Chapter 3: A Twisted Mess of Flames

The full diagnosis of Amber and I had us locked up in the hospital for next few weeks as both of us had several issues that needed to be observed frequently. When the Nurse Joy came around the next day to see me, she asked if Amber was my pokemon. I politely said no and when I was further inquired about her owner, I said I didn't know who her owner was. Then she asked me about the events that happened in the fire so that she could better treat us. After recounting everything from the two failed beams to finding Amber, the nurse looked less than satisfied. "Is something wrong?" I asked her.

"No, no, no. Well, actually, did you notice the scars on Amber's back?"

"Scars? Not really," I replied.

"Hmm, well if you can, try to coax out a background for those. We may need to know for... erm... some treatment purposes," the nurse unconvincingly stammered out.

"Uhm, ok" I agreed, gazing over to Amber's sleeping form and noting a few light scars poking through the blue fur. The nurse thanked me for my participation and then left our room.

Days passed by, and Amber continued to slip into my bed at night. At some point between one and two, I would awake to her coarse fur rubbing against my arms. Yet, every morning I would find her either already up or laying down in her own bed. I never really asked her why she slipped in at night and just chocked it up to a little post-trauma insomnia.

Six days after we were admitted, we were playing a little game of Jenga on the table in between our beds. I figured that enough time had passed to start talking about the fire and those scars the Nurse Joy had pointed out. "So I pull out this stick and... hah! Your move now Amber. Bet you can't get any more out."

Her face contorted in concentration, she began to edge a brick out of the stack. The block had almost come loose when the tower teetered and fell into a heap of wood. "Hey, not fair, you have those thin, human fingers. All I have are these thick, blunt claws," she teasingly said.

Picking up the heap of blocks, I responded, "well, you win some, you lose some. Speaking of collapsing buildings, I had a few questions about the fire."

She flinched slightly at the sound of the word fire, but quickly covered it up in a smile. "Ok, what questions do you have?"

"Well, I was wondering if you knew what caused the fire?" I asked her.

She once again flinched, this time much more noticeably. She placed a claw on her chin, scratching it and replied "Well, I heard that it was an oil fire on the second floor or something."

"Hmm..." I replied, discontent with her answer. "Do you have a master by chance?"

"No... well, I mean, I used to, but he let me go a year or two ago." she responded

"Ah..." I said. "Well, how'd you end up passed out in the hallway?"

"Oh, I... uhm... I had actually just been battling a Luxray in the alley behind the block. It took a lot out of me so I went inside and kind of passed out in the hallway." She replied, reaching a paw up to scratch the back of her neck.

Unfortunately for her, there's only so many times you can hear people spout over exaggerations and flat lies in life before you start to pick up on the body language and little fluctuations in their voice. The only thing I wondered was why she lied in the first place? There must have been more to this story, but I decided to leave it for another day.

"So I saw a few of those scars on your back and arms. Pretty wicked battle wounds eh?" I said, trying to start a discussion to quench my curiosity with those scars.

"Oh, yeah, I got in some pretty bad fights with other pokemon."

"Ah, well, try not to get in any future tussles. Don't want to maim that pretty face," I replied, smiling.

She grabbed her bottom eyelids and pulled them down, simultaneously sticking out her tongue. "You mean this pretty face?" she said. I laughed at her silly face and threw a pillow lightheartedly at her.

"Oh yeah, I just love that face. Probably gets all the boys right?" I joked back at her as we both laughed. Looking over at the clock, I saw that our game had lasted a lot longer than I thought as it was nearly eleven P.M. "We should get some shuteye. Tomorrow's another big day of sitting on our asses doing nothing," I said falling back into the comfort of a down pillow I had sent up to me.

"Yeah, let's get to bed," Amber agreed as she flopped backwards into her own bed. "I've meant to ask you though, why'd you save me?"

"Well I couldn't just leave you." I responded.

"But, weren't you afraid for your own life?" she replied.

"Well of course, but the whole reason I went into the building was to save my pokemon. I figured if I was saving my pokemon, I had better save other peoples as well." I explained.

"Ah…" she sighed.

I leaned over and told her, "I'll introduce you when we're out of this hospital!" I leaned back over closed my eyes. "Maybe you can be a part of that team if you want," I asked, but upon looking over, the furry lug had already fallen asleep.

Heh, I guess I'll pop the question tomorrow…

1:37 P.M., right on time as usual, I thought as I felt the, now familiar, form of Amber slip in between my arms. I started to close my eyes after a few minutes, but stopped as I heard moaning from beside me. Opening them up a crack, I saw Amber's mouth moving as she let out a constant stream of nearly silent moans. She rolled over, and then rolled over again. The moaning got louder, and I could begin to make out some words.

"I … but ... don't … hurt … why … " she murmured, continuing to fidget all over. I thought about calming her or waking her up, but decided against it as I didn't want her to lose her perception of me not knowing she slipped in each night.

The murmuring and tossing continued and began to get louder and more violent. She moved her arm up and almost hit me straight in the nose but thankfully stopped within only a few inches. "Don't … like … don't … be … slave … can't … me." I couldn't piece together what she was moaning about, but from the sound of the word slave, it might have been a nightmare. I continued to just lie there listening to her moaning, trying to hear more of the words in between.

Finally, she got loud enough to the point where I could fully hear her sentences. "Don't hit me again. I don't want to be with you. All you do is abuse me. Leave me alone!" I was puzzled by her response and contemplated waking her when she said, even louder, "Get away from me! You can't make me battle any more! I... I'll fight you if you get any closer. I don't care if you're my trainer, I'll do it!"

The last line hit me hard. She might be talking about her previous trainer. That would explain the lies earlier. However, whether this is a bad dream or a bad memory, I can't let her experience it. I started to move my hand towards her shoulder to wake her up when she suddenly sprung up from beside me. Swatting me with her plaster laden arm on the way up, I was thrown off the bed and into the wall right by the window. She was standing atop my bed, hands on her head, whipping around dangerously. With a face filled with pain, she kept half-murmuring, half yelling no. With increasing fervor and intensity she shook around faster and faster. I sat there in disbelief, paralyzed by fear and unable to do anything.

She crumpled in on herself a bit before resounding a defiant "NO". At that last no, her back burners activated and blasted a plume of burning fire. She opened her maw, bathing the room in a torrent of fire, but thankfully missing me. The fire eventually stopped and she crumpled down on to the singed bed.

As I slowly recovered from the shocking display, I got up off the ground. Looking over at Amber's form, I could see the intermittent spasms of emotion still flowing through her. I could hear a gentle sobbing coming from her.

Get up. I told my body.

Get up and help her! But my limbs wouldn't move.

Get up and comfort her! But I couldn't budge.

GET UP AND HELP YOUR FRIEND! My mind screamed at me as I pushed through the shock and fear. I got up and, thanks to the linoleum floors and flame-retardant furnishings, didn't have to avoid any more fire. I got close to Amber when a nurse ran up to the door. I motioned for her to go away and she got the picture.

I returned to Amber and hesitated for a second. I pushed through and placed my hand on her shoulder. She immediately looked up at me. Tears spilling from her eyes, she just stared at me for a few seconds. Before she could say anything, I pulled her into a deep embrace. We stayed that way for nearly a minute, me slowly patting her back to settle her down.

I pulled her away from me slowly. "That fire wasn't caused by some burning oil, was it." I said calmly. Her soft whimpers were all I needed as confirmation. "I think its time to talk Amber. And I want the truth this time." I said, situating us at the side of my bed.

She began, "I... I caused it. But you have to know that it was a complete accident. See, my master... my owner... was an intense pokemon trainer. He always had me training to become better. If I didn't become better, he'd beat me or make me train against much more talented pokemon." She explained. Amber paused for a while, seemingly composing her thoughts before starting again. "Recently I had evolved and he was so happy with it that he decided to challenge Whitney's Gym. We made it through her first few pokemon and got to her infamous Miltank. I had taken a few hits, but was mostly fine. But when the miltank let loose its rollout, I was knocked out in one hit. When I woke up, I was in my owner's apartment... one of the apartments that got burned down later. He scolded me and hit me for not winning. I didn't lift a finger to him in fear of how he'd retaliate. Finally, he hit me in the cheek and floored me. I heard him walk into the kitchen and when I saw him return, he had a knife. He suddenly came at me with a murderous look in his eyes and said I needed to learn how to be tougher. I backed away from him and tried to simply deflect the knife, but he kept cutting me ever so slightly. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and... and... and... I..." She seemed to pause for a second, trembling and quivering before continuing, "I just... popped. I shot the strongest blast burn of my life into his chest and ran out of the room. The move sapped so much of my strength that I passed out down the hall. I guess that blast burn also lit the apartment block on fire as well..." With the end of her story, she broke into tears again, burying her face into the charred remains of my pillow.

I gently stroked her head, softly saying, "Hey, hey, hey... It's not your fault. You were only defending yourself."

She looked up at me, her eyes glistening with tears. "Yeah? I just mean, I couldn't take his abuse anymore and, even though that blast burn could have killed me as well, I just didn't care anymore." She said, looking down between her legs. "No one had ever been nice to me, my life was a living hell. I honestly wished I was dead."

I sat quietly, thinking for a second before responding. "Well I for one am glad you aren't. You have so much energy and happiness within you Amber. It would be a shame for such a great pokemon to be gone from this world." I said, giving her a one-armed shoulder hug.

She looked at my eyes and I looked back at hers for a few seconds before she lent forward and gently kissed me on the cheek.

She pulled back and looked at me with much drier eyes and a smile on her face. "Thank you Connor. No one has ever been so nice to me and I doubt anyone will ever even come close. But I don't know if I can face the world again." She said looking down.

I lifted her chin up and explained. "Listen to me Amber, I know life can seem grim at times and you might just want to give up. Evil people will exist to make your life as hard as possible. But you have to see the silver lining, you have to find the good in the world, and you have to embrace it or else you'll be consumed by the darkness. I'll be your lantern Amber. Come with me and I'll never let you go." As soon as I finished, her smile widened and she wrapped her arms around me in a deep hug. I slipped mine around her back and we sat embraced for what seemed like hours, just enjoying each other's company.

JJ: *pants* ...Phew! Wasn't that a ride huh? I hope you all enjoyed my first fanfic!

Amber: *slips in* BOO!

JJ: *falls* ow….

Amber: Haha! That's what you get! Make sure to review this sad sack's "story" and give some feedback… Arceus knows he could use it

JJ: Hey! I'm a much better writer than you are flame butt

Amber: Oh you! I'm gonna mega punch the crap outa you if you don't stop.

JJ: Alright Inferno Trousers! Until next time, see ya! *Sprints away*

Amber: YOU GET BACK HERE AND GIVE THESE PEOPLE MORE LITERATURE! *runs after JJ*