Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon
The gates were closed by the time we were ten feet out, smashing together and grating like a nail on chalkboard. The guards called out encouragement, but were most likely not expecting us to come back. But hell, I wasn't expecting to be coming back, so I can't be too upset about that.
The light was dappling the ground of the forest, shadows hitting randomly and splitting our faces down the middle, dark and light.
"Guys, do we know where those things are?" Blake asked under his voice. He was fingering the yellow and brown balls in his pocket, his only protection out here.
"Well, we can, well, we can follow the t-tracks and um, we can see if the tauros went this way." Darell knelt down and sifted through dirt, looking for a print. He exclaimed and waved us over.
"Guys, I t-think I found something!"
He all sauntered over there and knelt in the ground. The forest had a clean, earthy smell, the recent rains making the dirt wet and squishy, threatening to pull off shoes if we sank too far down.
"These tracks are deep depressions, see?" Darell's fingers pointed out the track imbedded in the soft ground and then turned again. He said, "And these are hoof prints. Only a tauros would be heavy enough to make that kind of track."
"Hey, Darell, come over here for a second." Kara's voice floated over a bush and Darell turned around, lumbering towards her. I followed as well as Mindy.
Where the hell was Blake? He had been here, but then he disappeared.
Kara beckoned us over, her black hair falling over her shoulder and brushing her arm as she pointed towards the tracks in front of her.
Darell knelt beside her and puzzled over the tracks. "Hmm, imprint of three claws, pads on the foot. Okay, so then this must be a cat or dog pokemon. But the claws aren't stuck in very deep, so it must be…"
"A liepard or the other one, uh, uh purrloin!" Mindy exclaimed, pointing at it. "See, I heard about them. They're dark, and very light, so their claws would not go in too deep. Purrloin and liepard were tagged and brought here almost a hundred years ago, to see how they would react it the hoenn region. There weren't many dark types native to here, so they thought it would be good to widen the types that could be found here. My dad told me they thrived here, and grew stronger than their Unovan counterparts. Right, Darell?"
"Y-yeah. Good job." Darell looked thunderstruck, staring at Mindy like he had never seen her before. She was usually quite airheaded, thinking only about clothes and gossiping. She wasn't stupid, she just liked to do other things instead of reading and studying.
Mindy blushed and turned away, mumbling that it was nothing. Kara looked at me and grinned wickedly.
She came over to me and whispered in my ear, "They seem to be getting along very well."
I looked over. It was true; they were talking about pokemon, Darell's favorite subject. However, it wasn't the fact that they were talking about Mindy's favorites, mainly growlithe, vulpix and smoochum, the only cute ones in the biology textbook, but the fact that Darell was looking like he was in heaven.
Then we heard a scream, a roar and everything went to hell.
We followed the scream to a large clearing, where a group of the pokemon we were looking for were standing, smoke coming out of their noses as they pawed the ground and grazed.
Off to the left of the herd was a small calf, hiding between the legs of its mother as she faced off against a small figure standing about twenty feet away, hand clutched tightly around something in his hand. Beyond them was a small ponyta, grazing and looking cautiously at the much larger pokemon. Without its mother or protector around, it was poised to run at any second. A tauros looked at it and the ponyta ran away quickly into taller grass.
A glint shone off of it as he turned around, sprinting towards the shelter of the trees about one hundred yards away. Darell cursed and moved quickly through the bushes, trying to avoid stepping on sticks.
The tauros saw Blake running away and charged, head lowered and body wreathed in flame.
"Crap, it's using flame charge! Dammit Blake, get the hell out of the way!" Darell yelled, all traces of awkwardness lost as he charged through the undergrowth.
The tauros caught up to Blake easily and hooked her horns underneath his arm. With an almost contemptible flick of her horns, she tossed him as easily as she would a doll to the side, smashing him against a tree.
Darell seemed to come out of nowhere, slamming into the tauros's side and running over towards Blake's limp body, hovering over him and looking as protective as a mother kangaskhan, which were rumored to be so defensive of their young that they did not let their babies out of their pouches until they were six years old and fully grown.
I ran beside the girls, mind buzzing as I contemplated the possibilities. Blake could be dead. One of my best friends for more than half of my life could be gone, snuffed out by a tauros. He had been with me when I kissed a girl for the first time, gotten me my first date, taught me how to play baseball.
Before I knew it, I was crying. I ran up to Darell, fighting my tears furiously and saying quietly, "How bad is it?"
He turned around and I saw the tear tracks on his face. He showed me the ruin that had once been my best friend.
A hole as large as a fist was marring his left side, and his face was a mess of cuts and bruises, but the cuts and bruises he could deal with. It was nothing worse than what he got at his parent's hands.
The thing that scared me was the rib bone sticking out of his side, stark white against his smooth tan skin. Burns covered his side and face, a testament to the fiery attack.
His heart was fluttering and his breath was shallow and rapid. I turned away, sickened by what I saw. The scene that awaited me on the other side of my vision was not very good either.
Mindy and Kara were next to each other, standing in front of the tauros. The tauros charged and they hurled themselves away, hitting the ground and muddying their dark clothes.
My mind was racing as the tauros charged towards me. Everything turned down to time. Ten seconds until the tauros hit me. Darell was reaching for the pokeball in his pocket, hoping to distract it. Approximately seven seconds. The ball was in his hands but he couldn't seem to get a grip on the smooth surface. Blake was stirring behind me as I reached into my pocket. Five seconds. My hand closed around the ball and I pulled it out. Darell was shouting, throwing the ball as it tumbled end over end towards the charging tauros. The tauros popped inside the ball, and then time went back up.
I threw a ball as hard as I could at where the tauros had been only a sparse few moments ago, but it missed, sailing far over and smacking a pokemon in the tall grass. A sucking noise and a ding sounded and I ran over, checking what I had done. The lone pokeball was sitting there, polished against the dirt ground, shining like a diamond in the rough.
Darell came with me, looking steadily at the ball, eyes shining with tears and excitement. "Good job Ralph, now let's get out of here. Now."
He put his hand on my shoulder and I shook it off, picking up the ball and rolling the smooth surface in my hand, watching it catch the light. It was red and white, with a big white button in the middle. I reached out towards it, mesmerized and pressed the button.
"NO!" Darell shouted, trying to snatch the ball out of my hands, but I shook him off and stared as the ball slowly creaked open. A flash of light came from within and the ball erupted, shooting out a stream of energy to the ground.
The light subsided and standing there was a ponyta, but it was different.
The species was one of the fastest out there, supposedly able to run at speeds up to one hundred and fifty miles per hour. It had flames sprouting from its mane and a fiery tail stretching for a good foot behind it.
The only difference between this ponyta and the usual ones was its coat. It was a dark layer of fur; almost black, that was breathtakingly beautiful. It looked at me regally, head and body poised to run, like the skittish pokemon it was.
Darell came up behind me and gasped. He knelt down and ran his hands over the pokemon's fur. The ponyta looked very uncomfortable but did not shy away. It was almost three feet in height, up to me waist and about four feet long.
"Wow, this must be a ponyta that bred with houndoom, or weavile and mightyena. See? It's also pretty large for a ponyta, so it must be pretty old, almost a year, I'd say."
The ponyta stiffened and galloped away, moving quickly towards where Blake was lying.
I ran after it, trying in vain to grab it by the head or coat. There was no place to find purchase, so my hand slipped off the short coat and I tripped, losing my balance. Mindy and Kara were standing protectively in front of Blake, who looked like a mess.
The ponyta pulled up short and I barreled into it, knocking it over and rolling around with it in a bundle of fur and skin. I lay there, panting, arms wrapped around the ponyta when I realized that the flames weren't hurting. I yelped and scrambled to my feet.
Why didn't that hurt? Shouldn't I be lying next to Blake now, moaning and whining? Maybe I just wasn't expecting it to hurt. I reached out and felt the ponyta's mane, expecting to be burned badly. It didn't hurt at all.
This was strange. Did the books ever say that ponyta's manes didn't burn?
"Kara, c'mere for a second. I need you to do something." She walked over, her face a mess.
"Is Blake all right? What'd Darell say?"
I said nothing, not wanting to have my voice betray me. I had cried enough for one day.
Instead I took her hand and put it on the ponyta's mane. She cried out in pain and said, voice shaking as she sucked on her finger, "What was that for? Isn't everything bad enough without you putting my hand on your freaking horse's burning mane? Haven't I gone through enough already?"
"I'm sorry, I just thought, um, see?" Words had failed me, so actions must suffice. I put my hand on top of the ponyta's mane. It shuddered underneath my touch but stayed there. Nothing hurt, there was only a slight tickling.
I took my hand off. "See? It doesn't hurt, it's really weird!" Then I saw the look Kara was giving me. It was filled with revulsion, sadness and somewhere there, pity.
"You're telling me that your friend is lying there dying in ways so painful you can't even understand and you're sitting here geeking out about your pet's fire not hurting you?" Her face was slack and emotionless as she said that. "Do you not even care what's going on? Don't you give a damn about him?" Her voice was rising, higher and higher, louder and louder. "What do you have to say for yourself, Ralph? Are you afraid? Or do you not care at all?" She turned on her heel and marched away towards where Mindy and Darell were sitting next to Blake.
I looked over to my three friends, who were gathered around the fourth, hands linked. Could I really have been that selfish, to go off with a new pokemon, something that I didn't even trust completely, instead of standing vigil with my friend, who was lying there dying?
I got up, whistled for the ponyta to come with me and walked slowly towards them. They heard me coming and waved me over, accepting me into the circle. After a moment of quiet I cleared my throat.
"Guys, The ponyta here can take Blake back. He needs medical help. Let's go, okay. Darell, help me pick Blake up. Mindy, go ahead with Kara," I all but commanded them, but they listened anyway.
Blake was unconscious by now, so Darell and I hauled him up, then attached him to the ponyta's back with some spare vines we found around the area.
"Ponyta, keep the flames down, we don't want to burn him." She whinnied in agreement and suddenly it was a lot less hot.
She started off with a trot, and soon had Darell and me sprinting to keep up. Mindy and Kara were soon next to us, and we all walked together, guarding the body that was our friend. Growls were heard from behind us and next to us, but we didn't pay attention, at least until a liepard leapt out and tackled Kara.
"Help!" she yelled as she went tumbling away. Mindy squealed and Darell said quickly, "Ralph, go help her. I'll stay with Blake. Get him off ponyta!" We quickly unbound him and my ponyta leapt with me towards the liepard and Kara, both snarling as they circled around each other. The liepard darted in and scratched at Kara, but was sent off with a boot to the foreleg.
"Ponyta!" My mind was reeling, searching for a move that I might remember from class.
"Aw, hell, just burn it." Ponyta leapt into action, spitting a steady but small stream of fire at the liepard. It hit and it fell back a few steps, snarling. The liepard leapt at the ponyta, snarling and scratching, clawing bloody furrows in The ponyta's skin. With a quick kick, Ponyta knocked the liepard back a few steps, sending it reeling back and snarling in pain.
Just as it recovered, Kara threw a ball at it, catching it high in the shoulder. The ball opened and absorbed the liepard, hitting the ground with a thud and shaking like crazy. We waited on bated breath, The ponyta with flames already on the ready, me and Kara with our fists up. The ball dinged and Kara whooped. We laughed and danced around. Ponyta pranced around. Kars hugged me and we spun around, high on the excitement.
Then we realized that a friend of ours was dying and Kara had just captured a bloodthirsty monster.
The walls of the city were close, and the guards shouted down when they saw us, opening the gates. As soon as we walked in we were assaulted by guards and doctors, who had glimpsed Blake's sorry state from above the wall. They rushed him to the hospital, with us tagging along for the ride.
We burst into the sleek, white hospital with doctors and nurses milling around like so many combee in a hive.
They took him to the operating room, with us sitting down in the waiting room, huddled together, sharing stories and taking turns looking at the pokemon we had caught. In the confusion, Darell had caught a tauros right before I had caught Ponyta, but he and Kara had yet to let them out of their balls.
Even after the fear and panic that the trainer deaths had caused, people were still afraid of the pokemon in the world. So many people had died from them that they hadn't even given thoughts that it might have been the trainer's faults or even other trainers. Pokemon, however smart, were still subordinates, and they followed orders. If a pokemon kills a trainer, who's to say it wasn't a rival that killed him? The pokemon won't be speaking in its defense, that's for sure.
Four hours into the operation, we all fell asleep in each others arms. And we dreamed.
I was remembering what it had been like, running through a forest, my six pokemon with me. We were all together, each of us the best of friends, as we had been for many years. My trainer, my sceptile, my pidgeot, my dustox, my wailmer, and my houndoom. They were all mine, and we were all together. The sceptile had always been the leader of our group, keeping the peace and telling everyone who's who and what's what.
We weren't the best team, but we were friends and that's all that had mattered. This had been so long ago. Back when we were all together, before we were separated. Before we were torn apart, like real families were. Too many losses, too many sorrows. My name was-
I jolted awake, a hand on my arm as I looked up into the face or a surgeon. He was still in his green scrubs, mask around his face and blood along his smock.
"No, no, please." I already knew what they were here for. They were here to take him way.
"Did he have any family? Where do his parents live?" His voice was far off in my head. I nodded, and told him where they lived. He nodded and moved off. My other friends were all awake by now, tears in their eyes as they hugged each other. I lost myself as we all cried together, mourning our friend.
The doors banged open as a well dressed couple walked in the ICU. We were all in a pile on the floor, and they walked up to us, looking down at us with disdained expressions.
"Children, where are the doctors?" the woman asked, her upturned mouth giving her an unpleasant and petulant expression.
"In room 337. Who are you?" I asked, eyes red rimmed as I looked up at them
The woman was wearing a purple business suit and high heels, with a matching purse on her arm. The man next to her was big and muscular, almost six foot two, but still a good couple inches smaller than Darell. I had never seen them before, but they looked oddly familiar…
"We," huffed the woman, "Are the parents of the idiot who managed to get himself killed after cutting school and collecting data for Dr. Nieves. Now, where is he? I demand to know-"
Her tirade was cut off as Kara launched herself at her, scratching at her eyes and kicking her. She covered herself but the blows kept coming. The man went to help his wife, but Mindy stopped him.
"Get out of my way, missy," the man said dangerously, a glint in his eye.
"NO! You beat him, you made his life terrible, you complete and utter-" The man's foot connected with her leg in an almost contemptible blow and she fell to one knee. He punched her in the side of the head and she crumpled, wordlessly.
With a wordless howl, Darell attacked the man, punching him in the stomach and doubling him over easily. He brought his hands together and slammed them against the base of his skull, a crack echoing across the room as the men tumbled to the ground.
The woman was likewise unconscious, and Kara was breathing heavily, as well as Darell. Darell was looking at his hands and back at the man in horror. He backed away, terrified. Mindy was stirring in the corner. All of a sudden, the lights went out and my mouth wasn't working.
I was shoved through some doors and led up some stairs, but other wise we weren't really aware of what was going on. Without any ado, my blindfold was ripped off as well as our gags and we saw the inside of the lab, where this had all began.
Dr. Nieves was pacing back and forth, and looked up when he saw us back. Mindy looked terrible, bruises covering her face. Darell was horrified, his eyes all but dead, but Kara was as defiant as ever. She walked up to Dr. Nieves and looked him in the eyes and did something totally Kara.
She punched him right in the face. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? Sending out some poor, defenseless kids to complete some research? Well one of them is dead and the other one is going through some crazy shock! What is wrong with you?"
Dr. Nieves looked abashed and said quietly, "I am so sorry I didn't mean for any of this to happen. Here, give me that." He beckoned to Darell, who mutely handed him his pokeball.
"Any one else catch anything?" he asked quietly.
"Ponyta," I said, not trusting my voice to say anything else without cracking.
"I caught a liepard," said Kara, her voice down to normal levels now.
"Keep them, you'll need them. Here, Darell." Dr. Nieves handed him a new pokeball and Darell took it without a word.
"It's an abra. I thought it would be perfect for a smart boy like you." The doctor was openly crying now as he handed Mindy another ball.
"That's a vulpix. It's very much like you. Be good to her." Mindy nodded and gave him a hug. Dr. Nieves looked stunned and then he gave her one back.
"Why are you giving these to us, Dad?" Darell seemed to have finally found his voice.
"Because you're leaving. It's too dangerous for you and your pokemon to stay. These lab ones as well, we've, well, we've done bad things, it's true. All in the name of science, but terrible nonetheless. They need to leave, and soon. You're parents are already informed, although some may press charges against me. I could be in big trouble, so don't you kids waste this opportunity. You guys have a chance to change the world. Here are some clothes," he handed us each a bag. "They also have common supplies from back in the trainer era. You kids won't be alone. You will have your pokemon, and better yet, there will be others. The reclusion is not as widespread as one might have thought."
"I understand you will want some privacy. Leave kids, and remember, we all love you." He gave Darell a big hug and kissed his forehead after standing on his tip-toes and walked away, shoulders shaking violently.
I turned to my friends. "I can't go, I won't go. It's not fair, we have to stay. Blake would've-"
Mindy burst into tears and Kara gave me a scathing look as she led her off, rubbing her shoulders.
Darell rounded on me. "Shut up, man! We need to leave. It's that or be arrested. Let's go!" He pulled on my arm, but I refused to budge.
"It's my fault Darell. I told us to skip, it was me, this would have never happened if I-" I was sobbing now, tears running freely down my cheeks.
"Shut the hell up Ralph! You couldn't have done anything about it! You weren't to blame, no more than I was. You shut up and get yourself ready, we have to leave now." I turned around, tears running down my face unbidden. Darell saw and grabbed my face roughly between his two hands, holding me in place and rubbing the tears off with dirty rough fingers. "You're fine, y'hear? I already lost one friend today dammit, don't you go away too. We're fine. We gotta get outta here, they are gonna find out what we did sooner or later. So come on, let's hurry up. Mindy! Kara!"
He bellowed and they came, dressed in dark clothes and the bags of clothes and items on their backs. He led us out into the night, not knowing where we would go, or who to trust. We were fugitives, assaulters and felons. We couldn't hide, so we had to run. But we weren't alone, as Dr. Nieves had said. We had new friends, shadows and flames that would protect us. We were together, and that was all that mattered.
Hey, thanks for reading. Now review, seriously. Did you like it? Hate it? Leave a review and tell me!
Question: Any ideas for the pokemon for the characters? I have a basic idea, but I'd love to hear your ideas. Leave your answer in the review section.