Shadow's POV
Once we had retraced our steps we soon made it back to the cement road, about half an hour of our time going to waste. Maybe if I didn't see Illusion stalking us, then we would've been in the next city already. It's just what we need, another Pokémon to drag us down. Rachel was enough, but it was just until Nimbasa City, which I thought was the city after the next. The stupid thing was now our original goal had two sub goals added to it. On the way to the White Forest, we also had to get Rachel to Nimbasa for some reason she won't reveal, and then somehow take down the remaining people of Team Plasma! Even though I would be overjoyed to see the team behind bars for all their troubles, and from turning me into a monster, how were we supposed to do that?
Illusion was in the lead with Rachel while Zeke walked along with me in the back. Zeke tried to start up a conversation a while ago, but gave up when I refused to talk. Illusion was chatting up a storm however, even though Rachel was trying her best not to listen. "So next I powered up my signature attack, as you already know is Faint Attack, and then I sent that zubat flying, into the ground!" the zoroark babbled on, and after finishing the last sentence she moved one of her paws down and patted the back of Rachel's head playfully. Even from behind the two, the way that Rachel's tail lowered and her ears pressed against her head proved how much she didn't enjoy that. Rachel wasn't exactly the touchy type. The lillipup used her paws to fix her slightly messy scarf, curtsey of Illusion.
Zeke snickered a bit from Illusion's story, getting a glare from me. Zeke noticed me and returned the glare. "What, it's a good story," Zeke muttered, and then folded his arms. "Just because we're traveling doesn't mean we can't have fun here."
Illusion looked over her shoulder and pointed at Zeke, making me notice that her arms were covered in dirt. "See, this guy knows what I'm talking about!" Illusion giggled. The little black snivy cracked a smile from the zoroark, forcing me to roll my eyes. We just needed to get to the next city and fast. A while ago we noticed there was some light up ahead, signaling that we were nearing the exit. We were practically almost there, and I could already see the outside of the forest. There was some more cement in the form of stairs leading up to something that was still out of sight.
"Can we please pick up the pace?" Rachel asked, giving an annoyed glare up at the black fox. Illusion gave a slight chuckle and patted the back of Rachel's head, messing up her red scarf again.
"Sure, but are we in any rush? We should just take it easy and chill out. It's basically the middle of the night, and maybe we should find a place to rest!" Illusion exclaimed, forcing me to groan in frustration. Ever since back at the restaurant, Illusion has been rough and dark, even when we cornered her at the cliff she was like that. Now she was some sort of jokester who seemed like she never heard of personal space. Maybe having freedom took some sort of huge weight off her shoulders.
And to think, I was really looking forward to crushing this Pokémon for what happened back in Striaton city; despite the fact that I knew that Illusion was at least ten levels higher than me. Luckily I knew I had gained at least a few levels from the adventure. Eterna forest had too many weak Pokémon, but the whole journey let us meet some interesting Pokémon and battle certain and new species.
Shrugging my thoughts away, I realized we were practically just feet away from those cement steps. Illusion and Rachel had already climbed up the stone and Zeke was getting ready to. I padded over to the steps, rays of starlight shining down on us. There weren't really that many steps but from my height I could only see those steps and two lampposts at the top of the staircase. Just one of the steps was up to my neck causing me to think it was easier just to use my vines again. Extending two black vines from my purple shoulders, I first wrapped one around Zeke's waist and lifted him to the top. After I extended the unused vine slightly, I held on to a lamppost nearby and retracted my vines, pulling me up to the top step. Swiftly I retracted my vines and took in the scene.
The place was small. It was a stone cold platform with only the stars above and the lampposts providing light, not that it mattered to me. Weak rays of artificial light shone from behind glass and it only lit up a small radius. The corners in the back of the area were engulfed in shadows. To the right of the scene there was a building that looked identical to one right by the entrance to Nacrene City. It was basically like a hallway with no doors so anyone could just walk in. Faint noises came from inside the building and creatures that stood on two legs were chatting quietly to one another. I could notice a few of them had yellow headgear of some sort and a sort of suit that didn't seem to serve a purpose of any kind except for the fact that it was somehow made shiny, the weak light glinting off it. When I accidentally stared directly at the suit, my eyes burnt from the rays and quickly looked away.
Rachel must have caught a glance of the figures inside. She ducked close to the ground, her ears lowered and tail brought to the ground from self-control to stay out of sight. Her stare concentrated on the humans inside. "Construction workers, why are they here?" she whispered to herself, a little too loudly. Zeke and I looked at Rachel with confusion but Illusion just glanced at the interior of the building.
When Zeke was about to open his mouth to ask the question bugging both of us, Rachel had already predicted what we were going to say. "They are a kind of human. They're the kind of humans that wear shiny vests and hard hats, the hats for protection and the vests so other humans can see them at night. They build and repair human structures, for example this walk-through right here," Rachel quietly explained. Illusion didn't pay attention, and she must have already known what the construction workers were.
There was only one thing we had to do. Surely we couldn't just walk by the construction workers without going unnoticed, and plus who would just let two mutant snivys and a zoroark just waltz through there without the slightest thought of capturing them? We either had to go over or around, but going around seemed to be cut off by water. If there was water, I hoped there was some sort of bridge that we could cross.
We probably would have to go over the human structure though. It was the only way to get a better view.
I extended my vines for another one of the countless times that night. My vines shakily shot up and gripped whatever it could get and slowly I pulled myself to the top. I kept my vines out after that because I knew I had to drag Rachel up. Zeke had already brought himself onto the top and retracted his vines while I struggled with the lillipup. Sooner or later I managed to get her to the top, hopefully without being seen by any of the construction workers. Once she was on the roof she only took one step and I could hear a thump sound. Rachel wasn't as good as sneaking around as she thought she was.
Zeke made a shhsound at Rachel, her eyes looking a bit angry for a few seconds but she forced that feeling aside. I stared down at Illusion, watching her do some flexible agile moves to get onto the roof. I huffed in distaste as she ran to a pine tree, jumped, and used her feet like springs to wall jump or something off the tree trunk. She could've just transformed into a noctowl and just fly up. When she landed a huge bang noise sounded, making Zeke do the shhnoise yet again. Rachel and I glared at Illusion while she did a sheepish grin, than rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment.
Next time transform!I thought angrily, knowing that if I spoke up that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from yelling.
Zeke and I sneaked across the green roof with ease and were making no noises whatsoever. Rachel made an occasional mistaking paw step and created a small tap noise but Illusion was worse. Each step either ended with a creaking noise or like a rock-hitting-the-roof noise. Zeke wanted to somehow keep the clumsy zoroark quiet, yet he knew doing that would result in making more noise. After a dozen or so steps, we were on the other end of the building, and the sight brought shock and grief to my face.
There was a bridge that went over a wide body of water. Several tall buildings appeared to be on an island in the distance and I noticed those were the same buildings I saw back at that cliff. The unfortunate part was a huge gap in the middle of the bridge. It was easy to see the jagged pieces of metal sticking out of the inside. It gap seemed to be about one hundred or two hundred yards wide. What happened?! How were we supposed to get across?! The situation made me want to stomp my feet angrily, but that would attract attention from those construction workers below.
"I'm telling you I'm not crazy!" an agitated voice suddenly screamed, disturbing the peaceful forest silence. All four of us looked directly below at the opening in the building, seeing two humans walk out. One of them had on the shiny suit betraying them as a construction worker. The other one had a red jacket on and looked to be some sort of shady character.
"Sure you're not," the construction worker muttered sarcastically as he rolled his eyes. That guy looked totally exhausted, most likely from being there at this time at night. He had a cup of something brown in his hand and I could faintly notice steam emitting from it.
The regular man had clenched up fist and looked as if he was resisting the urge to punch this guy. His whole body seemed tense while he looked at the construction worker as if he was trying to set him on fire with one fiery glare. "How many times do I have to repeat this till you guys believe me?!" he shouted. I could barely detect the sound of Pokémon in the forest scurrying away from the yelling. "I saw two Pokémon come over here and create this huge gap in the bridge! I swear to Arceus that I am telling the truth! They were like giant canine Pokémon, and one of them breathed fire and created... created this!" The man then pointed his hands at the bridge and waved them around frantically.
So this incident was recent, probably a few hours ago. That was around the time when we had barely entered Pinwheel forest. So one of the Pokémon was a fire elemental while the other one was something currently unknown. However both of them were huge and canine-related. I turned my head to see the reactions of the others. All three of them were being smart and crouched down to avoid being spotted if someone happened to look up. Illusion had confusion written on her face. Rachel looked confused as well but she was squinting to see the figures in the darkness. Zeke however was shaking in terror, clenching the round stone of his close to his body.
A guy with a familiar looking blue hat walked out of the building. I recalled back in Striaton city that this certain human was called a police officer, which was what Rachel called them. That lillipup was basically an expert when it came to humanity. The police officer was holding a pad of paper with some sort of stick like object in his pale paw...er, hand. I noticed some sort of scribble in a dark substance on the paper. "So let's get this straight. From everything you had told us, you were crossing the bridge heading towards Nacrene city when suddenly two Pokémon came out and attacked the bridge. You had barely made it out of range from a Flamethrower coming from one of the Pokémon. You said one of them was bluish while the other one appeared red, correct?" the man asked.
The suspicious man spoke up again. "Yes, I am telling the truth! Stop thinking I'm insane when I nearly was burnt to ashes!" He flailed his arms in the air with wide frightened and frustrated eyes. From finishing the last phrase I heard a small terrified squeal come from Zeke but it was cut short when I saw Illusion cover his mouth with her paw. His amber eyes were coated with fear and they were unnaturally wide. The thought of a giant red and blue Pokémon must have been scaring the kid, especially with that giant gap in the bridge.
That was all I needed to hear. Obviously since humans didn't have vision for the night the man didn't see anything more. Any more info he could've had wouldn't be any use since we just needed to get across. It would be best if we avoided all the humans since we couldn't risk to waste time by running off and hiding from them. Luckily we could find a nice place in the forest and Illusion would be able to transform into a salamence, and then fly us across.
I swerved my head around to face Illusion. She must have seen my movement out of the corner of one of her eyes since she turned to face me. "Illusion, we need to find a place so you can safely transform and fly us over the bridge," I explained with a stern voice. We should've been doing that in the first place instead of walking through the forest, but whenever someone asked Illusion abut that on the way she would avoid the question.
It was easy to see the reluctance and nervousness on her face. "W-Well we should probably listen to the rest of the-" she stammered, but I roughly cut her off.
"Stop, this isn't a question, it's a demand. You willtransform and you willfly us over!" I shouted under my breath. My small fingers were clenched up in a fist as I held it up threateningly.
She gulped as she started to shake slightly. "I... I can't, okay?!" she yelled in a whisper, than her eyes went wide. She covered her muzzle with both paws and looked as if she regretted what she just said. Rachel, Zeke, and I both glared at the zoroark.
"What do you mean?" I demanded through gritted teeth. Illusion's face then was covered in disappointment and guilt.
"I mean I was injured," she reluctantly muttered then pointed a red claw at her arms. They were still coated in a thick layer of dirt. Confused, it then came to me that a wound or major cut was probably being covered up. "Under this mud you can see deep cuts where Team Plasma attacked me. The mutation in my blood had caused me to be unable to transform if any bad injuries are created. I have several of those wounds, very deep, on both of my arms." Her voice had cracked slightly while explaining. I then noticed it wasn't dirt but as she said it was a lot of mud.
She started to rub and claw the hardened substance off. After only a little bit of it chipped off, I could see dull red flesh and blood-stained fur. Rachel had attempted to cover up Zeke's eyes but he defiantly pushed her away. It wasn't like a cut, but it started to look more like part of her pelt was ripped off. I bit my tongue at the sight, trying my best not to gag. It was a very thick coat of mud which had hardly hidden her wounds. She however only clawed off one of the mud-coats, leaving her other one to be covered up still. It had taken a while but soon it was clawed off to reveal most of the injury. It went from the wrist all the way down to her elbow, all of it looking like a section of her skin and fur was clawed off with a few deep gashes. Zeke then covered both of his eyes with his tail and turned away from the scene.
"Yikes..." Rachel commented, staring at the injury with disgust. Illusion had her eyes closed as if not wanting to see the damage. It was just horrifying. It was like someone made a cut in the skin, then grabbed onto part of her pelt and ripped it off. Then it was like someone gotten a knife and put big gashes on the arms. I had seen worse in Eterna forest however... way worse, but I bet that was scream-worthy for Rachel and Zeke.
Illusion moved her wounded arm behind her back, hiding the scene from us. "See, and it will take a long time for this to heal. Until then I can't transform," she muttered sadly, trying to avoid the intense gaze I was giving her. How were we-
"I'M NOT INSANE!" a human voice screamed, instantly grabbing my attention. Peering down I saw the man with the red clothing pull back a fist with a crazed expression on his face. About a second or two later he threw it forward with a ton of rage planted into it and it made contact with the construction worker's jaw. The sound coming from the man's mouth made me flinch lightly. The construction worker fell backwards, stumbling slightly before he tripped over a step behind him. He toppled over and fell with a loud thud inside the walk-through. The police officer immediately took action and reached into some sort of container attached to a leather thing around his waist. Pulling it out I saw a small device that fit nicely into the man's hand. I could see a twinge of electricity from an end of the device for a second, facing the enraged human.
A thought came to mind. That was the only chance we had to get to the bridge gap without being seen. If we headed across the bridge at that moment, the humans would be too distracted with the shady character and wouldn't see us run off. Then we would figure out a plan once we reach the edge.
I grabbed Zeke's arm which was very tense. He was still squeezing the rock of his close to his chest. "Come on guys, this is our chance!" I yelled matter-of-factly. For a minute I was worried for raising my voice but realized that none of the humans heard me over the commotion. Quickly I extended a vine and wrapped it around Zeke, knowing that he wouldn't be able to run fast enough. Looking down I noticed a bunch of the blue-hatted humans had ran out to see the scene. The device in the first police officer's hand shot out two wires with spikes at the end towards the man. In a split second it attached to the man's red jacket and sparks coursed through the metal threads. The man shook violently as the electricity shocked him. The convenient distraction was already almost over.
With my remaining vine I saw a nearby metal pole connected to the bridge and secured a vine around it. When I was about to jump I felt a light fluffy squeeze grasp my tail and with a small glance I noticed Rachel was holding on. Knowing there was no time for doing anything to tell Rachel about personal space, I jumped from the ledge with the lillipup holding onto my tail and a snivy in my other vine. Whatever Illusion did would hopefully keep her out of sight.
We fell towards the bridge with me in the front. The vine that held Zeke was dragging behind me and of course my tail wasn't ahead. Then I realized I was pulling us towards the ground and unlike swinging to a tree I didn't head back up; it was only straight down. My grip tightened on the metal pole as we plummeted towards the cement. Only one idea that didn't seem crazy came to mind out of my panic-driven thoughts. Quickly I retracted some of the vine till it was about only a foot in length, so I was basically right next to the pole I grabbed onto.
The appendage was so short that I couldn't hit the ground. I swung up into the air and then retracted the rest of that one vine. Then I mentally face-pawed myself as we flew through the air, straight towards the gap in the bridge. We were only feet off the ground but going at a fast pace towards the hole. Stupid gravity...
Quickly I extended my vine again and frantically searched the area for something I could grab on. The only thing I saw was the handrails of the bridge and most of it looked as if it was broke off. Some parts remained intact but most of it seemed severely fragile. With sweat beading down my neck I knew I had to take a chance and launched my free vine towards one of the rails. It felt very loose and definitely not sturdy, and even some gravel crumpled from the ledge. If the rail wasn't secure enough then it would break off instead of bringing us to a halt and we would drop into the sea below.
We went forward past the rail and I hoped with dear life that it wouldn't crumble when the vine stopped. I felt a strong tug once the vine fully stretched out, hearing cracking sounds emit from the rail. Gravel fell from the weak piece of structure. I noticed Rachel had just let go of my leaf-like tail and fell the couple feet and most likely landed safely. Panic drove me to instinctively retract my vines and hoped the handrail wouldn't collapse.
It broke off seconds after I started to reel myself in. Letting go of the crumbling cement, I dropped a few feet down. The structure had barely managed to keep gravity from sending me off the ledge into the raging sea below. Thinking within the panic, I maneuvered my tail so that it was directly below me and braced myself for the impact. The flat part of my tail smacked against the surface, a searing pain shooting up my spine, but I bit my lip to help and endure it. A light smacking sound came from my right and then I felt a small amount of pain spreading up my right vine. I mentally scolded myself realizing I didn't brace my vine and Zeke just tumbled clumsily and painfully into the cement.
Carefully I moved my bruised vine to lift the practically squashed snivy. He now had a giant bruise spread around on his stomach. Zeke had a seriously pissed off expression as he glared daggers at me. With a sheepish grin I released him and reeled my vines back in. From that experience I gained a few new bruises. Hopefully that wasn't a feeble attempt to stay away from the humans and hoped we hadn't have been spotted.
Quickly I located where everyone else was. Rachel was luckily nearby, looking a heck of a lot better than Zeke and I did. She was grooming her pelt, attempting to get some murky dust out of her pelt. Zeke was only a few feet away and somehow his stone didn't break. I swore that Zeke had that rock clenched tightly to his stomach and he just smacked hard onto the cement. I put the thought aside and new we had to regroup. Next I noticed the shady zoroark on all fours scurrying towards us. A smile threatened to show from all of us being safe but I refused to let it show. Illusion quickly made it over to us and moved back into her usual position, on her two hind legs.
"Thank Arceus we weren't spotted," I muttered as I eyed the humans gathered around the building's entrance. The man who had socked the construction worker was on the ground and seemed paralyzed. Several construction workers and police officers were there, and none of them were looking in our direction. It wasn't going to last that long though and our luck would cease soon enough. "Now come on, we got to get moving."
Zeke had opened his mouth to protest, ready to say a variety of insults and complaints, but fortunately decided to shut it for the time being. Illusion was in the lead, naturally being faster than the rest of us. We all sprinted towards the gap and I frequently glanced over my shoulder at the humans. Within a minute we reached the other end of the bridge, Zeke wheezing lightly. The stomach bruise must have been taking the breath out of him.
"Now what… Sha… dow…?" Zeke gasped, pausing a bit because of his temporary wheezing.
"Yeah Shasta, got any plans now?" Rachel growled, agreeing with Zeke.
I looked at Rachel with a confused stare. "Wait a second; did you just call me Shasta?" I questioned.
"Got a problem with it?" Rachel yapped, making me note the anger in her voice. Before I could open my mouth to respond she talked again. "I thought so. Now figure out what to do man."
I didn't get the name Shasta at all, but shook their remarks off my mind. I took the short time to think and tried to forget the pressure on my shoulders. The only good ideas that came to thought were I could extend my vines across the gap so the others could walk across. The only fact that made that plan suck was I doubted my vines could've reached that far, and with how exhausted I was I wouldn't have been able to hold the others up long enough and end up responsible for a few deaths. I wouldn't have been able to hold Zeke for a minute with how tired my vines were. We needed some other strategy.
"I know what we can do," Illusion suddenly chimed in. "We can jump."
My eye twitched. "What makes you think that will work," I seethed.
"No, no, it's a good plan!" she continued. "We can wait till a boat comes by and we can jump, and then we can hide on it till it docks at the Castelia city port, and we'll be free!"
Rachel scowled at the zoroark. "What makes you think we can survive a hundred foot drop? Or what makes you think that a boat will come at this time at night? Surely any boats coming through here this late would be canceled because of this."
Illusion seemed to be used to all this negativity in the air, most likely because she's been around Team Plasma so long. "Because I remember that this cruise ship left for a three day cruise. This really expensive cruise ship! And plus Zeke and Shadow can use their vines to secure onto the rails of the ship and climb aboard, and I can easily hold on with these paws of mine!" She flexed her black paws in front of us and her red claws, yet I couldn't take my eyes off the wound on her arm. She was acting as if her arms were okay, yet they were severely injured.
Zeke pointed a finger at the exposed flesh on her arm, holding his dirty stone in his other one. "What about that?" he asked, spitting out the last word in disgust.
Another one of her sheepish grins showed up. "Don't worry about me, just make sure to hold on to the rails when the time comes, and also maybe Shadow needs to hold Rachel in one of his vines."
I scowled at the remark. My vines were basically limp noodles. I would be lucky just to be able to grab the railing and hold on, let alone holding Rachel up. "Illusion, all night I've been using my vines to swing from trees, pick up and put down Zeke and Rachel, pull myself up and down from objects, and not to mention that little fiasco that just happened," I hissed. "How do you expect me to hold on to a railing with Rachel tonight, my vines are basically dead by now?"
Some reason I didn't get the reaction I wanted from Illusion. I expected her to look disappointed, doubtful, or confused. Instead she looked like she had some sort of trick. She reached into the fur in her red mane, shifting her paws around in the tangled mess. I wouldn't take my abnormal blue eyes off her paws shuffling around. Finally her face showed what looked as if she found what she was looking for and pulled out something from her mane. It was a familiar looking blue berry.
Illusion tossed it over at me and I hardly caught it. I stared down at the Oran berry in my black scaly arms. I snapped out of my perplexed state though and shoved the berry whole into my mouth. I savored the tangy sweet taste of the berry but then devoured the rest of it. Energy suddenly shot through my body and felt a new burst of energy. The numb pain from my newfound bruises slowly vanished. I barely noticed a sparkling blue-green light on my tail but I could only get a glance of it. My exhausted state transformed into one of alertness.
I hesitantly smiled thanks at the zoroark, but it quickly disappeared. "Why didn't you eat this? It would really help those wounds on your arms and maybe you would be able to transform again?" I snapped.
"Because it'll take more than a puny berry to heal these wounds," she retorted.
My attention was redirected when a piercing horn sounded in the distance. Peering at the shadowy waters to the east I could see a huge machine-like object sailing along the waves. Star and moonlight shone off the exterior of the machine that coursed through the water. Without doubt I knew that was the cruise ship Illusion had mentioned. Ends up she was telling the truth after all.
When I thought of the plan Illusion came up, I thought of it as ludicrous. We would never survive a fall like that. "Come on!" Illusion shouted, bracing herself to jump. I wanted to slap that zoroark clear across the face from her stupid delusional plan. Although we didn't have anything else to do, and I knew that Illusion would ask me for a better plan if I questioned this. Zeke unraveled his vines from his violet shoulders and prepared to jump from the ledge as well. Rachel stared at me, waiting for me to wrap a vine around her. She impatiently tapped one of her brown paws. Even Rachel agreed with this plan?!
I sighed in defeat and revealed my vines. They felt a hundred times better and sturdier then earlier. I coiled one of them around the lillipup's waist and she finally looked satisfied. "Thanks Shasta," she grinned, than the confusion of the nickname snapped back to me. What is with that name?
The cruise ship was sailing almost directly under the gap. I could see a few humans on the ship's deck seemingly the size of specks. They were most likely staring up at the bridge in shock. Great, now there was a bigger chance of us being caught if we jumped
"Go!" the zoroark yelled and sprang off the ledge. She hurtled towards the boat below, and Zeke followed her with extended vines. Rachel furrowed her eyebrows as she stared at me, waiting for me to jump. I stared down at the distance between us and the ship and it was easily a hundred yards.
Finally I gathered up my courage, took a deep breath, and jumped.
Author's Note: So when I finished the chapter, it was really long, so I separated it into two chapters. So yeah, being evil and leaving you all at a cliffhanger. Huh, not sure if it's a good cliffhanger but whatever. I'll get up the second chapter next weekend hopefully, if nothing in real life comes up. It'll be up next weekend instead of someday like tomorrow because I like to create suspense. Thanks if you read it this far, and continued to read! I have some plans for Shadow and the gang, so just you wait!
Also I was reading a story, and then at the end it said something so abrupt. It was saying reviews=updates and I was just frustrated. It was like the author was threatening to say that if you don't review, the author won't continue the story. I mean that's just stupid! I decided that I wouldn't do anything like that so don't worry about me saying anything like that. I won't judge my updates for this story by how many reviews I receive. I do have a poll up on which story people want me to update more, but that was up a bit before I saw that story. Well keep being awesome everyone!