27
I get out the next day, finding out how long I had been asleep, a few days. Abby is doing fine great apparently, but doctors were baffled. I had entered into the hospital at critical condition. I was waiting for the morgue in their eyes. My muscles had been torn up so much, the loss of blood from that stab, they thought I wouldn't live. But I healed up completely in just a few days, and they flat out didn't know what to think. Even as I left that day with Serena, they waved me out with stunned looks on their faces. We head toward the pokémon center in order to see how Abby was doing. She doesn't have super natural healing powers, she was just any other pokémon. She is recovering fine apparently, not growing any closer to death.
We arrive after a several-minute long walk. Serena doesn't say much besides that she took Shimmer off my belt and brought her to Abby, but I just think about Draxik. He left to think about whether or not killing me was worth it? Will I defend myself when the time comes? Or will I accept that I may be better off gone?…
NO! I must stop all these negative thoughts. I have Veera, and that is all that matters.
We arrive at the pokécenter and walk inside. The Nurse Joy inside, who looks like every other one that runs the pokécenters (pure blood lines I suppose, but my god), and she doesn't realize who I am as I walk in with Serena.
"Hello, and welcome to the Celadon Pokémon Center. How may I help you?" She asks, probably how she asks everyone who comes into the center.
I don't answer right away and look around the center. The yellow tile, and windows on the high walls and roof seem to mirror Viridian. "Uh, I am Raizu. Abby, my ninetails…"
"Oh! You are that poor pokémon's trainer! Come, she's right this way." She gets out from behind the counter and actually RUNS down the hall to her left. Serena and I look at each other, shrug, and run after her. She darts into a room and we come in a few seconds later, and we breathe for a little bit.
"Why… did… you run… here?" I say, expecting something urgent.
"I like running." She says, smiling happily. I facepalm and look into the room and find Abby.
She is lying on her side, back facing toward me. She has a bunch of wires attached all over her body, and various monitors are beeping, and showing information in her body. Shimmer next to her, sleeping.
"Is she… going to be fine?" I ask.
"Yes, but she won't even be awake for some time, let alone able to move. It may be a month. How was she injured? A pokémon attacked her maybe? Someone attacked you and she took the blow perhaps?"
I instinctively grab her by the collar of her uniform and pin her to the wall, not really angry, but I felt something. "Don't say that. Ever."
She hits my arm away effortlessly. I don't expect this at all, and she grabs the arm and hits the elbow, bending it and bringing me to my knees. "Don't attack me, and I'm sorry if I touched a soft spot."
She lets go of me and I look at Serena, who is laughing at me. "You got owned by a nurse."
"What did you say?"
"Oh nothing. I think we should stay here for that month. Rachamim was supposed to stay here and watch, but he may have gone off to buy some food."
I nod, and just sit down. And we wait for Abby to get better.
--
We wait. We sleep at the center every night, and just watch over Abby and Shimmer. After a week, it seems like Rachamim won't be returning. We have no idea where he went, and it worries us. Did he just start his journey again? Maybe Team Rocket got him…
We just slept in the same room as Abby did. She lay on the bed, not even able to use her telepathy for the first few weeks. She must have been so weak. Everyday I walk around Saffron and ask dark figures in alleys if they know where to find Team Rocket. I bring my sword, just in case something bad might happen, but nothing ever does, and I don't find anything out. Serena and I just eat instant ramen through the long wait for Abby to recover (chicken is quite a good flavor), and we have our sleeping bags in that very room. Nurse Joy doesn't say much to us, as I suspect she understands how we feel.
One day, a full month later, after Abby is able to walk (but just barely), we go back to the hotel. She wanted to leave the center as soon as possible, tired of the place. In the room, all of my pokémon are now on my belt and Serena and I are just both watching TV, lying with our backs against the bed frame as we watch.
"Raizu…" She says to me soothingly.
"Yes?" I say, not expecting much of anything serious.
"What are we going to do?"
"What?"
"Well," She starts, "We are alone now. Sakura left and hasn't returned, even though this should have been enough time for her to get back, and Rachamim is vanished. You can't find anything out about Team Rocket. What can we do?"
"I suppose we just wait for something to happen." I say, apathetic at the moment.
"What if someone gets hurt again Raizu?"
"We can't do anything about it now Serena." I almost yell, but hold myself back a little.
She must have sensed my hostility still, and she lets a tear down her face. I get up close to her and wipe it off with a finger, softly. "Hey, I'm sorry-"
"I know you are. But you are still changed Raizu… I'm not sure that I can like you anymore."
I feel like I just got kicked in the stomach by a steel-toed boot. "Wait, what?"
"Ever since you got back from your trip, you have seen different. Almost like you're farther away from yourself and I. More apathetic than before. Are you having trouble dealing with these events Raizu? You can tell me. C'mon, it's not like I haven't been hit hard too."
"BUT YOU HAVEN'T!" I yell at her while jumping off the bed. She falls over the side slowly and whimpers a little. "These pokémon… people… were my friends. They are all gone because of some stupid decisions I made. Veera and Abby almost died, and Markus did, in an event that was completely unrelated to Team Rocket! I don't even know where they are when they have a huge base of operations in this very city! We can't even do anything to them now because we don't have our friends here to help us. I don't have enough pokémon to fight even a normal trainer battle!"
"You… don't have to yell at me!" She screams and runs out the door, slamming it loud enough that Abby comes off my belt and asks me what happened.
"Nothing Abby."
Raizu. She ran out the door and slammed it shut just after you were yelling at her. What Happened!? She asks, firmer then when she came out.
"I'm not sure… I feel sad, angry, and heartbroken at once. I can even feel the power coursing through me I am so angry. But at who? I haven't done anything…" I say, staring at the ground in shame.
Bah, your hopeless. Return me at once. I do so, and feel even worse. What have I done wrong? I think, feeling like everyone had just taken a sword and upped to stab me through the chest. Everyone is angry at me… who am I angry at?
I hated not knowing the answer, so I decided to take a walk. Whether or not I found Serena was not on my mind. I leave the hotel in my Lucario shirt and dark jeans and the sword on my waist, simply held there. The evening sky is dark and calming, a few lights lit in the whole city, paving the ground and wall of buildings with a pale yellow glow that feels instantly warm as I walk through it. I walk toward the forest to the south of the city, near the gym, and just sit on a bench and look at the trees. They all hate me… maybe I hate myself too? Can I be so angry at myself that I become stronger? That is ridiculous.
I don't get much more time to think, as I am hit over the back of my head by a hard, blunt object, and fall to the ground unconscious.