Chapter 6- A Street Life's Better Than No Life

A man stood in a room full of empty cages. His head was hung and his eyes were squeezed shut in rage. People around him were scrambling and rushing, trying to fix what recently happened.

"How dare they? All of them. I took what was left of their lives and gave them a new purpose, and they run out on me like this? Escaping as if they were no more than common variety pokemon being kept in cages. We still have tests to run, things to accomplish. We can't just let this end so easily. Find them! Return them to their proper places! Release the prototypes!" Dr. Slate began barking orders to grunts and employees in an attempt to capture the escaped prisoners.

Seven large cages were moved to the part of the building near the exit all of the pokemon had run out of. The contents of the cages were released and immediately sprang forward. Seven large Zoroark began sniffing the ground in circles trying to catch whatever scents they could. They then began running to the city, each with a target already in their minds.

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I was running as fast as humanely, or Espeonely, possible. I didn't know where it was I was going, I just had to get away from those terrible memories as fast as possible. My legs began to strain and I slowed down to catch my breath. I checked my surroundings to see where I was, and realized I had subconsciously started making my way back to my house. I figured, why not? It was still mine after all, why not go back for as long as I can?

I eventually made it back to my street, so I slowed to a stroll as I neared my destination. I got close enough, though, that I almost stopped in my tracks. A car was parked in my parking lot. Flowers were planted around my front yard. The lights were on inside, so I slowly walked closer to take a look at who was inside.

A family was sitting around a dinner table eating a large meal and playing around. There were a man, a woman, a son, and a daughter. They all looked just so happy. It would be wrong of me to do anything that would ruin their happiness, so I just sat on my front doorstep, remembering my past life and realizing how it was all over. I could never return things to the way they were. My life as John had ended. So, I decided that tomorrow, my life as Espeon would begin. For now, I'll just enjoy what was once mine, for probably the last time.

I was awoken suddenly by something from behind me. I had apparently fallen asleep reminiscing by my front door. I was awoken by the door opening and pushing me from my resting place. The man of the house nearly stepped on me, but was surprised to find me sleeping there. Once I was awake and realized what was going on, I ran back around the house so he wouldn't follow me and ran off into the streets again.

I still had no where to go, and since I was looking on the past, I wondered what my past girlfriend was doing after she left me. I made my way to her place, then I leaped up to her bedroom window to see if she was still asleep. She was still in bed, lying asleep next to some man that I had never met before. She already moved on? Knowing her, she probably left me for this guy! How long has this been going on? I was so enraged I looked at the alarm clock on the table beside her and picked it up with my telekinesis.

I flung the clock at Sierra's face as hard as I could with my mind, and as it hit her face it went off and began to ring loudly. She looked as pissed as possible as she tried to figure out what was happening, and outside the window I sat there laughing my ass off. The man beside her had woken up as well, and looked just as confused as she did. Sierra eventually stood and walked towards the door to the living room. I pushed the door towards her as she got close to it and she stubbed her little toe on the bottom.

"This is gonna be fun!" I said to myself as I watched Sierra cuss in her hallway. I leapt a window over to watch and look for more opportunities to mess up Sierra's life any way possible. She went into the kitchen and started pouring coffee, and I flung her cup out of her hand and watched her pour it all down her own shirt. She was screaming as I was laughing, probably from either how hot it was or how crappy things were at the moment.

She went and changed clothes before coming back in with a mop to clean up. I let her clean the mess, but as she started to walk away, I shook a little of water from the mop loose and watcher her slip and do an amazing back flip. Her new boyfriend walked into the room to help her up, and I made sure he joined her on the floor. He was huge and as dense as could be, I didn't know Sierra was so shallow.

You can imagine without me explaining that this lasted for a while. In fact, I stuck around for a few days and had my fill. As she went to work, an occasional flower pot would just so happen to fall on her head. When Sierra cooked any sort of food, she would oh so clumbsily drop anything and everything hot right on top of herself, no matter how careful she was. And when she went to go have "relations" with the man she left me with, I made sure it was more hilarious an attempt than a Pichu fighting a Tyranitar, as well as made sure it ended the same way.

Eventually though, this became tiresome. Although it was a load of fun making Sierra pay for adding to my pain, it didn't change my situation nor fix any of my current or past problems. I decided to let her make the rest of her mistakes on her own and head off to make my own living.

I didn't know anything about the way pokemon lived in a city without owners. I guessed they lived in alleyways and got around by riding on the tops of cars and buildings and made playhouses out of old tires and clocks. [:D] So, I wandered a few streets looking in between each building for a suitable place to call home. By suitable, I of course mean not completely disgusting. You wouldn't believe the stuff people just randomly throw into alleyways. I also had to make sure that the place that I slept wasn't where anyone's "business" went down.

I remembered this new pizzeria that opened up in town that cleaned its alleys out before starting up. I thought that was as good a place as any. After making my way there, I saw that the whole alleyway was clean, unoccupied, and there was even an empty box sitting outside for the fridge or oven or whatever inside the restaurant. I checked out the box and thought, "You could fit like five of me in here," and I wasn't kidding. As I curled up at the front of the box, I noticed the delivery boy pull up on a moped.

"Stupid friggin' prank calls makin me get up and drive half way across town," he mumbled as he got off the bike. He took off his helmet and picked up the pizza he was to deliver. "Ugh, seriously? Who orders that any more?" He looked at disgust as he tossed the pizza into the alley. The box made a loud thud as it almost landed on top of me. It scared me half to death, making me jump back and, much to my disdain, forced a loud meow-like sound out of me. The pizza boy looked down at me in surprise, but then grew oddly calm.

"I guess you're the first stray resident of our alley, huh? I knew it'd happen eventually. You can have that," he said, pointing to the discarded pizza box, "and there's more where that came from as long as you don't give us any trouble," he walked back inside and I stood there in awe. I shrugged it off and started eating my first real meal as a stray espeon.

About halfway through my delicious entrée, I noticed a yellow pokemon walk into the alley across from me. As he sat down in his own box, which was about the size of a toaster, I could hear his stomach growling from all the way across the street. I was almost completely full, and I couldn't let someone of so close a species as me go hungry. I lifted a few slices of pizza through telekinesis and flew them over to Jolteon. He perked up immediately and devoured the slices practically midair. After he was finished, he got up and trotted over.

"Hey, thanks for that, man! I haven't been able to get anything to eat in weeks!" He said with a smile on his face. "Everyone calls me Jay, you got a name?"

"I'm John," I said without even giving it a second thought. That's what my name was as a human, is John a weird name for an Espeon? I just blew my chance to come up with something awesome! Ah, oh well. "I just 'moved in', how's the neighborhood?"

"It's pretty great!" he said, almost surprised, "You're the only other pokemon I've seen around here in a while, so there's never anyone to bother you or fight over territory. You seem nice, I'm kinda glad you came around. Maybe things'll ease up for me now…" he began to trail off before snapping back into reality. "Oh, sorry! Good night!" he said as he turned and began to cross the street again.

"Looks like things are finally lightening up for me now…" I thought to myself as I lied back down inside of my box. I folded up the empty pizza box and made a makeshift bed. I made myself comfortable and began to think of my new life. "Fuck all the drama of being a human, being pink is way better…"

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A Croconaw was running down a dark alleyway frantically, panting loudly and running out of breath easily. "I just can't keep this up! No more running, no more fighting! I give," Croconaw collapsed onto the ground as was picked up and carried off in a blur. A large black Zoroark had picked up the exhausted pokemon, and brought him to a large truck waiting nearby. The zoroark then sprinted off again in search of new prey, a man taking the defeated pokemon and putting it inside a cage and stacked it on top of countless other cages.

"There ain't too many of ya left, is there? Heheh, we'll get ya'all back soon 'nuff. You can be sure of that!" said a grunt as he slammed shut the back of the truck and got into the front seat again, tracking the team of Zoroark on a small screen on the dashboard.

"And when we get each and every one of ya back where you belong, we'll gut ya for more research!" he said as he pulled out a cigarette and began laughing in that way that crazed villains do when they accomplish something.

~~~~~Woohoo!~~~~~Longest Chapter Yet!~~~~~~~~~~