Shining Shadows

Chapter 10: Floaroma

Will the Charizard

I really have nothing to say here, so hello, I guess.

After hearing the surprising news about Kade, I was obviously a little more wary of him. Finding out somebody you just met has willingly killed in the past is quite a shock. But you killed three Pokémon. So, you don't have room to talk, do you. I tried to ignore the logic running through my mind, every time I thought of the three lives I had taken, waves of nausea would pass through me, and I truly wanted to cry for the dead, even if I had killed them in self-defense.

Nobody else seemed to have been affected like this. Then again, I had no idea if any of the others had resorted to the same brutal methods I had. Except Kade. I was already afraid of him, and I really didn't feel he could be trusted, not yet.

Trustworthy or no, he was one of us, and now Larsha, too. Larsha seemed a lot more relaxed than anybody else, though, as if being hunted by Saboten and his followers didn't bother her, or if it did, she was hiding it really well.

There wasn't any doubt about it, anymore. He knew where we went, he followed; now with many more supporting him, it seemed. Saboten had some personal vendetta against at least two of us, possibly three. But, honestly, what could we do about it? Nothing until everybody's stronger, that's for sure. And the best way to get better is practice, so we'll stay with the Pokémon league, I guess.

A couple minutes ago, we had started off to the next city, a small place, hoping to get there before it was completely dark, the sun was already nearing the horizon. Floaroma's up close, right? That's what the map said. We were making alright progress; everybody else had healed up, using potions and a few orans we found lying nearby. After a quick examination by the Gallade, it turns out I hadn't broken anything, just bruised. The cracking had been a glass bottle of antidote in my front pocket.

"How's everybody doing?" I don't know why I'm bothering asking, everybody's obviously fine…

"I would like to know why you do not trust me" Kade said, unexpectedly. "It is obvious that you don't, I can tell from the way you watch me, and how you distance yourself while we walk. I assure you, I am honest, I give you my word."

"Yeah, you need to have more faith in Pokémon you don't know, Sam." Will said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Especially dangerous ones that can kill you with their bare hands." Kade continued, stone-faced.

"He helped us back there, we owe him" I hate to admit that he's right, but…

"I'm just saying, I've been with you a week, and I've already almost died." He broke out into a grin. "It's exciting."

"I'm not as big a fan, dying is not on the top of my to-do list." I said. "I'm terrible in a fight, and I can't do much else that would help, either."

To my surprise, Jet spoke up in my defense "The same could be said about almost every gym leader or champion, most just sit there and do nothing, all day. Some even have ways that they keep you from fighting them. You actually go out and try to find battles, so you're better than they are, I'd say. Not by much, but you are."

Not really sure if I should take that as an insult or a compliment…

"Wow. What. An ungrateful. Bitch" Larsha said. "Fred here's taking care of you, and you go and insult him. You're probably too stupid to realize it though." What? Where did that come from? And who's…

"Umm, my name's not…" I tried to say.

"Excuse me?!" Wow. And now Jet's pissed… "You have a fucking problem?"

"Oh nothing much, just that it seems like, as the least liked member of the group, you'd know your place." Larsha, looking smug, lifted up one of her paws and started inspecting it. "It's not like you've done anything that puts you above anybody else here."

"Really, what the hell have you done? You've been with us two hours and the whole time you've been bitching about how hard it is to live like this and how your feet hurt. So don't give me any shit about being useless, because right now you're doing nothing but irritating the fuck out of everyone." Jet stopped and dropped back, looking like she wanted to fight.

"I'm pretty sure everybody here knows who the better of us is…"

"Charlie" Will piped up, making Larsha step back and huff, and earning the tinniest smile from Jet.

"No respect around here! It's like everybody hates me!" Larsha complained, almost on the verge of whining. "Sorry guys, but you really need to stop being so jealous of me."

Jet's momentary peace was gone. "JEALOUS? Why would anyone be jealous of you?" I was ready to hold Jet back at this point, I'm afraid she might try something… "I just met you and I'm already tired of your shit! I swear to Arceus I'm gonna beat the crap out of you!" like that. Jet jumped at a very surprised Luxray, who, honestly, probably would've been mauled if Kade hadn't psychically pulled them both back.

"You will learn to control yourself." He commanded Jet, who didn't argue, but didn't look at all pleased. "And you", he spoke to Larsha now, floated up to his eye level, "will learn the meaning of humility." He dropped Larsha, who looked quite a bit more shaken up than before, and continued toward Floaroma, not far off, muttering to himself about the foolishness of women and vanity, occasionally shooting back a glance

Leaving the bickering behind me, trusting Will and Charlie could handle it, I moved up to Kade, my ribs making me wince as I did so. "Hey, Kade. I just was wondering, why come with us? Why not stay on your own? It's pretty clear you can handle yourself."

"Did you not want me to accompany you?" He asked, raising an eye. "No, I was just curious…" I started, but trailed off, still feeling somewhat uncomfortable around our new (possible) companion. "I long for the comfort of a family sometimes." He said "I know I have hardly known yours, and yet I have the feeling it will work out much better for me than the last one. This is our destination, I believe?"

We had indeed, as Kade had pointed out to me, arrived at Floaroma. The small town was filled with flowers of all shapes and colors, orange sunburst-looking ones, pink cones, yellow sunflowers, you name it, it was there. And, thankfully, there was a Pokémon center right up front. (with a hospital for people, too, I noted.) I called back to the rest of the group, who bounded forward, as eager for a rest as I. We checked into a room at the center, with two separate sections, so certain Pokémon could be separated…

After a short meal and a slightly longer stop at the hospital, we had everything settled in. It had gotten dark early, and I was too tired to stay awake after today. Jet, Kade and I were set up in one room, Charlie, Will, and Larsha in the other, so there was no worry about a conflict between Jet and Larsha. I'd given Kade the bed, and Jet simply lay on the floor looking out a window, watching the moon. The nearby clump of trees was full of Hoothoot, and I fell asleep quickly, despite their noisy calls. Sleep came easy that night, lying on a beat-up old couch facing toward the window. Unfortunately, so did the dreams.

It was a plain looking room, four white walls, one with a simple wood door, the rest blank tile. In the center there stood a table, not quite twice as long as it was wide, and large both ways. It was an operating table, the base built into the floor, covered in a single sheet of thin paper. All exposed metal had been cleaned until it shined, anything else had been arranged in crisp, clean order. The lights were a harsh white, the type of light that seems to have no purpose other than blinding you if you look at them for any extended period of time.

In one corner there was a large, square drainage gate, opposite the door. There was nothing to indicate where it flowed to, but a faint gurgling could be heard if the room was silent. A quick look inside showed a dark, sewage-looking flow going in the direction of the door. I tried not to look too closely at the floating pieces of… something… for fear of finding whatever had turned the consistency of watery pudding.

The sharp crinkle of paper drew my attention back to the table. Across the table in the center now lay three corpses. They had already been cleaned up, any wounds showing fresh stitch marks, cleanly done. The Pachirisu's chest looked slightly caved in, but that would be difficult to avoid when most of its chest cavity had collapsed. The Beautifly looked as if it had been done a little quicker, a little less neat, and the skin was a little paler, as if there hadn't been time to replace any blood before it had died. It was just an empty husk, a corpse of what used to be alive, and there had been little effort to disguise that. The Vileplume looked almost normal; its petals still a bright red, its skin still deep purple. I could've thought it asleep, until I saw the face. Oh god the face…

The flesh had been pulled back together tight, the stitches on its face fresh. Even if the Pokémon had survived, it would've kept an assortment of ugly scars on it for the rest of its life. One ran right above it's right eye, I'd almost gouged out an eye…

Then came the voice that, had I not been dreaming, would've scared me beyond belief. "We messed up somewhere, Sam." Minney said, echoing my thoughts. "Don't deny it, a month ago you wouldn't have done this. What happened?"

"'We' had nothing to do with it. I've fucked up a lot. You've been dead" I said simply to my former best friend. "Can't do much now, can you? My fault, too."

"Really? You think this is your fault? Did you decide whether or not you were going to fight those three? No, but you finished it. They tried to hurt you, and you won. It's nature" my Marill said.

"You were never this blunt" I said. Speaking to a dream… "And you never would've felt like that about death."

"So? You moping around isn't going to change anything. It just might get more people hurt. So, get off your ass and do something. The world isn't going to stay the same forever, and somebody has to make a change. So who's it going to be, you?" she said seriously, pointing at my chest. "Or him?" her voice changed, taking on the familiar tone of a certain Cacturne, her body stretching, growing longer arms and legs, her mouth widening into a disturbed smile…

Gasping, I sat up far too quickly, almost falling off of the couch. I stared into the shadows in the corner for a minute or two, trying to clear my head. I'm not usually shaken up by dreams, but that one seemed to affect me a lot. I just couldn't get away from the sense of how wrong it had felt. Minney was never like that, and I couldn't get the image of the deformed half Marill, half Cacturne out of my head. I moved to lie back down, but I noticed the light blue glow, and caught the bright yellow eyes watching me from the window before I fell back onto the completely uncomfortable couch.

"Hey, didn't notice you there" I said. "Not sure how I missed you there earlier"

"I was over there a minute ago" she gestured across the room. "I came over here when I noticed you were awake." She looked at me, cocking her head. "You alright? You were pretty loud when you were asleep, especially at the end."

"Just a bad dream" I said dismissively, waving the question off. "You said you walked over here? That was pretty quick for a short time."

"Yeah" she said. I didn't really expect her to keep talking, but she seemed pretty open. "I just feel better at night, you know? Everything just works a lot more smoothly, like I'm faster, stronger, I even feel a little less bitchy. Everything just feels better."

"It's like this every night?" I slid down the front of the couch, sitting down on the tile floor. "Why not ignore daytime and just live at night?"

"I used to do that. I'd sleep all day and go out and do everything at night. It just got so damn lonely. Everyone else was asleep, sure it looked great, but everybody gets tired of being alone sometimes." She smoothly jumped down from the windowsill and sat down next to me. "And that's why I want to apologize. You're the reason I'm not wandering some forest alone anymore. Had you decided to go around instead of through, I'd still be there. Now, I've got you, Will, Charlie, even him and that Luxray in there, even if we don't know them yet." She pointed at Kade on the bed as she said 'he', and looked irritated at the mention of Larsha.

"I sort of get what you mean, being alone. I never really had a lot of friends, just Minney, and this other kid, Jake. He had a lot of other friends, though, and none of them seemed very great. They were all just a bunch of jerks, I guess" I paused to sneeze, then went on. "Jake was a couple years older than me, though, and he left before I did. Think he went on to be a cop or something."

"At least you had friends. The best I had was a ninetails that I saw maybe once a month, and we didn't really talk at all. Hunted together sometimes, but not much talk." She looked over at the clock sitting next to the bed. "It's almost two thirty in the morning. You need sleep."

My tired brain agreed with her, so I lied back down and closed my eyes, waiting for sleep. "And Sam?" Jet said, from near the door. "Feel free to not mention this tomorrow."

I mumbled my agreement and let myself fall into blissful, dreamless sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, there was silence, and it was beautiful. I would've been content to just lie there all day, if we didn't have to go for the next badge. Just do everything slowly, there's no harm in taking your time today. I still felt a little congested, but at least I wasn't coughing at all yet.

I might not have been coughing, but standing up was a huge mistake. I went way too fast, and a splitting pain shot through my head, sending me back onto the couch. "Slow. Oh god that hurt" I mumbled to myself. Slowly and carefully, I brought myself back upright again.

Walking to the bathroom was painfully slow, my body just felt like I took a dive into a pile of gravel and slept there last night. My head was killing me, everything else ached like hell, and I felt like I could barely breathe. A long, steam-filled shower helped, dulling my aches and leaving me able to breathe through my nose. Unfortunately, the effects didn't last long, as I was hurting again very soon after I finished my shower.

I managed my way into the main room, clutching my head, without any major accidents. Looking to the counter, I saw Kade with a pot full of boiling water, steaming, with a cup sitting next to it.

I shuffled over to him, still clutching my head. "Morning, what's cooking?" I peeked over the top of the pot and saw several leaves and herbs inside.

"Good morning, did you sleep well?" No. "I was just boiling some tea, did you want some?" Hearing that word, that three letter T word, I looked at that Gallade long and hard. I stared straight at his face, right into his eyes, keeping contact for several seconds, before throwing my arms around him in a hug that was way too awkward to be held for more than a second or two. "Please."

I grabbed a cup of tea and sat down on the couch again, taking occasional sips of the sweet, sweet liquid. Kade sat next to me, holding a cup himself. "So, where's you learn to cook?" Maybe he's an amazing chef, and we can start eating decent food again!

Kade looked at me, surprised. "I can't cook. I just bought these leaves from the little store in town, and the owner told me to boil them in water. I apologize for leading you to believe I'm skilled at cooking." Goddammit.

Kade's unprofessional tea was good enough for me, though, and had me feeling a little better by the time I was through. We talked a little, he told me that Jet, Charlie and Will had ran off somewhere together, and we found Larsha still crashed out on the rug around 10:30 in the morning. We decided to wake her and find the rest of our friends, so Kade kindly volunteered to start packing our stuff up and letting me wake the sleeping thunder lion.

I sat over Larsha, who had fallen asleep on the floor. Around her paws the carpet looked like she had just decided to start sharpening her claws on the floor, and she might've knocked a table around some. I had already decided that my best approach would be to lightly shake her and back away quick, just in case she wasn't a morning person.

I slowly put my hand down on her shoulder, but before I could draw it back, she stretched out her legs and gave a huge yawn, exposing her claws and teeth briefly before rolling over and facing me.

She smiled seductively, making me think she'd been awake for longer than she wanted us to believe. "Morning. How'd you sleep Seth? Dream about anything? Or anyone?" She gave me a sly wink. I just stopped and closed my eyes.

Slowly, I replied "That would've worked so much better if you'd gotten my name right. Get up, we're packing." She rolled her eyes, but got up anyway. I heard her walk into the other room with Kade while I poured myself some more of that delicious, congestion clearing tea.

As I finished my second cup and started to put things away, I heard the door open and Jet, Will, and Charlie come in. Jet had a bag slung across her back, and Will was carrying several bags of things. Jet slid the bag off her back, making a clattering sound when it hit the ground. I took Will's bag and saw a flashlight, matches, and a small folded up sleeping roll. A quick inspection of Jet's bag showed me it was a 5-man tent.

"Why do we need any of this?" I asked the two of them. Will just shrugged his shoulders, Jet, back to her normal self, told me "We have to go through Eterna forest to get to the next gym, right? Well, wouldn't you rather sleep in a tent than on the ground?"

"Well, no, but where'd you get the money?" Then I got worried. "You did pay for this, right?"

Jet just rolled her eyes. "Of course we paid for it; the money came from every time you won a battle. We needed this, so be bought it. And, since we didn't know if you could carry all this yourself…" she rummaged around in the things Will had been carrying and pulled out a backpack. "We got this so somebody else could carry something. It was their idea, not mine" she quickly clarified.

Now set for our journey, or at least a hike through Eterna, we packed up the rest of what we needed. Kade carried the extra backpack and the tent, and we set off for Eterna forest, and to our next gym badge.

And I am finally caught up. I should be able to update more regularly (ha.), now that I'm done with some other things I was doing over winter. I've got a lot less for my classes now, and swimming season just ended, so I've got a lot more free time now. I don't know if I said this before, but I'm borrowing Larsha from TheFirstDubstepLovingUmbreon, so credit goes to them for her. That's all I got, Will the Charizard, out.