Disclaimer: I do not own the Pokemon series, or any of its content.
Lord had earlier explained to me exactly what Pokemon Trainers did, and ever since I had been chewing in both fury and misery on the squeaky ball. I'd known already that Pokemon were captured to be controlled. But why? What's the point of battling, for no good given reason, for a human? They're only using us because they don't want to battle themselves! If I want to battle, believe me, I'll battle. I don't need some human waste-brained idiot telling me when and whom I'm going to fight.
I imagined throwing Damion out of a Poke Ball and ordering him to attack instead, and then watching him get thrown about by the enemy. The thought gave me some satisfaction.
But it wasn't to be. I was the one that was going to get thrown from a Poke Ball if I didn't do something. The human was going to take me to who knew where. It was going to brainwash me. I shuddered at the thought of becoming a mindless zombie, doomed forever to obey orders.
I was startled from my thoughts by the door slamming shut as a bag-laden Damion returned from the Mart. He had run some last-minute errands for the old man. He looked irritated.
I glared at him and returned to my ball, squeaking with all my might to cause him as much pain as possible. "Quit it, Ray," Damion snapped, depositing the bags on the kitchen table and then snatching the ball from my mouth. I tried to bite his leg but he walked away too quickly.
"Where's Aldemar?" Damion asked of Lord. The bird nodded towards the hallway, but Aldemar had just emerged from one of the rooms.
"I'm right here. Is something wrong?"
Damion shrugged and led the way to the table, where they sat down. "Nothing's really wrong, I just need your advice."
"Advice?" said Aldemar, raising an eyebrow.
"Not exactly advice, either," Damion admitted. "More of an opinion."
Aldemar settled himself more comfortably in his chair to listen. I interrupted them by screeching, "Baaaaaaaaaaagoooon!" Damion looked down at the ball in his hand and sighed. He rose from his seat and, while he was at it, brought over a bowl of my new feed along with the ball.
I took the ball back, but not the feed. I loathed the idea of being given my food, especially by a human. If I accept something that I need in order to live, like food, it gives the impression that I I depend on whoever offered it for survival. I don't.
"You know Dante, from up the street?" Damion asked.
"The kid that's always playing basketball? Yeah, he's out there all the time."
Damion nodded. "I want to invite him to come with Ray and me."
Aldemar let out a long breath of air. "His parents won't like that."
"He's sixteen," Damion snapped. When he realized how sharp his tone was he relented a bit, but his voice was still hard. "Most kids start looking after themselves when they're ten. He's more than old enough to make a decision for himself."
"I agree with you," Aldemar said calmly, raising his hands in mock surrender. "I'm just saying that his parents have been rather protective of him since he lost his arm in that accident."
"His parents are never home," Damion grumbled.
"That's what this is about?" Aldemar said.
The boy chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Do you know that they were supposed to go on a vacation this week? His parents canceled it because some little thing came up at work. I just found that out on my way back from the store."
"Damion, you have to understand that his parents do care for him very much," Aldemar pointed out.
"I know," Damion muttered, relenting. "I just . . . I dunno. He acted like he didn't even care that they'd canceled the trip, when he was really excited a few days ago. I think the whole situation bugs him more than he lets on. It might be fun for him if he could get out of this town, at least for a while . . . it's not like he can really go anywhere when he's stuck here . . . but I don't know . . ."
"He was always a secluded one," Aldemar agreed.
"What do you think?" Damion demanded.
Aldemar thought for awhile. Finally he got up from the table and started to put the groceries away, calling over his shoulder, "I'll trust your decision."
"But what's your opinion?"
Aldemar shrugged. "My opinion is that you have a good heart, Damion. You're also very determined. I'm glad you are asking my opinion, but there is little doubt in my mind that you would ask this Dante one way or another. Try inviting him, I suppose. After that it'll be up to Dante, after all."
Damion nodded slowly and got up from the table. "Thanks, Grandpa," he said before the door clicked shut behind him.
When Aldemar finished the last of the groceries and retired to his room, I spat the squeaky ball out with a sigh and set it aside for the moment. There was no one worth torturing in the room and besides, my jaw was a bit tired. And besides, I was troubled. Very troubled.
Should I go with Damion? "No" was my immediate answer. But what could I do?
When I say, "What could I do?", I don't mean it as a rhetorical question. I am seriously asking about what possibilities I could explore. Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was escaping, which had proven a failure.
What can I do?
I hadn't meant to say it aloud, but apparently it had escaped me because Lord asked "About what?"
I glared at it. This was a specimen of a human-trained Pokemon. I wasn't pleased with what I saw. I picked up my squeaky ball with my forelegs. Its Poke Ball shape suddenly disgusted me. I threw it away, and it rolled under The Couch.
Lord tilted its head from side to side as it thought. "You are afraid of Damion?"
"No," I snarled. I wasn't afraid of any human, least of all that aggravating boy.
"You are afraid of captivity?"
Not afraid. But wary. Very wary.
Lord fluttered to the floor and hopped over to where I was sitting to look me curiously in the eye. "What are you afraid of, then?"
"I'm not afraid of anything," I growled. "But I am not going to be dragged behind a human boy so he can use me as a tool to gather glory."
"What makes you think Damion wants glory?"
"It's all humans want."
Lord looked surprised, and I wondered briefly if my tone had changed from its normal fierceness while I stated this fact. I didn't think so and glared at it.
Lord was thoughtful. "Well, you do have a choice."
"I don't!" I said angrily, in frustration. "I don't have a choice in anything of the matter!"
"But you do," Lord insisted. "You have the choice to go willingly, or go unwillingly."
My scowl deepened. I had been pondering choices more along the lines of "go" and "not go". "What kind of choice is that?"
Lord shrugged its wings. "A fair one. You can choose either." When I snorted and made to get away from this annoying creature, it added, "You said a moment ago that you didn't want to be dragged behind him. Why not drag him behind you?"
A cynical bark of a laugh escaped me. Lord continued, "Or neither one could be dragged, which is more appealing. Walk side by side."
"Humans are not equal to me," I said, angry that the bird seemed unable to get that in mind.
Lord shrugged again. "Go willingly. You may be surprised with what you discover." With that, it retreated to its perch.
I snorted. Nothing could be discovered that I didn't already know.
Ah. My eyes widened. But there was one thing:
Why was I a Bagon? And how do I obtain my body back?
For the first time it dawned on me that Damion finding me may have been set up beforehand by Ho-Oh. My lip curled at the thought, and hatred for the bird bubbled up inside of me. It subsided, though, because I realized that the odds of this being the case were slim: Ho-Oh had said that sending the Tropius to get me away from the Human Death Machine would be its final service to me (though a fat a lot of good that did me, when the humans from the machine still found me a mere week later).
I pondered this more. Even if Ho-Oh had not meant for me to encounter the human boy, I might still run into it in the travels. Or find answers. According to Lord's description of a Trainer, the boy was going to travel. I would simply find the way out of this mess before he could use me for his gain. I bit my lip as doubt flooded into me: would I be able to do it? I pushed the doubt away, unwilling to consider my inability to do something.
After several moments of frustrated pondering, I finally came to the decision to go with him quietly. This would be for my own personal gain as well as the fact that I had to. I didn't care what Lord said. I didn't have much of a choice in this matter.
The door opened and Damion re-entered.
"What did he say?" Aldemar called from the room.
"He declined," Damion said with a shrug. "Ah, well. I offered." He saw me and seemed surprised for a moment that I wasn't chewing on the ball. Maybe he thought that I just couldn't reach it under The Couch, because he came over and fetched it. Giving it back to me, he said, "Come on, Ray. Let's go pack."
The room that Damion had declared his domain was much smaller than the living room, which was not large by any means. There was only room enough for the thing that humans sleep on—beds (though how they think their dirty selves above sleeping on the ground like every other species is beyond me)—and a small desk with a strange machine on it.
The machine was very interesting. Damion wiggled an orb-shaped object connected to the giant cube by a cord, and suddenly the screen blinked on. I watched it warily.
"Like the computer, Ray?" Damion unplugged the computer and the screen went black. He hefted it into a big box that was waiting on his bed. "I'm giving it to Grandad to sell. It's ancient, but maybe he can still get a fair amount of money from it."
After the box was sealed shut and removed from the bed, the boy dragged an old backpack out of the closet and set it on the mattress. He unzipped several of the sections and peered inside. "Wow. There's a lot more space in here than I'd thought. We'll still have to pack pretty light, though . . ."
From his closet he pulled the bags retrieved days earlier from Mr. Grocer, as well as some of the strange fur that humans cloak themselves with. "No reason to pack more than one T-shirt and jeans," he explained of them as if I was listening, placing them in the bag. "That makes two including what I'm wearing. Should be more than enough."
I didn't want to dwell on the thought of leaving with this human tomorrow. I'd settled that I would go with him, but if my thoughts lingered too long on the subject, I may change my mind. Instead, I amused myself by imagining all the painful things I'd do to this human, given the chance, before I would kill him.
Next he put in something called "Tent in a Tube", a small, cylinder-shaped container, his food and mine, a few bottles of water, and a pot small enough to carry for cooking, among other human necessities. In the smaller pocket he put some snacks and other small items that could be pulled out fairly quickly. And in the smallest pocket that was most easily accessed, he put Poke Balls and a strange item that for some reason reminded me of the computer.
He looked at that last item for a moment in amusement. "I got this Pokedex years ago. I wonder how old it must look compared to the newer versions."
A few more minutes were spent with the packing, but he didn't appear to have much. When he was finished he set the bag by the door with his hat and jacket on top of it. "Whew," he said, sitting down on the bed. "Hope I didn't forget anything."
Since he was done, I sensed that he would be retiring for the night soon. I was out of the room the second he opened the door, and went back to my familiar corner in the living room, where I curled into a ball. My heart thudded and I wondered what tomorrow and the following days would bring. It couldn't be fortune. I'd have to be prepared.
Before I allowed myself to sleep, I ate a bit from the bag that was still on the table—I'd gotten the food myself, so that was acceptable enough. Then I made sure that my guard was up and stable, so I could be mentally prepared for whatever the travels may bring. When I was content, I allowed for sleep to come.
Morning came early. The humans were up at the first sign of dawn. A quick breakfast was eaten. Neither the old man nor his grandhatchling spoke a word.
When the meal was finished, Damion retreated to his room while Aldemar sat at the table, staring at nothing in particular. I waited in complete silence, unwilling to dwell on the disgusting thing I was doing by travelling with a Trainer.
"Remember," Lord said to me, breaking the silence, "control your Rage. Given enough time, you'll find you won't even need it."
"Pah."
I built a wall in my mind to block out Lord's incessant chatter should I need to, but the bird didn't speak again.
Finally Damion emerged from his lair with his hat, jacket, and bag. At his waist was a belt with a single Poke Ball: mine.
There was an awkward moment between the two of them that I barely acknowledged. "Uh . . . bye, Pa."
Aldemar rose from the table. "Hold on, Damion. I have something for you." He left for his room for a moment, and emerged minutes later with a rectangular object in his hands, which he extended towards Damion. "Here."
Damion stared at it in disbelief. "This is your badge case."
"Yours now. A gift of luck." Aldemar smiled broadly. "May it do for you what it did for me."
"Hold as many badges as possible," Damion chuckled. He accepted the gift and his grin faded, replaced with seriousness. "Thank you, Grandpa."
Aldemar clapped him on the shoulder. "Your parents would be proud." Before Damion could react to this, however, Aldemar shoved him playfully towards the door. "Now get going. I've always hated long good-byes. You need to start your journey." He laughed. "I've waited six years to say that, so now I'm going to say it again: You need to start your journey!"
"Very funny!" Damion opened the door. "Ray, come on. Pa, uh . . . take care."
With that, he stepped outside. I jumped down the porch stairs, impatient to be moving and outside again after my time locked up in the abode. The early morning was chill on my scales, but I didn't mind it. The rising sun cast light on the street, making it seem warmer.
Aldemar watched as we trudged down the road. As we got to the first turn and vanished from his sight, the door shut slowly.
"Well, Ray." Damion took a deep breath of the morning air. "I can't believe I'm finally leaving. It's a weird feeling, isn't it?"
I made sure that I was ahead of him, which was difficult to do: frustratingly enough, one of his strides was equivalent to three of mine.
"'Take care'," he chuckled. "Ten years of living with your grandfather and and all I can say in good-bye is, 'take care'. Ah, well."
The rest of the way was walked in silence while the sun continued to climb. When we reached the town gate, the sun was almost clear of the treetops.
I could tell that Damion was both excited and fearful, though he didn't show it. "This is it. As soon as we set foot beyond that gate—"
"Hey! Wait!"
We whipped around to see the one-armed boy running after us. When he reached the gate, he came to an abrupt stop, panting.
Dante looked Damion straight in the eye. He was a solemn-faced boy with distant eyes. He had a shoulder bag, no doubt because a backpack like Damion's would be awkward to carry with only one arm to support it. The bag was packed with things that looked like they were scrounged up at the last minute.
"I'm coming with you."
