Chapter 15: Turning the Tables

"Yikes!" I yelped, barely dodging a poison attack shot forth from one of the many Beedrill chasing us. This definitely was not good for me. I was completely starving, I had no energy to even attempt to fight, and sleep was needed quite badly. How in the world did things like this happen to me? I was pretty much the only defense the human trainers had at the moment. Ted was left behind to stall most of the Beedrill, dwindling down the numbers for me to handle. But the situation remained the same for me. Heh. Dwindling! That's a cool word.

I began concetrating what little energy I had to my mouth and pivoted my body, letting loose a very tiny Shadow Ball at one of the Beedrill. They all stopped momentarily as the attack hit the Beedrill I aimed at, barely any damage being done to it. In fact, the least I could say it had done was left a tiny mark upon it. The Beedrill brushed at the mark, laughing, the other Beedrill joining in. Curse my stamina right now. If I were at full power, I'd easily be able to take them all down and send them packing and maybe do a victory dance on my hind paws. Hmm. I feel delirious.

Back to the mind of matter, I turned and ran as the Bedrill once again gave chase to us. My running was slowing quickly. Not good. Those Beedrill would be on me in an instant. I turned my head to see the Beedrill I attacked dive-bombing me, a needle drawn back. I knew what was about to happen and drooped my ears, ready for the blow. But in that instant, just as the Beedrill was thrusting its needle forward, something surprising happened.

"Get away from my Umbreon!" my master suddenly yelled, smacking the Beedrill with a stick lit on fire. The Beedrill lit up like a piece of dry wood and fell onto the ground, shrieking in pain. I looked up at my master whose legs were trembling violently, staring down at the burning Beedrill before looking up at the rest of them still in the air. Now, I can understand where he got the stick. After all, we are in a forest. But how did he find- oh wait. Nevermind. Forgot that Charcoal's tail had fire on it.

"Are you stupid?" I heard Laura shout. "Those Beedrill will kill you!"

"I don't care," my master said, fear in his voice showing quite well. "I don't care what happens to me. I just have to make sure you and my pokemon get to Pewter City all right. Don't worry about me. Just get to Pewter City."

"But-" Laura said, only to be interrupted.

"Go!" my master said. "Now! I'll handle these Beedrill, even if it means risking my life for you." He looked up at the Beedrill who were obviously buzzing qiute angrily. I would be too if someone I cared about just got set on fire. They buzzed there for maybe a moment before they all came down at once, needles sharp and ready for the kill.

"Get going!" my master yelled before he began waving the stick of fire wildly, hoping to catch at least a few on fire. My feet didn't want to seem to move. Neither Laura's. I mean, how far would we really be able to get before the Beedrill caught up with us? I wouldn't last more than five seconds against them. Laura and Charcoal wouldn't last long either. All we could do was stare and watch as the Beedrill closed in on us.

However, just as the distance was about to be closed, a maniac laugh could be heard throughout the forest. Everyone, and I do mean everyone as in both my master and the Beedrill, stopped whatt hey were doing and looked around in confusion as to who was laughing at a time like this, even though the laughing sounded oddly familiar to me.

The laughing grew closer and, thanks to the help of my super acute ears, managed to pinpoint the direction the laughing was coming from, looking in said direction. My eyes could have bugled out at that instant at what I saw. Coming towards us was a very long vine that came from whatever tree that was close by. But it wasn't the vine that surprised me. It was what was swinging on the vine that did.

How she managed to find a vine let alone hold onto it while she laughed like a maniac was beyond me. But I could imagine the look on everybody's faces, the Beedrill were uncertain being that their expressions were hard to read, as they all turned and stared.

"Is that Skitty swinigng on a vine?" Laura asked weakly.

"I'm seeing it but I don't believe it," my master said as Skitty swung in.

"Hi guys!" she said. "I'm-" she went to say, but never finished as she swung right past us, all heads following her. I'm not exactly sure what happened next. Somehow the vine Skitty was swinging on began wrapping itself around the tree nearest us, Skitty swinging as well. We all remained silent as the vine finished wrapping. The moment it did, Skitty let go and flew like a rocket at one of the Beedrill, using it as a landing and knocking it out.

"Hi guys!" Skitty said, looking at us and... smiling? What goes through that mind of hers? A sudden snap snapped me out from my thoughts. Heh. Funny. All turned heads back to the tree Skitty swung around to see it starting to fall our way. Reason why? The tree was rotten and old and all that wrapping around must have been too much for it. We all just stared as the tree began ocming down until Laura finally screamed, which sent everybody into a panic.

I think I saw Skitty screaming and running around too, though I didn't think she knew what was going on as the tree fell down upon the freaked out Beedrill. The ground shook, causing me to stumble and fall. Forgot that I was completely exhausted, not to mention hungry. After everything seemed to have settled down, I heard my master ask, "Is everyone all right?"

"I think so," Laura said weakly. "What's going on? I just want to get out of this forest."

"So do I," my master said. "As for what just happened, I'm not competely sure myself. Skitty's back by the way."

"What up hommies?" she asked, walking over to me. "Hey handsome. Why you lying on the ground like that?"

"Oh no reason," I said, though deep inside I felt like that poor tree that just fell over. On the plus side though, the Beedrill were taken care of, though not the way how I wanted it to go. I glanced up at Skitty and noticed a pouch or something tied around her neck. Curiousity struck. "Hey Skitty. What's that thing tied around your neck?"

"What thing?" Skitty asked, looking down to the pouch I was pointing at. "Oh this thing. Right. I'm not sure. Give me a second. Oh yeah! A butterfly gave this to me."

"A butterfly?" I questioned, receiving a nod from Skitty. "O.K. So what's in it?"

"I don't know," Skitty replied. "I think it has something to do with a pick a something."

"Pick a?" I asked.

"I think," Skitty said. "I'm not sure. Maybe it was something closer to a peach or something. Ended with an A."

Peach A," I mumbled under my breath. "Peach A, Peacha, Pecha. Skitty, you got a pouch full of Pecha berries!"

"I do?" Skitty asked.

"Could you hand them to me?" I asked.

"Eh I don't see why not," Skitty said as she removed the pouch from around her neck, extending it towards me. I raised my own paw, reaching out to grab it. But then, the pouch suddenly fell from Skitty's grasp, breaking off the loop it was attatched to as it hit the ground and burned. As for the reason the pouch fell and burned was due to the fact an Acid attack shot forth from the tree the Beedrill were supposively crushed under.

Slowly turning my head, I stared at the downed tree. But that wasn't really my main concern. The main concern was hovering right above the tree, buzzing quite furiously. Should have figured that the tree wouldn't have been strong enough to crush them. That was good. Or was it bad?

"AAAAHHHHH!" Skitty screamed. "They've come to avenge their friends! I must do something about it!" I watched as Skitty turned and ran to go hide behind Laura supposeively. I don't know why, but I was suddenly absorbed in her tail. I liked the way it swished back and forth as she ran. I wonder why my tail wags while hers swishes. I'll figure it out later.

My eye caught something, however, as her tail swished to the right, something that seemed out of place. It seemed like there was something stuck upon her tail, something I'm sure she'd take no notice of, even if she were grooming her tail. Then again, she'd probaby just lick it up.

"Hey Skitty," I said. "What's that on your tail?"

"What's what now?" she asked, stopping and looking over her left shoulder at me as her tail swished to the left. "Oh hello? What's this?" She stared at it before realizing what it was. "Oh right! It's the Pecha berry the crawly thing threw to me before I left. Now I remember what I was supposed to do."

My attention was diverted to the Beedrill as Skitty ran over to Laura. They were pretty steamed now and really looking to kill. And we hadn't done anything. We were just innocent travelers making our way through the forest and they all come out to kill us just because they thought we were a danger to them? That doesn't make much sense.

The Beedrill came charging at me, acid flowing into their needles to stab and poison me to death. Kind of an aggressive way to kill someone don't you think? But luckily, just before they could land a single blow upon me, the closest Beedrill went up in flames. And no. My master was not responsible for lighting up a Beedrill this time. In fact, I really didn't even need to turn around to know who set the Beedrill on fire.

"You definitely took your time," I said, a smirk quickly widening on my face.

"It takes a bit for the berry to neutralize the poison," Charcoal said, walking up to join me as he swung one arm around in a circle while the other was holding the shoulder his swinging arm was connected to. "Yet I seem to be a fast recoverer. So, I miss much?"

"Not really," I said. "Just a bunch of Beedrill chasing us, Skitty being Skitty. The usual."

"I hear you," Charcoal said, his attention now on the frightened Beedrill. They may have been able to get the drop on Charcoal last time, but now this was completely different. Charcoal was ready. "So. Who's first?" The Beedrill all hovered back some, debating whether or not to attack. After about a minute, they all made the decision to turn tail and run, er fly.

"Aww!" I pouted. "That's no fun. Things were about to get interesting."

"Typical," Charcoal said. "The moment I get up and they all go running just because they can't handle a little fire. Cowards."

"Forget about them," I said. "They won't be bothering us anymore."

"Say where's Ted?" Charcoal asked after a slight pause of looking around.

"Oh no!" I said worriedly. "He's probably still fighting against those Beedrill he meant to stall. We got to help him. Come on!"

"No need to worry, Zack man," Ted's voice suddenly spoke seemingly out of nowhere. "It's going to take more than a bunch of Beedrill to take me down."

"Ted!" I said, relieved to hear his voice. "Glad to hear that you're alive still. Where are you?"

"Oh right," Ted said. "Guess I shouldn't be hiding." A moment later, Ted had appeared from behind a tree, walking over to us with that same, calm expression upon his face. He didn't seem to have one mark on him. "Charcoal. Glad to see you're among the living."

"Thanks," he said. "It's nice to see that the team is still together." My gaze wandered over to my master who was sitting with Laura and talking to her about something. I wasn't really all that interested in what they were saying. Maybe just about how scared they were and trying to reassure each other.

"Well I don't know about you guys, but I really want to get to Pewter City," I said. "I'm hungry, tired, and need a good rest."

"I could tell," Charcoal said. "All right. We better get our trainers a move on. I'm not really looking forward to being poisoned a second time if those Beedrill return."

"I'm with ya there, brother," Ted said.

"Finally!" I said. "Pewter City, here we come!"