03/22/2005 - 05:24 - Oldale Town

"FINALLY" Claus screamed when he finally got into Oldale's territory. It's been half of a week since he left Littleroot and now he's finally in another town. It wasn't too big, but was slightly bigger than his hometown. But that wasn't what he really was happy for. Using all his speed, he started to run in the direction of a building with red roof.

Entering there, he quickly made Chances return to his pokeball and walk to the nurse's balcony.

"Would you like to rest your pokemon?" She asked.

"YES!" He screamed since it was something obvious. He put his two pokeballs on the balcony and she took it to put in the healing machine. They waited few minutes and she took them from the machine and gave to the young trainer. "Thank you." He said with a kind smile and walked away.

"Hope seeing you soon." The nurse said before he leave. He thought on saying something to her, but tried to ignore it. (To be honest, I think every Pokemon they heal is how they get their income.)

The gentle breeze touched his skin, it was very good to stay where isn't a hostile zone. Chances had to kill some Pokemon on the way to the city. Before he met Chances, he didn't think too much about how would his journey be, somethings that he saw were very different from anything that he ever saw.

*BUMP*

He fell on the ground thanks to someone that didn't notice that he was in front of the Pokemon Center's door. Looking at the figure, he saw that the one who slammed him was a girl with tan skin, around his age. And he committed a terrible mistake because he looked at her eyes.

"No..." Both murmured.

When the eyes of two trainers meet, they need to have a pokemon battle.

"Can I... heal my pokemon... before we start?" She timidly asked. Claus nodded, none of them really are ready.

*Few minutes later*

"I only have one pokemon strong enough to fight." Claus said releasing Chances and Lailaa.

"It feels good to be healed." Chances said.

"It's been five days since the last time I feel that good." Lailaa said.

"They look good." The girl said looking at the torchic and the zigzagoon. "I too only have one pokemon capable to fight." She said releasing her wurmple and treecko.

"Where are we?" The wurmple asked.

The treecko looked at the buildings and said. "Nice to-" He stopped when his eyes meet the ones of the torchic. "Wow! I didn't think that we would see each other again, or at least this soon."

"Treecko!" Chances said not expecting to see the starter pokemon.

"Sam like to call me Mint."

"Interesting."

"So you are the treecko that were in the lab?" Claus asked coming closer to the gecko.

"And you are Claus." He said taking the human's hand and shaking it.

"Yeah, I think that we never had a good greeting." Claus said and looked at the girl. "Your name is Sam?"

"Yes, I am."

*Later*

"Let's stop this fight when we think that one of them has enough." Sam said, while in front of both the trainers were both ready and prepared to battle.

"Alright, we'll go first. Chances use Scratch!" Claus said.

"Mint follow up with Pound!" Sam exclaimed.

Chances ran and went to scratch Mint, but ended up making minimal damage while Mint quickly reacted and pounded him in the face and sent the chicken stumbling backwards a bit.

Mint was obviously on guard and Chances looked back at Claus with an eye that said, 'Be smart, don't be an idiot.'

Claus then nodded and the battle went on from there. It was more of a one sided battle as Chances seemed to get the advantage because he have a attack greater than his enemy, which is his only advantage since he still doesn't know Ember, and he wasn't giving up. Mint had to give up later unless he was going to be beaten to death. Even if he was faster Chances didn't seem to give up. Mint smirked as he got up and wiped some blood off his mouth.

"Man, you don't give up do you?"

"I haven't wait too many years just to give up in my first battle against a trained pokemon." Chances replied. He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Mint knew what he was doing and was surprised because the fire type was using a move without receiving his trainer's orders.

"Mint!" Sam called noticing the worry on her pokemon's eyes. "Use Pound!" She ordered and Mint did. He pounded Chances right on the stomach, but he knew that it wouldn't cancel the other's move.

"Chances!" Claus called for his pokemon. "Why did you use Focus Energy?" He asked, but the torchic only grunted and let his nails grow with a Scratch.

"MINT!" Sam screamed.

"I know." He replied and pounded the chick. He hoped that it would be enough, but it wasn't.

Chances smirked and jumped back before charging at the treecko. It only took a second for his nails to touch Mint's belly but it took much longer in Mint's mind. He knows that the only way for him to lose is taking a critical hit, but not only that can defeat him, but kill him. Chances' nails penetrated the grass type is flesh much deeper than before, it was critical.

The four pairs of eyes that were watching the scene started to show shock and fear. Lailaa and Claus were the first to act by running toward the two rivals

"STOP!" Both screamed and pulled the fire type from the grass type.

Mint fall on the ground in pain and touched his wound, his hand got red due the blood that was dripping from it. He soon fell unconscious in blood loss. Sam and Tanner run to him and tried to rescue him.

"You need to take him to the center." Lailaa told them and they did so. Lailaa observed they leaving and decided to help them, leaving Claus and Chances alone.

"WHY?" Claus asked to Chances, who was looking at the blood on his fingers. "Why did you do that?"

"Isn't it obvious. If I don't fight to kill…" He said getting closer to the boy. "... I will be with a great disadvantage. You did saw me killing some pokemon before, you know who I am and I am someone that is willing to do anything in order to survive until the end of this journey, even if I need to get rid of you."

Claus gasped and fell on his knees. He wasn't expecting hear that from his own starter. He did manage to make Chances spare some wild pokemon because he put himself in the middle and it only was making his pokemon get angrier by each time that he did that and everytime that he killed someone was because he was being overprotective. But it wasn't the case.

He need to make all his pokemon get stronger in order to get the ways to complete the pokedex and, statically, Chances would be his stronger pokemon, but the simple thought of Chances as a blaziken no longer was something good to think about. With a great power, his full height and his personality, he would become a true nightmare.

16:51

"It was hard, but we managed to save him." Joy said to the two humans and three pokemon. "It's very hard to heal and always leave a mark and he was luck that his opponent stopped after realizing that it was a critical hit in low health. Anyway, he is having to rest and I recommend you to wait an entire day until he get. A chansey is repairing his clothes."

"I understand." Sam said looking down, ashamed for letting it happen. Nurse Joy decided to leave the group alone.

"I sorry." Claus said. "I couldn't stop Chances and, thanks to that, Mint now is in a critical state." His words really showed sadness and guilt, emotions that currently aren't being showed on Chances' face.

"No, you don't need to be sorry. The rule is that when the eyes of two trainers meet, they need to fight. You only obeyed this rule, yet you have the mercy to pull your pokemon from mine. There was a moment where I thought that there wasn't any trainer that would jump to the middle of the battle and stop it." Sam told him. "The fault was mine, I didn't tell him to retreat after I saw the Focus Energy."

"I guess that both of us are to be blamed. I will take Chances to Joy for him to get healed." Claus finished and walked away with his pokemon.

17:01 - Route 103

"Good to know that you finally did a good thing." Chances said to his running trainer, while Lailaa was following right behind. "We don't need to lose our time with those three. The rules don't say anything about take care of the loser."

Yes, it doesn't say anything about it, but it just make things look much worse than they actually are. Claus couldn't stay there after what happened to Mint. He needed to stay away from that memory. He then stopped and started to cry.

"And here I was, thinking that you finally learned."

Claus Star

Chances: Level 10 - Adamant - Blaze - 22 years - Growl, Scratch, Focus Energy and Ember (Learned after the battle)

Lailaa: Level 2 - Lonely - Pick up - 20 years - Tackle and Growl

Deaths: 0

Sam Kay

Mint: Level 8 - Gentle - Overgrow - 19 years - Leer, Pound and Absorb

Tanner: Level 3 - Timid - Shield Dust - 5 years - String Shot and Tackle

Deaths: Almost 1

Cara normal: I would upload this chapter sooner, but there was an error during the document upload, so it took until now to post. My beta couldn't fix everything, so there might be some errors here and there.