Pokémon
Piano-girl: Heyyyyy everybody! *Nervous grin*
Paul: *Eye twitches* Were the hell have you been?
Piano-girl:...Nooooowhere
Paul:*Super-evil-death-glare-of-DOOM!*
Xena:Did somebody say Ver-BOOM?
Piano-girl: *Stares at Paul*...You wouldn't...
Paul: *Sticks Xena on Piano-girl*
Piano-girl: Noooo!Okay! It's not my fault, I swear to everything holy like chocolate cake and rainbows! It was the evil plot bunnies! They ran away and every time I tried to bring them back and type this chapter they would go all bunny-ninja like HI-YAHH and merrily hop away while I'm like NOOO I have to finish the chapterrrrr! T.T
Paul:...0.o
Piano-girl:Eh-heh...*pokes a disturbed Paul* Please enjoy the chapter?
Pleeeeease don't hate me! It's the evil bunnies!
Chapter 36 - Night in the Neverending Woods
The rapid snap of the sturdy piece of wood making contact with whatever or whoever was creeping around settled Alex quiet a bit, even more so as the dull thunk of weight hitting the ground reassured her she was safe. She hadn't even realized she had closed her eyes until this point and curiously opened one to peek down at the lifeless human silhouette next to her feet. Tossing her weapon satisfactorily back to the pile, she poked the body and had no reaction.
The late dusk was casting bleak shadows everywhere on the dark bed of the forest. Alex once again picked her flashlight into her shaking palm and nervously spread some light on her attacker…or, the attacked really. She gasped. "GARY?" she shrieked, though it was pointless because he was knocked out. She got him real good.
"Oh, shit!" she cursed, looking at the skin that had broken on his forehead and trailed down his cheek as she lifted his head. Eevee bounded beside her knees where she had collapsed from anxiety. "Dear god, Gary. What the freakin' hell?" she rubbed at her face, unconsciously rubbing blood on her brow. She ripped off the bottom of the tank top under her sweater to stench the bleeding as she came up with a plan.
"Okay, Isis and Doom, I need you to take as much of the wood as you can, just leave the apples 'cause the rest probably found something to eat, and go back to the campsite. See if you can get the fire started. I'll be there in a few minutes."
The black dog studied his trainer for a moment with his small, ruby orbs before nodding with a yip. He gathered a mouthful of wood to add to the ones on his back, his tiny, foxy companion picking up some smaller ones, and they took off.
The brunette frowned at the blood. She was never much for first aid, that was more of her brother, Ryan's thing. "Shit," she growled. The cloth was thoroughly soaked through with crimson so she tossed it away. Hitting herself in the forehead, adding more blood to her face, she swung her bag to the front. "I have a first aid kit…somewhere." It actually was near in a front compartment, and soon, after rinsing the area with water and slopping dabbing it with disinfectant, she had mummified the upper portion of the brunette's spiky head with white gauze. She shrugged, tossing it back in her bag. It would do.
"Now we need to get you back to the camp," she muttered, fumbling around with her flashlight and the pokeballs attached to her friend's waist. "Aha!" she cheered, sending out the white sheen of the pokeball and greeted the huge, orange and black striped and bushy cream furred canine that appeared.
"Arcanine!" With a joyful bark, the pooch slammed his tail back and forth, happy to see her as well. "I need your help, we need to get Gary back to my campsite!" Alex explained with urgency. The firedog seemed to sense this and lowered his entire body to the ground while the brunette heaved her best friend up to his pokemon's back. "Goodness, Oak, you're heavy," she panted after finally getting him propped up. Luckily he was completely out or she would have paid for that. She slung her leg up and sat behind Gary with her arms around him to keep him onboard.
"Alright," the girl breathed, smudging her face yet again, "We need to go this way, Arcanine." She used the flashlight as a guide of direction. She leaned forward with her arms on either side of the unconscious body and secured herself in by grabbing a fistful of long fur as the canine lifted himself and hurtled gracefully as she directed. They hadn't wandered of too far, and made it back in less than five minutes.
Paul was befuddled when houndoom and eevee had turned up racing out of the woods without their trainer and feverishly began to prepare a fire with the wood they had lugged in. He helped them along since the once nice ocean breeze had turned into a biting chill, though he occasionally stared back at the trees. Her marowak, riolu, and totodile returned soon after with fish and a few varieties of berries, but there was still no sign of the brunette. Her pokemon didn't seem worried about going to find her, so he decided to wait and arrange the wood in a contained circle.
A few moments later, the muffled yet quick footfalls of a heavy pokemon disturbed the area near them. Charizard had lit the fire with his tail just before everyone turned to look. A canine near the size of a horse with two riders cleared the underbrush and landed right next to the fire.
"Ga-ruff!"
"Thanks, arcanine," stated Alex. She slid down the dog's side, then hefted her friend off and narrowly caught him under the arms. She caught the open-mouthed gape her purplette partner gave her, an extremely rare face for the boy which she would have found highly amusing at any other point in time. Instead, she snapped, "Give me a hand, will ya?"
Snapping out of it, Paul growled, "Whatever." A sleeping bag was flung at his head, and he rolled it out by the fire and unzipped it. Alex was struggling to drag the deadweight, so he ended up meeting her halfway and picking up his feet to tuck him in the fluffy, warm sleeping bag.
Coal eyes turned to the brunette who had an extremely bloody face and distressing eyes. "You hurt?
"Hm?" Alex ripped her eyes away from Gary with confusion, looking to her hands and noticing her black fingerless gloves coated with the thick crimson liquid and knew it must be covering her face. "No," she mumbled guiltily, though tried to smile as she added, "But just know that I have no control over what will happen to you if you ever sneak up on me again."
Paul hid a smirk as he bowed his head to look at the visible part of the boy, pretty much masked in white, absorbent material. He shook his head, moving to sit down on a log he rolled over to sit close to the fire. "You should clean up, you look worse than him."
Snorting, the brunette rubbed her face. "Gee, thanks. Hey, Chomp, come here a sec." She sat on the ground, near the fire but not too close, while waiting for the hyperactive blue crocodile to excitedly waddle over. She carefully removed her gloves, though blood smeared all over her hands anyway. She also tossed off her sweater, leaving her in what now was a ripped belly-shirt. "Right, douse me, Chomp," she ordered, closing her eyes and spreading her arms wide.
Alex had to hold in a screech as the icy gush splashed into her face, turning a ruddy brown as it ran down. Every inch of her was drenched, but totally clear of blood. She laughed giddily, wiping water out of her eyes and wringing her long hair. "Thanks, buddy."
The purplette rolled his eyes, though his sight caught on something that he hadn't noticed when he first met the girl, something that wasn't there before she started wearing gloves. "What happened to your hands?"
She blinked at the boy. Suddenly he was all questions? Holding her palms up in her lap, the white, jagged scars and a few burgundy scabs puckered the discolored skin. She didn't like looking at her hands anymore, since being placed in the secret room at the Soul Salvation. Curling her nose, she answered, "Scraped them on some rocks." Not a complete lie. The walls were made of rock.
Standing up with her waterlogged attire, she grabbed her backpack and said she was going to change. There were a lot of thick bushes around, so it wasn't necessary to go too far at all. She pulled on a pair of long pajama pants, a new tank and a jacket and returned to the crew. She noticed arcanine had stretched out next to his trainer, watching Paul out of the corner of his eye as the purplette cooked the plentiful amount of fish totodile had caught.
Taking a raw fish from Paul, she tossed it do the dog and sat down as it was gratefully gulped down. She sighed from the warmth that the orange glow spread across her damp skin. Her pokemon seemed to enjoy the fire as well, and she finally noticed Paul's pokemon were also among the group. They looked a bit confused and awkward sitting in a group near the comfy fire, not battling or training, but appeared content just the same.
"Why was the idiot in the woods?"
A slight frown crossed Alex's face at the name, but she shrugged it away since she knew Gary and Paul didn't seem to like each other too much. She responded with a confused, "I really don't know, I thought he was back in Kanto. I hope his bleeding has stopped, though, because if we can't get back tonight then he might be in trouble."
Charizard shuffled over weakly to Alex's right, his head on the ground in front of the blaze. It seems he used the last bit of his energy with the anger he felt at dumber and dumbest for threatening his trainer. He didn't even care that Paul was in the vicinity. He huffed and soaked in the heat as well. His features were still rather distressed, but that was mostly because he was drugged and injured.
"Aw, Hotshot," Alex sighed as her hand landed on the dragon's head. She always felt bad about his restlessness, knowing there wasn't much she could do. However, she did spot yellow pear-shaped sitrus berries among those her pokemon had collected, and plucked up a few. She pulled the hulls off of the two and offered it to charizard, who promptly curled his nose and turned his face away. "Come on, I know you hate them because they're not spicy but they'll make you feel better."
Watching inquisitively, Paul saw the dragon barely pull up his teeth in a snarl. Still, he opened his fanged mouth and ate one of the berries in one gulp with a cringe, then the second. The dragon never moved to show signs of more liveliness, but the flame on its tail grew bigger though not quite to its normal size. He looked at the berries and to his pokemon, who seemed to pick out which ones they liked better, some bickering for the last ones, or ate some of the raw fish.
Eevee and riolu both jumped onto Alex's lap, making her giggle. She sat them down in front of her, picking out a handful of tiny, pink, strawberry-like pecha berries for each, being sure to pull the stems off without breaking the tender skin of the fruit, and placing them down for them to nibble on. She also split a fish between the two of them before she herself began to eat.
It was quiet for a long time as everybody ate. Actually, everybody seemed in a rather dozy state. After eating, a lot of the pokemon curled up and went to sleep. Neither were sure, but both trainers thought the air smelled sweet, like it was coaxing them into closing their eyes. Alex was pretty much falling of the log before a pained moan filled her ears and brought sense back to her.
Flinging her eyes open, the worried girl leapt over to her awakening friend. "Oh thank god, I was starting to think I killed you," she said as she kneeled by the blue sleeping bag.
"You can't get rid of me that easily," Gary replied as cockily as he could, though he was groggy and still somewhat dazed.
Alex shook her head with a grin playing on her lips, finding a bottle of water and forcing him to drink or she would dump the entire thing on his head. Color began to come back to what little portion she could see of his face, so she took that as a good sign. She also brought over some fish and berries to eat as she festered him with the questions that were bothering her, "What are you doing sneaking around the woods anyway? Did you come out here on a mission? Are there pokemon injured somewhere? Do you need any help?"
Laughing at the girl's fretful expression, Gary poked her forehead like he did when she rambled to make her shut up. "I came out here looking for you. Left during the middle of the newscast at the Kendrick ball when the creepy guy was all up in your face. Who was he, anyway?"
"Oh," Alex blinked stupidly. She didn't think that anybody from home would come looking for her after that, but she supposed it was a surprise the whole gang wasn't there. Mrs. Ketchum was probably furious…
Looking over her shoulder, the girl noticed Paul had perked up and despite the fact that he pretended he wasn't listening, she could tell he had his ears strained toward them and watched them from the corner of his eye. Crinkling her nose, she whispered, "Can you walk? I need to talk to you."
Green eyes straying around his friend, Gary grinned as he finally noticed the emo-kid eavesdropping on their conversation. "Oh, I'm fine, little Lexi," he drawled as he shimmied out of his sleeping bag. He pet his arcanine, who had stirred when he did and turning to Alex. "What's up?"
"We're in a bit of a predicament. Come on, I'll show you," Alex stated eagerly, pulling her best friend by the wrist with the huge canine accompanying. "Isis, you're coming too. We'll be back in a few minutes, Paul." By that time, she was nearly jogging into the security of the trees and bushes, eyeing their tail to make sure nobody followed.
"Lex, what is this about?" the boy demanded apprehensively as they both stopped. He was gestured to sit down on a stump just off the slightly trampled path, but far enough from the campsite that they couldn't hear whispers on the breeze.
Sitting down beside him, Alex shuffled around her bag with her flashlight beaming into it. "Well, first of all we're kind of trapped in the forest, but I'll get to that in a few minutes." With a few crinkles, the envelope came loose and she shoved it at him along with the flashlight. "Read this," she ordered.
Gary frowned at her skeptically while he tugged the letter out before moving his gaze to the letter. As he read his eyes widened and drifted down the page again. "Wow…"
"Yeah," the girl confirmed drearily with a nod. She buried her face in her hands and mumbled, "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Ryan and I thought that these people were the reason for our parents'…disappearance and we could get information from them, but now it sounds like they were working for them. But how did they get involved with this stupid organization?"
"If it makes you feel any better, they don't sound so bad compared to these…what were they…Avengers. And they can't be so bad if your parents were on their side."
Coffee orbs glaring up at him, Alex spat, "Well great, at least I'm following in the criminal family business." She sighed and continued, "So, now I can only assume that these Avengers are the people that I'm after, and after last night it seems like they're after me too, though I have no reason why. And the Soul Salvation might know more about our parents than Ryan and I had anticipated." She slumped forward, hugging her knees. "This is just so difficult. I'm so confused."
Placing the letter in her bag, Gary slumped with her. "So, what are you going to do? Is my little Lexi giving up?"
The brunette huffed. "No," she growled indignantly. "I guess my only choice is to keep helping the Soul Salvation until I find out what these Avengers are up to. Plus, I still might learn something from them. If our dad and Ry's mom were with them, then they can't be all bad, right?" she asked her confidant.
All he could give her was a shrug. "I don't know, Lex. But whatever you do, please be careful. Can't be loosing my little Lexi, now, can I?" He flashed her a small, crooked smile.
"You betcha, my favorite Gare-bear," she winked. "And, my bad on the whole knocking you out thing."
Chuckling, the boy waved it off saying, "I should have known better than to sneak up on you, Lex. This hasn't been the first time." He earned a childish sticking out of the tongue in response. "Besides, you never told me who stalker guy was."
"Arg!" Alex threw her hands up, gathering her bag back up. "I don't know, but he seems so familiar yet I don't remember ever seeing him before. It's so aggravating!" She decided against mentioning that the man greatly resembled the one in her nightmares, and stomped forward, nearly forgetting eevee was with her until she licked her cheek to calm Alex down. Easing her stride, she beckoned ahead of her. "No more talk about this, we're about to magically turn around and end up back at the campsite."
"The camp-?" Gary started, before recognizing the burning flame of their fire and emo-kid still sitting in front of it.
"Told ya, we're stuck in a loop," she told him as she walked past. Telling him about the stupid letter made her hungry again. She jumped over the log and sat, leaving room on the end for Gary.
"Hmm, sounds like some kind of hypnosis," the brunette declared factually, smirking at the glare from the other boy. "Hey there, emo-kid."
"Jackass," Paul grumbled loud enough for the other to hear.
Whacking her best friend on the back (for he had started it, and she would have hit the back of his head, but that seemed mean after knocking him unconscious, plus he was looking a little pale again), she plucked the fish Paul had been cooking out of his hand and took a big bite out of it. "That could be true, but I don't remember seeing any pokemon out in the woods." She expected to get snapped at for stealing the fish, but the purplette seemed oddly placid and allowed her finish it.
"Well, it could be hiding, though I don't know why it'd be keeping us here."
"Can we not talk about this tonight?" Alex questioned wearily, watching how all of the awake pokemon leered into the forest at the thought of a wild pokemon keeping them captive.
Nodding, the brunette glanced to his right. "How's charizard's wing?"
"All right. He's still angry about the battle with skarmory, and it looks like I'm going to have to work on some intense flying techniques with him." She smiled as the dragon grunted in his sleep at the mere mention of the name.
Gary turned to her and smirked. "I can help, if you want. I am the grandson of Professor Oak, after all." He crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air to complete the statement.
This made the girl laugh. "Well, my first choice would have been Ry or the Professor himself, but I guess you'll have to do."
Gary playfully winced and put a hand to his heart. "Ouch." He rolled his eyes at her, making her laugh more. "What?"
"Here, you might want to fix the medical job I did to your head. It's hard to take you even remotely seriously when you look like that," she grinned mischievously, handing her injured friend the first aid kit and a compact mirror.
Blinking at his reflection, the boy felt along the width of cloth that wound around his upper lip and nose in bafflement. "Lexi, I thought all you hit was my head. Why is half my face covered?"
Alex shrugged unconcernedly. "You know I don't do first aid. Plus, there was blood running down your face and I didn't want to take time to wipe it up so I covered it instead." She stated it in the same matter-of-fact tone he had used earlier. It earned her an amused snort from Paul, to which she smiled at proudly.
It wasn't long after that the pull of sleep tugged on their subconscious once again. With a deep yawn, Alex barely managed to help Gary into his sleeping bag before carelessly rolling hers out beside him while still close to the fire and was out as soon as she lied down. Paul did the same, though not in such a drunkenly fashion, and looked at the eccentrically moving area of the woods as he drifted off.
Snap!
The female brunette was yet again startled awake by the sound of sneaking footsteps. She pressed her palm to her spinning head, not recalling ever getting into her sleeping bag. Both boys were still sound asleep on either side of her, and she decided that her overactive imagination made the sound up. Calming back down, Alex sank into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes.
"Whoooooh!"
Snapping straight up, Alex went bug-eyed at the haunting call echoing through the looping trees, illuminated by the dull red glow of the dying fire. The call shrieked through the night once more, verifying to her that she was not hearing things. Unwillingly ridding herself of her blanketed warmth, the brunette slung on her backpack, flicked the switch of her flashlight, and tucked another sturdy branch under her arm just in case. Taking a final glance back, she decided Paul would be annoyed with her if she woke him up so late for something as farfetched as a 'ghost call', and Gary didn't need to be wandering around with a possible concussion. With a pit of dread drilling into her stomach, Alex crawled along the darkness.
The girl loved nature and usually slept in the woods, sometimes lying awake and marveling at the shadows the night cast in the white moonlight. But not even the moon's light reached the depths of the forest and the trees curled and bent in ways that made her rethink the whole 'traveling alone' idea.
Beaming her man-made light in every possible direction, she couldn't find the source of the haunting calls. This frightened her more, since they might have been watching her and she didn't even have the protection or company of her pokemon anymore. It was like a horror movie where you're expecting something bad to happen, you're just not sure where it's coming from.
Alex finally stopped within a circle of trees, feeling like she had walked for too long and scratched her head while doing a sweep of the area. "Funny, I should have ended up back at the camp by now." Taking a step back to come back from the way she came, there was a sudden lightness as the ground collapsed under her foot. Her arms lashed out, dropping the wooden weapon down the long, abrupt black hole and nearly releasing the flashlight in her panic. Regardless, the black walls enveloped her sight and the sensation of falling took over her body.
Though this happened in many of her nightmares, she was sure this felt too real and screamed out like every other time. And this time, the sound actually made it past her lips. That was when she realized it wasn't a dream anymore, and screamed even louder with the loss of even semi-visibility and awaited to find the end of this black tunnel.
Um...Gary bashing anyone XP
I'm sorry Gary!
Anyhow...Happy Easter everyone! I give you all cyber-chocolate of the most delicious, chocolate-y variety.
...I shall catch those evil plot bunnies. I must plan big, BIG, EVILLL things!MWAhahaha...
Dimentio: *Blinks* Well, since my dear writer has gone slightly mad, I suppose it's my duty to see you all out until next time. Ciao!
