Hello again everyone! I hope you had a good weekend. Today's chapter is on the shorter end, but I would like to think that it's action packed.
Wizpig12321: I'm glad you like the concept! I find that my stories do tend to end up similar, so hopefully you end up liking this. Grammar is something I pride myself on, second to word choice. As far as chapter length I do what I do because I feel that the longer I write a chapter for the worse it tends to get. If I write for too long at once I get tired and make mistakes, and if I split it up between sessions the ideas get disjointed. Ues, it is the same universe as the others. The telepathy being done that was was an experiment that I think failed. Going in I will use quotation marks as I would for normal dialogue.
On with the show!
I don't know how long I slept. When I opened my eyes it was still dark, as the sun had not yet risen. I did not feel rested, my muscles stiff and thoughts panicked. I set off, my mind unfocused.
"You have lost time, they awoke early and I had no way to rouse you." The Alakazam's voice rang clear. "After you stop at the pool you will only be ten or so minutes ahead of them." I grimaced. This was all going wrong. I redoubled my pace, urging myself onwards.
I ran for an hour before I saw it. The reflecting pool was unmistakable, it's waters perfectly still. I slowed to a walk as I approached the edge of the lake. I gazed down at my reflection, and saw myself. Not the me I was now, but the me I was before, only three days ago, before it was all ripped away.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I had lost so much. I had adjusted to this body, something I had told myself I hadn't wanted. With a pang I realized my mom had evaded my thoughts for all of yesterday.
"No matter your form, you are still human inside. Joshua had embraced the animal, but you must do the opposite. Remember this." The Alakazam said in my mind. "Now, once you are ready, go. Run until they catch up, which is at this point inevitable. Find a place to fight on your terms.
I still stared, gazing at the me that was. "Will I ever go back?" I wondered aloud, sniffling as the tears ran down my face. There was only silence as my answer.
I shook my head to clear the tears from my eyes. Sadness had been replaced by a heavy sense of dread. I turned and ran, scared once more for my life.
If I hadn't been watching in front of me as closely I might have ran into him. The massive Houndoom, towering over me. I stopped on a dime, refusing to back up as I met his gaze.
"Coward." He rumbled, his eyes burning with hatred. "Prey." He almost spat the word at me.
"You call it cowardice, I call it self preservation." I retorted. I wanted no more to just turn and run, but something made me stay. He snorted, smoke exiting his nose as he did. I glanced around. I was surrounded, every possible escape walled off with bodies.
I heard a laugh behind me. I turned around to see that it was Jos - no, I refused to use that name. It was him, the ungrateful bastard.
"I should have left you in the cliff to starve." I said, my eyes fixed in him.
He laughed once again. "And you didn't, because you're weak. You've always been weak. You could never defend yourself from me. You still can't."
He lowered himself into something resembling a fighting stance. In an instant he pounced at me, bowling into me and knocking me on my back. I lashed out with my rear legs, pushing him away for long enough to right myself. The surrounding pokemon had moved with us, keeping us in the center of the circle.
He growled, a surprisingly guttural sound for something his size, and then leapt again, jaws open. I felt them snap shut on my leg, and I cried out in pain. I headbutted him, and pulled my leg out as his grip loosened.
In that moment I had clarity. He was attacking savagely, but with little forethought, as an animal would attack. Humans mastered nature through rational thought. I had to do the same.
He was preparing to pounce again. I quickly backed up, making more distance than he could leap. He had to change his stance to rush forward, going for a charge.
I dodged slightly to the side, shooting out a leg to trip him as he tried to correct his direction. He was sent careening to the ground, rolling into a tree. He roared at me, this sound much less threatening than the growl as his voice cracked during it.
I went in the offensive, pushing my advantage by feigning lunges, only to pull back instead of springing forward. After the third feint I attacked for real, slamming into him and pushing him back several feet.
I carried through my momentum, ending up on top of him. He gazed up at me, fear in his eyes. I kicked him in the face, knocking him out.
It was only as the glow began to condense around me that I realized where we had ended up. Three feet to my left was the Moss Stone.
The light intensified, coalescing in me as I gazed at the stone, not fully comprehending what was happening to me.
Bones shifted. Muscles grew rapidly to fill in the gaps. I heard a low hum, and felt a prickly sensation all over. My vision blurred then refocused, but everything was tinted green.
As suddenly as it had begun, it ceased. I felt invigorated, as though the fight and the run leading up to it had never happened. Everything seemed to have shrunk, or had I grown?
I looked down at myself. My fur had changed to a lighter color, and there was a leaf like a tuft of fur growing from my chest.
I had evolved.