"Hey you two!" Sapphire was roused from her deep thoughts of her unusual travel companion. She looked around to see a set of twins heading their way, PokéBalls brandished and eyes twinkling with the promise of a battle. "You're trainers right?" The twin on the left chirped.
"Yes we are…" Sapphire answered, slightly hesitant, wondering what she should do; fight these two alone or with Garnet.
"Then that means you will battle us! When trainers' eyes meet, a battle follows!" The right twin contributed to the conversation.
Garnet looked down to the Electrike, who had eagerly bounced forward, his pointed tail wiggling with excitement and eagerness to battle. She was taken aback at the Pokémon's readiness to fight another, but there was a spike of pride in this one, he wanted to prove his worth to her. She crouched by its side in order to whisper to it. "Don't push yourself too hard alright?" After seeing the Pokémon nodding to her impatiently, she stood once more, "Yeah we'll fight you."
The twins jumped in happiness to be facing two opponents. Sapphire - as if on automatic pilot - sent a PokéBall flying, Combusken leapt out of the sphere and landed, ready for the fight ahead.
Titan made to glide forward to take the spot beside the fire chicken, but Garnet held out her hand to the Pokémon, "Let Rayna have her go okay?" The metallic Pokémon nodded, moving back beside Garnet, ready to intervene if the Electrike ran into any problems. The little green Pokémon seemed to be out of place next to the tough Combusken, but her fighting spirit matched that of the larger chicken Pokémon.
The two twins sent out two Pokémon who looked very similar to one another. Garnet was reminded of Pikachu; a small electric rodent from Kanto… these two seemed very similar to the chunky mouse Pokémon, with their bright cheeks, one Pokémon being yellow with red ears, paws, cheeks and a red plus-sign shaped tail. The other was yellow with blue where the other had red, having a minus-sign shaped tail and little minus signs on its cheeks, the first having pluses. Garnet deduced immediately that the two were Electric-types which would make things easy yet difficult for her and Rayna, as her green ally was also an Electric-type.
"Plusle use Helping Hand on Minun!" The first twin called to the red-and-yellow Pokémon, who performed some kind of dance clapping its paws together. Garnet blinked, she had expected an offensive battle - that was what she was used to - but it seemed that these two were going to play that game.
"Minun, use Quick Attack on Combusken!" The second twin called the blue-and-yellow Minun moved quickly towards Combusken.
"Rayna, use Growl on Minun quickly!" Garnet smiled to herself, if they were going to play that game she would follow suit to show them how the game was professionally played. The Pokémon growled deeply, startling Minun, making his attack hit Combusken lightly. The fiery chicken shrugged it off and waited for an attack to be called.
"Plusle use Thunder Wave, slow down Combusken before it attacks!" The Pokémon moved forward, sending a stream of electricity speeding towards Combusken. Garnet looked over to Sapphire, wondering why the girl had not yet made a move.
However, the electricity curved before hitting the Fire/Fighting Pokémon, headed straight for Rayna's tail, striking it directly and being absorbed into the little green Pokémon. "Now Rayna, use that electricity to send back an Electro Ball, aim for the Plusle!" Garnet listened to the Pokémon's explanation of its Ability Lightning Rod. She nodded to herself, filing away the newly learned information for future use.
Sapphire observed Garnet, how she seemed to interact with her Pokémon without speaking a single word. Sapphire had seen people do similar things, but usually it came with gestures or some form of indication on what the trainer was trying to relay. Garnet, on the other hand, seemed to simply delve into the minds of her Pokémon simply by being near them. Sapphire watched as Garnet's amethyst eyes seemed to examine the little Electrike, as if somehow learning about the special Ability the Pokémon had. But… it hadn't seemed like she knew it before as when the electricity veered towards Electrike, there had definitely been a little shock flickering through those very same eyes. Sapphire thought deeply, everything she had observed up to now seemed so… inhuman…
The pulsating ball of electricity smashed into the little Plusle, sadly the effect wasn't too great as Electrike was not much faster than the mousy Pokémon. "Minun, try using Spark on Combusken while Electrike is behind you!" The second mousy Pokémon ran forward, its body being consumed by a layer of crackling electricity.
"Rayna, use Quick Attack to shield Combusken!" The Electrike wheeled around and darted forward, pouncing in front of Combusken and taking the direct hit from Minun, Lightning Rod doing its job once again and boosting Rayna's electrical power. "Now retaliate with Bite!" The green Pokémon lunged forward at the smaller Pokémon, catching it off-guard with the physical attack. "Sapphire, where are you? You need to pay attention or your Pokémon will get hurt!" Garnet looked over to the shocked trainer, "This is why I prefer not to battle alongside humans, they don't keep focussed," She muttered to herself, Sapphire caught most of what she said, picking up on the use of 'humans' in particular.
"Plusle hit Electrike with a Quick attack, get Minun back!"
"Chic, use Double Kick, protect Electrike from Plusle!" Sapphire snapped out of her daze and properly entered the fight. Her Combusken - who had been patiently waiting for an attack to be called - bounced forward, booting the Plusle away from Electrike and following it up by kicking the Pokémon for a second time. Plusle flew backwards, flipping over and over in the air before crashing down and skidding along the ground on its front, coming to a halt at its trainer's feel unmoving.
"Plusle no! Return," The first twin cried out as she returned the little Pokémon to its PokéBall, "you did a great job, well done," She whispered to the capsule.
Rayna flung away the Minun, who teetered on its feet for a few moments before crashing backwards, unable to battle any further.
The second twin mimicked the first's actions, recalling her Pokémon then congratulating it. Garnet blinked in confusion, people only thought of Pokémon as battling tools didn't they? So why were these two youngsters thanking their Pokémon? Why treat a tool like an equal? She turned away from the two in order to think. Everyone in this region seemed so very different to those back in Kanto, where everyone wanted to fight but not paying attention to their partners, focussing on their fashion, success or power gained from experimentation. Those she had met here focussed on these things yes, but they treated their Pokémon like friends rather than possessions. Did all people act this way and she had simply missed it? Surely not…
"Here you go miss, for winning." Garnet turned back to the twins, one had approached Sapphire the other had walked up to her. The little girl held up a few leaves of money, it was not a large amount but decent enough for a simple battle victory.
"Thank you," Garnet said, still somewhat immersed in her own thoughts. She took the money with a smile on her face and the twins skipped off down the route, headed back to Slateport to have their Pokémon healed.
"It's time for you to answer me!" Sapphire bounded forward, Combusken at her side. "What are you?!" Her glare was almost threatening, but Garnet had faced much fiercer foes than this girl.
"That's rather rude isn't it? I'm human just like you, can't you see that?" Garnet spread out her arms and looked insulted at Sapphire, the brunette just rolled her eyes.
"You said 'humans' not five minutes ago! You talk as if humans are something other than yourself! Don't lie to me!" The girl's fury and inquisition was almost a tangible thing now, it coloured the atmosphere.
"Pah, you must have misheard; I said I wasn't a fan of battling with others. Silly of you to think I'm not human, what else would I be? Come on, or we'll never make it to Mauville City." Garnet knelt down and picked up Rayna, petting her new friend in congratulations of winning the battle. As she walked off, Titan floated along behind her.
"Fine, if you won't answer me truthfully, at least tell me why you refuse to use PokéBalls." At this, Garnet turned on her heel, giving Sapphire a serious look, bordering on glare.
"Because I do not agree with forcing Pokémon to do my bidding, to follow me without a choice in the matter, having no control over your own destiny is the worst possible feeling one can have. I refuse to force that upon any Pokémon, I only use PokéBalls when there is no other option open to me. Now can we go or is there another question you wish to ask?" Her voice was flat, void of all emotion as she spoke, the sound sent chills down Sapphire's spine.
"Let's go," Sapphire mumbled as she walked past Garnet.
The two walked in silence along to twisting path, water on each side of them. As they reached the penultimate corner of this wavering path, Garnet smelt something unnatural and paused.
Sapphire kept walking and stumbled over something concealed in the grass. She would have fallen head-first into a trapdoor - which had only just fallen open as Sapphire tripped - but Garnet's right hand grasped Sapphire's left forearm, rebalancing the girl with ease. "Did you not notice something wrong here?" Garnet asked a tint of curiosity in her tone.
Sapphire blinked before crouching down, there was something wrong with the grass here it just didn't smell normal. "Is it synthetic?" She tried pulling a blade of grass from the earth, but it clung to the ground like no grass had ever done before.
"Yes, I wonder…" Garnet looked into the blackness down the trap, the smell of metal wafting up to her from the stale air below. Flashes cut across her mind and she stood, clearing her mind with the fresh scent of the water around her. Her body shuddered and she closed her eyes briefly.
A scream brought Garnet back to the world around her. She glanced around to see Sapphire being taken away by a robotic… thing…
Another flash of memory; a friend, squealing as a trap caught him, his brown eyes wide as she ran forward to aid him, but a second robotic trap headed for her and grasped her in its cold steely grip…
Garnet's eyes narrowed as she watched the girl being taken away, she hopped onto Metang's back. "Come on Titan, let's get her back!" The Steel/Psychic-type zoomed forward, aiming to break the robot. "Hold back, we might hit her with the way this thing is jittering. We'll have to wait until it halts before attacking." So as it was, the two simply followed the device as it neared Mauville City. Garnet examining the strange robot which had a domed glass head, where Sapphire was behind held.
Smaller robots swarmed Garnet and Titan, the latter simply smashing through those which came into contact with it, leaving not one scratch on his body as their shattered parts tinkled down to the ground.
"There, that should catch Donphan with ease!" Wattson turned to his rather strange friend, wondering if what he said was true, that Donphan had been rather distressed and on quite the rampage. "Look there it is! But what's that behind it?"
The old Gym Leader turned to look where Coil-Boy was pointing, he saw the robot hovering towards them, but something seemed to be zooming along behind it. When the robot landed, a Pokémon zoomed forward and used one metal clawed hand to yank open the head of the robot, where a girl fell out.
"What the hell is the meaning of this?!" A second girl with long red hair which swished angrily as she leapt from the back of a Metang, "What the hell do you two think you are doing?!" She was yelling at the two men, anger glowing through her purple eyes. The two stepped back, quite startled by her irate reaction.
"E-Ever so sorry miss, this was meant to capture a Donphan…" Coil-Boy was quite shocked that his device had captured a young trainer instead of the intended Pokémon.
His answer was the last thing he should have said to the angered Garnet, who stormed forward so she was face-to-face with him. "Why send a humungous robot with its own little attacking minions to capture a Pokémon?! What are your intentions?"
"Please calm down miss," Wattson stepped in, seeing Coil-Boy's inability to answer the fuming girl. "There has been a Donphan stampeding around here recently, I wished to capture it to see what was wrong with it, to see if it was hurt or something which would stimulate its behaviour. I enlisted the assistance of a good friend of mine as I could not capture the Pokémon by myself." Garnet's temper seemed to reduce somewhat.
"So was the trapdoor another attempt to capture this Pokémon? Because that could cause more harm than good." She glared at the two men, not approving of the extremes they had gone to in order to capture this Pokémon.
"Trapdoor, what trapdoor?" Coil-Boy asked, his spiral glasses hiding the surprise in his eyes.
"I nearly fell into a hole which opened with some kind of lever. It was hidden in a thick patch of synthetic grass, wasn't that another trap to capture the Donphan?" Sapphire entered the conversation, glancing at Garnet, wondering why she had followed the robot which had caught her; beforehand the redhead hadn't shown much caring for her.
"Could you take me to this patch of grass?" Wattson asked the two girls. His mind whirred quickly, could these travellers have found it?
Garnet was all for not helping these men, still not fully forgiving of their antics, her glare hadn't softened quite yet. "Sure," Sapphire answered, drawing the confused look of Garnet. "I see no reason not to."
"Wattson! You simply have to battle us!" Garnet turned to see a gang of children racing towards the old man, waving PokéBalls in the air as they came. There were a whole bunch of these kids, all huddled around the old man, chirping out their pleas for a battle. "We want to beat the Gym Leader! We won't stop until we do!"
"Alright, alright, you girls don't mind waiting a while do you?" He turned to the two girls, Garnet had gotten a hold of her temper now, but she still didn't much fancy the idea of helping this man out.
"No, I want to see the style of the Gym Leader before I battle anyway." Sapphire shrugged nonchalantly.
Wattson sent out an Electrike, a powerful proud partner. The first opponent sent out a Plusle. The Plusle darted forward quickly, aiming to hit Electrike with a sly Quick Attack. Electrike darted out of the way at the last second, turning on its heel to slam into Plusle, sending it flying out of battle. The next child sent out an Electrike of his own, who aimed to Bite its opponent before the Pokémon could move. Wattson's Electrike lunged forward, mirroring the move and biting the front paw of the child's partner, making the Pokémon recoil violently, Wattson's Electrike then darted forward, sending the Pokémon flying back to its trainer quickly.
The other children sent out their Pokémon one after another. Some sending out Electric-types, others sent out Bug-types, Poison-types and one sent out a Ground-type, but none of the children had any major success. At the end of all the battles Wattson's partner still stood proud. Garnet acknowledged that the children were novice trainers, but still the power of that Electrike resonated with her, she began thinking up a strategy to defeat it once she challenged the Gym Leader herself.
Wattson did a quick head count, then shuffled through his pockets, handing each child who had challenged him a Gym Badge. Sapphire's eyes widened in horror as the children whooped and ran off, echo clutching a shiny new badge they hadn't truly earned.
"What?!" She croaked disbelievingly. "I thought the league rules were that a trainer would not receive a Gym Badge until they defeated the Leader of the Gym! Those children didn't defeat you! They didn't even come close!"
"Sometimes, its persistence and determination which should earn you a badge, not pure power alone. It is true that none of those children defeated me, but they have been training hard and their sole goal was to defeat me, their determination shone in their battling and they care dearly for their Pokémon. That is what a trainer should be like, not a rampaging power-hungry individual who only cares about winning."
Sapphire turned away with a humph and stormed back down the route towards the place they had found the hatch. Garnet followed, trying to see sense in the man's explanation. She saw the morality he was trying to portray, but the optimistic nonsense seemed unbelievable, yes a trainer should be those things, but it was more likely for them to become the power-hungry type.
Sapphire located the patch of grass from the scent it exuded; the girl had quite the sensitive nose it seemed. Garnet didn't pay much attention to the man when he tried to hand them both a Gym Badge, she wasn't going to take a freebee from this man, she was too busy listening to the ground-shaking footsteps which were drawing close to them at a quick rate. Sapphire seemed to also hear the newcomer approaching. The two girls turned to see the Donphan charging towards them. Garnet sensed the distress of the Pokémon so she didn't attempt to make any sudden movements or attack the Pokémon.
The stampeding Pokémon crashed into the four, sending all five of them crashing down into the open trapdoor, being thrown into the blackness of the room below, four of them being sent into the darkness of unconsciousness as they crashed onto the metallic flooring. Rayna hopped down, landing in Garnet's arms - Garnet having landed on her feet like a Persian - Titan lowered himself through the opening to hover by her side.
"What is this place?" She murmured to her friends, listening to the sound-waves echoing through many, many levels of this strange place, it was enormous! Her eyes pierced the darkness; she could see every detail of the underground place. She gasped, completely taken aback at the sight which met her gaze.
"Experiment 334, begin!" She listened to the electronic voice echo through the enormous chamber. She listened to the giant metal doors creek open and a rampaging herd of Tauros galloped towards her.
She didn't feel well at all, her insides felt as if they were ablaze and her head pounded. She looked to her hand, the skin there was palest blue, almost white. Her hands no longer looked human, they closer resembled paws. Her arms were slender much like her frame; she looked as if she hadn't eaten for decades, which was the correct assumption to be made. She stood balanced on the tips of her hind paws, her pose looked like a gust of wind would push her off balance but the leading Tauros crashed into her and she didn't even step backwards. Her long slender tail flicked in irritation, but she refused to use her powers on these Pokémon, choosing instead to allow them to crash into her, allow their horns to slash at her or bury themselves into her skin, leaving great indents which slowly pushed themselves back to normal.
Her ruby eyes looked around, seeing through the mirrors which lined the room, looking at the scientists and the funder, all of whom were glaring at her to watch every move.
"Subject 663, use Psychic on the Tauros take them all out." A human-esque voice called over the intercom system. She ignored it, standing there and letting the enraged Pokémon smash into her slender frame, slashing at her skin and trying to move her, to break her.
But her body never gave, her skin did not split to the weak attacks of the herd, her standing pose never shifted an inch, she didn't even blink as they slammed their horned heads into her stomach. She would not perform for these men like a circus clown. What was a circus again? Ah yes, she recalled the information she had no memory of gaining.
"Experiment 334 end, recall Tauros." Red light enveloped all the attacking Pokémon and she was called back to the adjoining room, where several irritable scientists were talking in immense frustration.
"What we need is a PokéBall!" One yelled, slamming his hands down on the table. "A wild or disobedient Pokémon always conform to the wishes of their trainer! So we need to catch this Pokémon in a PokéBall."
She held up her paw. "Do not refer to me as inferior. I shall not conform to the wishes of anybody! Especially not to perform like a freak for your entertainment."
The scientist pressed a button in the middle of the table, a panel opened in the wall and a jet of black electricity leapt out and struck her. The pulse of darkness sent her to her knees, her guise leaping up around her, in an instinctive attempt to gain sympathy from one of these demons who had some droplet of humanity. Seeing a young girl in pain usually gained some form of sympathy from older humans.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her arms, her white hair concealing her pained expression. "Subject 663; do not attempt to speak of yourself as our equal. You are nothing but a lab-rat, your future is one where humans will control you just like the thing you are. Start acting correctly or we shall be forced to teach you the hard way." The voice was unfeeling as he pressed the button to torture her with the dark energy once again.
PhantomGalaxy13: Thanks for the review once again! I love reading your comments as they pose so many questions that I - as I write - hope the readers will pick up on! I do have a tendency to take canons and smush them together so expect anything from this story xD! I so hope my next few chapters are as informative and thought-provoking! -Iris