Disclaimer: I do not own the Pokemon series, or any of its content.
Of all things, the Poke Ball was my greatest obstacle.
The Poke Ball was the one thing that tied me to the human. It was the very symbol of that bond. Every time I looked at it I remembered that I was a human's slave. It was the one thing that allowed him to control me. In a second, it could take the most powerful creature in the world and make it vanish from existence until it's called upon by the human, sent back out to do its bidding. I don't know what those balls are, exactly, but they are obviously powerful and dangerous if they could manage to control even me.
It was a curious thing, but it was also very unnerving. I was beginning to feel as if I would do anything to avoid being put in the ball. The very thought of being contained made uneasiness swell up in my throat. I wanted to be nowhere near the ball, much less inside of it. I almost disgust myself when I wonder how far, exactly, I would go to not be recalled to the ball. I'd followed human orders already, to avoid it.
Whenever I tried to think about what could be done about this predicament, my pride flared up and I thought for a moment that I might be able to do it. But then the uneasiness came back and quelled the fire. Doing anything could risk my being in the ball.
So I was quiet.
I struggled to keep my growl under control as I plodded ahead of the two humans. I wanted to scream. What was I, a human magnet? After years upon years of solitude, in just over two weeks humans have killed me, those very same humans then attacked me, I've been caught in a whole town of humans, a human caught me and took me home to his human grandfather and said grandfather's human-loving bird, and now another human boy had joined us. My head ached just trying to keep track of if all.
I wanted to ignore the humans, I really did. To block them from me. But it was difficult to do. Dante was easy enough to ignore, but Damion had captured me. He'd captured me, and bested me and controlled me when I tried to escape. That was a very difficult thing to ignore.
Since we left the town's boundaries neither had said a word, which was a small relief. Dante gave no sign of desiring a conversation, and Damion didn't seem to mind. And the town was fading, the woods were growing. The scents of wild, untamed greenery washed over me, and I basked in them. But it was nothing to the sky. I welcomed the peace and quiet that had met us thus far in the forest, but the sky . . . I longed for the sky. I gazed up at it, bright and blue and welcoming, above the treetops.
Miserably, I plunged on. It was at times like these, when my heart begged for the sky, that what I really wanted to do was lay down and sleep all the pain away, until I myself wilted away as if I never had been. My pride banished such thoughts; it wouldn't let me give in so easily. My pride was the only thing that kept me going, forced me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and for this reason I listened to it attentively. To prove to myself that I wouldn't give in, as I walked, I began to search for a boulder to throw myself off of to fly.
Eventually, walking down the path brought us to a fork in the road. Each way was marked with a sign. Damion turned down the one to the right, and I grudgingly followed. Dante stayed where he was, shifting nervously.
Damion stopped and turned around, furrowing his brow. He jerked his thumb behind him, down the path. "This is the way to Petalburg."
"I can read," Dante said sarcastically. "Actually, I, uh, need to go to Littleroot."
Damion was surprised and impulsively asked, "Why?"
Dante was pulling something out of his pocket. Damion walked over to see what it was. I didn't feel like walking wherever he went like a dog, so I sat down where I was on the road and fumed in silence.
Damion's frown increased as his eyes traveled over the little sheet of paper. "An invitation from Professor Birch? For your first Pokemon," he added as he read.
Dante didn't answer, which confirmed that Damion was correct. When Damion was through reading, Dante stuffed it back into his pocket. "If you never used it anyway, why do you still have it?"
Dante began to walk down the road to Littleroot. Damion didn't stop him and shrugged in my direction, gesturing that we were going to follow. With an aggravated sigh, I did, wanting to kill him even more for that gesture. Simple gestures like that showed that he thought he had enough control over me to simply make a sign, and I would understand and obey the unspoken command. What angered me further was the fact that I was doing it. I wondered briefly if being in the ball would really be so bad if it allowed me to escape all this. The memory of the ball wormed its way to the front of my mind and I shuddered, shoving the horrible thought away as quickly as I could. Yes. Yes, it would. That ball was horrible and terrifying, it and everything that it symbolized.
Once Dante was sure that we were indeed going to Littleroot, he began to further explain. "I didn't use it when I was old enough to because I have no siblings. I thought that if I left . . . well, that my parents may be a bit upset, and lonely." He shrugged almost absentmindedly. "Besides, I was never really into battling. And even if I'd wanted to go, when this happened—" he gestured lazily to his armless side, "—my parents would have never—" His eyes widened and he snapped his mouth shut.
"Let you," Damion finished. Dante flinched. "And they would have never let you leave now, either."
Dante inhaled deeply, and slowly let it out again. "No," he said icily.
They'd stopped walking now. Dante looked tired and worn. The iciness in his previous statement was gone from his eyes; instead, they looked empty and bland. His shoulders sagged in defeat. "Well? Are we going back to Oldale, then?"
"Huh?"
Now Dante's eyes narrowed, as if he thought Damion was playing games with him. I looked back and forth between them impatiently, wondering when, exactly, they would halt the chatter and be moving again. "You've found me out. I ran away, and you've caught me. I know you like to go by the rules and play it safe and all that junk—"
Damion raised his eyebrows further.
"—and you'll want to take me back now, since I don't have 'permission'. Now . . . why are you laughing?" he demanded.
I looked to Damion, who was indeed laughing. He broke off with the laughter, but a large grin was in place on his face. "Me. Going by the rules, playing it safe. What, do you think I'm a pansy or something?"
He continued down the road with a lighter gait. Dante looked genuinely confused as he followed. I was just plain annoyed. I wondered for a fleeting moment if Damion would put me in the Poke Ball for throwing a rock at his head, or Dante's. It really didn't matter to me who it was, as long as I had someone to take my fury out on. My eyes fell on the ball and I shuddered again, more violently. Better not risk it.
"Well . . . so what if I did?" Dante defended. "You know, you always did all the household chores and shopping; even if it was for your grandfather, it's common knowledge that Aldemar is in perfect health and can do it himself yet you did it anyway—and when you waited six years to get a Pokemon just to have a stronger friendship bond with it when most kids form bonds fine just getting one from the lab—I mean, well . . . you just seemed . . . the type . . . never mind." He trailed off, realizing how stupid his accusations sounded aloud. "It made more sense in my head."
Damion chuckled. "Growing up with Aldemar doesn't exactly teach you rules," he offered in explanation. "It teaches, more like moral values. There's a difference."
The ghost of a smile played on Dante's mouth. "I guess."
"Hey, pull that invitation back out." Dante complied, and Damion looked it over. "You never got your parents to sign it."
Dante nodded. "Yeah, that's one problem. And my signature of consent is already on the invitation, so I can't sign for my parents or anything, and I'm not great at faking signatures anyway . . ."
He trailed off as Damion pulled a pen out of his bag and forged the signatures. He handed them back.
"Uh . . . thanks," Dante said, and put it back in his pocket. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, though he had relaxed considerably from the time we'd left Oldale's boundaries.
I finally found a decent-sized boulder and jumped off of it, throwing my whole very being and willpower into flight. It didn't work; I fell to the ground in a second.
A second. Well then, I reasoned, obviously the boulder wasn't high enough if that was all. I couldn't possibly fly off of something so low.
So I continued to hunt. The chatter between the two humans had died down a bit, mostly focusing on what Pokemon Dante thought he would obtain. Dante said he didn't really know, and an awkward silence fell between them. I sought out a few more boulders and jumped off of them. None of my jumps gave me flight, so I assumed that they might also be too low. In frustration, I rammed my head against the nearest tree, spraying bark around me.
"What's your Bagon doing?"
"I'm not sure." Damion fished his Pokedex out of one of the bag's outside pockets and pointed it at me. I took note of it warily, but decided to continue my search for a boulder.
"Dreaming of one day flying, it practices by leaping off cliffs every day," Damion read. "Each time it fails, it slams its head against anything it can find as if to dispel its frustration."
They exchanged glances and shrugged. I found that there were very few boulders worth leaping off of alongside the road. Most of them rose barely six inches above the ground. I jumped off of them anyway, unwilling to let any opportunity pass by, but with the same result each time. At first I could push the feeling away, but discouragement became harder and harder to ignore. Also, the Poke Ball kept catching my eye, and uneasiness again bubbled up inside of me. That and the unbearable discouragement together made me want to rip myself to shreds to end the inner turmoil.
I heard Damion and Dante conclude, after examining the map, that our destination was about a day's walk from Oldale. The two towns were fairly near each other, nearer than any other two locations in Hoenn. Apparently they were pleased with this time, saying that we could be there in the afternoon. I couldn't resist the thought that I could fly that very same distance in a mere fraction of the time.
It was very difficult to trudge along. First of all, although I was more accustomed to it now, walking was not my forte. Second, although the shade provided by the trees did help with the heat, the sun still managed to beat down mercilessly on my scales. And there was no wind to relieve me, other than the brief, occasional gust. The slow pace at which we moved and my own, frustrating emotions of conflict did nothing but add to the discomfort.
It was slow work, indeed. Damion got out my squeaky ball, but I didn't take it. Rather, just looking at it and the way it was styled after a Poke Ball made my stomach churn. I refused it. When he, confused, tried to give it to me again, I thrashed out and sent it sprawling. Dante was closest to where it landed and returned it to Damion, who shrugged. He didn't take it out again.
As our feet carried us farther and farther away from Oldale, Dante seemed to relax a bit more. "You didn't seem surprised that my parents didn't give me permission."
Damion shrugged. "I figured that that might be the case. Even when I invited you I had a pretty good idea that would happen if you accepted."
"Huh."
The "huh" was said as a statement, as an exhalation of bewilderment. Not much else was said, other than the occasional comment about the weather or something similar.
We stopped a few times to rest our aching feet—I hate to admit it, but although I can endure great pain, this kind of aching was new to me because I've never walked before. Most pain, I'd assumed, came from battling and fighting and such, not simply everyday things like walking. I found it even more ironic that walking didn't hurt my feet half as much as resting did. It was like when I was walking the pain was left behind, and when I stopped for resting it caught up with me. So, rather than sit down, I took to bouncing from foot to foot during these brief resting periods.
By this time I was deeply upset. Now not only the fact that I had to battle for Damion bothered me, but now I knew what it was like to travel to do it. Travelling is a very lengthy process that is only enjoyable if one had wanted to do it in the first place, and had a goal to be reached by doing it. Travelling so much to battle pointlessly was, in turn, pointless. This was very frustrating to my mind. So, for most of the journey, I focused on building the wall in my mind. Keeping my mind blank by building the wall managed to calm my mind for the moment, and also time seemed to go by more quickly because by keeping my mind blank, I kept track of nothing. Not even time.
When the trees finally started to thin out I snapped to attention, aware that the civilization they sought must, and the end to the day's walking, be close by. Sure enough, the path led to the top of a hill that overlooked a town even smaller than Oldale.
Damion and Dante sped up, as did I so as not to be left behind. I jumped to the front of them to set the pace. Once the buildings and general layout of the town became clear, I saw that its boundaries only encompassed a few blocks of houses. One small shop, and the rest were houses. Cottages, they could even be called, for they were small. All of the abodes looked exactly the same, except for one large building that was positioned away from the rest of the town.
"That's the lab," Dante said, checking the map scribbled, and smeared over the years, on his invitation.
The path, at the base of the hill, wound its way through the town and continued to the door of the lab. We followed it. All in all, Littleroot was a very quiet, peaceful town. Little stirred in it other than a few young, human hatchlings playing about, or humans tending to their gardens.
The town itself did not take long to navigate, and soon the lab door loomed up in front of us. For the first time, Dante looked nervous. He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking at nothing and no one in particular.
I was getting very impatient and let out a growl. Dante took a deep breath and put his hand on the knob to turn it, but before he could it seemed to turn of its own accord, and the door swung open.
In the doorway stood a human man that seemed somewhat surprised to see us on his doorstep. "Yes? How can I help you?"
Dante cleared his throat and asked, "Are you Professor Birch?"
"That I am Professor Birch, as are all of my forefathers before me." He looked Dante up and down, then Damion, and me. "Uh, are you here for your first Pokemon?"
Damion shook his head and gestured to me. "Not me."
But Dante nodded and the professor led us inside.
There was nothing worth describing in the lab, but for some reason it made me feel awkward. The floors seemed spotless. I could see myself in the tiles if I only glanced down. It was somewhat unnerving. Unnatural.
Professor Birch led us into a room with three Poke Balls on a table. I flinched at the sight of the balls and almost slowed down, before I realized that these balls were not meant for me. I was still wary. He glanced at me as we walked. "I've never seen a ring like that on a Bagon before. Do you have any idea where it's from?"
Damion shook his head. "Not in the slightest."
"Hmm." The professor stood by the table idly, thinking, looking at nothing in particular. Suddenly he remembered where he was and why, and his eyes came back to focus. "Right. Do you have your invitation?"
Dante reached into his pocket and retrieved it, handing it over to the professor. He was holding it so tightly that it seemed for a moment it seemed as though he wouldn't let go. He held his breath and waited while the professor glanced at it.
Professor Birch skimmed over the signatures and appeared to be more interested in the yellowed state of the invitation. "How long ago did you receive this invitation, young man?"
"About six years ago."
"Six years! I thought you looked a little old to be getting your first Pokemon." He shrugged and put the invitation in his pocket. "No matter. It's a good thing for you that these don't expire." He laughed. "Okay, young man. It's time to choose. You have the choice of Torchic, Mudkip, and Treecko."
As he said each of their names, he tapped their ball, and the respective Pokemon appeared on the floor: a small, orange bird; a blue, four-legged, fish-like creature, and something that was similar to that of a gecko.
"Which would you like as your partner?"
I sized each of them up. I was bigger than both the bird and the Mudkip. Their eyes were blank, though, and I wasted little of my precious time focusing on them. The Treecko was more interesting because there was something different about it. It was about my height, though my weight still far outmatched it. It seemed more capable than the other two. More sure of being on its own two feet and more comfortable in its abilities. It was confident.
It was also the only one of the three that looked Dante straight in the eye.
"That was more difficult than I thought it would be," Dante moaned.
The trip to the lab had taken unexpectedly long. It had taken multiple trips throughout the late afternoon, with breaks in between each trip, for Dante to finally decide on his partner. When he had, it was late enough for the humans to decide to rest until tomorrow.
The town had no Pokemon Center or inn, so they were forced to make camp under a patch of trees. It was a clear night, so they didn't bother setting up the tent.
I was too full of my own thoughts to find amusement in the boys' attempts to cook; in the end they just pulled out what they could find to make a meal from their bags. I was curious about the Dante's choice, the Treecko. He had been named Pippo.
Damion shrugged. Dante was resting with his back against a tree, while Damion lay stretched out in the grass. "That's another reason why I waited. Didn't want to deal with the stress of picking one to form a bond with. Treecko seems a good choice, though."
Dante nodded absentmindedly.
Pippo was a curious creature. It scrambled up the trees, jumped from treetop to treetop, and always returned, only to take off a second later. It had hardly said a word, not that I'd prompted conversation from it. It was leaving me alone, as I wanted because it was even easier for me not to take note of it. Honestly, so far the creature was taking form as a rather unintelligent creature in my mind. I didn't care enough to think otherwise.
It was night. The humans were on their bedrolls. I was curled into a ball on the grass when a thought ocurred to me. If the humans were going to sleep, could I escape? Would travelling on my own be just as effective? I could do it, sure, but the humans seemed to know this territory better. My pride screamed for me to run, but an inkling of reason cried for me to wait and see.
I wondered when that small bit of reason came to be. Power, pride, dignity, they were all that mattered.
Go willingly, Lord had said. You may be surprised with what you discover. Ah. So that was when.
It was silly of me to remember the bird now, if at all. He didn't even know my predicament. I'd never told him of Ho-oh. He hadn't meant by that statement that I would find answers regarding why I was a Bagon, and I knew it. He'd meant travelling, human partnership, and everything else that human-loving, low-life creatures spoke of. What the bird may have known, however, was that the statement might have a double meaning for me. It just didn't know what that double meaning was.
But before I could even decide if I should escape, and how to exactly do it, Damion outstretched his hand that held the Friend Ball. I was confused because I hadn't yet done anything to incline him to put me in the ball. Then I was afraid because I knew what was coming once the ball claimed me. And then I was furious.
And then I felt nothing as I was recalled into the ball.
