Upon waking from her much needed sleep, Xanora sat up and took one look around before rubbing her eyes to take a better look at what she was seeing. There were several Pokemon circling her, all out cold or possibly dead, though each was a minimum of six feet away. Most of the bodies were rattata and hoothoot, though there were also a few spinarak and bellsprout. To her surprise, there was even a zubat on the ground several feet away to her left side and a gastly that was snoring several feet in front of her, a bit to the right. There was even a lone poliwag some ten feet behind her.
"No way..." The girl shook her head, rubbing her eyes once more. All of the Pokémon were still there. None had vanished after her eyes had opened again. Groaning, she looked down to the umbreon that was right by her side, his visible eye only barely open. "All of these guys attacked while I was sleeping?" She put emphasis on her first word, bemused by how that could even be possible.
When she received a throaty growl-like grunt in response from her partner, she furrowed her brow in a slight frown. If Shard had fought off that many Pokémon all on his own, all throughout the night, he had to be totally exhausted.
Twisting herself around to search the backpack she had used as a pillow that night, she retrieved her small black fanny pack. She had taken it with her for when she actually had enough Pokémon to need a quick and easy spot to reach their balls. With two Pokémon now, soon a third, it was probably time to start wearing it instead of stashing it inside her backpack. The main reason she brought it out at that moment, however, was due to Shard's Pokeball already being inside the pouch.
Hearing the rustle of his trainer's pack, the umbreon's ears twitched. He knew she had some potions stored away in there, as well as some bandages in a first aid kit she insisted on having with her for the journey. He was going to make a declining motion to the girl when she showed him a potion, but he instead saw his ball in her hand. His eyes narrowed as he growled at her. Not threatening, as he wouldn't think to harm his friend, but he needed to show her that he was not about to make it easy on her to hide him away in his ball.
Lifting her other hand so that she was holding her partners Pokeball in both of her hands, she stared worriedly at the dark Pokémon. "But you can rest if you're in your ball. Actually rest, not half rest." Another growl. He was always the stubborn one when he had his mind set. "Fine, don't get proper rest..." He gave a snort this time, as if he was saying that he was plenty rested. "Just do me a favor and take it easy for a while, okay? At least until we get to Violet City or find a safe place to rest." She put decent emphasis on the word 'safe,' hoping to get her friend to relax at least a little as they continued onward. This time he grunted, as if saying, "whatever" or something similar.
Shaking her head at just how hard working her friend was, with the stubbornness of a tauros, she turned her attention to the gastly snoozing several feet away. Ghost Pokémon weren't very easy to find, let alone catch. Unless they wanted to haunt you, that was. Better still, she had always liked haunter. That Pokémon just looked so cool, to her. She wasn't sure if they were strong or not, all she knew was that she would adore having such a cool Pokémon as a part of her team.
Slowly, she crept toward the sleeping ghost with one more of her empty Pokeballs in hand. In an attempt to not wake it up with its imminent capture, she gently tapped the Pokémon with the ball, the capture device opening and closing again while still in her hand. The ghost seemed to remain asleep, unaware of its capture, as the ball shook only once before the light signified her successful capture.
Xanora couldn't help but grin then, thrilled with her third Pokémon. Shard, her best buddy, was an umbreon. An amazing stalker of the night that could follow nearly anyone without being noticed. Klaudan was a hoothoot, hopefully a noctowl sooner rather than later. Noctowl was a silent stalker as well, though the aerial kind. And then there was her new gastly, hopefully a haunter in a short while. Being a ghost, it could of course move silently as well.
All three of her Pokémon were perfectly suited for the night life, though they could each manage during the day hours as well.
Her grin faded as she recalled her current dilemma, however. A problem that forced her to take notice of it, what with the amount of knocked out or dead Pokémon all around her that her buddy had stopped from harming her while she'd slept. A frown replaced her faded grin as she stared at the recently filled Pokeball in her hand. If Klaudan had been aggressive even after being caught, it would make sense that this gastly would be, too.
Enthusiasm lost, Xanora slipped the fanny pack around her waist, the pouch to her front, and placed all three of her claimed Pokeballs inside. Just in case she'd need the quick access, she also placed two empty ones inside. Slipping her backpack over her shoulders once more, she looked to her tired friend. "Can you handle going for a while?" The Pokémon snorted at her, lifting himself up with ease. Giving him a small smile and nod, they started once more toward the city.
.
Several more attacks had occurred before the duo finally reached Violet City. Pidgey were the main culprits during that time, though there were plenty of rattata and bellsprout as well. Much to the trainers shock, at the time, even a few caterpie had tried attacking them. The green worm seemed to be one of the most docile Pokémon in the region, yet there they were attacking her. The level of aggression in all of the wild Pokémon was beginning to make her much more anxious than she would like.
Just like with Cherrygrove City, Xanora was a bit overwhelmed with how large the place was. The buildings were a bit further apart in this city, giving it at least a slightly more natural feel, but there were still a lot more buildings and a ton more people roaming about in this city. Yet again, just as the previous time, it was Shard that pointed the way to the Pokémon Center by tugging at her pant leg.
Walking into the building of healing, the trainer made her way up to the counter. She noticed how the nurse here looked exactly the same as the nurse from the previous city, making her wonder if they were possibly twins. Pushing the thought aside, she greeted the kind-looking lady. "Hello, good afternoon. Could you take a look at my buddy here, please? He's been pushing himself all day." The words earned her a slap from the umbreon's tail against her leg, and narrowed eyes when she looked down at him to see what he wanted. She gave a half smile to her friend, hoping he would understand her concern.
"Of course," the pink-haired nurse responded, followed by, "Chansey, please bring a gurney." The pink Pokémon called Chansey wheeled over a flat bed-table and looked to the umbreon, waiting for him to either jump onto it or be picked up and put on.
Instead of jumping up onto the table, Shard turned his head to stare up at his trainer with disapproval. He always hated being pulled away from her side, which also lead to him not liking being inside his Pokeball at all. After all, while inside the ball, he had no way to ensure that he stayed with her.
Kneeling down to be at eye level with her Pokémon, Xanora lifted a hand to stroke his head and scratch lightly behind his ear. "Please, Shard. I want to know for sure that you're doing okay." Glancing sideways to the nurse, she figured she'd make an attempt at getting the stubborn umbreon to cooperate easier. "By any chance, could I stay close while he gets checked out?"
The nurse tilted her head slightly to the side with a kind smile, her eyes showing warmth. "Of course you can. It's fantastic that you care so much about your Pokémon. Just stay to the side so you don't get in the way, alright?"
Nodding, the trainer looked to her buddy again, smirking. "You heard her, I'll be right with you. So?" She let the last word drag out a little, almost as a small taunt. Slowly, the dark Pokémon made his way up onto the gurney, his eyes locked on his trainer the entire way. It was obvious he was ready to leap off if his trainer didn't follow him into whatever room they were going to take him.
( - )
With Shard getting some much needed sleep in the recovery room, Xanora decided to try getting a few answers out of the nurse, who turned out to also be called Joy. Oddly enough, the nurse told her that all of the Pokémon Centers in the region were run by her very, very large family that all looked very similar to one another.
Thankfully, the recovery room had a glass window for the people outside of the room to see the Pokémon inside, and vice versa, which was where she began asking her questions. "Nurse Joy? Do you know why the wild Pokémon are being so... Well, aggressive?"
Nurse Joy shook her head with a sad sigh. "No, I don't. No one does, really. It started almost two years ago, if I remember right. All of the Pokémon suddenly started attacking everyone. There didn't seem to be any preference in who they attacked, just so long as they were attacking someone." Another sad sigh escaped her. She looked toward the lobby as she continued. "We used to have trainers coming and going every day, challenging Falkner, the gym leader here. The students at the Pokémon School used to come here frequently, too. They were always playing around with the wild Pokémon, learning from them as well as the Pokémon the school itself has. Now, though, no children even want to get near Pokémon. They're scared of them. Everyone is. Enough so that the police station has patrols set to keep the city safe and wild-Pokémon free."
If that didn't shock Xanora, nothing would. Kids being afraid of Pokémon instead of adoring everything about them? It just didn't sound right. It didn't seem real. "But... Catching one of them should calm them down, right?" Knowing that they did not calm down, she hurriedly added, "why doesn't it? Are the Pokeballs defective, or something?"
The nurse was about to answer when more questions were asked. "So you caught a Pokémon or two on your way here, huh?" She shook her head, obviously at a loss. "We tried that here, too. Catching the wild Pokémon to try to settle them down. It didn't work though, they stayed aggressive. Horribly so. It was almost like capturing them made them even more mad than they already were."
That was not something the trainer wanted to hear. Yes, her new hoothoot had attacked her straight after she tried to greet it, but she'd thought it just stayed as attack-happy as it already was. If her two new Pokémon were going to be even worse...
A thought struck her then. "What about Falkner? If he's a gym leader, he's got to know something."
Confused sorrow was the expression the nurse gave this time around. "Something happened to him. No one knows what, but something changed him. He stays in the gym at all times, never leaving. He only talked about defeating any challenger, when someone tried to talk to him. Nothing else. And if a Pokémon went into the gym, he had his Pidgeot attack without a moments notice." Joy shook her head, at a loss. "A lot of the Pokémon he attacked that way didn't make it."
Both the wild Pokémon -and- the gym leader were being aggressive and hostile. That didn't sound good, to Xanora. Not at all. If a gym leader was being affected by whatever was affecting the wild Pokémon, did that mean all trainers would become affected at some point? She turned her head to look into the recovery room, staring at her sleeping friend. She couldn't imagine either of them turning hostile. Sure, Shard would be merciless with his meals, but not anything or anyone else.
While the girl quietly stared into the room at her Pokémon, nurse Joy slipped away to take care of something else.
The sky was just beginning to darken when Shard woke from his slumber. His trainer was sitting in a chair next to the bed, slumped over with her head on her arms. She had decided to take a nap while he slept, which she woke from when he rustled the sheets by getting up to stretch.
"Mm...? Oh, hey." Xanora yawned as she stretched her arms up above her head. "Feeling better," she asked with a smile. The umbreon gave her a nod accompanied by a small purr, feeling much better than before they had entered the city. "Awesome. So, I heard a bit about the gym leader here while you were sleeping. He's not going to be easy to beat, at all." She decided to leave out the part about how he had turned hostile, just like all of the wild Pokémon. With any luck, the crazed gym leader would still hand over a badge if they beat him- and didn't end up badly hurting either of the duo if they lost.
Shard jumped off the bed and took a few steps toward the door before glancing back at his trainer. He was more than ready to participate in a challenging battle, she could tell. Chuckling, she pushed herself up from the chair and opened the door for the both of them to leave. She waved to Joy as she headed out of the building, saying good-bye as she went. Though she was anxious about the battle she was about to take part in, she trusted her partner. If anyone could handle a tough situation, he could.