[AUTHOR'S NOTE: I got a beta for this fic, but haven't gotten a response yet from her for two weeks. Going to go ahead and post this, assuming she's quit. If you have, RawkstarVienna, it's okay. If you haven't, let me know.]

GREAT FAVOR: VOLKNER'S STORY
Chapter 1: Haunting

A great favor...? What do you mean by that...?

~ You need not worry, boy.
Just wake. Wake now. Before it's- ~

As if on command to this strange, melodic voice that drifted through his unconscious mind, planting these words into his subconscious in the process, Volkner's eyes quickly peeled open. He recoiled, however, and shut them again just a moment later as sunlight struck him, hot and blinding, much more so than the sun in Olivine, and thus it immediately struck him that he wasn't quite there anymore. He slowly opened his eyelids this time to let the sun seep through at a steady, controlled rate.

Finally, he could open them all the way again.

What met his sight was an awfully clear sky, devoid of any clouds whatsoever... simply blue, for as far as the eye could see. Well, this excluded the variety of palm trees that dotted the sandy surface of whatever landmass he was on, tan colored trunks draped with downtrodden green leaves, a few fruits of some sort in which Volkner could not identify hanging beneath. He could taste gritty sand in his mouth, which he turned his neck to the side and spat out.

His arms and legs hurt tremendously, pain racing through his veins like a bullet train, unmatched by any previous agony present prior to now. But he needed to see if he could stand. If he didn't, or if worst came to worst, couldn't... well, he'd have to face that reality that when you lay alone in a strange, somewhat foresty looking place immobile as a child, it was basically sitting yourself on a silver platter, setting some lettuce around yourself, stuffing an apple in your mouth and screaming, "Hey, Persian and other fine beasties! It's an all-the-Volkner-you-can-eat buffet!".

Quickly, and thus painfully, Volkner flipped himself over onto his stomach, hands pressed with as much force as he could manage (which wasn't much) against the hot sand, and tried to push himself up to his feet. He immediately felt his legs begin their conversation on labor unions (because their boss was such an enormous ******* to them), but they worked all the same, giving him a staggering but present standing condition.

He took this time to examine his surroundings a slight bit better: nothing really new to see than from his grounded perspective, other than the fact that the area was indeed forested with these palm trees, a jungle of darkness hidden under the canopy, an intimidating sight but one he would have to deal with for a little while all the same. At least, this was his assumption... he was in a bit of a pessimistic, but,
considering his situation, understandable mood.

Now his legs were straight and were definitely considering forming their little labor union, maybe going on strike soon, but for now they were cranking the gears of maximum efficiency the hardest they could to please the boss. Working arms, working legs, and a decently working head. Things were working out good enough so far; not quite into the "pleasant" range, but good enough for him to be able to think the situation through and then act on it.

Suddenly, it hit him.

He had been too groggy for a couple of minutes to realize the fact that he had only the slightest clue as to how he got here. That clue was a conniving, twisted little girl... a dot of malice in his mind by now, as she stood as one of the only possible explanations to his current predicament. Whatever she had done had knocked him unconscious - oh, right, the kiss, he thought. - and then she had thrown him here after doing something else to him... something to cause him pain like this.

But he supposed he didn't have quite the time to deal with it. If the girl popped up later, he would question her, try and figure out a way to get assistance for her had he not already gotten assistance from any people on this assumed island (assumed, because the half he was on was surrounded by ocean, but the possibility stood that he could also just be at the coast or a larger landmass).

First thing was first, he thought in his mind of minimal wildlife survival knowledge... a fire. Those were easy, weren't they? He just needed to rub two sticks together, and the fraction or fruction or whatever the flying feathers it was called would set it ablaze, a perfect source of warmth. That would work just fine, he told himself, as he stumbled across the beach, sandaled feet hitting the hot sand with a small crunching sound, and he slipped in through the trees to start up the only work he would try and do today: gather firewood.

"Why did I even try and THINK this would be easy?" the boy exclaimed, stumbling out of the wooded area, a pile of thin looking sticks bundled in his arms and pressed against his chest. His skin was dotted with a variety of different colors; red from the strain on his body, the blood rushed to his face... green from stains of trips through grass, smeared with the brown of soil. Scarlet from fresh blood. His hair was disheveled, and his overall appearance just seemed a total mess.

He had gotten attacked inside there.

There were indeed wild Pokemon here, as he had found out on his little search for firewood. He had been looking for any dropped branches, so he wouldn't have to climb and snap off anything (which he did eventually end up doing), when - god be damned - he just happened to a spot a small herd of Wild Pidgey. Now, as far as he knew, they weren't fighters... but they would protect their territories with their lives. It was someting his mother had told him when he was younger, and he was actually interested in the little animalistic, filthy creatures.

He had tried to leave quietly. They had all neglected to notice him, perched up in their tree. But he had stepped over a single branch, ironically, and the snapping brought this foreigner, big and tall compared to them, to their attention. They had attacked, fiercely, leaving Volkner to run with wood he had gathered so quickly that if he had been a cartoon his legs would be a twirling wheel beneath him, acting in a singular effort to propel him away from the danger.

... too...

The shitty part was that it wasn't even necessary for him to get the few injuries he currently had on him. He had just barely escaped the flock... he had run, backtracking through the territory he'd crossed without so much as a single injury because of his legs, running off of adrenaline, and their skillful - albeit painful - twists and leaps and various other contortions to get him through the perilous times. But, on his way out of the forest itself, he'd somehow managed to finally lose his footing and slam facefirst into the grass, gravel cutting his skin open, dirt and grass smearing him across his visible skin.

"...late," Volkner found himself mumbling then. He allowed himself to sit down and release the wood grasped against his chest, watching it all roll down into the sand with a strange allure. But, of course, another pulsation of pain rushed through his body and he forgot about this, wincing and rubbing at his aching joints. For what felt like about ten minutes or so, he sat there and allowed himself to relax, mind blank and thoughtless except for the increasing rhythmic pulsations of pain.

It got to the point where the pain was causing more than wincing, too. With each pulsation, he found himself feeling more and more of this before it finally let loose mild groans, then moans, then agonizing screams. His body was wracked with torturous pain, spasming every few seconds until he couldn't bare it any more and he just wanted to lay down and die.

~ ... I didn't want to do this ... ~His eyes snapped open, and he observed her again.

"I'm sorry, Volkner," Mana whispered, her head craned down to look at the chronically pained boy. She seemed genuinely upset over his state... her face red, eyes seeming to echo a mild sorrow. Why, is what he wondered in the small sections of time which he could think coherently over the pain... a time span which was now gradually decreasing, as he observed her eyes, her gaze locked upon his and vice versa. "I thought you were strong enough... I thought I could let you wake up on your own. I guess I was wrong... it's okay. Let's get up now, for real - the source of your pain is a Gastly. It put you into a deeper sleep than I thought, and it's using a Nightmare attack... which is followed up by Dream Eater. You'll die. If you wake up, I've left you a gift."

Shocked and startled by this revelation, Volkner suddenly began to shout - shout at the top of his lungs, trying his hardest just to choke himself into consciousness.

A tactic which worked.

He awoke with a start, screaming and bolting up right, his hands moving to embrace himself in an effort to comfort his worsened state: the dream world was almost more pleasant, despite the nightmareish circumstances... suddenly, it hit him like a ton of bricks. Mana had said that if he woke up, she had left him a gift. What had she meant by that? He pondered this as he tried to stand, but his muscles were filled with fatigue. Thankfully not pain, but an overwhelming sense of insecurity in their ability, like he had just run a couple hundred miles and he would be forever crippled.

Why was THIS?

Another realization: the fatigue was from a Hypnosis attack, just beginning. The Gastly was still in the room with him. Watching as he fell.

Time was of the essence, as he grew groggier by the moment. He hated Mana even further at this moment, for her incompetence - if she was going to wake him up from death only to leave him to fall right back in, why wake him up in the first place? It was just torture- or not. Realizations seemed to be the theme of the night, constantly popping into this mind of his in its state of refreshment and declining. She had said she had left him a gift... something to eliminate this threat with?

What else could eliminate a creature other than another creature? Another creature seemed a pretty good strategy to him: it was either beat this Gastly now, or die, and thus he had to put his faith into the girl who had gotten him into this situation in the first place... he reached out to the side and grasped the red and white sphere that lay there tightly, and tossed it forward after pressing a finger onto the release switch. His head drooped, and he missed whatever sound effects or anything the little thing made... and his vision was too blurry to see just what the creature that was supposed to be his savior was.

"...attack...gastly..." he groaned. Consciousness was slipping.

A flash of thunder struck somewhere close by... was it raining? No, he heard none of the pitter-patter that came with it, so that couldn't quite be it... so what was the source?

He knew in his heart just what the source was, all this time, but his gaze focused upon the yellow fur, an extra dot of miscolored black fur on his back just below the typical Pichu's patch only confirmed it. Wherever he was at the moment, Mana had dropped off the family Pichu - "Chuseph" - with him. Next to him was a fading Gastly, which he ignored - it would be gone now, as Chuseph had struck it hard. Thus his own paralysis was gone, but his muscles still had a strange fatigue to them. As he slipped his hand outward, muttering "return...", he watched a red beam of light shoot out and envelope Chuseph, then slipped the ball into the pocket of his pants just in case he needed the filthy looking little rat a a later time.

His next priority, he knew, was to get out of this place. It had a haunting atmosphere to it, its tight brown wooden walls, and the cold floor he lay on. It almost felt as if there was a human presence in the room, besides himself.

Slowly but surely he managed to pull himself to his feet, his arms hanging low in front of him, his legs weakly wobbling beneath him, not quite able to effectively support his weight... but he needed to move. He was not safe here, for if he were to look, it would be likely that he would find more Gastly or even worse creatures lurking in the depths of this strange house. He took one experimental step, and found out his worst fear of this moment was a brutal reality - he fell face first into the floor. Turning himself over, he could only sigh. It looked like this was the end.

"... Oh no. Uhm, Sneasel. Go over there and see if you can spot his vitals - is it a corpse, or is it alive? Nod once for dead, nod twice for alive..."

His consciousness was fading yet again. From real fatigue this time - part of his mind had been warped, twisted at the will of another creature... it was understandable that he was tired. A strange looking black creature with a red feather on its head, claws donned on both hands and his toes, walked over to him and stared at him as his world went into a color scheme of black and white. Two nods. A rushing of feet met his ears, and he felt a cold hand grab his own, before consciousness slipped away once again.

He was genuinely concerned for this boy, whom he found laying on the floor of the Old Chateau, his body shivering ever so slightly and very pale, sweat dotting ever inch of his visible skin and then some. He was ill; very ill, and he had no idea why, but his main concern was to get him to the Floaroma Medical Center... Eterna was closer, but he had no idea where the hospital there was, so he was only willing to take the safe bet - fly over the fores with the help of Murkrow and Golbat, and get to the hospital he knew.

"Yes sir, he's being moved to the ICU first thing off for a more intensive check out, but the doctors say it's doubtful that it's anything life-threatening: you said he was found collapsed inside the Old Chateau, correct?" The receptionist asked kindly, her voice seeming to be of concerned tone when in reality, he could tell that she had spoken to concerned people enough to be able to mimic their voice... a thing that came with experience on the job, he supposed.

"Yes ma'am," he responded curtly.

"Then it was likely a Pokemon's attack. Hypnosis, specifically. When used on a human weakly, it can cause extreme muscle fatigue... he should be fine within a few days, with a regular dosage of a drug specially designed for cases like this, and of course natural body rest. Now, for legal purposes, we need to take down some of your information. Can I get you to fill this out for me?"

She handed him a clipboard with a piece of paper attached to it, a pen dangling from a beady attachment in the top right corner. Nodding, the teen accepted it and walked over to a chair somewhere close.

It only took him about a minute to fill the sheet out, as the information required was next to nothing, and his handwriting was swift - albeit a bit sloppy. He stood up and walked over to the receptionist's desk, and handed her the clipboard.

"Anything else, ma'am?" he asked.

"No, that'll be all, Mister..." She threw a quick glance down to the paper, checking out his name. "Cyrus."

Boo. Yeah, decided I'm gonna include a bit more than just Volkner in this, but he will still remain the main protagonist. As I said, don't hesitate to criticize... I'd like nothing more.