Five human men stood around me, threatening me to a cage with metal devices that had long tubs and very defined forms. Guns is the only thing that I knew they could be. I saw mom in the same cage they were taking me to... not conscious, but I could tell she was alive... She wasn't alone, though... She was surrounded by a variant of other human-like pokemon you'd think to see in a forest... I can name a few by memory, but not all. Bellossom... Nuzleaf... Roselia... Crogunk, of whom was badly injured... There was even a Leavanny comforting a Meloetta... When I saw how bad off the Meloetta was, both a bit physically and greatly Emotionally, I instantly thought about how I just left Kimmy back there to be alone... Suddenly, being with Mom was bittersweet to a new high...
...What did the men look like? ... I could not see one of their faces, but a lot of them, if not all of them, wore mainly black heavy armor that was tightly molded to their bodies with white trims. There was a sort of plainness to them. Their masks were the most striking thing... The shape was plain and instead of perfectly molding their faces, it just went over them in a smooth fashion that rendered the masks themselves faceless, not just the one they were hiding. Very vague differences were drawn on them for each man. A curving blue line across the forehead, a red cross where a cheek would be, a grey arrow over the entire face, a white pair of horns drawn on both sides of the forehead, a sort of green slant on the side of the mask, as if it were a scar. You could very vaguely see through the masks and they were extremely reflective of light...
[Watch this one.] My eyes went wide with a realization that the man behind me was the one from before. His voice was the same. I nearly tripped over, but for his own reasons, that same man caught me by the arm and helped me stay steady. It's when I got a true view of which he was. The one who's mask had a red cross in the non-existent cheek. [She got away from me before. Teleported. Don't know why she didn't do it just now, though.] I couldn't understand him, but his fellow men seemed to understand him, nodding.
He then let me go, abruptly, making my balance a weird thing to get back. I felt his cold gun's tube poke my back a bit, making me gasp and erect my back straight. [Move.] I Didn't really understand him, but I knew what he wanted. Me in that cage with mom... I didn't deny him that right. I just ran into the cage and hugged my unconscious mother's waist, shivering pitifully.
I heard a man laugh, turning my head as I saw it was the one with the green slant mask, who had just closed the cage shut around us all and put some sort of... coil(?)... on it. [I know why she didn't. Look who she's hugging up to!] He gestured to my mom with his gun, but I instinctively got up in front of where his gun was pointing, making a poor excuse for a glare. I still had mud holding one side of my bangs up, so they could clearly see my eye and it's anger.
I don't know what he wanted, but if that gun went off, it wasn't hitting my mom with whatever it shot. He shrugged and laughed. [Aww, relax, Kid! I ain't gonna put a hole in her!] Suddenly, the red cross man smacked green slant man's head with his gun, lightly, making his "face" meet the bars of the cage. Grabbing the cage and using it to re-balance himself, the green slant man turned his head to the red cross, growling frustrations.
The red cross spoke. [If you kill one more subject, I will not hesitate to end your joke of a life.] The green slant man stood up and walked back to the rest of the men, muttering something angrily. The red cross man turned to them all and spoke again. [Remember. The mission is to bring the subjects back as uninjured as possible, not see how much blood they spill from shooting them. The "good doctor" needs living specimens for what he's doing. Avoid injuring them as much as possible, just as we handled the Diancie.] I heard that and my eyes grew wide in both anger and fear... But I don't know why they said it... Diancie... Were they the ones who caught Mallory...? That's what I thought.
The red cross man shrugged back to a strange vehicular machine a few yards away as it was backed up towards us, a gate opening up in the back. The gate was connected to a rectangular steel bed with surrounding walls about 3 feet high, which were full of cages full of human-like pokemon. Because I can't think of a way to describe the vehicle's front half, I'll just tell you what the vehicle was, now that I know. It was a larger type of truck. The men all surrounded us and lifted our cage up, working it over to the open holding area of this strange vehicle. Their movements made me lose balance along with my mom's unconscious body, both of us falling forward and into the bottom bars, not painfully, but my mom was atop me.
I had to squeeze my way out from under her on my arms and knees After I did, I just sat there, shacking and sniffling. My tears were showing again, dripping my cheeks. All of this for my mother. I didn't want her to leave me. I didn't think I could live without her...
I felt a large hand take my arm. Looking over to my forearm, I saw the had was green, wielding three finger, including a thumb. Looking to it's own, I saw it was mom's hand. She was staring at me through sleepy eyes and had a reassuring smile on her face.
As the truck started to move, I would be pulled into her grasping arms as she gasped at the rumbling of both the cages and the truck's "voice", sitting straight up and looking around with a surprised look on her face. I just stared up at my mom's face while she took all that was happening in. I saw confusion, anger, sadness and nervousness one by one as she thought about something.
"If it helps you understand, since I can see that they took you unconscious...", one such gruff and deep voice started. I and mom both looked to a cage on the left of our own in a brief surprise, seeing a variety of pokemon, but one such pokemon, an alakazam, was looking at us. Not only was he paler than most Alakazams I had seen, he also was probably the shortest. He looked old... He spoke with steely silver eyes on us. He raised his hand as it glowed a faint blue as if he was trying to be careful, closing his eyes and seeming to focus on my mother. His hand stopped glowing and he opened his eyes, then he looked back up to my mom, who just seems like she was waiting. The Alakazam spoke. "Those men who ambushed you while you were on that walk of your's with that Kimmy of your's? They are the ones who put you, your Ralina there and the rest of us into these cages."
Mom looked very surprised by the Alakazam's words, but to be fair, so did I. Me and mom both wanted to know what she asked next. "H-how did you know me and my babies' names?"
The Alakazam smirked and poked a claw repeatedly on his cranium. "It's an old geezer's trick. It's not a move, though. It's just what we old pokemon call the psychic pathways. A fancy way of saying Mind Reading, but it's easier to do with a fellow Psychic type." He smirks and points a finger at the man in the window of the truck. "It also works on human fools, even though it gives them a little, ehehe... Migraine. Which is my source for what I'm about to tell you, by the by."
My mom seemed taken aback, lips pursed, but nodded in understanding. I was paying attention to what he said, though, too. I was gonna learn how to do this, one day. Though, to be fair, I still haven't... It's harder than it seems.
He then seems to drop the smile, going back into his steely gazing. "These guys are paid off lapdogs. They are taking us to a... "hidden lab"... of some sort. They weren't even told exactly what's going to happen when we get there, but even if they did know, only one has enough moral correctness to change his mind, but even that ain't much."
My mom sighs, seeming to understand, nodding. "So, what your saying is that humans want us for their personal gains and that we might not be free for some time..." She shakes her head in disappointment. "I already don't like where this is going." She then looks down at me and lets me go. "Ralina, I want you to teleport awa-"
"No!" The old Alakazam warns with a serious scowl, a hand up. "If your daughter even tries, she will be shocked painfully, along with you and the pokemon with you in that cage!"
My eyes glazed over with fright as I got up from my mother's lap and ran over to the bars on the Alakazam's side of the cage, anger in my eyes lighting them up like fire. "What?!" I asked loudly.
I heard my mom gasp in fright, shivering with wide eyes, looking at the bars that bound us. "What won't human's think to try, just to catch us!? Those balls are enough, but THIS?! Cruel! Unusual! Unneeded!" My mother beat on the bottom of the cage out of frustration and anger, making it rattle and chime.
A sudden loud thud from inside the truck draws our attentions through fright. It's swiftly accompanied by a human's yelling. [Quiet back there or I'm gonna start frying ya when I feel like it!]
The Alakazam pinches between his brows with his eyes closed as our attention settles upon him again. "Humans are weak creatures, indeed, resorting to unnatural methods all to assert their dominance, purely contrived of using the planet's pokemon and resources for themselves."
My hands squeezed the bars in front of me when I heard the Alakazam say all that, my eyes' gaze falling on his feet while I thought about that boy from way back when I wandered away from home, frowning while I closed my eyes and sighed. I very quietly mumbled, "Not all humans are like these, though..." However it had become so quiet by the time I had said that every pokemon heard it. When I heard mutters, I opened my eyes and looked around at my fellow pokemon, frightened that they all had heard me.
Some seemed to doubt what I had said, though I wasn't trying to convince them, while others were confused. The one Meloetta, however, having calmed down from before when she was crying, seemed to make a faint, weak smile.
I turned back to the Alakazam, taken aback by his closed eyes and his hand raised to me, glowing light blue again.
The glowing suddenly stops as his hand drops back to his side. The yellow humanoid falls silent as his eyes open and they bore directly into my eyes. It was a long pause, but his mouth finally opens to speak. "Child... What you had with that human boy..." He seemed to pause for a sigh as he turned his back on me. "That was a mere human child. Innocent, he may yet be for the time, but he is going to grow up to lose that innocence, one day. I, too, thought like you did, in my long passed youth, but I was not long to learn the cold truth of such matters."
I just felt so angry with the Alakazam. My lips came open to show my bit-down teeth, while I shut my eyes tight. I just wanted him to... "SHUT UP!" I let it ring out loudly and heavily. The alakazam was taken back it seemed by the way he just seemed to stare at me now with an open mouth and wide eyes.
It wasn't just him... I turned my back to him, leaning back against the cage bars. I slowly slide down them until I hit bottom first on the barred floor... It didn't stop me from curiously looking around at reactions to my outburst... Those who doubted me before were surprised and unsure. The ones confused before were giving me sympathetic looks.
My mother seemed surprised that I got so angry, too. She just stared at me with lightly open lips, seeming to look sorry for something. Probably about what she said before about humans.
The meloetta seemed to look even happier though, a near full blown smile on her face. I didn't really think about it before. I was just angry, but maybe that Meloetta had a similar relationship with a human and she was smiling because I defended my claim, even if it was just through an angry outburst...
The Alakazam... Well, in the end... I don't know if his points hold any merit. I met another human besides yourself that made me really doubt he was right, but... Anyway, we aren't there yet. Though, you won't have to wait long...
I looked at my mother again, who was waving me over with a concerned look on her face. I got up, walking my way back to her lap, sitting myself atop it and just huffing. She started rubbing her fingers through my hair, gently, while she started getting muck and dirt out of it.
By that time, most pokemon start to talk in their cages, other than the Alakazam, who just decided to meditate.
She was silent for a moment, just focusing on cleaning out my messy hair. I saw my bangs about my left eye drop back down over it, making my vision iffy again. Then I heard mom speak. "I'm so sorry, Ralina. I had no idea..."
Just hearing her apology made my anger fade a bit. It could no longer be seen, but my eyes had relaxed. "I never told you, because... I thought I'd be in trouble if you knew I had gone all the way to a human place."
I heard my mother giggle softly while she started to brush dirt on my body off. "Well... I just saw how much you cared for this human boy. My daughters know how to make excellent friends, so I don't think I'd be mad at that. Though, I WOULD have been mad at the fact that you wandered off on your own that night, miss 'Oh, I was just out early, gathering berries I thought would be yummy! You are the best mom ever!' And you didn't have any luck, if I remember~."
I pouted and folded my arms, briefly biting into my lip. "Hey, I was bad at making excuses back then. I'm much better now."
I heard my mom make a snirk, then sigh while an arm came down around my front and a hand started to pet through my somewhat hair. "Well, regardless of what these other excuses you just said you've been making were, it looks like now we're both in a lot of trouble..."
I lowered my head and frowned again, remembering we were in cages and on a truck to some secret lab. "Yeah..."
I couldn't see it, but by my mother's next tone, I knew she was frowning. "I wish I could say that everything is going to be okay and that we'll figure some way out of this... but I honestly... don't see how we could get out of this, yet..."
I nodded, understanding completely as the truck we were on started to exit our forest. I couldn't see much, because there were no longer any trees, because I was too small to see over the truck bed's wall, but I did notice one thing. The sun was lighting the sky it's bright blue. I looked at the bars around us, curious as to why we weren't roasting alive, since it was the summer and the bars were all metal. They should have been scorching hot. However, maybe they were made out of some strange metal that didn't conduct heat well. It's possible. And some normal metals have this property.
For some reason, I started thinking about how I had left Kimmy in the forest. I sighed, hugging my mother's arm to myself, leaning my head into it. "Kimmy must be so afraid... I shouldn't have left her back there, but..." I just bowed my head. "I just... I couldn't think of losing you... I don't want to lose you in any way..."
Mom looked down at me and smiled reassuringly with a softness in her eyes. "Kimmy will be okay. She's the safest of all three of us, after all." At that logic, I nodded. Though, if I think about it now, what would emotions do to her?
After that long conversation, I started to realize just how tired I was. The constant draining sun was beating me even more to death. I couldn't stay awake for much longer.
About an hour passed. I had fallen asleep on my mother's lap after on half that hour with her petting her hand through my hair. I can't really say when we finally arrived at the lab, but I can say that when I would get there, it would be a great, loud wake-up call for what was to come...
It's late. Let's stop here for now... Still... I admit to being surprised you held on without falling asleep. Are you used to long stories? ... Regardless, go home for now and come back tomorrow. Once again, I will stay here. Go...