I always find these new sensations so intriguing.
From one point to another, it's as if you spend a second in one place, blink, and then find yourself in another place entirely. Contrary to, what I believe is, popular belief, you neither feel an indefinitely torturous time in a dark, sealed cage nor do you spend the time in some imaginary fabricated worlds.
The most accurate way to describe it would be simply 'a void of sensation'.
A sensation that is lacking in any sensation. Something indescribable, how else can you describe feeling a lack of feeling?
That is, more or less, what you feel when inside a pokeball. Really, you feel nothing. And perhaps that's the most jarring thing of all- to some, I find myself completely indifferent to the experience save for a sense of mildly sated curiosity from the experience.
Odder still than the sensation of lacking sensation would probably be the interesting new way this foreign body of mine processes what used to be familiar experiences.
Such as this, the breeze of wind.
This new body processes the information of my 'skin' differently. I know there's a current of air passing through me, my brain can recognize that. But the fact that my brain recognizes something I think is supposed to be a familliar sensation differently despite the fact that I have memory of feeling said sensation before... it's a tad disorienting to say the least.
Like a before or after kind of thing. At one second you eat a cookie and taste chocolate, but the next second you eat the same cookie but taste vanilla. You recognize the fact, but it's still puzzling.
Luckily, orienting with my new body is actually much easier than you'd think as long as I don't think about it too hard. It's as if my new body was installed with some kind of 'auto-pilot' system that gets overruled whenever I try to do something manually by thinking about it too hard.
Thankfully, I've had roughly a month to get used to this body and I'd like to imagine that I've gotten the hang of it.
I feel like smiling at myself all of a sudden, for no reason I'm aware of.
A shame I no longer have a mouth to smile with. But surprisingly enough, I overall find myself quite fond of this new body, more so than my old one now that I've gotten used to it, though it's regrettable that I've lost a certain number of luxury functions.
Speaking of functions, I have not lost the function of hunger. Indicative by the fact that I currently find myself absolutely famished.
My mind may have been inactive during my stay in the pokeball's containment, but the service didn't seem to extend to my physical body. By how hungry I am now, I realize that I must have been inside of there for much longer than I thought.
Looking around, I can see that we are clearly in some kind of forest. The light is barely managing to penetrate the thick foliage around us, but the fact that any is getting through at all is indicative of the time. Most likely somewhere around mid-day by my estimation.
We are currently in what barely constitutes as an opening in the forest. More root than ground underfoot (not that I have feet).
Now as much as I would love to cleave through the nearest sad motherfucker, the mistress would make me pay very dearly should I leave on a hunting excursion without her permission. She's strict like that and I had to learn the hard way.
I look around the clearing.
Sitting cross legged while floating is number eleven the kadabra, playing with her spoon while a trio of berries circle above her like a halo, eyes closed in concentration. Slightly away from her is #26 the tyrogue, punching away at a tree bark as if for dear life.
And there she was, right behind number twenty-six was the mistress. Extremely notable in how she carries herself so gracefully, with a straight posture that suggested she was a dancer or some sort. And despite being as vertically challenged as she is, she somehow manages to come across as a figure of great authority.
Her hair was bleached and today she had it in a high ponytail, falling just around the base of her neck. She wore one of those coats with furred collars and denim shorts. They showed off her legs down until her combat boots.
"What poor form twenty-six, do it like I showed you," she admonishes the tyrogue.
Twenty-six grunts a pained response before redoubling his efforts.
I interrupt milady's training session with a tap to her shoulder with my... cloth-like appendage. She turns around and glares at me with narrow eyes.
"What?" she asks. Surprising in how commanding she can sound despite being prepubescent. ...She is prepubescent right? What age do girls start getting their 'chocolate days'?
"You're spacing out again, focus twenty-three."
Oh, right.
I float around her shoulder height, perform a spin in mid-air, and then proceed to stab at the bark of the nearest tree.
"A hunt?" she crosses her arms and nods, "very well, but return within the next hour, you will be holding melee combat lessons with twenty-six."
With my scarf/cloth/appendage-thing, I salute at her and chuckle with my raspy, guttural voice.
She continues to glare at me, completely unamused.
Oh come now milady, no need to look so murderous, is what I'd say to her if I could talk.
But I can't. So I just float away quietly.
xxx
Forests are home to many wild-life.
I am currently decreasing that population one by one.
I propel myself with my magic powers (seriously the only way I can describe it) and proceed to impale a nearby ratatta, but I continue with the momentum of my thrust until I have the rodent pinned to a tree.
The helpless pokemon scratches and bites at me feebly, succeeding only in thinning it's bones against my metal body.
It didn't hurt per se, but I could feel the damage from his struggles. It was tingly, and uncomfortable, and I didn't like it.
So I bitchslap him with my badass scarf.
But then he goes limp.
Shit.
Oh come on, I didn't even hit that hard! Don't go dying on me already!
I haven't even gotten the chance to suck the soul out of your body and leave you into an empty rotting husk!
That's like, the best part!
Whatever, I still have a bit of life-force before he drops dead entirely.
I wrap him up in my scarf and proceed to eat.
I can feel the cloth start to break apart around the edges and kinda seep into the rodent's skin. It's a lot like punching a thousand needles into someone simultaneously. But instead of injecting something, I'm actually sucking something out.
It's... it's not blood though, as far as I can tell. It's, as I said before, life-force. I feed on the life-force of things.
I can't think of any other way to describe it. It's like... something that kills you when you run out of it.
I've done preliminary tests before. I once tried eating one of my victims without mortally wounding him, and then I tried to dissect him, to see what I ate that killed him.
As far as I can tell, everything was in place. All his blood was there, organs too, but his heart just wasn't beating for some unknown reason.
So from that point I just call whatever substance I feed on as life-force. Since things seem to die by the time I'm done sucking it out of them.
The ratatta was pretty much half dead already, so I finished tapping him out quickly. Still wasn't enough though.
Needed to feed some more. But I think my hour's almost up.
I've learned never to disobey milady, it will only end up with me being in tremendous pain.
I look around me to find that I am, unfortunately, out of prey.
There were trees and plants all around me, and based on experience, I can eat their life-force. But again, speaking from experience, I've found that they taste positively dreadful. Plants, grass-types, and a number of poison-types taste absolutely revolting.
It's hard to explain how I taste now, on account that I lack a tongue, and therefore unable to describe tastes the same way as things with tongues, but just trust in the fact that there are some things I prefer not to eat.
Luckily, I notice just in the nick of time that there was something above me. Something alive and edible.
A pidgey nest.
...That was located really fucking high in the tree.
I know I can float, and I acknowledge the fact that I'm doing so right now. But floating involves these foreign mechanics that come with rules that I also find myself unable to explain. Namely, I'm unable to float above a certain height above solid ground.
I couldn't measure it accurately, but I've found that I can float above any solid piece of material with a sufficiently wide surface area (around the size of an old laser disc), up to a height of roughly two meters (or around the length of my scarf when completely stretched).
But I've found that I can, with my magic powers (I'm starting to think it's like really weak telekinesis that only applies to myself), propel myself as if I'm jumping.
So I do that.
I try to jump up to the pidgey nest.
...But clearly no bird was stupid enough to nest anywhere at jumping range.
So it's time to actually make a smidgen of effort.
I jump up as high as I can, and simultaneously propel my scarf at the nearest branch, and wrap my scarf around it.
...I fail miserably on my first try.
...Also on the second try.
Finally, I succeed, and I proceed to pull the rest of my body up to the branch with my scarf. I 'safely' manage to heave myself on that branch and proceed to try and steady myself on it.
Once I found my balance on the branch, I propel myself with magic once again and wrap my scarf around a higher branch. I continue to do so until I finally reach the nest of pidgeys.
I peer with my one eye at the contents, and find myself being stared back by the terrified eyes of four very scared baby pidgeys.
As if on instinct, all the little baby pidgeys start to squeak for their mommy to come and save them from the terrifying monster/demon/ghost/sword thing.
Had I been a moral man, I would've left them alive and settled with eating the putrid life-force of the plants around us.
Had I been a sadistic monster, I would've strangled each one of them in front of their siblings and watch in glee as the light slowly leave their infantile little eyes.
I was neither, so I settle with some kind of middlepoint.
I eat three (quick and painlessly, no need to be a monster about it), leave one alive, and proceed to go on my merry way.
It's the sensible thing afterall, we generally want some of our prey to survive and reproduce so that they make more prey.
xxx
Somehow I managed to get back just in time,
"ROAAAAAAAR!"
-To find an angry ursaring in our campsite.
"...Fool."
-Locked in a headlock performed by milady.
Eleven was a little to the side, currently focusing her mind on pinning the ursaring's arms. At least, I think that's what she's doing based on the faint pink glow around the ursaring's limbs.
Twenty-six was nowhere to be found.
"...There you are twenty-three, right on time."
A month ago I would have found this scene to be utterly surreal. Now? It's mildly amusing at best.
"Twenty-six has fled, you and I shall pursue him."
She produces a knife out of her boots and proceeds to impale the ursaring through the skull. The giant bear goes limp immediately.
I don't bother to comment (I couldn't anyway, technically not) and opt to simply fly into her hand.
She clasps me by the hilt whilst I make myself comfortable in her grip. I also wrap my scarf around the length of her arm. With her other hand, she recalls eleven into her pokeball.
"Tch."
Not sure what happened while I was away, but milady sure looks awfully pissed.
I barely even knew him, but I feel kinda bad for twenty-six.
xxx
In case you've gotten this far and still haven't figured it out, the MC is a honedge. The new ghost/steel sword pokemon from X and Y.
