~Ruby~
This was it. My pose and all—though I hated revolting back to my acts on stage—it felt good to send a pokemon into battle with a bang. You ever try to hold a pokeball closed when it wanted to open? It wasn't easy, and I had been blown back numerous times by the blow. But hell, I scared the shit out of Wally—judging by the look on his face.
Cattivo, the name given to my tactful and often too smart for his own good, Flygon, was absolutely perfect for this battle. The name itself meant mischievous. Dragon against dragon, speed on our side, a vicious hyper beam for our final blow—I had this whole thing planned out from the start.
"Faster! Get out there!" I yelled to the green blur now, casting glances at the much slower, heavier blue grounded pokemon. It didn't look as if it was capable of taking flight even if it wanted to, it was far too huge. Even as it knelt on all four legs its haunches were as tall as Wally. Not to mention the height of its wings. It was easily as wide as a car too, with a neck thick enough to where you probably couldn't wrap your arms around it easily.
"Aerial ace!" I yelled once Cattivo reached his top speed. He zipped back and forth in the sky, making the Salamence swing its huge head back and forth, watching with narrow yellow eyes and a growing hate. The big brute was too stupid to figure out just where my pokemon was coming from.
Cattivo paused, and then sliced through the air with such velocity its wings made an unpleasant howling sound. Faster than the blink on an eye my pokemon reached the Salamence, but what I thought was going to be a critical hit turned into a desperate attempt at simply trying to attack at all.
Salamence proved itself capable of speed, obviously since when Cattivo reached it suddenly it was in its grasps. Struck with the aftermath of the attack blood spurted up from the forehead of the blue beast, which only angered it. There was a terrible howling when the Flygon was gripped with razor claws that curled up like a dead magikarp. They tore into his neck and lower left leg, leaving sickening trails of blood.
"Good job Salamence!" I heard Wally gasp. "Take it now!"
I didn't know what that could possibly mean, but it was obvious the unspoken attack had been ordered. Salamence pinned Cattivo with a snarl and roared before gripping it by the neck with huge gaping jaws. I could nearly hear the horrendous sound of teeth piercing the tough skin of my pokemon. More blood, a fountain of it.
"Get away! Cattivo! Fly!" I wailed, begging my pokemon to wriggle out of its grip. And boy did he try to. What was this a lock jaw? I flinched in fear.
Salamence gripped my pokemon in such a way where it couldn't angle its head upward and attack back. It could only dangle and scream in hopes that it would release it soon. The huge brute then took to the sky, flying much more agile than I could have thought possible. Its wings were enormous and heavy, flapping slowly and sluggishly.
It dragged my pokemon to the sky like a ragdoll… a ragdoll fighting for its life, but a ragdoll none the less.
"Let it go! Use dragon pulse!" Wally rasped, his voice failing him when he needed it most.
Let my pokemon go? "Cattivo!" I yelled, trying to dislodge its brain from the state of panic. That was part of the trick I assumed.
Salamence released him, and he came spiraling back towards the meadow ground with speed like a rocket.
"SNAP OUT OF IT!" I yelled to my pokemon.
Then dragon pulse hit, launching the pokemon from the falling towards the ground, to plowing into it. The back of my pokemon went up in smoke and I could see where scales had been fried with such heat. Salamence roared to life in the night sky and worked up another heaping ball of orange and blue flame. In the back of his throat the attack rumbled.
"Cattivo! Get up! Get up!" I begged as my pokemon fought with the grass and tore its head from the soft earth. He screeched when he moved his neck, that was bleeding in such a pattern that only teeth could have caused. He trembled with determination to stand on his feet again.
"That's it! Go on use hyper beam!" I yelled, thinking that I had underestimated Wally. Where he got such a pokemon was beyond me, but he sure knew how to use it.
"One more dragon pulse!" he yelled, fighting the coughing.
"MOVE!" I saw the flash even more it struck, and though it didn't end up doing much damage, it was enough to knock my pokemon back onto the ground wailing for mercy. A faint bubbling of white light appeared in its mouth, but the strength was too much. He could only scramble to his feet again, while Wally so politely gave us the time to re-gather ourselves.
I didn't need this… not from him. I was a good trainer! I had strong pokemon! "Cattivo try your speed again! Fly!"
Salamence landed and shook the ground with such force of an earthquake. My knees nearly went to jello, and my head rattled from the shock. He bellowed, one slithering pink tongue spitting saliva and flickering.
"Now is your chance!" I yelled frantically.
Still fighting, still determined Cattivo rose, only a few feet from the ground, only to be gripped again by those claws and dragged back to the grass. Salamence roared, pinning him down and forcing the weight of his body down on my pokemons shoulders. His mouth glistened with blood.
"Salamence!" Wally coughed, and I thought for sure he was going to order a killing attack. But to my astonishment and no end he didn't. "Stop!" he rasped, clutching his knees and trying to hold himself upright.
Salamence looked around in confusion, obviously upset with the ending of its fun. Such a powerful pokemon… I felt bad for my Flygon, and absolutely furious for the fact that it had just been beaten.
I couldn't be that bad of a trainer could I? I wanted to demand a rematch with a different pokemon… Biz could win it for me. She was psycho in battle; she could do anyone in the right moment.
Wally held up his pokeball with a shaky hand and returned the dragon of his quickly. I could hardly believe that someone so sickly was capable like that. Even now, as he was keeling over with his hands wrapped around his chest, taking deep breaths that would hopefully stop him from having another attack, he looked like a champion.
Frail as all hell, but still a champion. The way his eyes lit up, and the way he returned his pokemon in time to let mine be saved from being knocked out completely. Thought it was obvious I lost the battle, I was slightly upset about this. And here I thought I would beat him easily.
"Cattivo." I walked slowly to the twitching pokemon's side. "You—you look like hell." I tried to smile down at him, to make him feel better, but the pride that had vanished from his eyes seemed to fade with his strength. He lifted his head with a grunt to look at me, but it flopped back down with a thump. Blood covered the majority of my pokemon, and it was all I could do to call him back and hope the pokemon center would be open this late. It should be, but in small towns you never know…
"Ru—Ruby." Wally was walking forward, wheezing but slightly better than before. I expected him to look thrilled with himself, rather than absolutely horrified.
"I'm sorry… I—I ha—hate hurting pokemon like that." He explained; hand on his chest and eyes squeezing shut with pain.
"A battles a battle." I turned with my pokeball in my hand. "Congrats." But my voice betrayed the bitterness.
"Ruby… if… if you really… don't want me to go with you…" Wally stepped in front of me and waited for my eyes to turn up. They did slowly in surprise.
"I… I don't want to be a burden. I can find my own way out if I have to." He whispered, eyes down and dark circles forming under them. It was easy to see how sickly he was in the dark, where normally you would think the light would rather reveal his frail body. Another creepy aspect about him.
I should have been thrilled that he was giving me the chance to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone, but that wasn't how I really felt. I didn't think Wally was a bad person by any means, and I really wasn't that creeped out by him, I was just worried. What if he had another life or death experience and I was forced to give him CPR again? What if he—Arcues forbid—died? While I was with him…
I wouldn't know what to do. Surely it would be a horrible, traumatic experience, but at the same time it was just too hard to put him down like that. He was strong, maybe not physically himself, but his will power had proven far good enough for whatever journey I could be searching for. And he was courageous, willing to do the right thing when no one was looking. I could see that the moment he pulled Fever from the river this morning.
It seemed I didn't have a choice whether he was giving it to me or not. And hell, maybe some company would be helpful along the way. I never exactly had a guy friend I could talk to growing up, perhaps it was time I made one. Sapphire would disapprove—she hated the idea of "bros before ho's"—but I wasn't about to live my life around her preferences. We could talk and try and work things out, but there was a boundary to be set between my personal feelings and hers.
She was a show girl, she wanted nothing more than to perform and win contests with her pokemon. And I was… different. It was hard to imagine there was anyone else like me in the world sometimes, but being in this small town proved it not impossible.
Wally had the same internal dilemma about getting the hell out, and yet he was so much better at what he did. He obviously was a good trainer, and I was just a rookie at the moment—though I often thought better of myself—I knew he could teach me a thing or two.
So I looked him in the eyes and waiting a long moment, anticipating the way it would feel to have a traveling partner for the first time. With a deliberate sigh I shook my head.
"No, Wally you won fair and square."
His face lit up. "Oh than—
"But I have one rule!" I cut him off, holding up my gloved hand and gesturing for him to stop. He blinked in confusion but nodded eagerly.
"No dying… ok?"
He laughed—this time a real genuine laugh that was not forced in the slightest. His face was flushed back to a normal humanly color and his pale eyes looked brighter than the moon itself. I could have sworn a breath of relief came off of him in a contagious wave. With a small huff he stuck his hand out to me and waited for me to shake it tightly.
"Deal." He said, flashing those perfectly white, but slightly too large teeth of his.