It started like any bad day does. Waking up early in the morning.
An audino was lying face down in the dirt, their natural position, a few falling leaves having settled on its motionless body. The only sign of life is a faint rise and fall of its back.
"Ughhghh," the audino groaned, finding their face smushed against dirt and rocks to be just unpleasant enough to roll away from.
His eyes immediately clenched as the sunlight beaming merrily down made his snug darkness go veiny red. "No… natural light." He raised a paw to shield his eyes and laid it across his face.
The feeling of dirt made his nose scrunch as he slowly came aware of his surroundings. It was really noisy and he wasn't sure why. His room wasn't this noisy.
Nor should there be dirt on his paw.
His what?
His eyes snapped open and he gasped, rising up from his limb noodle position and looking around. "What… the fuck?" he muttered, seeing thick-trunked trees laden with floppy green leaves all around him.
He looked down and saw his body. "..." He decided to lie back down as this was obviously a dream.
Obviously a dream, dreams simulate little pebbly rocks pressing painfully into your spine.
Obviously a dream, dreams are great at reminding you how hard and uncomfortable the earth is to lay upon.
Obviously a dream, dreams are always loud and maximise your hearing so you can hear just about everything around you.
Obviously a-
"Alright." He leaned back up and examined himself again. He was pink. Pink and cream. He was like a cream puff covered in strawberry topping. He was probably adorable. And easy EXP.
"...if this is a cosmic joke because I'm a nurse," he said, bringing his dainty-little paws up to his fluffy pettable face. It was just early enough in the morning that screaming was acceptable. "AHHHH!"
He had a tail!
He could feel it.
It was like a fist above his butt that could twitch left and right like an adorable little taunt.
His ears were massive, even more than they were before! He could hear everything and it all horrible.
He was an audino! If there was any reason to panic it was because it was he was an audino and he wasn't waking up from this crazy train.
"Oh, cool!" a bright and chipper voice catches his attention and Audino spins around and comes face to face with a human.
'Oh fuck, I'm in the trainer world,' he thought as the human gawks at him. An older teenager, dressed to the nines in obvious trainer gear. Backpack, hat, belt of pokeball's. There were six of them and each ball was different, he could recognise a regular, ultra, and premier ball but the rest only seemed familiar.
"Um, hello?" he tries to say, hoping beyond hope that he could still talk human.
"Quill, come on out!" the trainer called, grabbing the regular pokeball and throwing it up high into the sky. The ball activates and spills a blinding flash of white light that cascades down and forms on the ground into a small pokemon.
A cyndaquil.
Audino immediately takes a step back. "Woah, woah, woah, I see where this is going!" he says, throwing his arms up and trying to wave him back.
"Quill, Flamethrower!"
"Wait!"
The little cyndaquil flashes him a guilty look but obeys the order. The back of the Fire-type erupts into flames as it opens its mouth and bellows a shrill non-word cry that ignites into a plume of fire.
Audino tries to dodge, covering his face, but the body is unwieldy and the fire went wide. The first touch of an attack touched his fur but rather than ignite the soft down and immolate him to a very painful and quick death, it only stung.
Like grabbing a hot pan and flinching back before it could really burn your hand, that's what Audino felt. At first. Then there was a kick of force, like a physical punch as if the fire was concealing a fist and he was knocked back and landed on his head.
Now it hurt. "Oww," he groaned, rolling onto his back and raising his head.
"Good job, Quill!" the trainer said as if this was all normal and, as Audino was realising, it was. "Free experience! Attack again!"
"Stop!" Audino yelled as Quill took another breath in. The cyndaquil did hesitate this time.
"Quill, attack!"
Audino rolled to his feet and tried to run but the Flamethrower struck him in the back this time and launched him at a tree. He bounced off it with a cry of pain, causing the branches to shake and some leaves to fall. He fell back with a groan.
"I-I think he's down."
Audino's ears, large and sensitive, picked up the hesitant voice and he kept still, an eye cracked open to see the cyndaquil appealing his trainer. The voice was soft but clearly male.
The trainer didn't seem to be able to understand them, but he was maybe experienced enough to gather the meaning. "Hmm, pretty weak." To Audino's horror, the trainer grabbed another pokeball and pressed something on it.
The button on it began to flash and he realised that had to be a capture mechanic. "Should be a good practice dummy for you." And then he threw it in a graceful arc.
The pokeball whistled through the air and Audino rolled out of the way. It bounced off the ground and nearly hit him anyway but he was able to scamper forwards.
"It's still going!" the trainer yelled as Audino took off running. "After it, Quill!"
And then they were both racing after him. Audino beat his way through the woods he was in, knocking branches out of the way and stumbling over bushes.
His legs were so short and stubby compared to a humans and he could not outrun them, a sharp command of, "There!" Which precipitated another blast of flame in the spine.
As Audino was knocked sprawling again a darkly humoured thought occurred to him, 'At least I'm tough.' But he could feel his stamina being taxed, his body aching in sharp spikes of prickly pain.
He groaned, gasping harshly for breath as he crawled behind a tree, smoke wafting off his singed fur. There was a tense bubble of something in his stomach, it almost felt like anxiety or perhaps apprehension.
"Stop!" he repeated again, this time with far more emphasis in the word. He could hear them walking and come to a stop, even the cyndaquil sniff the air. "I don't want to fight, dammit please."
Quill cringed a little and glanced up at his trainer, his master, his weilder and tried a soft. "Quil…."
"I know," his trainer said. "I'm getting pumped too!"
Quill and Audino groaned as the message seemed to be bouncing off the thick skull of the still-human human.
'Plan B, then,' Audino resolved, gripping the bark as his gut filled with nervous tension. He was a pokemon, right? And the cyndaquil seemed pretty soft.
He couldn't peer around the tree, but his sensitive ears picked up every step as twigs and leaves cracked underfoot. He counted their steps, one two three.
Paw curling around a rock he swung himself around the tree and lobbed it as hard as he could. Perhaps too hard, as he didn't aim and it just flew off into the trees. "There!" The trainer called, pointing a finger at him.
"Sorry," Quill said, taking a breath. This time when Audino dived he aimed a little off and the Flamethrower sailed off and ignited a few leaves that quickly crumbled to ash.
Perhaps Quill was giving him a chance to run again?
That might have been the smart, sane, and sensible choice. However, Audino had been scorched several times and was moving from flight to fight.
He ignored the adorable little cyndaquil that any other day of his life he'd lose his mind over wanting to poke and hug and it was adorable and-
No, it was time for violence.
He charged the trainer.
The kids dumb face had a moment of realisation before Audino slammed into him. A headbutt with as much spite he could manage into his lower belly knocked the wind out of the human and sent him sprawling on the ground with a soft groan of pain.
"Agh! Quill get this crazy thing off me!"
Audino grabbed at anything he could reach and with strength he wasn't expecting, he snapped the trainers bag off his shoulders. Tugging with so much force he stumbled back, Audino blinked once before reverting back into flight.
He turned fluffy tail and ran, clutching the trainers bag as the human yelled after him. "QUILL! GET IT!"
"Wait! Slow down!" Quill shouted after him, sprinting on all fours.
Audino proved to be a lot faster than he seemed before, barrelling forwards with a burst of energy.
"Slow! Down!"
"No!" Audino yelled back. The bag was jingling in his grasp and things were beginning to fall out of it, a can causing Quill to stumble and fling it into his trainers path and causing him to comically fall to the ground.
"DAMMIT! BARREL!"
Audino chanced a glance back as he heard another pokeball activated and he felt his stomach drop like a stone as a fully-evolved meganium appeared.
'Am I in Johto?' Was a brief, detached, thought through his head before the woods around him came alive and decided to be angry.
Vines tore through the earth, blasting soil into his eyes as they snared his legs and dragged him to the ground. Audino yelped, flailing. More things fell out of the bag, including a knife he grabbed and started hacking.
He was able to free his legs and with the bag still around a shoulder and a knife in his hands now he continued trying to run. He would admit this was not very brave of him to do but he was a new innocent pokemon who had woken up very badly and he had a massive pear coming down on him like a boulder.
He couldn't run forever, however. The trees thinned out suddenly before he found himself along a gusty cliff, sheer drops on every side besides back the way he came. Turning only presented him with a glowering meganium.
"Um… would it help if I said sorry?" he said hopefully.
Barrel snorted and his glare spoke of terrible things that would be enacted on his body. Barrel wasn't attacking yet, but snarled when he went to try and make another break for it. Audino glanced around desperately, maybe there was an outcropping that'd give him a path downwards?
Quill and the trainer arrived and Audino zoomed in on Quill. "Tell him to back off!" he pleaded. "I'll give it back, you just attacked me first!"
"You cant. You attack a human," Quill spluttered and Barrel's stony expression only grew worse upon hearing that.
"Thanks for telling him."
"You!" the trainer barked, pointing an accusing finger. "You're cornered now! Give it back! NOW!"
Audino was pretty sure this was a teenager all puffed up on his own importance, but it was also a grief teenager pushing him to the edge of a cliff. He clutched the bag, ready to throw it at his face to distract everyone when he spotted the pokeball in the trainer's hands.
He was going to try and catch him again. After all this?
Audino wasn't sure what would happen if he was hit by one of those. Was he fully a pokemon? What if part of him was human and the pokeball just murdered him on the spot!? What if it brainwashed him? Even if it was none of that, this kid was an asshole.
"Bag." Came the demand.
"Hey, Quill was it?" Audino asked, hearing as much as seeing Quill's distress at what was going on. "C-can you help me?"
Barrel sent a glare at Quill, causing him to shrink. "It… it's not that bad."
Oh, that just made it sound even worse.
"Three!" the trainer barked, his patience worn out. "Two!"
"Okay!" Audino shouted, his exclamation maybe surprising the trainer as he didn't lob the ball. He sagged, relaxed his expression, looked as defeated and deferent as possible. He bent his head a little and raised the bag and began to take careful steps forwards, Barrel's eyes locked on him.
Quill watched in clear anxiety as the space was cleared between everyone.
"...fuck you." Hidden behind the bag was the knife he'd grabbed and right as he reached Barrel he slammed it into the beasts leg. Barrel roared in pain and flinched and Audino headbutted his way through the trainer again.
His strategy was genius.
For about three seconds.
A vine caught his ankle as he tried to leap away and then a hand grabbed his other leg. He squealed, falling down as the trainer swore terribly filthy words at him.
"That's FUCKING it!" he yelled. "Barrel, throw it over the edge!"
"What?" Quill squeaked.
"WAITWAITWAIT!" Audino yelled. He couldn't die already, this wasn't fair he had such dreams.
The vine dragged him back as he tried to bury his paws into the ground, but it was rocky and he couldn't grip anything. "NonononononoHELP ME!"
Quill, cringing and closing his eyes couldn't block out the sound and as Audino pleaded yet again he couldn't take it any longer.
Barrel roared yet again as a stream of flame burned his vine, weakening it enough for Audino to pull himself free.
"QUILL!" his trainer bellowed and Quill flinched back. Before he could so much as blurt an apology, Audino had grabbed him and then everything was a blur.
"RunrunrunrunrunRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN!" Audino chanted as he sprinted with all the desire to live that he had. Barrel, burned and stabbed couldn't grasp him well enough with a vine and he was returned to the ball as the trainer took chase again.
"DOESN'T HE KNOW WHEN TO QUIT?" Audino yelled.
"You stabbed Barrel!" Quill shrieked back. "He's gonna EAT YOU!"
"I DO NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH THE IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID!"
"WHY ARE YOU CARRYING ME?"
"YOU ATTACKED BARREL!"
"AHH!"
"AHHH!"
Perhaps screaming was not the best strategy to hide, but few audino had the stride and stamina to outrun a human anyway.
"Lilac, grab it!"
"What do I do?"
"You can't do anything!" Quill yelped as they were suddenly pulled back as if inertia didn't exist and they were helium balloons. An espeon was galloping alongside the trainer, their forehead gem glowing as they snared the fleeing duo in a Psychic hold.
It was terribly uncomfortable, a claustrophobic hold as if someone had swaddled him in the tightest blanket possible and then compressed him in a bearhug. He could barely move, barely breath as the pressure condensed everywhere around him.
Audino made a sound akin to, "Gurk." As his arms were jerked back, dropping Quill on the ground. Quill whimpered as his trainer stomped up to them, a very unpleasant look in his eyes.
"Quill, Flamethrower!" he demanded, pointing at the restrained audino.
Quill whimpered again. "I-I don't-"
"NOW!" he yelled. Quill cringed, sparks building in his mouth.
"Quill," Audino grit out, moving his locked jaw with painful effort. "...Flamethrower."
Quill started in shock, Audino was sacrificing himself for him?
"The espeon."
Oh.
Quill's mouth fell open and even Lilac frowned, their hold loosening just slightly.
"He's gonna kill me," Audino managed. Quill's eyes widened before he turned back to Lilac. Lilac's glowing eyes bore into him, they stared each other down a very long second.
The cyndaquil gave a little, defeated, sigh. "Might as well do the right thing." And then he attacked Lilac.
A plume of flame scorched the espeon and caused her control to snap entirely, recoiling with a shout. Quill's trainer's mouth dropped open before his face coloured. "I can't believe you just did that!" He grabbed his belt in fury, ready to return Quill.
His hand met empty air.
He had dropped it in his bag during the kerfuffle, his eyes turned up to Audino who had the audacity to smirk a little, holding the pokeball.
"...okay. Lilac, dominate Quill!"
Grimacing, she shook embers off her face and sent a beam of multicoloured light at Quill. The blast connected with his chest and knocked him into a tree with intense force. Audino cringed in empathy, that looked a lot more powerful than anything Quill had done to him.
Quill dropped with a pitiful whine and couldn't get up. The three sets of eyes turned from Quill back to each other, Audino backing up.
"Uh, Qu-Quill, I'm gonna need your help in a moment. Quill? Quill?" He waved a hand in panic. "Quill get up!"
And then, once again magic happened. The tensed desperation in his stomach seemed to bloom, growing wider, warmer, expanding to the tips of his paws and then, somehow, beyond them.
A beam of soft lavender light cascaded from his paw to Quill, the Heal Pulse revitalising him and giving him the strength to stand again. "Yeah, Quill! Flamethrower!"
Quill held a perplexed expression on his face, but he didn't know how to fight, only how to listen and so he listened and blasted another stream of flame at Lilac. She jumped and avoided this one and the trainer returned an order.
Audino felt his stomach singing with excited nerves as he clumsily directed Quill in battle. The cyndaquil wouldn't even dodge without being told to which was a problem but he was able to constantly use Heal Pulse on him, keeping his energy up and wounds down and slowly, but surely, Lilac began to show signs of being worn down.
"The pokemon league rules say just one at a time," the trainer muttered and then grabbed a second pokeball. "So, two on two then! Blaster!" And out popped a fucking aggron.
Quill and Audino blanched in unison as their second opponent materialised. Quill glanced at Audino. "We're gonna die," he said calmly.
"No we're not," Audino replied calmly. And then started screaming and waving his arms. "HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!"
Quill shook his head, thinking he'd prefer to die with some dignity and the knowledge he did the right thing.
Then Audino disappeared.
Quill jolted, unable to believe he had just seen that and looked up as the wind hit his face. A braviary that had been sailing through the air had been detected by Audino's ears and he had responded to the call for help.
By grabbing Audino, not Quill.
Quill looked back to a furious Lilac, Blaster, and his trainer Conner. "Would it help if I said I'm s-"
Up above, Audino began to squirm as soon as he noticed he'd been saved. "Hey! Wait! Quill's still down there!"
"Sorry," Braviary said with no real apology in his voice. "I need a healer, not a cyndaquil. You're just lucky I heard you."
In his paw he still held Quill's pokeball and he hit a zen moment of focus as he thought of how he had seen the trainer use the pokeball's and aimed the device at the rapidly-fading Quill.
He was not a good shot but he had to get this right. He activated the ball.
Right as Lilac began to lift Quill up for retribution, she lifted him just high enough to hit the capture beam and he vanished into red light. Conner and Blaster bellowed in outrage as Lilac swiftly turned her head up.
Once her expression was out of her trainer and teammates sight she allowed herself a very small smile and she felt a little happy knowing she had done the right thing.
Audino sighed in relief as he saw Quill be sucked into the ball and he held onto it firmly, looking up to the belly feathers of his ride. "Um, you said you needed a healer right? Not to eat or anything?"
Braviary chuckled at him. "I'd never eat you, you must have had a bad day if you're asking me that."
"Bad day doesn't even begin to describe it, uh, sir."
"I can see that. Once you've gotten marked for a grudge by a human they'll chase you to the ends of the earth and probably beyond that too. They're just that persistent."
"Oh, good."
"But, I got something I need your help with. You help me and I'll help you, sound fair?"
Audino had to bite his tongue before he helpfully pointed out Braviary was already doing him a solid by saving him from that.
"Thank god you were close by," he sighed instead.
"Who?"
"Uh, sorry I meant… Thank Arceus?"
Braviary snorted. "If you want, sure. Anyway, I heard the commotion, thought it was worth keeping an eye on. Battles usually pull you guys out of your burrows. Didn't expect to find you being the target yourself, what did you do to make that human so mad at you?"
"Oh… I kinda attacked him."
"...what?"
"He attacked me first!"
"...I suppose."
"Then I might have stabbed his other pokemon."
"...not to repeat myself, but, what?"
"He attacked me first!"
Braviary tilted his head down, his expression deadly serious. "There will be no stabbing or attacking when we get there, understand?"
"I mean, of course. You saved me, I owe you my life. And he probably does too."
Braviary's eyes flicked to the ball and then he resumed watching where he was flying. He didn't talk much for the rest of the flight, Audino's arms began to ache from the pressure of the talons crushing him but he preferred that to falling and so didn't complain.
He was relieved as Braviary finally began to sail downwards. "This is my nest," he said, the ground approaching them very quickly and causing a panicked thrill to go through Audino's stomach and climb his spine.
"Please don't crash land," he managed. Braviary laughed at him and scared him by nearly clipping his feet on the grass, but adjusted his wings and began flapping them to a relatively gentle stop.
After Audino finished kissing the ground as his legs had gone to jelly, Braviary cleared his throat. "Now. Chansey wasn't able to help us, so my mate is pretty on edge at the moment. Staraptor?"
There was a squawk unlike a pokemon's name and a red eye poked out from behind a curtain of vines. "Is this one better?" she said suspiciously.
"He's different that's for sure," Braviary said soothingly.
Audino waved awkwardly, still holding the pokeball. He wasn't sure how to shrink it and didn't want to deal with a panicked cyndaquil or set any of the birds off so he awkwardly set it down. "Um, I'm Audino. What's the problem?"
Staraptor turned to Braviary who shrugged. "Hard to talk while flying. Our son is sick, he got hurt last week and hasn't been the same since. We brought Chansey around but she just told us to make him eat her egg, but he's not hungry and throws up when we try to give him something."
"Ookay. Am I able to take a look at him?"
Staraptor opened her beak, "I'm watching you," she said with no question in the air that she'd kill him if he did something to harm her child.
With that pleasant thought pecking at the back of his neck, Audino was carefully led into the nest of the birds. It had a roof, was sort of snug, and kinda humid. The nest was large enough that he had to clamber over and he fell a little into it, he wouldn't be getting out without help. There was a bit of a smell to the place he tried to ignore.
Under the watchful eyes of the parents and trying to avoid having a panic attack at the birds reminded him of primal terror from his youth, he looked for the ill child. It was a little starly in the middle of the nest.
Staraptor flew in and roosted over her sick child, still glaring at him in suspicion. He kept his paws raised and turned over to show he meant no harm and inched his way forwards.
"Where were you hurt, little guy?" he asked the child as he got close enough.
Starly shrank into his mothers down. There was a low trill from Staraptor that Audino knew was a threat.
"Dear," Braviary said patiently. "We gotta let him try."
They stared each other down a moment before Staraptor preened a little of starly's crest before shuffling back enough to expose him.
Again, Audino approached very carefully. "Hi, I'm Audino. My friends call me Audi."
Starly blinked at him, the stranger was a little scary to him, but carried a sort of soothing presence about him. He shivered a little but didn't shrink away.
"I need to take a look at you to see where you got hurt so I can make you better. Can you show me where you got hurt?"
It took a few minutes of coaxing, he decided to go on a seemingly-random tangent about tall things he'd seen on the fly over until Starly was calm enough to let him examine him.
Starly extended a leg, and Audino hummed in sympathy. "That looks like it really hurts," he said. Starly nodded.
Starly's leg had suffered some sort of attack, possibly scratches or pecks. The birds thing legs didn't have much to spare but what was there had festered. He couldn't help but consider how the… cleanliness of the nest might not have helped exactly for that, the humidity in the air felt prime for growing bacteria.
In his human life he was a nurse, not a doctor though. He had a few good ideas on what to do about an infection, but he had no equipment or antibiotics nor anyone to ask who would probably know what he was talking about.
He tried to channel the same power he had used on Quill, but as lightly as possible. His paws glowed just slightly, both Staraptor and Starly tensed but he was already saying, "This is a Heal Pulse to get us started."
"Chansey tried that," Staraptor spat out as Starly cringed as the light made his leg prickle painfully.
"Did she clean the wound?" he asked. She blinked. "Or use any berries?"
"...no, she gave us her egg and left."
Audino nodded. It was a bit of a guess but he had to do something, not even just for his own sake. The kid was not well and it plucked at his heart to see. He turned to Braviary. "Do you know where any pecha and sitrus berries are?"
"Of course."
"Can you get me some."
"You think he's poisoned?"
If this was going septic… "I wouldn't just to that conclusion, but the pecha's can only help."
Braviary considered and then nodded. "Play nice," he said to Staraptor and flew off.
Audino realised how much less safe he felt once the braviary was gone. The silence stretched to awkwardness before he cleared his throat. "I think I know what's wrong," he said.
"He won't eat," Staraptor snapped. "We've tried berries."
"I'm not gonna have him eat them straight up," he explained. "I'll mash some up first, put it on the wound after we clean it. Maybe he can eat some of that, even little bits."
"What good is that going to do?"
"The leg looks infected," he said, pausing a moment to see if Staraptor understood. She stared at him, but he guessed she was too proud to ask. "It means that his body is fighting something and it's taking all his energy to do it. He needs lots of water, as much as he can tolerate, and little bits of food to give him the strength to fight it off. Cleaning the wound and putting some berry much should lighten how much he has to fight off, every little bit counts."
She listened to him, her eyes betraying exhaustion.
"Are you… okay?" he asked.
She turned her head. "I'm fine." Was the curt response.
He nodded, knowing when and when not to push.
Braviary thankfully did not take much longer to arrive with a few vines-worth of berries. Audino sent him to get water next, using a cup out of the trainer's bag he had managed to hold onto.
"This won't be too nice," he warned both Starly and Staraptor. "But I'll be as gentle as possible." Starly whimpered as he pressed his paws to his wound and cried, flinching and flapping his wings. Audino feared for a moment Staraptor would drive her beak through his skull, but to his relief she soothed her child, swaddling him in her wings but not letting him pull his leg away. She shushed and hummed and sang as her child whimpered and cried, dried blood and worse being pulled away at the motion of Audino's paws on his leg.
Once it was red and raw he washed off as best as he could and then took the mashed berry goop and pressed it on his leg, binding it with a torn tea-towel.
With that, he finally stepped back and was helped out of the next by Braviary. He had to stay for the next couple days, doing what he could for Starly, pushing for him to eat and drink and not lay in the icky nest all the time.
Staraptor always seemed a single step away from ending his cute, pink, fluffy life but she never did. Starly began to eat, he started pecking at Chansey's egg which was packed full of nutrients and Staraptor even ate some herself to… feed him the old-fashioned way.
Once Starly's fever broke, he was right on the mend.
After the first day, Audino let Quill out with permission and asked him what he wanted to do.
"I don't know," Quill said, sounding numb. "I just… I can't believe all that happened. I'm waiting to wake up but I don't."
"I feel that," Audino said empathetically. "I woke up today and I was an audino and then you guys showed up and tried to kill me."
"...what?"
"Yeah. But, uh…" he trailed off, a little awkwardly. "I guess I wanted to… thank you. You didn't have to do all that. Defying him and… actually listening to me."
Quill glanced down. "It wasn't… right, you weren't even fighting back… well you were eventually, I still can't believe you stabbed Barrel."
"Heh, yeah that was pretty cool." Quill shot him a horrofied look. "I mean, I'd never do that again." He didn't look convinced so Audino smiled in a way that was probably comforting and not scary.
"...uh, anyway. Yeah. I guess I've got no trainer anymore, I could never go back to him now."
"Hm." Audino pondered many things for the moment. He was a helpless child in a world of monsters who wanted to punch his face in because he was tough and weak, Quill was now all alone in the world and apparently liked being told what to do.
"Can we stick together?" Audino asked hopefully. "I mean, we worked pretty well until he cheated and sent out another pokemon."
"...we did," Quill admitted. "I'm the new guy, well I was the new guy. Nowhere near their level but we were actually making ground there. I dunno, I'm not… I dunno how to be wild, I um." He was blushing in embarrassment. "Neverbeenoutbefore."
"Huh?" Audino actually did catch all that but Quill was adorable and he was even more adorable as he spluttered.
"I-well-you see." He cleared his throat, glancing firmly at the ground between them. "I was just… hatched and raised with humans, Connor bought me and we hadn't been training long before… all this. I'm nowhere near a rough and tough wildie."
That might have been a problem but Audino had no intention of staying in the woods forever. Ideas were already forming in his head, and having someone on his side was very helpful.
"That's more than okay," Audino said. "I'm a little useless too. We'll be less useless together!"
"...yay?"
"Yes."
"...alright, I guess I'll stick around."
Quill had nowhere to go either and was in too much shock to wander off into the woods and get lost, so he stuck around as Audino mended the bird's child.
"Is your name really Audi?" Quill asked on the second day.
"No, is your name really Quill?"
"Well, Connor gave me the name."
Audino noted that name to memory, twice and he'd never forget it now.
"Do you have a name?"
Audino shrugged. "I dunno. What do you want to call me?"
"Uh…" Crazy Audino wasn't an option. "...Dino?"
"...no, call me Luka."
"Luka?"
"Luka," Luka answered.
Once Starly was flying again, with the damage to his leg vanished, Braviary approached them with thanks.
Luka was surprised at how pokemon could really heal marvellously, he had recovered from his battering just with a single night of rest and Quill was right as rain as well.
"You figured it out," Braviary said thankfully. "I was getting afraid I was gonna lose my boy." He wasn't going to hug him, but the gratitude was thick in his voice. "Alright, you did your part now let me do mine. I can give you a pretty good headstart on your old human." He nodded to Quill who glanced away in frustrated perplexity. "Is there any place around here you'd like to go?"
Luka turned to Quill. "Where's the closest towns?"
"Um, the one with all the hills?"
"You want to go there?" Braviary asked. "Why?"
"Are there any others?"
"One human town. But, I mean, is that the best idea?"
Quill looked to Luka in question as well, but there was a strange glint in his eye he didn't like. "We've decided to stick together," he said. "And we'll go to the human towns and get that ball off Quill and then I can be his trainer!"
Everyone stared at him. Including Starly and Staraptor.
"Mommy, is Luka crazy?"
"Yes, dear. But he helped you so it's not polite to say it to his face."
"Okay."
Luka did not allow this rejection to shake his confidence.
"...are you saying you want to be a human trainer?" Braviary asked dubiously.
Luka raised a fist. It may have looked determined if he wasn't an audino. "The way Connor was acting was just awful. Something needs to be changed about THAT. And if I'm a trainer I, no WE, can make those changes! What do you say, Quill?" It was clear that he had been rehearsing this.
Quill was staring at him like he'd grown a second head, cut it off, and grew two more while using the severed one like a puppet. "You're actually insane."
"Or a visionary?"
"Insane."
"Or a visionary?"
"Insane."
"Visionary!"
Braviary shook his head slowly. "Don't argue with crazy, you'll never win."
The glint got brighter in Luka's eyes. "I'm going to be the first pokemon to become a Pokemon Champion!"
"No," Quill said flatly. "That's impossible."
The cyndaquil felt a strange looming sense of dread as the glint basically glittered out of the audino's face and he said two simple words. "Challenge accepted."
I just had to get this weird brainrot out of my head before it taunted me into making an entire plot I'd be too overwhelmed to write.
I might continue this, I might not. Depends, I guess, if people really want more I can always find some time for more.
Thanks for reading!
