Storm of Uncertainty
It was a fierce storm; fiercer than any I had known. I remembered To Ge telling me long ago that we couldn't play outside when it was raining, but I never knew it could rain this much.
Thinking about my old Trainer brought tears to my eyes once again as I curled up in the damp grass. I just couldn't believe he would leave me, after all the good times we had together…
A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, the brightness shining through my eyelids as I blinked, my memory taking me back to better times.
When I opened my eyes, he was the first thing I ever saw. He leaned close and spoke to me in words I could not understand. When I asked what he was saying, he just smiled; he didn't understand me either.
That didn't matter, though; he still played with me every day. At night he would put me inside a special ball, and in the morning he would let me come out again.
This went on for quite a while, but at some point he changed… When he called me out to play, it was not the same; it was a rough game, even painful at times, but I tried really hard to win for him.
He was disappointed that I was not very good at this new game, so he made me practice playing by myself – not realizing that I still didn't understand the rules.
As time went by, I found out that this new game was called battling, and that it was a competition of strength and strategy for Pokémon and Trainer, respectively. I got better eventually, learning moves for attacking and movements for dodging and defending against the opponents.
It wasn't something that I enjoyed per se, but the look on To Ge's face when we won made me happy.
Coming back to myself as the thunder rumbled in my ears, I shook my head, knocking loose the tears that lingered on my face as I did so.
His words echoed in my mind: "We did it! You're awesome!" My heart had swollen with pride that day, knowing that I was the cause of his joy, and my body swelled along with it; that was the day I had evolved… and the last time he ever said we or you're; those words disappeared from his vocabulary, to be replaced with the words I and I'm.
Things were never the same after that… The only times I was allowed out of my Poké Ball was to battle, and the only things he said to me were instructions on what to do. He didn't even really look at me anymore, just watched what the opponent was doing and told me how he wanted me to react.
I felt so dejected that one day I simply refused to battle. When he called me out, I turned around and just looked sadly at him. When the battle started, I flew over and sat on his shoulder, tugging his ear so he would look at me. He turned his head so quickly that I lost my balance (the only reason I didn't fall was because my wings held me up) and he snarled, "Get out there!"
My wings stilled at the sound of his voice; no longer receiving any lift, I slowly drifted to the ground. Even after my body had stopped falling, however, my heart continued to sink. It was then that I realized: as much as he had loved me before, that was how much he hated me now.
I couldn't shake these thoughts as I drifted into an uneasy sleep, my dreams nothing but scattered memories warped and disfigured by my despair and unhappiness.
When I awoke that morning, the final vestiges of last night's rain had petered out and the sun had begun its ascent, spreading a pale glow across the sky.
I sat up and looked around, wondering how I would survive on my own, when something caught my eye: several droplets of leftover rainwater were beaded up on some nearby overhanging leaves. As I watched in wonderment, a single droplet trickled down along the curvature of its leaf, clinging to the tip for a moment before falling softly to the ground.
How sad, I thought, staring forlornly at the place where it landed. Once that drop of water was released, it disappeared completely into the ground. …Is the same thing destined to happen to me? Will I simply fade away into nothingness now that I've been released as well?
A/N: I would like to offer a hearty, "Thank you!" to my good friend Kefalion, who read this fic despite not really being a fan of Pokémon and pointed out the problem with the way I presented the flashbacks; when I looked over it again I realized how basically all it did was destroy whatever level of immersion the readers may have gained into the story. I hope you all appreciate the difference between how it was before (announcing the beginning and end of a flashback) and the way it is now (having added a paragraph to segue into and out of Togetic's memories of the past).