Authors note: With a new review comes a new chapter! Enjoy! the italicized paragraph is a flashback that happens between the previous chapter and current chapter.
To say she was not happy would be more than an understatement, it would be a flat out lie. Amber was absolutely furious once everything was settled... and there was no one else to blame but myself.
"How could you do this Bahamut? I thought you were better then that. I thought you were careful." Those words stung much more than the wounds of the fight. "I'm sorry Amber, I truly am.. I didn't think about what could have happened. I just needed some time to think about everything." She scoffed. Amber, to others, would seem as though she turned her demeanor around completely. Some would even go as far as to say that it felt almost like a bipolar tendency to switch so fast. But to me, I knew what I did wasn't good.
I was careless, I didn't even bring my pokemon with me, and I suffered. Leo was laying down in the tent with his wounds being tended to by Serenity, Amber's Kirlia. Luckily enough, even though Amber was somewhat good with healing, her Kirlia also knew heal pulse so she was currently extending her energy to provide for Leonidas. As for me, I was being chastised by Amber outside the tent by a tree. I was slumped against it, trying to avoid eye contact with her although I knew I needed this, I needed a wake up call like this. "Well?" Amber said, her eyes glaring daggers into me; much like the townsfolk.
"I really have nothing else to say. I don't know what I can do to make it up to you Amber. But please, just relax." Before I realized it, my words had incited only anger into her. This once sweet and kind girl was now properly showing her genuine side of how she cares. "Firstly, I shouldn't be the one you should be saying sorry to. Riolu was the one who got hurt, not me. Secondly, no words are going to heal those wounds so easily. Not until you've followed them up with the right actions."
She was right. Why did I decide I needed to go out and take a breather? Only I could really say, but I never wanted to openly admit it, not this soon anyway. Truth is, I have tendencies to not be able to show proper emotions. I care about people, but I never really showed it, at least not in the real world. After having a heart to heart with her in the tent last night, I needed time to register where I was. But my tendencies got the best of me and before I knew it I had gone a long ways away from the tent, near a little pond. The fact of the matter is that Leo literally saved my life, he was a miracle saver. If he hadn't sensed I was in trouble I would have been a goner.
"I think I need some time alone Bahamut." Wait.. what? Suddenly I looked up and noticed Amber had taken back her anger, only for it to be replaced with sadness. "Wait.. are you serious?" Amber paused, carefully thinking what to say next. "Yes, I am. I know we just had that conversation last night and got to bond, but I need some time alone from you to register what really happened. I knew I rushed myself by going along with you; but I felt like I had no other way out. Now that I'm out I can't decide whether or not I want to go with you".
A tear was shed from my eye, but I quickly wiped it away before she took notice of it. "I... I understand. Please, just think about this carefully. I know what I did was wrong but I promise to be better, more careful." Amber turned to walk away, choosing to not reply to my statement. Giving up, I slid down the rest of the tree until I sat on the bottom, my head held low.
Amber stopped, but only for a brief moment. Without looking back, she simply said "I'll stay with you until we get to the city up ahead. Then, we'll decide what happens from there". I soberly looked up... I guess I should appreciate the time we're given left here and man up. I never really struggled with making friends in the real world, but I always hated to lose them, it felt like I lost a part of myself each time.
Finally, I pushed myself back on my feet, ashamed of what I did. It was such a simple event, and yet with such an extreme outcome. But that's okay, because it made me realize something important. People are people and they're going to have genuine reactions, even in this world. So, failing to recognize that means that I'm not human, not in either of these worlds. Shaking myself back to reality, I trudged back on to the inevitable, and uncomfortable, silence of the tent.
Both Serenity and Amber gave me the silent treatment while we were walking. Currently, we were on the main dirt road heading for the city, the only noises came from the forests around us. Listening closely, I could hear my own footsteps. They sounded heavy-hearted not just literally, but mentally. I shook my head once more to regain focus of the task ahead of us, which was getting to the next city. As we walked, I recounted how the moment I got back to the tent Amber split our supplies accordingly. Now I only had 500 poke dollars, a single status item for each effect, 4 pokeballs, 1 ultra ball, 4 potions, and one hyper potion. It was certainly fair, considering all the supplies were just Amber's anyway, but I still felt robbed.
No... I need to be accepting of this, with pain comes a lesson. I did something bad and now I had to suffer for it; it didn't help that my traveling partner refused to acknowledge me though. Not only that, but I could tell with a 100% guarantee that Serenity absolutely hated my guts. And to think this all started with me getting back to the tent...
I limped back to the tent, blood on my legs and Leo unconscious. I opened the front flaps as I walked in to see Amber and Serenity sleeping peacefully. "Amber.. AMBER WAKE UP!" Suddenly she bolted up, Serenity following when she felt Amber shoot up. "Wha...What happened here?" Amber looked distressed and highly concerned as she noticed Leo unconscious, standing up fully to take Riolu into her arms and lay her on the spot she was sleeping. "I'm sorry Amber, I woke up and went outside, but I got attacked by a pack of mightyena and poochyena and I almost got killed because I forgot to bring Leo. But he arrived and saved me."
For a moment, Amber looked up with disgust at me, before turning her attention back to Leo and scavenging through our bags to find 3 potions and a super potion. She used all 4 items and then turned to Serenity "Serenity, please use heal pulse". Serenity, having been fully shocked by the events, finally came back to reality and shook her head, pointing her tiny arms towards the limp Riolu and healing it.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, hoping to be of some use during all of this. Amber turned towards me, examining me before replying. "No, you need to lay down as well and let me tend to your leg wounds. We'll talk about what happened in the morning". Obliging, I laid down and winced as she started to clean out the wounds...
The walk, ever so silent, suddenly stopped when Amber stopped. I turned and noticed her glancing over at me, but mostly paying attention to the trees to our right. "Bahamut." I gulped, certainly this won't be good. "Yes..?" I replied coolly, although 'coolly is an overstatement because I was trying to ignore the fact that my body was shaking slightly. "...Look, you need to catch another pokemon soon." Wait.. what?
She continued;"You need to catch another pokemon soon Bahamut... that way when we take our different paths I can be assured to know that you'll be safer with more company besides myself". Well, I suppose one thing was a big reliever here... she was still caring. "Alright, but can you show me how it's done? I don't have that much practice." I guess that was kinda the truth, anyway. She nodded and proceeded to walk into the forest to our right with Serenity by her side. I followed from a distance.
Pushing the bushes aside, the party found itself surrounded by nothing but trees and land shrubs accompanied. "Well, here we are. Now watch carefully Bahamut" Amber turned and crouched, I stood from a distance watching. Serenity stood nearby Amber, waiting for command. It felt like minutes passed before finally a noise could be heard.
"PETILIL!" screamed the bulbous like flower pokemon. It appeared to float in front of Amber as it eyed her suspiciously. Amber, having realized her spot was compromised, quickly jumped up and shouted "Serenity, use Psychic!" Her Kirlia jumped into view, putting one arm towards her head and the other pointing at the flower-like pokemon.
In the blink of an eye, the Petilil was lifted even higher into the air and then thrown back into the bush it came from. Startled, the Petilil shook itself off and floated up. Then, whilst screaming 'Petilil!' the little green pokemon concentrated for a moment before a small green ball of energy appeared before her, slowly rotating and gaining more and more speed/rotation as it marginally grew bigger.
Amber, quick on her feet, commanded Serenity swiftly "Watch out Serenity, the Petilil is going to use Energy ball. Use a Double Team to avoid it!" Serenity nodded before quickly side stepping left and right to perceive multiple versions of herself. The confident Petilil released its ball early, thinking it had the correct target only to land the ball of energy onto a copycat of Amber's Kirlia.
"Now's our chance, weaken the Petilil once more with Dazzling Gleam!" With a flash of light, Serenity unleashed a fairy-like beam of light that hit the Petilil, momentarily stunning it. Amber noticed this and took out a regular pokeball, pressing the middle button of the ball and chucking it towards the Petilil, with it landing directly on its head.
The pokeball bounced off the target before opening up and enlarging itself. A beam of red light quickly shot out of the ball and wrapped itself around the Petilil before sucking it into the ball and landing onto the ground. The ball stood still for a moment, before it did a shake. Then another. Then a third. A long moment of time passed before…. Click.
Amber successfully captured the Petilil. Happy, she strode over to the ball and picked it up, releasing the Petilil immediately and having Serenity use Heal Pulse on it. "Well, there you go. I hope you got a general idea of how it works." Finally, I had a moment of clarity. I turned to her and replied "Yeah.. I get it. Thanks."
Amber, now finished with the lesson, resumed her silent treatment on me and turned away. She then proceeded to turn towards her new partner Petilil. "Welcome aboard the team Petilil! Together I hope we can learn to be good pals." Amber smiled warmly at Petilil, before Petilil herself replied back with a cheerful "lil!".
"Well Bahamut, now it's your turn. I'll give you some space to roam around here, but I'll have my team and I posted around the perimeter in case something tries to show up". I nodded, simply saying "Sure, got it." before Amber and her pokemon walked away from view. "Ugh… what am I gonna do? She'll barely talk to me and now I'm left all to myself here. At least this is a good opportunity to catch a pokemon."
talking out loud to myself felt good again. But, it also meant that I was desperate enough to do it, so perhaps it wasn't all that good. But still, what pokemon do I want? Competitively speaking, I want a pokemon that I know can be really good, super strong and capable of handling battles on its own. We're in a forest though, so generally the most I'll find is critters like bug and grass types. I guess some searching would do me some good.
A few minutes later, I was still searching and peeking around corners of the trees, and yet found nothing. However, I have come to a realization. For one thing, it's the daytime, so the more active pokemon are likely going to be lighter types. Like Grass, Normal, Bug, etc.
Whereas if I looked around during the night, chances are I'd find types like Poison,Dark, and Ghost. Realistically, it was all a gamble, but I'd have to take things like these into consideration if I want a good pokemon; I'll need to remember this later on too.
On top of that, the Biome means I'm less likely to find water types, ice types, or even fire types. Wait.. I need to focus more, I can't keep sidetracking myself with stuff like this; That's the reason I ended up in this situation to begin with.
It was also harder to find a pokemon that I could probably catch without using Leo either. I wanted to give him a break for a moment and let him rest. This was a pain to both of us but, whilst reminding myself I was the one who caused all of this, I moved on from the thoughts and kept searching.
Looking around, all I can really see are just bug type critters and some birds. At one glance, I saw some Budew close to each other near a tree stump, relaxing. To my immediate left was a larger tree that housed multiple bird species like a family of Pidgeys and a mother Pidgeotto and across from them a single Pidove was perched on a branch.
I swore at one point I even caught a glimpse of a large blue beetle like pokemon, most likely a Heracross. Pacing around, I was trying to think of anything that would be good to have on my team, but I was drawing a blank here..
This place didn't seem to have anything that caught my interest besides the heracross, but then I would just have two fighting types, and I care for diversity… ARGHHH there's too many choices!
I Shrugged and moved on, walking away from the place I was and further into the forest to find something better; perhaps a change of scenery would help me out? "Well, worth a shot I suppose" I said begrudgingly, moving on past a large… shaking banana tree? Oh.. that might actually be a Tropius.. I think I should move faster.
Finally, I heard something that piqued my interest, but it wasn't a pokemon. "Come on Rockruff, why won't you listen to me!?" Looking around a tree, I could make out a pokemon trainer with a Trumbeak on his shoulder, both facing a Rockruff.
The Trumbeak was preening its feathers while on the trainers shoulder. He occasionally puffed out his chest in anger, so I assumed he was upset about a battle the Trumbeak may have just had with the Rockruff, who was covered head to toe in dust/dirt.
The Rockruff was also super energetic, and was barking wildly over and over saying 'RUFF RUFF, ROCKRUFF!' It looked up happily at it's trainer, either wanting to play or fight. "Come on Rockruff, you're too energetic, why can't you be more like Trumbeak?" The Trumbeak, clearly satisfied, puffed outs its chest proudly to the comment.
Wanting to see what was up, I stepped into view. "Hey, is there a problem here?" The trainer looked up. They were a pale white boy with farm-like clothing and overalls. "Oh howdy, didn't notice ya there. I was just trying to train my Rockruff here but he's really difficult to take care of."
"Is he? Are all Rockruff difficult to take care of?" I question genuinely. The boy shook his head in agreement."Yeah, they sadly are" he continued; "But this particular one is super energetic all the time, it's like he's got his own pace going on. In fact, I got this Rockruff as a gift from someone who's claimed this Rockruff never sticks with a single trainer.
He paused for a moment, catching his breath. "Apparently, every time he finds a trainer they can never keep up with him and give them to someone else to handle. I figured I could handle him since I was a farm boy in Alola and had to endure that type of work, but as it turns out while traveling with my pals he's been a lot more of a hassle then I realized. I may even just have to abandon him."
Wow, that was shocking. I recall Rockruff are really energetic, but I never figured that one would be constantly handed off because no one would take the chance to take care of him properly…
He moved on "In fact, I was training him just now to see if he could make the cut, but I think It's time to let him go." The Rockruff, likely sensing the sadness in his trainers tone, rubbed his neck against the trainer's legs for comfort. And as cute as it looked, it didn't help that Rockruff necks are made out of pure Rock, so that must have hurt like hell…
"Ow. Knock it off Rockruff, that hurts!" The boy backed off from the brown pokemon and thought for a moment. "Yeah, I think I've made my choice." Suddenly, he looked up and smiled happily as he thought of an idea. "Wait a minute stranger, how bout you take care of this Rockruff?"
Wait.. hold on, take care of the Rockruff? I'm not sure if I could handle that, but I was certainly up for it. "Yeah sure, I guess I can give it a shot." I never had a pet before since I was allergic to dog and cat fur, but I wonder if I could do the same for pokemon?
Nodding, the farm boy pulled out a Luxury ball and returned the Rockruff to it. He then walked over to me and handed me the ball. "Wait hold on, this Rockruff was in a Luxury ball? Doesn't that make it more friendly to trainers?" I was certainly caught off guard now.
The farm boy smirked. "Yeah, that's what the original trainer was going for too. But I guess plans change. Anyway, please promise me you'll try to take good care of this Rockruff. I know I couldn't but I want to know the well-being of pokemon will remain safe."
I blinked, looking towards him with my hand still holding the ball. "I promise you. I will never let this pokemon down, and I won't give up!" The trainer was clearly satisfied with my response, so he started walking away.
Left to my own thoughts, I looked around and realized the trainer was fully gone. I pressed the button on the luxury ball and let out the Rockruff, who looked around in confusion. Crouching, I kneeled to his level as he looked at me puzzled.
"Hey bud. Listen, I'm your trainer now, since your previous trainer couldn't take care of you. But I promise you I'll never let you go, we're partners now, alright?" Sadly enough, the Rockruff was used to this sort of thing, so he happily barked "Ruff!" and jumped on me, rubbing his neck around my body and snuggling up to me.
It hurt, it really did. But I had to endure it for the little guy. "Well, now that we've settled that, how about a nickname for you?" The little dog looked up confused. Had it never received a nickname through all of the trainers it went through? I pondered for a moment, thinking of a fitting name before I settled on something good.
"How about I name you Fenrir?" The Rockruff paused it's barking for a moment, thinking about it before jumping around in my arms happily replying with "Ruff, Ruff!". Cool, I guess that's settled then. I held him in my arms and gave him a quick hug before putting him on the ground next to me so we could walk together.
As we walked, I was thinking about how clever it was to name him that. First and foremost, Fenrir is a canine dog/god. So it only made sense to give him a name that demands power. But, much like the mythology, both Fenrirs were considered too much and had to be 'chained down'. But, I want to give him the chance to break free from those chains, together.
"Where have you been Bahamut, you've been gone so long that it's Dusk now!" I snapped back to reality, realizing that Rockruff and I had walked all the way back to our original spot with Amber.
"Sorry Amber, It took a long time to find anything that I could catch without using help from Leo." She stood there for a moment, ready to question me when suddenly Fenrir jumped up and snuggled into her arms. Shocked, she looked up at me. "Wait a moment, you caught a Rockruff? I thought they can't really be found around this area."
"Yeah.. it's a long story. Let's sit down for a moment and I'll tell you all about it"... Moments passed and I finally told her everything about what happened. She sat there for a moment, thinking. "Okay.. so essentially a traveler from Alola was going to Abandon it, but he gave it to you instead?" "Yep" I casually replied.
"Well… I guess that would explain why its ball is a luxury ball. Are you sure you can handle this thing? they're known to be pretty difficult to control, and if this one has been abandoned multiple times because he's way harder to control, that'll be a lot to handle."
"Well Amber, only time can tell if I can or not. But what I do know is I won't be letting him go so easily. I made a promise to that trainer, and I keep my promises." She sat there for a moment, taking it in, until she remembered something. "WAIT A MINUTE! This means you never really caught a pokemon! You were supposed to use your pokemon to catch one!"
I snickered. It took awhile for her to catch on. "Well, I'll just have to try it next time then. I didn't wanna say no to the offer of getting a pokemon for free. Besides, I don't want to put more pressure on Leo right now, he deserves to rest." Her expression seemed to soften with my response.
"Alright, well we still need to head to the next city, so get up and let's go." I nodded, getting up and putting on my backpack. Rockruff stood up waking from its small nap and followed quickly behind me, wagging its tail ever so often and racing ahead and around me during the walk.
Finally, after hours of walking we made it to the city. The welcome sign said 'Welcome to Sinope city! To the South - trimmer forest, North - Cooperville (town) East - Lake Thermodon, and West - Cleave Mountain." There sure are Lots of places to go from here…
"Well, we're here." Amber looked up at me. I could tell she was sad, but we both needed some time apart to process what was going to happen here. "Thanks for being here Bahamut. Even if we decide to not travel together, You're the reason I was able to find courage to leave that small town." For a moment, I saw her smile while saying that, but then turned serious once more.
"Well, the pleasure's been all mine Amber, thank you for being such a good person. I've learnt a lot from you. Oh and also.. Thanks for healing me.. Twice." I motioned towards my body, which still had many bandages and wounds on it.
She giggled, before saying "Well, I should be going. May our paths meet again. And remember to think of others before you do something." I smiled back, I'm glad she was so thoughtful still. "I will Amber.. Goodbye." Then, with a simple wave, she turned towards the city and ran off into the streets, leaving me to myself.
Sighing, I turn to look at Fenrir, who noticed I was upset and was snuggling my leg. I smile, glad to have a new friend; too bad I had to lose one in the process. "Come on Bud, we've got places to explore... and you need a bath". And with that, we both walked ahead into the city, ready to see what would happen next.
Authors notes: Well.. there we go. By the way, sorry for having no trainer battles yet. But I promise you trainer battles will be incorporated in the new few chapters. I hope you all have a wonderful day! Also, turns out this document is about just as long (if not a tad shorter) then chapter 11. Hehe, guess I got carried away.