Sorry I haven't uploaded a lot lately. I just have a hard time getting myself to write. Hope you like this chapter!
Learning to walk on four legs instead of two wasn't that hard to do. It was like crawling, but it would be like if your lower legs were cut off and more weight was put on your hands. However, even though it was easy, it still felt really weird. As such, it still took a lot of time to get used to. And even after hours of walking, it wasn't getting any less strange for Sam. The sun was high up in the sky, and because they left when the sun was rising, he guessed that they had been walking for about five hours. This was also apparent in Sam's legs and stomach. He hadn't eaten since that morning, and because of this, he was starving. As if Drake could read his mind, the flareon asked if it would be a good time to stop and eat lunch. Everyone agreed and all four of them started to tear into the berries that they had brought for the trip. Apparently, Lily had found a sack about a month ago and was waiting for a journey like this to happen to use it. The only problem was that they had only brought the berries that were leftover inside Drake and Lily's house, which wasn't a lot. After everyone had eaten his or her fill, there were only two berries left, and that was certainly not enough to last them the entire journey. Cassius volunteered to go and find some more and Lily offered to go with him. So the two of them went to go find some berries, which left Sam and Drake to their lonesome. Since Sam had nothing to do until the two got back but rest, he decided to ask a question that he hadn't thought of before.
"So how do you two know Cassius?" He asked Drake. He didn't answer and just looked at the ground. "Drake?" Sam asked again.
"There was once a point in time where Lily and I didn't live in that old run down house," Drake said without looking up from the ground. "At that point we were just travelers in search of a home. One day when we were walking, these humans came out of no where and tried to capture us. They were wearing these strange black outfits with large red 'R's on them."
"Team Rocket?" Sam exclaimed.
"You know them?" Drake looked up in surprise.
"Yeah. They're notorious pokémon thieves." Sam said. "I heard about them from my masters." He then added so he wouldn't raise suspicion of knowing about other human activities.
"Hm." Drake grunted, looking back down at the ground. "Well they were about to capture us when Cassius showed up and blasted them away with his psychic power. He led us to the house you saw us in and we've live there since. We have always been in his debt, and we try to help him out as much as we can."
"I see," responded Sam. They sat in silence for a while, and since it was so quiet they were able to hear a strange noise off in the distance that sounded like someone shouting. "Do you hear that?" Sam asked.
"Yeah I do," Drake replied. "Let's see what it is." So the two started off in the direction of the sound. A few minutes later they arrived at an area that was devoid of trees. Sam looked around the area for the person that was the maker of the sounds. He saw a young boy and a golem. And wouldn't you know it, the young boy was none other than Dallas.
"Come on golem. You call that a rockslide? You have to try harder!" Hearing this, Sam couldn't help but smile. He knew that Dallas was a pretty serious pokémon trainer. He had two main practice spots. This one, and one closer to his house. However, even though he was good, he wasn't the best. In fact, he held a grudge against another strong trainer that had beaten him 3 times already. Interestingly enough, that other trainer went on to become the champion of the Sinnoh league. Sam had told him that because of this Dallas didn't stand a chance, but he wouldn't hear any of it. He trained his pokémon very hard every day. Because of that, some people told him that he was pushing his pokémon too hard. "Pokémon have feelings just like we do," they'd say. Sam didn't really understand what the problem was. If you wanted to be a good pokémon trainer, then you needed to work hard.
"Pathetic." Sam heard Drake say. This got him mad.
"You know, just because one group of people that were bad tried to capture you, that doesn't mean all humans are bad!"
"Wrong. I know all humans are bad. They all think of us pokémon as just tools or pets. They never see us as equals."
"What about pokémon trainers?" Sam butted in. "I know some of them see pokémon as equals."
"You want to know what I think of pokémon trainers?" Drake said the word trainers with a lot of sarcasm in his voice. "Because of trainers my mother is dead." Sam's mouth dropped open when he heard this.
"How?" he asked, horrified.
"When me and Lily were just small eevees, our mother would always bring us to this waterfall. Lily and I loved that spot. We went there every week. But one time when we went there, a trainer was there as well. He was about to capture me when my mother jumped in front of me and got captured instead, allowing Lily and I to escape. We didn't hear from her for a long time. We finally found another one of the trainer's pokémon who had run away from him. He told us that the trainer had worked her too hard and she had collapsed of exhaustion. Because she wouldn't get up, the trainer kicked her to death. That's what I think of trainers." Drake finished.
"I'm sorry," Sam said before he even realised what was coming out of his mouth. Why am I sorry? He thought
"No, you're not sorry. You can't be sorry. All your life you've just been raised up thinking that you've been loved. But the truth is that no humans love pokémon. We are just pawns to them, things to be collected and captured. And trainers, they're more like abductors. Because that's all they do. They capture us and force us to battle others for their own good. Look at that golem," Drake pointed towards the rock pokemon. "The trainer there doesn't care about it. All he cares about is being able to defeat his opponents in battle. They don't care about us, and that's why I don't care about them." Drake finished while walking away. Sam looked back at Dallas one more time before following Drake. Was he right? Sam thought. Is that all people think of them.
As the two walked back to the camp, Sam couldn't shake the feeling of sympathy for Drake. Sam didn't know why he was feeling this. Drake said it himself: Sam wasn't sorry. But for some reason, the feeling just wouldn't go away. Sam's thoughts were interrupted when he heard an eerie howl coming from the direction that Cassius and Lily went.
"A houndoom!" Drake growled. "The other two might be in trouble. Come on!" Drake started to run in the direction with Sam close behind. After a minute of running, the two arrived at what seemed to be a grove of berry bushes, and in the middle of it was Cassius and Lily. Right in front of them was a pokémon that had black fur and long horns coming out of it's head as well as things that looked like shackles on its legs. Sam recognised it as a houndoom.
"That's not a good enough reason to be running through our territory and stealing our food!" the houndoom said. Afterwards, he rammed his head into Lily as she went flying into a tree with a loud 'THUD'. She let out a yelp and fell down to the ground. Sam heard a growl come from Drake as he yelled, "No one hurts my sister!" Drake then ran at an incredible speed and smashed into the houndoom making him stagger backwards.
"Oh great, more of you." the canine said as he shot a large ember at Drake. The flareon prepared himself for the hit, but right before it hit him, the ember was stopped by an invisible wall and dissipated into thin air. Sam didn't entirely know what happened, but he figured that Cassius had thrown up a light screen just before the ember hit. Drake took this time to launch an ember of his own. Unfortunately for the houndoom, he didn't have an espeon to protect him and the ember hit its mark. However, the houndoom just shook his head and got back in his battle stance. Just then Sam remembered about Lily. She was still struggling to get up when Sam ran to her.
"You alright?" he asked her.
"Yeah." Lily replied, shaking of the pain. "He's going to have to do more than that to take me down." She said with a smile as she jumped back into the fray. Sam felt like he should also help, but what could he do? He didn't how to attack. Well, he could just tackle it, but he didn't want to get anywhere close to that houndoom. He tried to think of some of eevee's attacks that were ranged. Sam didn't battle with the pokémon he caught, so he hadn't memorised any attacks, but he thought that he remembered one. Sam didn't know how to do it though. Did he need to think of the attack to activate it? Did he need to get into a state of mind? How long did it take? Would he know when it was about to happen? Suddenly, he felt some energy built up in his chest. He instinctively opened his mouth and a bunch of stars came out. Sam didn't even know how he did it; it just felt natural. The stars traveled so swiftly, that the houndoom didn't even have time to react. The projectiles hit him one after another. The recoil from the stars made him launch up into the air.
That was cool. Sam thought. However, to Sam's dismay, the houndoom landed on his feet. He then counter-attacked by blowing a flamethrower in Sam's direction. The eevee ducked just in time for the flamethrower to go right over him. A few hairs might have been scorched, but other than that, Sam was unharmed. Physically, that is. Mentally, not so much. He had, after all, almost just been roasted alive. Guess the light screen only protect people around him. Sam thought. Therefore, Sam decided that he would watch the rest of the battle from a distance. The skirmish went on for about 30 more seconds, but because the houndoom was constantly being pelted by embers and icicles, and his attacks being nullified by the espeon, he didn't have a chance. Even though the attacks were little and didn't affect him that much individually, they added up. At last the houndoom ran back into the forest. Everyone gave a huge sigh of relief now that the battle had been won. Sadly, everyone also knew that this was only the first of many battles.
"We need to pick as many berries as we can before he comes back with reinforcements," Cassius noted. Everyone agreed. The three eeveelutions started to pick berries from the bushes, but Sam stayed back. He had a question that was on his mind and he needed to ask it.
"Hey, Cassius?" he started.
"Hm?" Cassius responded while plucking some berries with his psychic abilities. Sam took note that almost all the little tasks that Cassius did, he did with his mind instead of his paws or mouth. He paused for a second to wonder how society would be different if humans had telepathy. It was an interesting thought, but he discarded it when he remembered what he wanted to ask.
"Why weren't you attacking the houndoom? All I saw you doing was throwing up barriers."
"True," Cassius responded, "but that was because I couldn't fight."
"Why not?"
"Because the only offensive attack I know is powered by psychic energy," he said while plucking the last berry and putting it in the bag. He waited until Drake and Lily had put theirs into the bag before tying the rope, once again, with his mind. "Think that should be good for now," he muttered, and then continued "And you know that psychic attacks do not hit dark types."
"Yeah," Sam said barely above a whisper. He was always curious as to why that was, but he never had the chance to ask anyone who knew. He might know, Sam thought. He then proceeded to ask him. The espeon finished tying the bag before answering.
"It's actually very interesting. So you know that you have to make a telepathic link with the target before you launch a psychic attack, right?"
"Sure?" Sam said unsure.
"Alright, we have all the berries we can hold. Let's get out of here," Drake said as he picked up the bag and put it on his back. The four started walking again in the direction of Sam's home, or at least, he hoped. Sam had no way to know if Cassius was leading him in the right direction or not, but Sam trusted him. He felt really weird thinking that. Trusting a pokémon? Not two days ago he would have never trusted a pokémon's directions. But now, it just felt like the right thing to do. Had he stooped this low to trust a pokémon? Or had he, perhaps, been awakened from his blindness? Only time would tell now.
"So can you not get a telepathic link with dark types?" Sam asked Cassius to refresh the conversation.
"Well, kinda. You see, every living being has an aura, which you can't normally see. The thing with dark types is that their aura stops any kind of psychic links of making it through. Why? I don't know. That has always been a mystery to me. However, there are sometimes holes in the auras of pokémon. In that case, you would be able to get through if you timed your attack right. I do think that there is a move that allows the user to see auras. So if you were to use this move on a dark type, and then aim through the holes in the aura, you would be able to hit dark types with psychic attacks. That's why the move is named miracle eye."
"Interesting," Sam said once Cassius was done talking. This brought up another question. "Then why did you want to help me? Back when you agreed to help me, you didn't know that Drake and Lily were going to join us. You also knew this was houndoom territory, so you knew that you wouldn't be able to battle anyone. Why? Why risk your life to help me, someone you just met?"
Cassius' answer was slow. It took him a while, but when he did, his answer was another question.
"Do you really need a reason to help someone?"
Sam let this sink in before he replied. "I guess not." What was confusing him was that a pokémon had said this. If a human said it, it would be fine. Something about a pokémon saying it, however, just didn't stick with him. He didn't think that pokémon were able to be good or bad. To have that choice. There were just to be captured and used right? Weren't all pokémon just monsters? Maybe not, Sam thought. Maybe not.