it with a powerfull psybeam, but she was beining to tire, ariados struggeled to its feet, two legs broken and bent leaking a clear fluid, one of its mighty jaws half broken, maddness and hunger in its eyes it lept, its broken legs trailing in the air, snapping off its body as it landed, its mandibles sinking into buterfree`s weak flesh, screaming she gave one last weak blast of psybeam, knocking ariados`s head away she turned and tried to fly to Ash who was screaming her name, fighting the cocoon that wrapped and imobolised him, butterfee`s eyes glowed a softer pink as a weak psystike cut the bonds that held him, leaping to his feet, his precious pokemon and freind only meteres away, desprate to save her Ash was too late, ariados returned and with a final crunch its jaws around the still fighting pokemon Ash watched as her head was servered, bouncing on the ground, eyes already glassing over, hearing the crunching of his pokemons body as it was devoured by the ariados he turned and ran.