Chapter 18: Desolated

Point of View Kana

It was now dawn and Alex was freaking out because Black was now missing again. Sadly for Alex he would not find Black this time and he will never know the true reason he left us. There was a lite sprinkle of rain coming from the gloomy clouds in the sky and the rain cooled down the overall temperature around us. I looked off into the distance and noticed Flare sitting in the grass looking devastated from losing his friend. I decided to walk towards him and see if I could cheer him up a little.

"Hey how are you holding up" I asked in a calm yet cheerful voice.

"Wonderful" Flare said bluntly. Obviously he was being sarcastic with me, which is actually strange for him since he never uses sarcasm.

"I know it sucks that he couldn't stay with us. I really wish things could of worked out for him and besides we may run into one of these day's and things may have cleared up for him and maybe he can join back up with us" I said trying to cheer up Flare.

"Were not going to see him again Kana" Flare said.

"And what makes you so sure of that?"

"Because he promised me that we would never see each other again and I think he knows how things are going to go for him" Flare said in a depressed voice.

"You don't know that. He will be fine I'm sure he will find a way to fix his problems, I'm sure of it" I said even though deep down inside I knew that Black would probably be dead by the end of the month. Flare just sat there not even looking at me as the rain slowly drizzled onto his face and drenched him in the cold substance.

"The weather today sure does feel right" Flare mumbled to himself.

Point of View Black

I slowly awoke in an alley. The first thing I noticed was that I was drenched in water and I was freezing from it. I looked up and quickly noticed that it was raining and the sky was very gloomy and that the weather would probably be like this all day. I got up onto my feet and stretched my body out a bit and cracked my back a little in the progress. I quickly noticed my neck was a little sore from the awkward position I was sleeping in. I then shook off the water that drenched my black fur and headed out of the alley.

Once I exited the alley I quickly remembered where I was. I was in some small country town outside of Luminose city that goes by the name of Camphrier, most of the building where small little houses that looked a little worn down but they didn't look to horrible, most of them where made of gray bricks. As much as I loved being in small towns with a bunch of humans, I decided it was time for me to start heading out.

I then began following the main route that led outside of the town. Along the main route was a descent sized lake that followed the route as far as the eye could see. I was now outside the town and I was alone once again. After a few minutes of walking I stopped and decided to get a drink of water out of the lake. I walked over towards it observed it carefully to make sure it was a safe source of drinking water. It looked almost crystal clear so I should be safe, at least it wouldn't be the worst water I've drank in my life. I took a couple big gulps of the water until I felt fairly hydrated. I then looked out into the distance and observed the scenery of the lake, I could easily see the other side and it had a big tree line following the river as far as I could see. The rain was drizzling atop the lake and causing small wakes across the whole lake.

I then looked down and observed my reflection. All I really noticed was my crimson eyes or as many would say my bloody red eyes. I really hated it when people related the color of my eyes to blood, the main reason being that I slightly had hemophobia, which is a fear of blood. I wasn't scared of a little blood I was only afraid when there was a lot of blood. The weird thing is that I fell normal around my own blood, which tends to make my fear of blood a little odd in my opinion. I do try my hardest to make sure no one knows I actually have this fear because I don't want to show any signs of weakness in front of anyone.

I then decided it was time to stop gazing upon my reflection and get a move on and make some good distance between me and my old team. I continued walking along the route as I reflected on the past few days I've spent with my team and how I was actually dumb enough to believe I could live a happy life even for a little bit.

"You should really stop beating yourself up" I heard a familiar voice say from behind me. I then quickly turned around to see a familiar male jolteon standing behind me.

"You" I said in surprise to what I was seeing.

"What aren't you happy to see me" he said sounding a little disappointed in my response of seeing him.

"No" I said in an annoyed voice.

"And why's that?"

"Because me seeing you is proof that I am insane and I need mental help" I said in a pissy voice. I did want someone to talk to but I wasn't so desperate that I was going to talk to a hallucination of my dead brother.

"Well you are rude as ever" he said sounding offended by my comments. I just simply kept walking along the path trying to ignore him. He quickly caught up to me and walked alongside me keeping an equal pace to mine even when I purposely sped up.

"So you are going to ignore me" the jolteon said in an annoyed voice.

"Uh huh"

"Well I'm sorry that I'm not good enough for you to talk too" He said in a fake sad voice.

"Oh Mew just save it and at least let me pretend I am at least a little sane" I said finally losing my patience with the hallucination.

"Just because you lost all of your friend's doesn't mean you have to take it out on me. I'm just here to cheer you up a little on this gloomy day"

"Shut up before I drawn myself in that lake" I said. He just nervously laughed at what he probably assumed to be a joke. There was an awkward silence between us for the next few minutes and all I could think of was how much he was pissing me off just by being near me.

"So what's your plan now? Just wonder the world until the end of time" He asked.

"Yeah until the end of fucking time buddy now go away" I said trying to get him to realize he was unwanted here.

"Well I think you can do better than that. I remember you use to be so creative when we were younger and now you say that's your great plan" He said belittling my method of thinking.

"Yeah if you don't like it then go away" I said with a growl in my voice.

"If you follow that plan you are just going to be reduced to nothing but a shell of your former self and eventually get yourself killed or captured by those pokemon Ryder."

"Yeah well I'm already dead and second off my name is no longer Ryder" I said annoyed with him trying to act like he knew everything.

"Well Kaz isn't your name either its mine and yet you used it for quite some time as your own name and now you go by Black don't you? But you are probably going to change your name again aren't you, what name are you going to choose next to start your new life again" he said in a slightly angered voice.

"I don't know and I don't care."

"Ryder do you even know why you stole my name" he asked me in a voice that indicated he already knew the answer.

"I don't know I guess I just liked it and I needed a new name to hide my identity from Vincent." I said in an annoyed voice.

"I think you stole it to hide your identity and you stole my name out of guilt" He said.

"Shut the hell up" I snarled in a vicious voice that made the jolteon go quiet.

"Stop talking like you fucking know me okay. You are some warped form of my conscience so leave me the hell alone and stop haunting me" I shouted. My dead brother still sat there in silence.

"If I am your conscience then obviously I know you because that would make me a part of you. And I am very much alive in your memories. So maybe it would be best for you if you stop trying to forget everything and accept everything that's happened and move on with your life" The jolteon said.

"How the hell am I supposed to move on if I constantly have some screwed up group of pokemon which includes my brother constantly trying to capture me and do Mew knows what to me" I was now very annoyed with his method of thinking and I could not fathom how my conscience is so annoying and oblivious to my own problems.

"Just leave" I muttered. I had my head turned away from him and I was refusing to make eye contact with that damn hallucination.

"You know you should really hear me out more often I actually know a thing or two on how to help you out, but if that's how you want to be then so be it" I heard him say in a disappointed voice. I then turned to look at him and he was now finally gone. I looked around everywhere to make sure he wasn't just hiding or something odd like that.

"Finally" I said to myself followed by a sigh of relief. I really wish I would stop having hallucinations of my dead brother it was rather… annoying.

I continued walking along the route while being soaked by the rain and hoped that I would come across some shelter from the rain soon.

Point of View Flare

Alex was still anxiously looking for Black while everyone else pretended to look for him even though we all knew we weren't going to find him.

"Black" Alex yelled as loud as he could. It was obvious he was nowhere and I could tell Alex was now beginning to accept that. After all there is only so many places a black umbreon with blue rings can hide in a big open plain of grass.

"He's gone" I heard Alex say in a devastated voice. I could tell he was heartbroken about this ordeal and I was as well. No one besides Gray really wanted Black to leave. Alex just sat there in the rain in silence looking down at the ground.

"This must really be hard on him" I heard Kana say from behind me. I turned around and saw her standing right next to me just as soaked from the rain as I was. Despite the fact that jolteon's kind of have spiky fur patterns her fur was now even spikeier from the rain and it would have been hysterical if I wasn't in such a bad mood.

"Yeah I know he won't even ever know why he truly left us" I said to Kana.

"I'm just glad we are no longer in danger because of that freak" Gray said from off in the distance as he walked towards us.

"Gray just stop it" Kana said in a serious voice.

"Why it's true. We are now safe and he will no longer plague us with misfortune and we may be able to live decent lives without him destroying our lives" Gray said with a grin on his face.

"Gray I swear to all the legendaries if you don't stop…" Then Gray interrupted Kana "You will do what hurt me, Kana you couldn't even defend yourself against a weak little charmander and on top of that you got hospitalized by one hit from a fire ball. So stop talking like you are threatening and learn your place house pet" Gray said with a cold voice. I was now shocked by how he was treating Kana. Kana looked very defeated by that insult and I was not going to let him just treat everyone like crap.

"What is your problem Gray? Now that Black is gone you have to find a new victim to treat like crap. I'm telling you now this is going to stop and you are going to treat your teammates with respect" I said in serious voice trying to talk some sense into him.

"What you think I need to bully people to get by? I just don't want her talking out of line that's all and why the hell is she defending that umbreon in the first place. She agreed with me that we needed to get rid of him." Gray said.

"That's not true is it Kana" I looked at her face and from her expression I could tell Gray was not lying. I couldn't believe that Kana also agreed on getting rid of him and I now felt kind of betrayed by one of my closest friends because she didn't even talk to me about that once.

"Kana why" I asked in a saddened voice.

She just looked at me with a very sad gaze "Flare I have nothing against Black but if he stayed with us we could all end up dead and he even knew that" She said.

"But Black was one of us" I retorted.

"He is not one of us Flare. What kind of teammate gets his team killed, he left us so he could go die in some crap hole like he deserves" Gray said with a spiteful voice. Then Kana tackled gray as hard as she could and sent him to the ground and covered him in mud.

"The hell Kana" Gray shouted. Then Gray stood up as tall as he could and his shadow overlapped Kana as he looked down at her as if he was about to kill her. Kana looked up at him in fear and shrunk down in size.

"You are going to regret that" Gray said with a spiteful voice.

"What Gray you going to do what you did to Black to her now" I shouted in anger at Gray as I got ready to defend Kana.

"What's going on over there" Alex shouted towards us as he observed the imminent fight about to occur.

Gray then rolled his eyes at us and began walking away. "Do that again Kana and I'll put you back in the pokecenter" he said as he stomped away. Kana just stood there in shock that Gray almost attacked her.

"Why did you do that" I asked Kana. I was concerned for her but that was a really dumb move on her half.

"Because I just couldn't stand listening to him talk like that. I did agree on getting rid of Black for our safety but I knew Gray just wanted to get rid of him for the wrong reasons" Kana said with a trembling voice.

"Well just be thankful that Alex noticed the fight and stopped it because I don't know if I would have been able to protect you from him." Kana just stood there shaken up from almost getting hurt for a few minutes before she spoke another word.

"Flare" Kana asked finally breaking the silence between us.

"Yeah" I replied.

"You mentioned that Gray did something to Black. What did he do to him" She asked curiously.

"Well you may have noticed the snake like scar on Black's chest."

"Gray did that! Why would he do something like that" Kana said in a scared voice upon realizing what I was getting at.

"Because Gray was being racist towards Black and he retaliated physically and Gray didn't respond to well to that. Kind of like what you did back there a few minutes ago."

"I always wondered how he got that scar but I never would have guessed he got it from him" Kana said in a shocked voice.

"Yeah Gray needs some serious help and he is probably more dangerous having around then those psychopaths after Black" I said.

"Well Gray will get what he has coming one day I can promise that" Kana said with a small smile on her face.

We then both started walking towards Alex so we could go back to pretending to help find Black. Off in the distance the sun was finally starting to shine through the rainy clouds and finally shined some light on our crappy day.

Chapter End

Author Note: I would like to state an apology on this chapter. I accidentally said Black had a homophobia when I meant to say Hemophobia... Huge huge huge type and I'm sorry if I offended anyone who read this chapter in the past. That's a rather embarrassing type.