Opening Note:
No trigger warnings for this chapter
The Starly Trio Attacks!
"Action time, Hilda."
"Again?" I mumbled, elbowing away the tip of the foot trying to jostle its way into my side. What was this, the fourth, no, fifth time? "Sleep is important too, I can't keep doing it forever."
"No, not that," said Lilith, a note of condescension in her voice. "Your friend's in danger."
I shot up from our secret spot behind the sunflowers, fighting the dull rays of light stinging my freshly opened, bleary eyes. Help, I heard from the area near the cave. The voice belonged to Bianca and it rattled with panic.
Springing to my feet, I battered my way through the stocks of sunflowers and paved a path to where Bianca's voice rang, the pats of Lilith's footsteps following closely behind me. Upon reaching the clearing, we made it in time to witness Bianca fleeing towards the cave just as a large talon crushed into her shoulder. A trio of harpies had descended upon her: flying pokemon with snow white skin, grey and black wings, and bird-like feet forming below the mids of their thighs. Another human, a young and, by the looks of it, unconscious girl, was already dangling in the clutches of one, and the remaining two were busy trying to subdue Bianca's struggling body long enough for them to lift her off her feet.
"Bianca!" I shouted, diverting their attention. "Lilith, use leer!"
Two vicious beams of light shot from Lilith's red eyes, unsettling the pokemon long enough for Bianca to escape their hold and stumble into the cave. Now Lilith and I were posed with a different problem: three predatory bird pokemon who were shaking out of their stupors and flapping their wings in our direction.
I froze, they were coming fast and my courage was sinking from me faster than a ship full of holes. These were flying types - three of them. Lilith was at a clear disadvantage. My brain worked itself into a nervous debilitation and, as I vainly considered what to do, they covered most of the distance to where we stood.
On her own initiative, Lilith moved before me, guarding my body with her own. Flashes of green lights blinked from her hands as she flicked her wrists, shooting two brilliantly glowing leaves at the oncoming attackers. Both hit a target, one slashing across a pair of eyes and sending their host crashing to the earth.
The word 'Nice' slipped through my lips on its own accord when I noted the two remaining pokemon were shifting their bodies and readying to charge into Lilith. I beat them to it, diving into Lilith's back just before they launched themselves at her, forcing us both to the ground. I felt the tip of a talon's claw graze through my hair, but otherwise we avoided the attack.
"I would have taken care of it," muttered Lilith as we quickly scrambled to our feet and faced the flying pokemon. They glided over the patch of sunflowers and circled back in our direction, preparing for another strike.
"You're welcome," I said under my breath. "Think you can wrap a vine around that one's leg and yank it to the ground? We'll worry about the one with the girl last."
Lilith nodded as a vine wriggled out from underneath each of her yellow collars. She waited till the pokemon were closer - just as they were swopping down to charge - and extended her vines. Her target attempted to out maneuver them, but momentum was already working against her and Lilith's tendrils soon ensnared themselves around the ankle of one of her talons, coiling around tightly as she whipped the pokemon's body hard against the earth.
Her target lied motionless next to the other assailant Lilith had incapacitated, who now writhed against the ground while clutching at the eyes Lilith's razor leaf had lashed. Only the pokemon with the girl remained, but despite her encumbrance, she squared her shoulder at Lilith's jaw and knocked her over while in mid-flight. Lilith retained consciousness but was slow to rise, and though the attack had unsteadied the pokemon, she was not shaken enough to break from her flight. Aiming in the direction opposite of the cave and climbing higher through the air, our opponent attempted to escape.
Without thinking, I ran and lunged for the dangling legs of the knocked out girl, just managing to clasp my fingers around one of her ankles. My weight hindered the ascent of the bird pokemon and she flapped her winds harder and harder as she battled to break her prey free. The gusts of air her wings shot back were sharp and powerful, and their force slashed against my face like ethereal blades. I couldn't hold on for much longer and I felt my fingers start to pry loose, digit by digit.
"Ember!"
"Swift attack!"
A small fireball and a barrage of stars blasted into the back of the struggling pokemon, forcing her forward and sending the girl and me toppling to the earth along with her. I heard the desperate footsteps of Cheren, the professor, and their pokemon pattering behind me, and as soon as my senses recovered from the fall, I quickly crawled over to the still unconscious girl's shoulders to undo her kidnapper's hold.
My efforts proved unnecessary: the attack and the crash that followed were enough to unfasten the pokemon's talons. She groaned and blinked her eyes as she woozily attempted to rise from her place, but she was quickly swallowed in a flash of red light and captured in the confines of a pokeball.
"Hilda, are you alright?" The professor rushed over to me and knelt by my side, with Cheren following closely after her. "Your clothes…nothing happened to you, did it?"
"My clothes?" I repeated before realization struck.
I was naked.
Events proceeded so quickly, I completely forgot my clothes were still lying crumpled somewhere behind the sunflower patch. My cheeks burned as I attempted to articulate a response, covering my breasts with my hands and pressing my thighs tightly together.
"I'm fine," I stammered. "Nothing bad happened. I-I just slept like this."
"We had a little fun last night," said Lilith, stealing over to where I knelt and perching her chin on my shoulder, her arms wrapping around the diameter of my waist. "From what I understand, Hilda and I weren't the only ones engaging in some debauchery."
Much to my embarrassment, Lilith seemed to be having no trouble articulating herself any longer. Her words seemed to elicit a similar effect from Cheren and the professor, although unlike me, their red cheeks were intermingled with perplexed expressions.
I began to wish that Lilith would have never learned to speak at all.
"She can talk?" asked Cheren.
"Obviously," said Lilith, nodding to Blaze. "Why? The tepig hasn't yet? I guess that makes sense, she always was a little slow."
Blaze, who stood next to where Chen knelt, returned Lilith's remark with a glare and a pout. She crossed her arms tightly against her buxom chest and I swore steam fumed out of her slight, swine-like snout. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but all that drew from Blaze was an unintelligible, throaty squeak. I might have thought her antics cute, if I wasn't so embarrassed.
"I rest my case," said Lilith, crafting a smirk that caused Blaze to fume literal emissions of fire from her nostrils. For a moment, I thought she was going to tackle Lilith to the floor, but Cheren quickly placed his hand on her leg and pacified her rage.
"Don't let her get under your skin, Blaze. Calm down." With a final huff, the fire ceased to breathe from Blaze's snout, although her eyes remained burnt into Lilith's.
"Master…" The voice caused my shoulders to jump. It sounded high-pitched and squeaky, and after the group of us turned our heads to determine its source, we discovered the voice belonged to Abigail.
"Abigail?" whispered the professor. "You too?"
"I think…yes."
The revelation caused the professor's lips to part in an expression of bewilderment. Cheren looked almost as astounded, although Blaze's existing annoyance only appeared to heighten at the realization that yet another of her peers could talk.
"I don't even know what to say. This is all so surreal," said the professor.
"I felt the same way when Lilith started speaking to me last night. It makes your brain hurt, I know, but I got used to it pretty fast. They're already more humanlike: when you look at it like that, it kind of makes sense that they could talk now, too." My eyes drifted to the unconscious girl lying before my knees. "Maybe we should talk about it later though: there's still this girl we need to take care of, and those pokemon over there will be getting up again before too long."
The professor nodded her head, although it took her some time to pull her eyes away from Abigail. "Right. Which reminds me…" Digging into her large pockets, the professor pulled out a pair of red, rectangular devices, handing them to Cheren and me before searching through her pockets again for a handful of minimized pokeballs. "Here. In all the chaos, I forgot to give you these: your pokedex and pokeballs. I'm not sure how much use the pokedex will be now, but the pokeballs obviously still work. I caught this one, so why don't you both go over there and catch the other two while Abigail and I see what we can do for this poor girl? I don't know if wild pokemon will listen to you after being caught any longer, or if they're even safe, but at least we can capture them to make sure they don't harm us again."
I had Cheren hold onto the pokeballs for me while I scampered my naked body behind the sunflower patch, Lilith teasing me all the while. After finding my clothes and dressing myself, I returned to where the two incapacitated pokemon once lied. Cheren and Blaze lingered in the spot now, and only one of the prior bird pokemon remained: the one attacked by Lilith's razor leaf.
Now that she no longer posed a threat, I noted how unimposing she really looked. She was slender and small, probably a few inches shorter than my unremarkable height. Her body had curled itself into a fetal position while her hands still covered her eyes, and the youthfulness of her skin depicted her as someone no older than I. As I analyzed her, I felt a strong arousal begin to kindle inside of me, but I shook it off before it could seduce me into a daze.
The alluring auras pokemon exuded didn't appear to be going away anytime soon.
"You caught the other one, I'm guessing?"
Cheren nodded. "Check this out." He flipped open his pokedex and pointed it in the direction of the injured pokemon. I craned my neck over to view the screen, which materialized a picture of a bird pokemon whose name I had trouble recollecting. The picture was what it must have looked like prior to the change and soon the robotic voice of the pokedex broke the silence.
"Starly, the starling pokemon. Because they are weak individually, they form groups. However, they bicker if the group grows too big. Though small, they flap their wings with great power. Their singing is noisy and annoying."
"A starly, huh?" I murmured. "It sounds familiar. It seems the pokedexes still work, after all."
"Apparently. And starlies are native to the Sinnoh Region, but large amounts have recently started migrating to Unova. Of course, I wouldn't have expected someone like you to know that."
Before I could reply, Lilith butted into our conversation. "Such a smart boy. If only all that knowledge could translate into something useful – like training his woefully inept tepig, for instance."
Blaze shot a death stare at Lilith and suddenly threw a punch at her, which Lilith nimbly sidestepped. She would have continued her assault on Lilith if Cheren and I hadn't interjected: Cheren grips his arms around Blaze's waist while I stepped in between the two.
"Lilith, that's enough!"
"Settle down, Blaze!"
With a sharp snort, Blaze wriggled out of Cheren's grasp and stomped away, while Lilith merely smiled as she watched her rival storm off in the direction of the cave.
"Lilith, what the hell? Why do you have to be such an instigator?"
"Please. I was standing up for you. Your friend made a verbal jab at you and I paid him back in kind. I didn't make his pokemon react so brutishly."
"Well, you didn't have to demean Blaze while you were at it. Besides, Cheren was only joking – we poke fun at each other all the time. If you would have let me talk instead of butting in all of a sudden, you would have realized that."
Lilith frowned. "What do you take me for? Of course I knew it was a joke. You should be getting upset at him for not training his pokemon well enough – attacking me like that."
I sighed and slapped my palm against my forehead. "What am I going to do with you? I should have listened to the professor when she warned me that Snivies were hard to train."
"Really? That's how you respond? The least you could have done was shown me some appreciation for trying to be good to you. I could have just said nothing, or better yet, left you to try and defend yourself against those starlies, earlier. If this is how I'm going to be treated, maybe that's what I'll do the next time we're attacked."
Our eyes bore into each other so intensely that it felt like sparks were igniting between us. Now I wanted to punch Lilith in the face.
"Stop," said Cheren, his voice firm, yet subdued. "She's right. I don't appreciate her making fun of Blaze like that, but Blaze shouldn't have attacked Lilith." Cheren turned to face Lilith directly and bowed. "I apologize, for me and on her behalf."
"Thank you," said Lilith, relaxing her tensed shoulders slightly. "At least someone knows how to treat me with respect. Maybe you would have been a more suitable trainer for me. We snivies are so difficult, after all."
It shouldn't have, but Lilith's snide remark evoked a pang of jealously that boiled my blood, and I opened my mouth to retaliate before Cheren quickly interjected.
"You're welcome. Now let's put this behind us. There's still the matter of Hilda catching this starly." Cheren reached into the pocket of his blue blazer and handed me the five minimized balls he had been keeping for me. "Now catch it while it's still down."
"Thanks," I grumbled, turning away from Lilith as I received the balls. I trained my focus on the starly and made sure not to so much as glance in Lilith's direction. I felt that if I looked at her again, my anger would only erupt tenfold. However, as I prepared to toss one of the pokeballs at the downed starly, I caught sight of something slick and purplish in color. It was hard to tell with her hands guarding her eyes the way they were, but it appeared to be blood and it dripped from below the protection of her hands. I stowed away the pokeballs into my pink and eased my way over to her head, kneeling down next to it.
"She's hurt," I said.
"I would certainly hope so. That was kind of the point of me attacking her."
It took some restraint and a long, deep breath, but I managed to keep my cool and refrain from snapping back at Lilith. "I meant badly, I think she's bleeding."
Gently, I rested my hand on the Starly's shoulder. Her skin jumped underneath my touch; otherwise, she remained as she was – curled into a ball with her hands pressed against her eyes. From my new perspective I could see that she was, indeed, bleeding. A lot, by the looks of it. Dark purple continued to seep down her cheeks, dripping sideways down her face until the blood tainted the black hair bunched under her ear.
"Hey, little thing. My name's Hilda. Can you move your hands away so I can see what happened? I want to help – I promise I'm not here to hurt you."
The starly remained unresponsive, so I gradually started to push her hands away. She resisted at first, but after a few moments of gentle persistence, she reluctantly peeled her hands from her eyes.
I gasped upon my discovery: a long horizontal gash stretched the width of her face, tilted sideways and slashing across her left eye. Fresh blood drenched the entire area, still flowing from the brutal wound. Her uninjured eye struggled to pry open against the blood that had caked over it, so it settled to return my mortified stare with a meekly raised half-lid.
"Lilith!" I shouted, searing a glare in her direction. "You did this? On purpose?!"
The horror and rage that reverberated from my words must have caught her off guard – her usual sharp tongue pulled no wit and her bottom lip trembled more noticeably the longer my eyes sank into her.
"Well?!"
"I was just trying to protect you. If I held back on my attack-"
"I don't care! You could have killed her," I said, cutting her off. "That would almost make you as bad as the ones at Nuvema – worse even, because you still have the presence of mind to restrain yourself. Don't ever do that again!"
The tremble from Lilith's lip appeared to send tremors through her entire body as water teared over her eyes. Seeing her so visibly distraught tinged me with remorse but it wasn't enough to pacify my anger. I understood what the starlies meant to do to me and that Lilith was trying to defend me – that didn't give her the right to risk killing them, though.
Without a word, Lilith fled off and I returned my focus to the injured starly, paying no heed to where she went. Cheren joined my side now and together we assessed the wound, discussing how best to treat it. Despite my mom packing my bag with a small first-aid kit, I didn't know the first thing about treating an injury as gruesome as this one. Thankfully, Cheren proved more competent than I in that regard, and soon he was issuing me instructions on how to patch up the gash. It took some time for the bleeding to stop and applying the disinfectant made the poor starly mewl in pain more than few times, but we were finally able to clean and bandage her to the best of our abilities.
I considered capturing it once we had finished, but ultimately decided against it – for now. While it proved difficult to decipher the starly's thoughts, she didn't seem like she had any intention of harming us any longer; and judging by the way her unbandaged eye rested on me - even after we were finished - I got the impression that she might have appreciated our help.
"There – you're all mended up now. Lilith shouldn't have done that to you, but you shouldn't have attacked us, either."
The starly relented a weak cry and then frowned – either because she was remorseful of her actions or saddened by her inability to produce the sounds she had once been able. I wasn't sure.
"Aren't you going to capture her?" asked Cheren.
"Maybe later - I think we're safe with her. Besides, Bianca has that potion in her bag – it might help this cutie's wound heal faster if we applied it now." I turned back to the starly and offered my hand out to her. "Do you want to come follow us back to the others? I have more medicine to give you. You just have to promise me that you'll be on your best behavior, okay?"
The starly nodded and smiled faintly before extending her winged arm and taking my hand with the end of her feathery limb, allowing me to pull her back onto her feet.
"Interesting," muttered Cheren. "All the wild pokemon we've encountered up until now have come off like mindless savages. I wasn't sure it was possible for them to act this way."
"I'm a bit surprised myself," I said, braving to withdraw my grasp and stroke my fingers up and down the length of the starly's back. "Maybe not as much as you though. After getting to know Lilith, I already suspected the pokemon retained their former personalities. I think it's all that lust they have now that's making them act so aggressively. The wild ones just seem to be more susceptible to it."
As if to prove my point, the starly's flaccid cock twitched between her legs and she groped the tip of her wing over my ass.
"Easy tiger," I said, reclaiming my grip on her adventurous hand and drawing it back to my side. "Best behavior, remember?"
"Hmmm…. Maybe that's the case, or maybe you just have a disarming way with them. Perhaps I should call you Hilda: The Perverted Pokemon Whisperer."
I laughed. "I think I'll pass on the title. Now come on, let's go check on the others before our new friend tries to feel me up again."
The starly, Cheren, and I made our way back inside the cave. We found Bianca there, joining the professor and Abigail in doting over the body of the still unconscious girl, and Blaze seemed to have gotten over her foul mood as she was now scavenging through Cheren's satchel, pulling out snacks tucked inside and gobbling them up. She was the first to note our arrival and when her eyes met Cheren's, she blushed and returned the half eaten apple in her mouth back to its place. Cheren reacted with a quiet sigh.
"Like children," I heard him say under his breath.
Twisting my neck this way and that, I searched the cave for Lilith to no avail. She was not here and a pool of concern began to spread inside me. Was I too harsh with her? Where did she go? In the meantime, a yelp from Bianca unhinged me from my train of thought. She was pointing at the starly and recoiling backwards, towards the wall of the cave.
"What's it doing here?" she shouted with her eyes fixed at the bandaged starly, as if expecting the pokemon to answer on her own behalf.
"Don't freak out – she's not a threat anymore. She was injured really severely. Cheren and I did the best we could, but I wanted to bring her in to treat her with that potion you have."
"Why isn't it in a pokeball? It just tried to attack us. How do you know it won't try something again?"
The starly's feathered hand began to tremble in my grasp. Bianca's scrutiny must have been making her nervous and it didn't help that all the eyes in the cave were trained on her, as well. I squeezed her arm and pulled her in a little closer to my side, giving her as comforting of a glance as I could muster before confronting Bianca again.
"Look, I know how you must be feeling, but since we patched her up the only thing she's been is friendly. It doesn't seem right to just shove her in a pokeball if she's not trying to attack us. We just want to use your potion."
Bianca narrowed her eyes at me before digging inside her bag and throwing the potion at my feet. "Fine. There you go."
A part of me wanted to scream at Bianca but I restrained myself. Despite learning her thoughts after last night's conversation, I expected her to be a little more grateful after saving her, but her hate for pokemon seemed to be growing with every hour and I doubted yelling at her would resolve that. I grabbed the potion from off the ground and led the starly to sit against the nearest wall.
Based on the sharp cry from the starly, the sting of the potion hurt worse than the disinfectant, but its effects were miraculous. The slash healed before my eyes, stopping any lingering bleeding and turning the gash's appearance into something far less grisly. Her injured eye - which had been sealed shut from the cut - was able to flutter open now and the pain that strained the starly's features gradually dissolved.
"There, now I can see both your pretty brown eyes." I smiled at the starly. "We won't even need that bandage anymore. The gash left a scar but that's okay. I think it makes you look pretty cool, actually."
Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out a small makeup mirror and presented the starly's reflection to her, which she gazed at curiously for a few moments before her lips shaped into a smile. She made a happy noise that sounded like something close to a caw and draped her wings around me, pulling me into a tight embrace as she showered kisses along my cheek.
"You're welcome," I muttered between fits of giggles. "Now cut it out – that's enough with the lip service!"
After the starly finished bestowing her affections, she settled back against the wall of the cave, her hands – if you could call them that, they looked more like feathered mittens, with their thumbs being the only discernable digits – resting on my lap.
"Soooo," I said before pausing to nibble at my lip." I was just going to catch you, but I figure it's more respectful to ask: Do you want to be a part of my team? Even though things have changed, I promise to help you get stronger and to love you and care for you as best I can. What do you say?"
It was weird, it felt more like asking a girl out on a date than trying to gain an ally, and a pit of nerves formed in my stomach upon the prospect of rejection. However, I had little time to be nervous because as soon as the words left my mouth, the starly eagerly nodded her head up and down and swallowed me up in another hug.
"Good," I said, returning the embrace. "I was worried you would say no. Is it okay if I call you Zephyr? Do you like that name?"
Zephyr cooed in approval as she continued to clutch to me, her hands beginning to creep down my back until they groped over my ass.
"You have thing for my butt, don't you?" I whispered. Breaking from the hug, I grabbed Zephyr's hands and pulled them back to her lap, eliciting a disheartened mewl from her.
"Not now," I said, hesitating before leaning into her ear and lowering my voice to a hush. "I know you have urges though. Don't worry – I'll take care of those eventually, too. I promise."
I slipped my hand between Zephy's legs and gently squeezed my fingers around her shaft to show her what I had in mind, making her quiver in pleasure as I playfully flicked my tongue against her ear. Twenty-four hours ago, I would have never believed I could be so forward, but the night spent under the stars with Lilith had obviously unlocked a side of myself I never knew. The pokemon were not the only ones suffering changes, so it seemed.
Quickly rising to my feet before Zephyr could get too excited, I found the eyes of the professor watching me. Did she see what I was doing? I fidgeted underneath her stare but soon her lips curled into a warm smile that soothed my nerves.
"Impressive. I thought the wild ones might be untamable, especially without the help of a pokeball, but you've coaxed her into a happy little puddle of love."
"It was nothing, really," I said, blushing while trying to withstand the professor's praise. "She's probably just grateful I helped patch her up."
"Even if that's the case, I'm still impressed by you – and not just because of that. You and Lilith handled the attack well. Three on one and Lilith almost defeated them single handedly. For a new trainer, that's really exceptional. You two must already have a strong bond."
"Yeah…." The scene of Lilith storming away on the verge of tears flashed across my mind. "Do you know where she is? I haven't seen her in a while."
"No. Last I saw, she went off with you."
Worrisome thoughts took my mind as I regretted ever having yelled at her. She might have ran away and the thought of her in danger or worse, gone forever, sent sickening nerves to eat at my insides. I wanted to dart out of the cave and scream for her, and I almost did, but an unfamiliar groan gave me pause as the body of the unconscious girl began to stir.
"She's waking up," said the professor, as everyone's focus turned to her.
The girl had curly blond hair and long bangs that peeked out from under a peculiar turban made of red, floral patterned scarves. She seemed younger than me, probably by a couple years, and I watched her as she propped herself on her elbows and fluttered open her blue eyes. She scanned the room, lingering on each of our faces, before doing a double take upon glimpsing over Zephyr's countenance. The sight of the starly shot her eyes wide open, and she opened her mouth as if to scream before her body collapsed back to the floor.
"Your starly made her faint," lectured Bianca. "Do you really have to keep it out like that?"
"Bianca-," interjected Cheren.
"What is it Cheren?"
"I know this situation is trying all of us-,"
"Yes, it is."
"But can you get the stick out of your ass."
The remark stunned me, but it was nothing in compared to the disbelief Bianca now wore. Cheren rarely cursed, but when he did, something was rreally bothering him. Even the professor appeared taken back.
"I know she attacked you but the starly is not a threat any longer," he continued. "Let it go."
I expected Bianca to retaliate after recovering from her stupor, but instead she became visibly upset, getting up and shoving past me as she exited the cave – tears welling in her eyes.
Cheren rubbed his fingers to his temples and sighed before chasing after her, Blaze quickly getting up and following behind him. Now Bianca was distraught too, but at least Cheren wasn't leaving her to herself. That was more than I had done for Lilith….
"I need to find her," I said, beginning to turn and make my way out of the cave.
"Wait," demanded the professor. "Everyone is just getting upset and leaving me all at once."
"Sorry professor, I wasn't trying to abandon you or anything. It's just that Lilith's gone."
"You don't know where she is?"
"No," I confessed. "We got into a bit of a fight and I yelled at her, then she ran off. I'm worried."
"Then here – take Abigail with you while you look for her. She'll help you find her and steer you away from danger."
"But what about you? You're in this cave all by yourself, then. It's not fair that you're left responsible for that girl."
"I think I'll be safe. Besides, Abigail's not the only pokemon I have. I'm more worried about you and the others. We were attacked this morning: that might mean that there are other wild ones nearby. You need to be careful out there."
"Okay…I promise I'll be quick. Thanks professor, and sorry about all this."
"You have nothing to apologize for – tensions are high. Believe me, even though it might seem like I've done a good job of keeping my cool, I'm feeling it just as much as each of you. Now, go find Lilith. I don't think she could have wandered too far. Snivies are notoriously proud; she probably just got upset and didn't want anyone else to see her dealing with her feelings."
"I hope you're right," I took my leave with Abigail and Zephyr at my side.
End Note:
Yay! Zephyr joined the team!
Up next, a chapter from a different character's POV that's full of really really, indecent, immoral smut.
There will be lots of trigger warnings, oh yes.
As always, please comment and/or kudos if you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!