Mm-hmm

Chapter 35: Alone This Night

"Mew?" I called out quietly with no response. There were no signs of anything nearby. Only the sounds of movement out in the woods. "Mew?" I called out in a normal voice. Still no response. She probably took shelter somewhere and left me there. Probably shouldn't have slept right here. Though my arm and leg are fine now. I'm feeling a little sluggish yet energized at the same time. A sudden rustling nearby caught my attention followed by a cry which left me shaken. It doesn't feel safe here. "Mew?" I called one last time. With no answer, I wiped any crust from my eyes. It was then that I noticed a faint glow emanating from the red area of my belly. "Wow I'm holding a charge of Solarbeam?" The time I had apparently fallen asleep couldn't have been anywhere near the evening. Guess this means I don't have to absorb the sunlight myself, but just to stay in it for long enough and it'll build up on its own. A living flashlight on low battery power. Great this makes me a target in plain sight. Another rustle nearby got me up and moving in an instant. No running around at night though, I don't want to crash into anything.

Rarely blinking, I wandered around aimlessly into the darkness. Where I was going, I had no idea, but the walking did keep my mind off of the dangers of the night. It's pretty scary being small in the forest on a dark night like this. Of course every little sound left me scanning the entire area still. How I walked through here last time without any worries I have no idea. I was even followed by a few ghost pokemon and was still pretty oblivious. With that thought, I looked to the sky, nothing. That only made me paranoid. I sped up a little.

What am I so afraid of! I'm basically the strongest pokemon alive right now, at least in my weight class. Of course there's Mew competing for that position...Note to self, challenge her to a fight one day. I need to look on the bright side of this...despite me being the brightest thing here right now, if something jumps out at me, I can beat my fears away on it. Of course, I can't be pinned down or else I'm most likely done for. This is my first time in the wild on a dark night like this. Where are my survival instincts? They should be built in now that I'm a Treecko.

Thanks to the dim light resonating from me, I noticed some thick threads attached from tree to tree. They looked like webs.

"Wow I almost walked right into these..." Looking past the ones right in front of me, I saw that they expanded pretty far back. "Walking through there is suicide..." So I decided to go around, only to find that it was blocked off by more webs. They weren't there before. I realized that I wasn't alone. I walked right into its nest, whatever it is. It's unfortunate that I was the one to be passing by though. An Energy Ball cleared a path for me through the webs that locked me in. As long as I don't touch any, I should be fine. Making sure to watch my back, I slowly made my way out. I stopped to look back and just then, something warm and silky hit the back of my head. Ew, it's warm... The thought made my skin crawl.

Whatever hooked a web on the back of my head began to pull. I dropped on all fours and started to crawl forward, using the grass as leverage. This is probably going to leave me with a nasty crick in my neck. Neither of us seemed to be making progress. Grass isn't very durable though. It was being pulled out of its roots in this little struggle. I needed an escape plan, but nothing came to mind. The grass gave in and I was thrown into the air, that's when it hit me, Solarbeam. Who knows how much I really have built up. There's nothing to lose. If I can launch myself hard enough into the air, I can break free and escape.

Using the momentum of me being pulled, I let loose the Solarbeam through my mouth. It came out in a short but powerful blast that gave me more than enough force to fly into the treetops. Probably wasn't the brightest idea since it sent me spiraling at the same time. Crashing through the branches, I lost more and more speed until finally managing to catch one. My body was now sore from all the collisions, but at least I'm out of there.

"...I hope nothing happened to be hit by that..." Had anything been there, it was probably blown into the ground or sent flying just like me. Using Solarbeam through my mouth seems to have a different effect than with my hands. It's probably better to secure myself to something before firing. The faint glow was still there. Even after firing, there's still energy left?

To my left stood a shadow with piercing red eyes. Upon lifting myself onto the branch and facing it, I saw that it was a Murkrow.

"...Why are you glowing?" It asked. "Treecko don't glow..." Had I been normal I wouldn't be.

"You see there's a long and complicated story behind this." There's not, in fact it's very simple but not very logical. There's no way anything could hold on to a charge of Solarbeam this long let alone fire it and still have some left without any source of energy. "So let's just say you didn't see anything." As impossible as that is.

"Sure, whatever. That looked like it hurt. What happened?" It asked.

"I just escaped with my life. I won't be doing that very often though." I took a seat where I stood. Great, I have company now. Time to waste as much time as possible.

"Looked like you came from the Ariados nest over there." Had it not had a beak, I think it would have been grinning.

"I did. Wandered right into it. If I wasn't glowing, I probably would have gotten trapped there." Though that wouldn't have stopped me anyway.

"Heh, good luck." The Murkrow spread its wings and readied for takeoff.

"Wait what? Hold on, where are you going?" I didn't want to be left alone this night. Something about it is just off.

"I've got...things to do." With that, it left. It seemed to be in a hurry, oh well. No point in chasing it. I think I'll sit right here for the moment. There's nothing really to do. Maybe I should go trash that nest just for the hell of it. Teach them to try and capture me. I would if I could remember where I flew from. I wonder where Mew is. More importantly, I want to know where I'm supposed to go. I've got to find Blake and Claus, though finding them in this darkness probably won't happen. Mauville's probably on lockdown right now too. I almost wish I could have seen what went on there. Must have been great to see something so exciting for once. For me anyway, the people there, not so much. Still, I don't understand why that happened that time. When I copied Mew while fighting Arceus, it didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? Is there some sort of criteria I need to meet beforehand? Is it an extreme circumstance? No can't be, I don't remember being in any danger before it happened the first time. I can't remember exactly what happened though. I remember talking to mew and copying her during it...but after that, nothing. I need to ask Mew about this. Hopefully she can come up with a solution.

"...I need a watch." I wonder if there are watches that come in my size. It'd be great if they did. In fact there should be, toy watches come in pretty small sizes. Though my arms are a little thin and I'm about the size of a human baby. I'll have to check next time I'm in a shop. Well time to occupy myself until daytime.

I jumped down from the branch I was sitting on just to land on another. It'd be much easier to just climb down since I can't see anything that well. On the way down, I grabbed a handful of leaves. There's not really anything to do but try for any new moves. First thing's first, Razor Leaf. I can't create my own leaves, but this is a forest so there's more than enough of ammo lying around. Now for a target, the tree trunk I just climbed off of will do. Though if the move works, there's no guarantee of accuracy. First try, nothing. The leaf just twisted a little in he air as if throwing paper and slowly made its way to the ground. Same result with the next few. Maybe I'm throwing them wrong? Let's try throwing them like ninja stars then. Still no avail, though the leaves did go a little farther this time. Guess I'm still doing it wrong. Had it not been nighttime, I'd seek out help. For now, it's just trial and error. Maybe I need to throw them harder? You'd think throwing leaves would be easy. Unlike other grass types, I can't shoot them out of who knows where. The average Treecko can't learn Razor Leaf, in fact Treeckos just can't learn it at all. I'm not normal so I don't know what I can learn on my own. Razor Leaf seems to still be off the list though. So much for that. I do have claws, though they're small. They're not what let me scale walls though. Anyone in their right mind knows how to slash at something. I personally like punching things more.

There was an opening in the treetops above me, no moonlight shone through. Is the moon being blocked by something? I climbed to the top of the nearest tree and jumped into the air to get a clear view of everything above the forest. First jump didn't show anything but the dark forest. On the second jump however, I noticed something strange about the nearest mountain. Assuming my location is in fact north of Mauville, the nearest mountain would be Mt. Chimney. Further inspection showed a dark cloud above it.

"Looks like Mt. Chimney is spewing more ash than usual." I said to myself. Despite all the ash that falls to the route below it, I don't think the cloud has ever really been noticeable like this. I should go check it out. Mew is probably already on her way there if she isn't already there in the first place. If it erupts...well that's the worst case scenario. I'm not afraid of any thunderstorms. Cold weather...not so much, but I could do without it.

I took one last jump to confirm my route there and missed the branch I jumped from. Shortly after, I fell onto something cool and sticky. So sticky that it managed to keep me completely immobilized. No amount of struggling could get me off of this. The web was pretty large and even if I had been watching where I fell, I would have been caught anyway.

It followed me! I can't believe this! Wait that Murkrow...It knew! Son of a bitch! Why didn't I see this coming! Ariados can track their webs and will do so to capture their prey. An important life lesson for anything on their prey list. I however, do not plan on being said prey. I still have Solarbeam charged and am willing to use it again. This time though, I'm gonna hit it with the Solarbeam instead of using it to escape like a few moments ago. A dark shadow in the shape of what looked like an Ariados crawled up to where I was lying on the web.

"Hey you! Let me go! I have to get to that mountain over there!" The Ariados ignored me and proceeded to approach. If it doesn't let me go, then I'll just blow it away. "Listen I need to get down to that mountain now! Something isn't right about it!" It seemed to pause for a moment. Probably waiting for me to start begging.

"Beg." I wasn't too sure what it said.

"Huh?"

"Beg for you life and maybe, MAYBE I'll let you go." That sadistic little fuck.

"No! You sadistic asshole! I'm not begging for anything! If anything YOU will be begging soon enough!" I'll wait until it comes a little closer.

"Suit yourself. I would have let you go too." It did exactly what I wanted it to do. It climbed over me.

"You just made a big mistake..." With that I let loose my charge of Solarbeam and sent it flying into the tree just ahead of us. The same force tore the web below me apart and pushed me to the ground. I jumped to my feet and ran at the Ariados as it was still just getting up after falling to the ground. I tackled it against the same tree. "You know, I love beating up on things bigger than me." Another tackle into the same tree seemed to have been enough to keep it down, but I know it was faking so I'd let my guard down. "It's so much more satisfying than a fair fight." I gave it another tackle and this time it tried to run, only to have me catch one of its legs. "No no, you wouldn't let me go, so why would I let you go?"

"Wh-what!" It must have been very shocked at the fact that it was stopped so easily with so little effort.

"Oh you must not have known." I pulled it back and slammed it against the same tree and stepped up to its face, looking it dead in the eyes. "See, I'm not normal." It turned away and ran off, only to be blocked by me. "Sure I'm only 2ft tall and only weigh roughly 18lbs." It tried to run again, but still with no avail. "I can lift things ten times my weight, I can move faster than a Dodrio can run," The Ariados attempted to escape again. Now it was just getting annoying. "Ya know if you keep running I'll just make this whole experience a lot worse on you. If you want me to let you go, maybe you should start begging for your life." It's blubbering just went in one 'ear' and out the other. It was really just annoying to me. A swift kick to the face shut it up. "Shut it! I couldn't care less about you and your kids. I'd rip them apart limb from limb while you watched if I wanted to. In fact, if I wasn't so compelled to get to that mountain I'd do the same thing to you right now, but before I go..." I gave the Ariados a powerful kick to the abdomen, leaving a large crack in its exoskeleton. It's screams and groans made me feel a little happier. "You remember that scar and you remember well what I could have done to you." Do bugs get scars? Didn't matter to me, I'm feeling a little satisfied now, though I wanted to do some more damage.

I left it there and headed off to Mt. Chimney.

Jason isn't sadistic or evil but...