22
My sleep was heavenly. I was in a soft dream-like state, surrounded by the purest and most cheerful of thoughts. How I may live on with Serena, Sakura fine with her job, and Markus peacefully together with… Abby. Rachamim was nowhere to be found, probably doing amazing on his pokémon journey, and I never thought of Draxik. Maybe he resolved all his problems.
But the dreams are shattered, like a boulder colliding with a stained glass window. A scream penetrates my ears and wakes me instantly. A scream of such agony and volume that I feel like stepping back until I can't hear it. But I don't, because it isn't some person strolling through the woods. It is a friend at camp.
Markus.
I grab my sword and dash toward him, not bothering to wake up Serena or Veera, who must of came over after we were asleep. I run, and I hear another scream. I huddle on the ground, feeling surges of emotion running through me, and realize that while I feel this way, his screaming is verbal, not through telepathy. This gets me up faster and running farther as I unsheath my sword, until I come to a clearing that is a few hundred feet away from the camp.
I find Markus desperately fighting off an arcanine, whom I don't recognize, but from how Markus is fighting it, he seems angry. I hide behind a small tree and peek out the side, katana at the ready for when the arcanine might jump near me.
The clearing is large enough for Markus to perform some serious acrobatics, but small enough for fire attacks to be almost on target at all times. The arcanine is shooting off random fire attacks at Markus as he jumps around, back and fourth through the trees. Arcanine has a few bruises and is bleeding lightly, while Markus has a huge gash across his right side and a slash mark on his left leg. I keep watching when I see Markus jump at the tree I am hiding behind, and stop in front of it. A few drops of blood land on my hand, just where his tear drops landed earlier that day.
"What are you doing here?" Asks Markus, trying to stand up straight, but as the blood leaks down his side, he yelps, and just hunches over in a weak sense. Wait, I think to myself, Did I just hear him talk and understand him? How is that possible?
"I have never yet mated, and I shall as soon as possible. You took that chance away from me!" Yells the arcanine, and he shoots a flamethrower at Markus, the horizontal pillar of flame raging at him, and unfortunately, I as well.
Markus jumps out of the way with ease, but I jump down just in time to evade being engulfed in the flame.
I look up and see that the arcanine has noticed me. "Well, a human. With a stupid sword. Toasting you will be fun." I don't let on that I hear him, but I know what is about to happen. I'm about to get hit full on by a fire blast.
He is about 20 feet away. I can't hope to dodge in time for the fire blast to not touch me, yet I can't charge him either. I just have to get hit. As I stare at him, I feel like life is slowing down. I watch the fire shoot out at me, it taking its cross like shape with the bottom split down the middle. I watch it as it flies at me and I just put the sword forward, ready to die in a dignified stance, when something happens that I won't ever forget.
Markus jumps in the way.
Time stops more than long enough for me to realize what happened. I slowly watch as the flame covers him and hits him dead on, but also something else. Something about this flame is tangent, as it flings its "limbs" over him, attempting to hit his back, but hit me dead on.
We go flying back into a huge tree, and land on the wet muddy ground, burns covering me. I push myself over to the side and try to sit up and look at Markus. I gasp.
His body is… disturbing, and hard to describe. The fire made gashes everywhere on his body. Waist, side, part of his face, neck, legs, everywhere. But, there is no blood, just the images of red hot flesh seemingly painted on his skin, cauterized by the heat.
His face is disturbing. Its almost like he isn't the same pokémon I once knew. I don't even see the right half of it, his eye is even burnt shut. I have to keep myself from looking away, but I keep looking, and feel like crying. Markus… no…
"Raizu," he says. He talks, but his mouth is hardly moving.
I kneel down next to him and look at him with overwhelmingly sad eyes. "Don't talk. I'll get you out of here."
"Can… you understand me? Oh good." He coughs, blood splattering on the ground. "Please, tell Alexis… I'm sorry I couldn't see her one last time."
This was all too sudden, and I wasn't sure what to do. I decided that trying to reassure him was the best thing to do. "No, you are getting up and seeing her again. Abby too." I try to pick him up, but he's too heavy, the dense fur being laced with steel, which is what makes him part steel. And too heavy to move.
"I wish I could… believe… that…" He slowly closes his eye and stops any movement. I try to pick him up again, and I find it easier now. I press two fingers against a part of his neck that wasn't burned, and feel around a bit.
The pulse is gone.
I just sit there for what feels like a century. Markus is gone? It can't be. I look at his body, horribly disfigured and seemingly melted, I shudder. A moist feeling reaches my face and I bring my hand to it, and wipe off the salty stream of water falling out of my eyes. Tears…
"Is this the first time a friend has died in battle?" Says the arcanine, at me I assume. I look at him, crying, probably looking pitiful.
"You are so worthless. Are you really a trainer? You care too much about your pokémon."
My tears stop.
"You think its possible to go on this grand and wondrous journey with all of your pokémon when you cry over the loss of one?"
My heart starts to pound hard and fast. My ribs already feel broken, yet I feel no pain.
"Humans think of pokémon as tools. We battle, are defeated, and shoved into a fuck small ball that is meant to protect us."
My hands start to shake, but I can't tell why. My sword feels lighter than before.
"Humans are the enemy to nature, because they just take things, and make them their own, disregarding what they were meant to be. They look at how they are meant for HUMANS, and nothing else!"
My gaze drifts away from the arcanine, and back at Markus. Less than a minute, and the dark, cold muddy ground has already sucked away the heat from his body. I grip the sword harder, it feeling as light as a feather now. I stand up and glance at the arcanine. My eyes beam a look of… anger… at the arcanine. He actually stumbles back and looks at me, but regains his composure instantly.
"This is rich. Are you gonna fight me? A human can't possibly fight a poké-" He stops talking instantly. I don't realize what I did until after it happened. I blink.
I find myself at the arcanine's mouth, my sword shoved straight through its head, and blood gushing out its mouth. I draw my arm and sword out of it, and it falls over, slowly but surely, with a resounding thud.
I look at my arm and sword, both soaked in blood, the crimson liquid seemingly slathered on me like a batter over chicken ready to be fried. I grin, an evil grin. One I hope to never smile again.
I turn back and look at Markus, who is still on the ground. I walk over to him calmly and drop the sword on the muddy forest floor, the blood slowly crawling off of it into the mud. I kneel down over him and just cry, letting out all the water my eyes have to give. I'm still not angry. I had… a spark of irritation… when I killed arcanine… but now I am simply sad.
It starts to rain. Even as the water pelts my back and Markus, I can still see my tears on his body, running off of him on to the ground.
I hear some running foot steps and turn around to find Draxik behind me. "What is it!?" I scream.
He looks at the arcanine, then at the sword and my arm, and finally at me. He squints, and gasps. "We need to talk."
I give him an amazed look, disturbed at how insensitive he is being. "My… best friend… just died in front of my eyes, I've murdered someone, and haven't even washed the blood off of me yet. I'm burned on my back, and my sword is soaked in blood and sticking out of the ground… and you have to TALK!?" I keep my voice a plain tone, not sounding angry or sad, but normal.
He nods.
--
He practically rips me away from Markus, who is still laying on the mud, that now even worse than before, as he slowly sinks into it. I know he won't sink all the way in, but I want to leave him somewhere decent. I don't want to remember his body in it's best condition… not slathered in mud and gore.
But Draxik is too strong. No matter how much I struggle, he doesn't release his hold on me. He sets me down on a log that is behind too many trees for me to see Markus, and stands in front of me.
I give him a combination of a hurt look and an angry gaze, when I realize that tears are still streaking down my face, even in this rain. "Why are you doing this to me!?" I yell.
"Don't raise your voice." He slaps me. It didn't hurt, but it got my attention. I look up at him, and watch as the rain soaks his hair and clothes slowly. The midnight blue color of his kimono soaks up the rain, looking almost a pure black, as space looks. "You need to know… about my family's curse. And how you are tied into it."
I raise an eyebrow. I honestly completely forgot he was cursed. "Why does it involve me?"
"Just shut up for a second and think. Have you seen me get very emotional around you guys?"
I think for a second, and realize he hasn't. He's seemed concerned, but never truly seemed to care until he started coming with us. I tell him such.
"This is because of my curses nature. When I picked up… your soul… in the tower, my curse joined with you, and now you and I have the same problem."
I simply raise my eyebrow at him, still not sure what is going on. "What is the curse?"
"It isn't like the ninetails curse, which is more of a disease. Ours has its own checks and balances. Whenever you feel an intense emotion, your abilities increase greatly. If your sad, you think on a higher level. If your angry, you gain strength. If your happy, you just have better reaction time in general, etc.. This is why I keep my emotions in check. Obviously, you haven't done such."
I look at him with an odd look and tilt my head, the tragedy that happened mere minutes ago almost out of my head. "Why is this bad?"
"The more often you unleash… these powers, you destroy yourself even more. The curse has been in my family for generations, as it was given to us long ago, when a man in our family, an evil man, defeated a gengar in battle, wielding a sword alone. When it died, instead of letting its soul go on, he captured it in this sword." He shows his scabbard.
"When he did this, the gengar must not have died completely, as it gave the sword power, and cursed the man. His was the same as us, and he carried the sword around everywhere. And it was discovered that he… started two different families… one via a marriage and the other via rape. It was cruel, but the people in the family of the marriage all have the curse, and are doomed to pass it on every generation. Until all of the family of the Raped have been killed. And don't misunderstand this; HE was raped by a woman, seduced. THAT family is actually the founder of Team Rocket. I am on this trip to discover… as it isn't told to us the last name of the family that founded Team Rocket… who the family is, and destroy all of its members, and then… we won't be suffering anymore."
"When that happens, the gengar will be release from the sword, and become the partner of whoever releases him, and dies with him. I suppose now YOU will have to keep yourself in check, until one of us finds him, for as soon as my family is… relieved of the curse… I'm sure you will too."
I don't seem as fazed as I figured I would be, discovering I'm killing myself going on these weird trances, and how the history for this is so deep, but I do know that I need to keep myself in check. I get up and simply ask, "Okay, I understand the situation. But I must pour myself out one last time. For Markus' sake."
He smiles. "You needn't worry, as saddness hardly has adverse affects, where as anger can be deadly in of itself." He walks back toward camp, but I stop him. "Yes?"
"No one else is up… just I. Why?"
"Those screams… were indeed verbal, but to him, they were just drawn out yelps. It got to you because of an extreme mental connection after talking with Alexis. It is because of her that you got to see him before he died."
I nod, and feel like crying again. Or maybe I got him killed. I just run at full speed to Markus.
--
I slowly pick up Markus, his body cleaned off by the rain, the gashes that are darkened by the heat, and the mud cleaned off completely. As I walk back to camp, the rain soaking me and battering Markus' body, I cry. I cry an endless river of tears that could fill an ocean. I cry water that would flood this landscape alone if it wasn't raining. I just let myself cry, completely torn apart at the loss of a friend, and not sure how to handle it. I've never had to lose so much. I don't know what to do… how can I be more mature than I act and claim, if I don't know how to grieve over the loss of a friend?
I walk, his body not feeling any lighter than my sword, and carry him, supporting his back with both arms in front of me. I just look down at him. Beneath the burnt and scarred tissue, something about his face… seems serene. It only makes me cry harder.
I walk to my tent, and lay him on my sleeping bag. I pick that up along with him and carry him outside and place him on the ground and just kneel down next to him. What do I do? Bury him? Just let him sit here for everyone else to see? I just stare at him, and look at Serena's tent, as I hear her stirring. She's up early…
In a few minutes, she comes out. When she sees Markus, she screams. "OH God! What happened!? Raizu! Who did this?"
"He's already gone… and Markus is… too." The tears start to flow more, having almost stopped as I had sad next to his body. "Please tell me what do to." I jump to my feet and run to her and hug her, now bawling even more. "WHAT DO I DO!?"