Chapter 23: Snakes and Gourds

I stepped into the wall of fog. The fog was an ashy grey and was more like smoke thatn fog. The fog was so thick that I couldn't see my hand in front of me. But in this fog, the two auras I saw earlier had become stronger, which meant I had to be getting closer to them.

"Cell, if you have trouble seeing me, grab onto me," I said to him.

"Okay," said Cell, he was somewhere behind me.

From somewhere behind me I heard a slapping sound, and I could hear Latios, followed by Cell moaning in pain.

"You just said to grab on!" said Cell angrily.

"I've over here," I said stopping.

"Oh, woops." said Cell.

I felt a warm hand grip my left hand.

"Must've grabbed Latios." said Cell quietly laughing.

As we walked further into the fog, one step at a time, I felt the ground getting muddier. With each step, the voices became more and more more audible. I could tell one voice was a woman's the other a teenage guy's. I could guess that it was probably a teen and his mother arguing over something.

"Look mom, I don't want to fight! I want you to let me do as I please." said the teenager's voice.

"You should go out there and train! You're strong, and I'm sure many people wouldn't mind training you, in fact they would probably want to!" said the mother's voice.

"Like I told you, I don't want to!" argued the teenager's voice. And the argument kept repeating like that.
"What are they saying?" asked Cell.

"There are two Pokemon. Sounds like one of them is a mother, the other is her son. The osn doesn't want to be trained, the mother wants him to be caught and trained." I explained with a whisper.

"Perfect, you can get a fourth team member," said Cell.

"I wouldn't say that for sure." I whispered.

Without me even realizing it, the mud started to suck on my feet as I stepped closer.

"Hello?" I called out, cutting into the argument.

"Ah see! Another trainer!" said the mother's voice. I could make out two silhouettes in the fog. One of them was a gourd shaped silhouette with glowing blue eyes at it's top. The other was the shape of a large snake.

"Great!" exasperated the teen.

"Excuse me trainer," said the mother's voice. "Can you catch and train my child?"

"Let's get out of here," said Cell worriedly. I guessed that to him the voice must've sounded hostile or something.

"Don't worry," I whispered to him. And then went back to talking loud.

"Look mom, I don't want to be trained, leave me alone!" said the teenager's voice.

"You will listen to what I say!" said the mother.

"No I won't!" shouted the teen.

I sat there and realized what this reminded me of. Myself. Me and my own mom. Of course we didn't really talk about weather or not I was going to become her weapon, and was forced into it regardless. But this was basically the same thing except the mother really was doing something for the sake of the child.

"I'm sorry." I decided. "I cannot catch someone that doesn't want to be caught."

The argument stopped there and became quiet.

"Wait you don't want me?" asked the teen's voice.

"No. If you don't want to be caught. Then I won't catch you," I said allowed.

The teenager's voice became quiet.

"See what you did?" said the mother.

I looked at the aura of the snake like figure, and saw that he was deep in thought. Maybe I'll talk to him later, I thought to myself.

"Let's go." I told Cell.

"If you say so." he said and followed me out of the fog.

"Now what are we going to do?" asked Latios in my head.

"At this point there's only one choice. Train my pokemon and hope for the best." I said allowed.

The man that worked at the Safari let us stay in one of the few rooms in the basement. And surprisingly, judging by his aura he had no interest in turning me into the Wizards for money. I guess he didn't want the Rangers after him.

It's been a week already since I started training my pokemon. They became much stronger, but I was still worried about fighting the Electric-type gym leader. And of course no one was strong enough to really have a strategy yet. No one would be able to take out two Pokemon on their own. I sat there and reconsidered evolving Eevee to Jolteon. I shook the thought out of my head. She'll do what she wants, and I don't want to her force her to do what I need. And besides that, what will I do in the upcoming gym battles?

It was the middle of the night. I had planned on going to town tomorrow to fight. But I felt like I needed one more try at him.

I stepped out into the night. I looked around, and in the sky I could spot the tower of fog. I walked through the grass and towards it.

I could hear the two bickering again, about the same thing. They were still arguing about how the training and getting caught to be trained and being left alone. Then somehow they heard my footsteps. The mother said," Here comes another trainer! Get caught!"

"No." said the son, plain and simply.

"Hello. It's just me again." I said softly.

"Oh you, the trainer from the other day." said the dragonite.

"Hey. I wanted to ask if I could borrow your son for a second. Just so I can talk to him." I said to the mother.

"Okay." said the dragonite.

"You just want to talk to me?" asked the son.

"Yeah," I said.

"Then I'll be back in a few minutes." said the mother. The wind picked up, suddenly. I couldn't see the mother's shadow in the dark fog. However I guesses that she had wings and she was flying. Her wing strength was so strong it nearly pushed me down, and surprisingly it didn't push me down.

After a few seconds the snake asked," So"

I thought about what I wanted to say for a second before saying. "I want to start off by saying I kind of understand how you feel."
"You do?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"My story is a little long, but basically my mother forced me to do something I don't want to do. I'm on the run from her and trying my best to train my pokemon to fight back one day." I explained.

"Tell me your story." said the son curiously.

"Here's my story then," I started to say. I quickly summed up my story, including Latias and Cell.

He sat there after I was done, maybe he was trying to figure out if I was lying or not. But he was thinking about it.

"Well I don't want to pity you into joining my team. But instead I want to tell you what you can get if you join my team."

"What I can get?" asked the son.

"Yeah. If you join my team, you can have time away from your mother, while getting stronger. And I'll release you whenever you want. Since I'm going to be doing some traveling you can explore."

He thought about it again.

"It maybe a kind of an interesting experience for you." I said and stopped talking.

"You've made an interesting proposal." said the son.

I smiled and said, "Unfortunately because of what I told you, I can't wait for a week and come back and give you time to think about it. However I can give you until tomorrow morning."

"Okay thank you." he said quietly.

"Good night." I said and turned around. I walked forward, hoping that I was making my way out of the fog.

I returned and I let out everyone in my room tonight. I should speak with all of them before tomorrow's battle.

"Tomorrow's the battle." I said quietly. "It's going to be a rough fight, a three vs four. But I'm sure you guys can take them on."

I didn't know what to say.

Then Eevee spoke up," You know we're still waiting on those nicknames."

"What nicknames?" asked Zorua. "Seriously?"

"We're getting nicknames?" asked Scyther.

"Well… I mean. If you guys want it, well Eevee obviously wants it, but you guys want nicknames as well?" I asked.

"Please?" said Scyther.

Zorua pronounced his no, with an extra long n. "No!"

"I'll think about it. How about this when you guys evolve I'll give you a nickname." I said quietly. "Well not including Zorua."

"Okay." said Eevee.

"Works for me." said Zorua.

"Question, what if you never evolve us?" asked Scyther.

"Do you not want to evolve? I mean Scyther's are very powerful pokemon without their evolution." I started to ramble. "I have nothing against it."

"No, I mean. What if you never got the chance? We need to be traded to evolve." explained Scyther.

"Good point," I said realizing it. "Well there's probably a trading station in the next town and an evolution store that sells the metal coat you need. If you want to evolve, now would be a good time. Not that I'm trying to pressure you. Sorry that sounds like I'm pressuring you."

"Actually I would love to evolve!" said Scyther.

"Stop. Now you want to only because I told you, you could." I explained.

"But none the less." said Scyther. "If I can I would like to."

"Are you sure, you're powerful as you are now. And you're only a Scyther once during your life. You can never undo it." I warned him. I stared at his aura. He was excited to do it of his own accord. "Looks like I can't stop you. Okay, tomorrow before we fight the gym leader I'll try to evolve you. Anything else I can do?"

I looked at Zorua. I could see by his aura, he wanted to say something. But he didn't.

"I'm putting you guys away for the night." I decided to say.

I put Scyther and Eevee away, but I paused as I was about to Zorua away.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing." he said with a huff.

"Would you…" I sat there holding my breath for a second. "Like to be released?"

"Sure, wait well." His aura exploded in a multitude of colors. He had mixed feelings.

"I don't blame you." I said with a small smile. "After all we've been through. Especially since I got you involved in this mess. You were here not because you wanted, but because you were forced. And I understand if you wish to leave. The decision is always yours."

"But what about you?" he asked.

"Me?" I asked.

"If I left who will replace me?" asked Zorua.

I huffed and said, "It's nice to see that you care."

"What, I don't care. I just don't want to look bad because I left you. You know?" he said.

"I don't mean to sound harsh, but it's not your business." I left my seat and sat on the floor beside him, softly stroking him. "I'm sure you wanted to live a more, normal, life. Not one where your trainer is trying to run from his mother that wants to rule the world."

"Well, do you know what you want?" I asked.

"I want you to be safe, but I don't want to run and hide like this." said Zorua. Then he admitted, "It hit me harder than I thought when I saw you blinded. It hit all of us hard. They want nothing more than to protect you, but I. I just don't know. I'm lost, I've been put in here, and I want out, but I don't want to bail out on you guys either."

I held my breath for a second before taking out my Pokeball. I smiled and said, "I release you."

The pokeball fired a blue light at him as he stared at me in shock and fear.

"Wait. You're just going to release me?" he asked.

I shrugged and said, "I'm the man that's in chains. You're not. You don't need to throw yourself away for me. Because you've done plenty more than I could've asked for. You've fought for a random person you just met randomly after being caught randomly. Who am I to keep you with me even though you have nothing to do with me."

"What about the rest of the team?" he asked.

I thought about it, he had a point. "How about this. Tomorrow is your final fight. After tomorrow, I release you."

He stared at me and thought hard on it.

"I can probably tell Cell to hand you over to someone so that they can release you where you were probably caught. If you have family, you can return to them."

"You're not going to stop me?" he asked.

"I'm in the wrong if I do." I admitted.

"It's a deal. You let me go, after tomorrow." said Zorua.

I nodded and said, "I will save my goodbyes for tomorrow."