Chapter 62: The Big Rift

"You are damned lucky, young man!" the lady doctor snarled as she reviewed the results of the tests she had performed.

For several weeks Lucas had been feeling a blinding pain in his left calf, one he had always dismissed as soreness or exhaustion. Despite Skyler's gentle prodding, and the other symptoms of chills and weakness, Lucas had ignored the problem in favor of continuing his Journey. He promised he'd finally see a doctor after his fight against Mauville's Gym Leader Wattson, and he did, only because he nearly collapsed after winning his Dynamo Badge and had a raging fever.

Ignoring any protest of being 'fine', Skyler dragged the other teen to the medical facility they helped save after Mauville's blackout and forced him to get his leg tested. Now Lucas, with Gizmo finally back on his shoulder after weeks of strange behavior, and Skyler sat in the doctor's office while the young female doctor chastised her irresponsible patient, "You have a huge abscess in your leg. Do you have any idea what that means?" Lucas shook his head, "It means a pocket of infected fluid, and it's been building up for weeks. Your leg could have gone gangrene and we'd have to amputate it. Or worse, the infection could have spread to your bloodstream and you would have died. I understand being a Pokemon Trainer is relatively safe, but only if you don't ignore your health!"

Lucas looked down at his calf. It was bright red like it was sunburned and unbelievably swollen. And it hurt worse than it looked, like the sting of a thousand Tentacool. He was also sweating from his fever and trembling slightly from a chill, "So what do you have to do?"

"First I'm going to put you on antibiotics, strong ones, ones I'll have to inject. Then we're going to have to drain that leg so no more infected fluid will build up. And then you're going to stay and rest until I say so and make sure every last bit of that bacteria is gone and won't attack your leg any more," the woman said sternly as she wrote down the orders for her patient on a clipboard. Next the doctor called in a nurse to begin treatment.

First Lucas was checked into a room and given an IV. In addition to being infected, he also was dehydrated from the road and the fever. Next the doctor returned with another two nurses who got ready to drain his leg. First they gave him an anesthetic in the skin before lancing his leg with an even larger needle. He thought all his tattoos would prepare him for the experience, but he felt faint and gagged as the massive hollow tube plunged into his flesh. He tried to look brave in front of Skyler for his own sense of pride as well as to not cause his friend more worry but the liquid that came out of his body smelled so bad he wretched and was a disgusting brownish green laced with blood. The procedure lasted fifteen minutes but felt much longer as Lucas watched and waited for the horrible gunk to finally be out of his body. His leg was bandaged and he waited for the doctor to return to give him more information.

He sat in the cot and petted Gizmo to calm himself down as the woman came back into the room, "Your leg is clear now so the swelling should start coming down soon, as should the fever. You'll need to be on the antibiotics for at least a week. I can also give you some painkillers if your leg is still hurting too badly,"

"Nah, it's fine, it actually doesn't hurt so bad now. My leg always felt better when I rested, so it only hurts about as much as that. I just wonder how the hell this happened anyway. Why would that abscess thing even form, anyway?" Lucas asked.

The doctor scratched her nose with her pen, "Abscesses are usually the result of another injury. A small cut or scratch that gets infected and then the infection builds and builds. Did you get hurt recently?"

"Well, I did, actually. A few weeks ago I got bitten in Dewford, but when I went to a doctor there they bandaged it up and said it was fine," the Trainer replied.

"Did you remember to keep the bandages clean and dry?"

"I guess I did, I mean, I walked through a lot of brush and rode in the ocean and stuff, but the cuts closed up okay so I thought it was fine,"

"Ah, that explains it. Unfortunately in the tropics like Hoenn it's really hard to keep things clean. The heat and the humidity makes it a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. When you exposed yourself to the elements like that some new bacteria probably got into the wound before it closed up. You don't want that to happen again so I suggest you still around here until you're really better. And that's when I say so,"

"Fine," the Trainer grumbled. While the idea of sticking around for weeks at a time and not getting back on the road to train didn't seem very fun, he also found the doctor too intimidating to disobey. The doctor left soon after and he and Skyler talked for a while while Lucas continued to pet Gizmo. After a few minutes Lucas noticed there was something wrong with his Eevee. His ears were drooped and he refused to face his Trainer. It was just like how he was behaving for the past few weeks before coming around at New Mauville. The teen picked up his Pokemon, "Gizmo, what's the matter?" The normal type squirmed out of his grip and bolted out the open door. The Trainer rushed after him, jerked backwards by the IV in his arm and collapsing on the ground from his still weak leg, "Gizmo!"

"Lucas, hold on!" Skyler said worryingly. The teen ignored his friend and crush and forced himself to stand on his still weak leg. He was cursing himself now for turning down the painkillers and bit back a scream as he grabbed the IV stand not just to act as a crutch, but the keep the needle from ripping his arm again. With surprising speed for a hobble, Lucas rushed after his running Pokemon, tuning out the orderlies and doctors who were yelling at him not to leave.

Gizmo was a fast Pokemon, but the Trainer refused to let the Eevee escape his sights, run-limping after the Pokemon as he ran through Mauville City to the northern edge of town that became Route 111. Lucas kept yelling the normal type's name, but the Pokemon kept ignoring him, running further and further away. Pain and weakness kept slowing the teen down, and he was once again breaking out into sweaty chills, but he had to find him, he had to find Gizmo. Finally outside of town Lucas found the renegade creature, sitting on a rock just off the road under a shady tree. His head was down and his ears drooped and once again refused to look at his Trainer, "Gizmo what is going on?" Lucas yelled, anger an easier emotion to face than the fear that was threatening to boil up.

The Eevee still refused to look at him, and scooched away when Lucas held out his hand to try to touch him. Lucas couldn't stand any more, and plopped onto the rock, once again the Eevee moved away from him, "I-I'm not actually mad, Gizmo. It's just, you're scaring me buddy. What's wrong, why are you acting like this? Are you sick? In pain? I'll help you pal, you just gotta give me some kind of sign. Please..."

The Eevee refused to face his Trainer, huddling himself down and just out of reach. Lucas feared if he pushed his Pokemon too far he would bolt again, and in the thick forest and hampered by his leg, he could easily lose Gizmo forever. A series of huffs and snaps of twigs caused the teen to look back from where he came from, Skyler out of breath and sweating as he caught up to his friend, "Lucas, what is God's name are you doing? I mean, the doctor literally just said not to go anywhere,"

The anger quickly faded from his face as he saw the fear in Lucas' eyes, "I don't give a goddamn about me right now. Something is wrong with Gizmo, or did you not see him bolt?" The teen turned back to the Eevee and pulled out the Pokeball he kept as a pendant around his neck, "I'm just going to recall you and we'll go back to the Pokemon Center and then we'll fix what's wrong, okay?"

The normal type finally turned around and faced his Trainer. He wasn't scared or in pain, but the expression on his small face was anguished. Skyler took a step forward and put his hand on Lucas' shoulder, "I think I know what's going on," Lucas looked pleadingly at his friend. The teen was so worried he didn't even stop to think about his crush touching him again, "Don't you remember what you and the doctor were saying? You're sick now because of an injury you sustained before, an injury you said was the result of a bite. The bite you got in Dewford was caused by Gizmo. He's feeling guilty again because he knows you're sick again because of him,"

It made sense. Gizmo's behavior from before was because of guilt. The Pokemon felt so bad that since leaving Dewford Town he was reluctant to get near his Trainer. For weeks Lucas tried to get his Pokemon to understand what had happened wasn't his fault, as the bite was a result of Team Cosmic's sonic device. While saving New Mauville and facing off against his ex Marcia, it seemed Gizmo had moved passed it. That he and his first Pokemon were as close as they once were. Now it seemed they were back to square one. Worse because now Gizmo had run away, "Gizmo, buddy, this isn't your fault. I told you, the bite wasn't your fault. You were sick, that thing hurt your head, hell, it hurt my head. And this isn't your fault either. I'm the moron who didn't take care of myself. You know how bad I am about that,"

The Eevee didn't move from his spot, still looking at his Trainer sadly and refusing to allow Lucas to touch him. Lucas' mind was quickly flooded with panic as he realized what his Pokemon was doing.

"I'm not mad, Gizmo! I'm not mad! I swear to God I don't blame you for anything. You don't need to leave, you don't need to run away. I don't want to get rid of you!" Lucas' voice cracked as desperation and fear overwhelmed him. The teen had been hurt, rejected and heartbroken many times in his life: by his boyfriends and girlfriends, by his parents, but was happening now hurt worse than any of that before, "Unless...this is because you don't want to be my Pokemon anymore," The words almost choked him, "I can release you, if that's what you want. I can do it right, not like the way your asshole first Trainer did it. Is that—is that what you want me to do?"

Time seemed to stop for that moment as Lucas waited for the Eevee to react. Memories of meeting Gizmo on a rock similar to one they were sitting on in Eterna Forest, how sick and weak he was. Their first Gym match together, the time he had met Gizmo's original Trainer at a party outside of Hearthome City, where Lucas was almost arrested and had cried for the only time since he was seven years old and how the Pokemon had comforted him. How they watched the sea together when they took the ferry to Hoenn just a few months ago. Lucas didn't breathe, didn't blink, watching for Gizmo to indicate what his decision would be. Finally, he made his thoughts known.

With his ears drooped and his face sad, he took a single, tiny step towards his tattooed Trainer. Lucas did everything not to break down as he scooped up the small dog-like creature and clutched him to his face and chest, "I'm glad you're not leaving me Gizmo, I love you so much. No matter what you do, even if it is your fault, which it's not, you never ever have to leave me. I will never get rid of you, no matter what,"

Gizmo chirped a tiny 'vii' and curled up against Lucas' face, and finally took back his place on his Trainer's shoulder. After a few moments of sentimentality, Skyler interrupted the touching scene, "I'm glad you two worked this out. It's always important that a Trainer and their Pokemon are in tune. That being said, Lucas, if you don't go back to the medical facility right this second, I'm going to knock you silly,"

"I'd like to see you try," The teen smirked in reply. The adrenaline and emotion subsiding Lucas started to feel woozy again, and the powerful antibiotics the doctor gave him left him nauseated, "Joking aside, I'm ready to go back. Just...I think I'm going to need your help again,"