Pokémon

*Emerges from piles and piles of homework* I'm alive! And I bear a new chapter! Please don't kill me; blame my teachers for being soul-less and not thinking that people actually have better things to do besides schoolwork out of school!

*Ahem* Anyhow, thanks for being patient. This is...a pretty long chapter I believe to make up for it... My bad. I MISSED YOU GUYS!

Thanks to you lovely people who read/favorited/alerted/reviewed. You make me smile :D MISSED YOU SO MUCH!

And again, my bad about the late-ness of it. Next semister is starting soon and it is (hopefully) a little lighter.

Chapter # 33 – Kendrick Corp. Caper Part III

Recap:

He reached out a large, gloved hand towards her cheek, and then stopped, turning his palm upward and lowering it slowly.

"Come," demanded his gruff voice. "There's no need to fight."

The layers of sheen turquoise material flared out the skirt of her dress. She shuffled a foot back, the middle meeting the ledge. Her frown deepened. While standing on the border of the building, she could see the entire, lit up city, the white waning moon, the reflective water surface, and the specks standing in the glow of the police cars. Her eyes met where his would be if the obstructing lid of his fedora weren't intruding. Her slender hand twitched of its own accord, curving up towards his and hovered over it. If possible, the man's cheeks were overwhelmed by the enlarging grin. The brunette stood braced on the edge, hand poised as if they were still at the ball and the man was offering a dance, eyes glazed as if in a dream and she had no will or control.

What would she do?

"What are you doing? What are you doing? WHAT are you doing?" Gary Oak leaned towards the 2D film that was playing on the television, nose almost touching the screen. He gnawed at his fingernails in suspense, ankles crossed and knees bound by a tense arm. His eyes widened as the female was face to face with the sketchy man and shook his head furiously. "NO!"

He was delivered a blow to the head with a chopstick wielded by a graying professor in a white lab coat. "Get your head out of the way, I can't see what's happening!" he yelled at his grandson.

The brunette scooted back two or three spaces before rooting on the spot again. "Are you insane?" he screeched at the TV as they did a close up of the girl, looking around in bewilderment. "Get away from him! Creepy man is too close! He's bursting your personal bubble. Personal Bubble! Hello, are you listening?"

Professor Oak sighed. He couldn't see what the boy was watching. "Gary, I left for one minute and you changed it to some soap opera? Turn it back." The boy waved him off. The Professor shook his head, then stood as the phone began to ring. "Hello? Yeah, he's right here. Gary, phone," he called, handing the device to the transfixed boy.

"Hello?" Gary asked distractedly.

"Are you watching Sinnoh Now! too?"

"Ryan? Yeah, I am. What the hell is she doing?"

"I don't knowwwww," the girl's brother whined. "I just got rid of Delia. Do you have any idea who that is?"

"The creepy man? No. Alex! Lexi, don't you dare. Put your arm down! Put it…I said down! Down now!"

"…Ow!" Ryan complained on the other end after flinching from the yell. "You don't think she would…"

"I don't know what she's thinking! She's gone crazy. Or suicidal. I bet it's the emo kid's fault. I knew he was bad news."

"Excuse me? My sister is not suicidal. Maybe a little insane at times, but that's beside the point. Why isn't there anybody there helping her?"

"…I'm coming Lexi!"

The line went dead.

Alex exhaled, patting the rough arm of her dragon. "Thanks, Hotshot." Aaah-CHOO! She sniffled. "Great!" she said to herself exasperatedly. "Just what I need; I cold on top of everything else."

Dodging around the man's skarmory, charizard had swooped down and picked Alex up in his clawed arms. He deposited her on the roof of another high building, tilting into a turn and releasing a fiery breath towards its metal clad foe. It was sharply evaded.

The rope ladder dangled in the wind, the black figure standing a bit off of the building's roof, yet still too close for comfort. "If that's the way you want it. It is very…disappointing." No grin could be seen in his face after the girl had been swept away.

Charizard, now quite put off by the man's attempts to take his trainer away, zeroed in on its opponent and took off in flight. He circled his prey before pouncing with claws out and white daggers unsheathed. The dragon seized the skarmory and bound it with heated fangs gnashing out.

With a sly twist of its neck, the silver warrior pecked the enraged creature's head like a woodpecker, slithering out of the hold without a scratch to be seen on its pristine metal coat. Opening its beak, it let out a cruel, cheery squawk, like a contemptuous guffaw. Then, the night glazing off its reflective wings, it carved a precise arc around its opponent and dealt a shock of darkness to the dragon's spine before it could register where the metal bird was going.

A fierce roar of pain and resistance thundered over the hums of the whirring propellers. The dragon's blood boiled like that of an active volcano, then regurgitated the burning mass out all at once, throwing his horned head about haphazardly to send it in all directions. And like an agile, deceptive snake, skarmory maneuvered around every boiling stream without a bat of the eye.

"You're charizard is a rather clumsy flier. It makes up for this with power." The man drifted farther away with the hovering of the helicopter, now several yards away, watching the aerial battle. "But power isn't everything if there isn't order or strategy with it."

"Shut up!" Alex growled with a glare. "Charizard, calm down. Use flamethrower again, but aim carefully!"

Skarmory effortlessly floated upward slightly as the blast scorched past. It's sharp beak opened as it screeched at the dragon. "All flying-type pokemon should be trained in the art of aerial battling. Your charizard is not. You haven't worked with its flying attacks and that will make it weak. Let me show you. Skarmory, sky attack!"

Despite the look of heaviness about the pokemon, it cut quickly and gracefully through the air with a powerful aura building around it as it sped up. Charizard beat its wings hard and reared back and up, looking like it would avoid the assault. Within a second, the metal pokemon drifted back on the dragon's course. Seeing the close proximity with no dodging time, the pokemon turning so half of its body took the attack. Skarmory followed through and circled its trainer.

"Charizard, are you okay?" Alex cried as her pokemon spread his wings and shot back up angrily with a large stream of flames flowing through the air, once again missing. "Calm down, bud."

"Hm-hm-hm. Temperamental, like any charizard I suppose. Mostly obedient, if only the trainer could better deal with this brawn, mold its abilities. You can tell so much about a pokemon by looking, you know. Did it injure its right wing? I notice it shields it. Doesn't have as much confidence as you think." The man chortled as flames licked past his head.

Skarmory zipped around charizard and slashed at it with the sharp tips of its wings, coming out unscathed and leading the dragon in a steady incline. Red brightened the sky every once in a while until they were touching the dark, wispy clouds high up.

"Can it do so well without you, though?"

Alex frowned. "Charizard, come back down now! Bring it to lower ground!" Her shouts were drowned out by the beats of the helicopter, causing the man to grin vehemently.

"It would be such a shame for anything to happen to it. Why don't you come with me and stop this foolishness. You know you want to." The ladder drew closer again, within arms reach. Alex wasn't falling for his nice act twice.

"Not a chance in hell. Charizard is strong."

The man's lips lowered from their upward curve. "This is very disappointing, Alex. You'll understand soon enough, I think. But you better get that thing into better shape before that happens. I expect more of you." He held a hand in the air towards the quarreling two. Immediately, skarmory landed on charizard's back, digging its talons into the dragon's long neck, and capturing its right wing in its sharp teeth and holding. They did a nosedive, charizard thrashing and roaring in pain as gravity pulled them down.

"Hotshot!" Alex bellowed. In her eyes, it looked like a petrifying slow motion clip where she couldn't do anything but watch in horror. At the six-story mark below, the armored pokemon released its victim and whizzing readily back to its trainer. Charizard continued, a resounding BOOM! pulsing through the brunette's ears as it cratered into the earth.

"I am sure I will see you soon, Alex. Hm-hm-hm, sweet dreams." He whispered on the wind as she was forced to watch her beloved dragon crater to the depths.

"Alex!" Kyler Kendrick shouted over the hustle and bustle of the shocked partygoers and news reporters. He weaved through the crowd, approaching the sheet-white and utterly tired looking brunette, his blue eyes both concerned and reproachful. "What were you thinking? You could've been hurt."

Coming out of a stare and squinting up at the tall male, Alex shook her head. "This was supposed to be a special night for your family. I can't believe this happened." She clutched her arms with a shudder. Her eyes darted erratically around the clump of people, as if looking for some other insane person threatening them, but settled on the distant fluorescent pink cross of the pokemon center, where her unconscious dragon had been rolled by gurney. She was asked to stay until the paramedics looked her over. They already had, but she wasn't sure she could walk all the way back across the bridge to her room without collapsing.

"Don't ever d-"

"Kyler!" "Kyler!" "Mr. Kendrick, were these the same people that targeted you fam-" "Did you recognize any-" "What is going to be done about-"

Alex instinctively moved to avoid being swallowed up by the media bubble the young Kendrick had attracted. Her mind was blank and buzzing with the periodic red and blue glares. She stood slightly off to the side in her own little world until she had enough energy and state of mind to walk back and curl up in bed.

She didn't know how long she stood there like that until a weight fell on her shoulder, shocking her. With a jump, the brunette jerked back as the pressure was applied on both her shoulders. After a few blinks, she was able to recognize the mop of purple hair and fierce black stare. "Oh, Paul…" she trailed off, looking down. A large purple garment draped over the skin that wasn't covered by her sleeveless gown, which was now wrecked and tattered near the bottom with dirt smudged on the beautiful fabric. "Thanks…" she muttered.

With a grunt, the purplette placed a hand on her back and pushed her along. Not that she needed much of a push, for she was relieved to be getting away from all those people. But now that she was moving, she noticed something.

"The ground's cold," she pouted, remembering she had ditched her heels in the ballroom. The thought made her giggle, causing Paul to give her one of those she's-gone-bonkers looks. "I hope the maids won't mind." That only made her laugh more.

Paul led the girl to their room without too much trouble, except she still stifled a titter of laughter every few seconds. He watched the brunette shuffle along the floor once he had opened the door, and as soon as her leg hit the edge of the bed, she did a belly flop onto the mattress. After her body stopped bouncing, she shimmied up to her pillow and snuggled into it before finally growing still.

The boy sighed out, "She really has to stop talking to that crazy-ass cousin of mine," before he covered the chilled girl with an extra sheet and went to sleep himself.


Final word count of this chapter: 2000 exactly. Booyah!

Piano-girl: Awww, Paul's so sweet...in his own sort of way :3

Gary: I'm just glad that sketchy guy is gone. He gave me the creeps. And stay away from Lexi emo-kid!

Paul: *Super-evil-glare-of-DOOM!*

Piano-girl: ...Heh, scary! Well, Au revior, mes amis! Tah-tah. Don't forget that I do adore some feedback! I try not to be gone so long next time =.="