Cacturne

A pair of humans walked across the desert. Since this place was remote, days of travel from the nearest town, this was unusual enough. But these two looked foreign… smelled foreign. They wore clothes that were not faded from the sun, and did not have any sand grains, thorns, or stickler seeds on them. And they smelled faintly of oil, smoke, and harsh chemicals. The only scent that was common of that in the desert was smoke, and even their smoke was different than what the fire Pokemon produced.

Standing alongside a footpath, the Cacturne closed her eyes as they approached. Standing as she was, she blended into the landscape, matching the non-moving tall cactuses. It was late day, so she was awake but not ready to move yet. There was still sunshine falling onto her tough green skin.

"Are you sure we ended up in another world, instead of just teleporting to a place in our own?" the smaller man asked. He smelled nervous, but he didn't seem to notice her.

"Of course we ended up in another world!" the taller man snapped. "I was the one who set up the portal to do that, so this must be a different place. And we're going to bring back proof of this, once we find something that is definitely different."

"Can't we just take back a sample of one of the plants? Its genetic structure would likely be different from anything on Earth."

"If you think I'm going to be satisfied with something mundane like that, you clearly don't know me well enough." They stopped near her, in the shadow she cast.

The Cacturne opened her eyes a slit to see the pair checking some kind of machine. The shorter one said, "I don't see why you had to drag me along. And close the portal back. If you can't target where we'd end up, how are you going to target our home world?"

The taller man grumbled, "It's easy, but the explanation would fly over your daft head. I know what I'm doing, even in bringing someone like you along." He then looked around, so she closed her eyes again. "Of all the places we could have shown up, we had to get a dead desert. I should have sent a camera on a pole in first. That's the only problem," he quickly said the last part. "Targeting these portals is going to be a pain, but that's the only fault of my technology."

"Yes sir," the smaller man said in a defeated tone of voice. It was like one who knew he was with a mad man and knew better than to argue sense into him. But then, why would he be following a mad man? The Cacturne lived out in the desert, but even she had better sense than that. "This place doesn't look all that dead, though."

"This desert is going to cause us only minor obstacles," the mad one said. "I know all about survival. Like if you need water, all you have to do is this."

The Cacturne then felt a sharp metal object slice into her hip. The shock of the unexpected pain was so intense that she froze up in fright. Although she knew it was metal, she felt that there was something different about it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have cut in so deeply. Perhaps in being human made instead of something a Pokemon grew.

"Well doesn't that just beat all," the tall man grumbled. "You're supposed to get water out of these things, not rusty sand."

"D-did that cactus just move?" the other asked. He stepped further up the path, away from her.

"It's a dumb old plant," he said, walking away briskly. "We've barely been here an hour and you're already experiencing heat delusions? Worthless. Come on; I'm not responsible for what happens if a pansy like you gets lost."

Opening her eyes back up, she saw them continue down the footpath. Normally, Pokemon did not hurt humans. It was allowable if it was in self-defense. However, she hadn't acted in time. Perhaps it was okay if she made him feel the hurt she did.

But the cut hurt enough that she didn't want to move her legs. She focused her energy on transforming the sun's energy into healing energy for her. With time, her sandy blood stopped flowing and the cut closed up tight. The pain relented some, but she still felt an ache there. By that time, the sun was down.

Good. Night was the best time to move. Carefully, the Cacturne moved her injured hip to step onto the path. It wasn't too bad until she had to move her other leg and got an increase in pain from the cut. After a few steps, she figured out how to adjust her stride so that she didn't have weight on her injury for long. Then she limped along the path, following the foreigners' scents.

Even though some time had passed, their smells were strange enough hat she easily picked them out over everything else. She was quite used to tracking this way. When she was out hunting, the Cacturne would follower her prey throughout the night, and even into the day some, until they grew too weary from the harsh desert. She usually didn't have to deal with a pain in her hip, though. But she did not want to give up on this pair unless she absolutely had to.

They had wandered around in places, but always returned to the path. It was not like a trail of a prey animal, which would try to confuse her if it knew she was there. No, this was the trail of a pair of oblivious beings. What were they doing here? If they kept on like this, they would perish before reaching civilization. Not that it would be a bad thing to her. Pokemon weren't supposed to hurt humans… but if they died, well, meat was meat. That was the ruling of the predators.

After getting over a hill, the Cacturne spotted the two strange humans examining an item. They had objects that cast out a beam of light in front of them. The tall one dropped it. "It's just a boot," he said, disgusted. "Who would ever just leave one old boot in the middle of a desert? I can understand if it was a pair near an old skeleton, but why one?"

"Maybe it has a manufacturing mark?" the other suggested. "That would prove that this was a different world."

"Make my proof an old boot? How ridiculous."

The short guy was trying to be helpful, the Cacturne noticed. But why was he hanging around the obnoxious tall one? Whatever the case was, she made sure she had plenty of needles, then fired them at the jerk's hip. They were small, gray, and thin, probably not like the weapon that had hurt her.

But they were still effective, causing him to yelp when blood was drawn. "Who the..?" the tall one shouted, turning around and stopping his threat when he cast his light at her. It was nearly as bright as the sun, causing her to wince and briefly lose vision of anything beyond the whiteness. Still, she limped a few steps down the hill towards them, growing a new set of throwing thorns.

"I think it's that cactus you tried cutting for water earlier," the short man said, nervously backing away again. "So this really is a different world."

"Well what right does it have to attack me?" he demanded, now aiming his light beam at her eyes. In response, she closed them and threw her next set of thorns towards the sound of his voice.

There was scrambling to get out of the way. "You did slash into it and hurt it."

He snorted. "We ought to capture it; it may be a plant, but it would be perfect proof!"

"And how do you intend to capture an angry walking cactus that can throw thorns at us?"

"Shut up, imbecile. This is not the time to turn into a wise cracker." He aimed the light beam away from her, so she risked opening her eyes again. Her view was vague, but quickly sharpened as he pulled out another handheld machine. "I do have a bunch of its thorns now. We can use genetic tests to prove that we were here. I am a genius." Then he fired the other machine off behind the two men.

A glowing blue orb traveled several feet from the machine, then stopped and formed a number of spinning rings around it. Quickly, the rings expanded. A strange black space appeared there; the Cacturne sensed an intense power of time and space concentrated in those rings.

"Right," the short man said to his companion, then fled with him through the portal. After they were both gone, the blue orb swallowed up its rings and vanished.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark again, the Cacturne looked down at the footprints of the two men. Hopefully, that was the last she would see of them. Since no other creature seemed to be about, she limped over to a tall plain cactus and stood there with her back to it. The desert was a dangerous place, even to its inhabitants. A predator who displayed a prominent limp like she had now could become prey itself.

…

Cacturne Emerald entry: After spending thousands of years in harsh deserts, its blood transformed into the same substances as sand. It is nocturnal, so it hunts at night.

One of those entries that seems to consider the player an idiot. Still made me laugh when I saw that second line.