Chapter 27: Catching Up

"Zack!" I heard Charcoal call out my name, forcing me to open up my eyes tiredly. Sure enough, both him and Ted were walking straight over towards me. "It's time that we had a talk." I sighed, not really in the mood for talking. Unfortunately, sleep would have to wait, setting aside what I had planned to do tonight. But I think that I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let me backtrack a bit to explain what exactly is going on.

You see, it's been about a day since we left the caves behind, and Cleft. We were all heading to the next city to battle against the next gym and were still some ways away from it, so sidetracking off the path a little, Laura and my trainer set up camp about the time the sun began sinking. It felt good to rest up after our recent battle against Destiny. I did have quite a lot of questions concerning him, but I decided not to worry about it for once. So while our trainers were busy setting up that tent of theirs, I decided to take the opportunity to get some shut eye so that I could do some night hunting. The area we were in was a luscious green field with trees in the distant background. It felt good to have the gentle breeze blowing all around, which made me wonder what season we were in. Why don't I ever keep track of such things? I took a quick look around to see what everybody else was doing before settling down, feeling soft, cool grass tickling my underside a bit, causing me to grin some. Aside from the humans setting up camp, Charcoal stood several feet away, gazing off in the distance while his flame tail danced in the breeze. Ted was opposite from where Charcoal stood, lying on his back while gazing up into the sky. As for Skitty, she was out of her ball and squirming all about upon her back. Weird. But I didn't really have any other concerns as I let out a contented sigh as I shut my eyes to sleep, which, about some minutes later, was when Ted and Charcoal came walking over to me wanting to talk.

"Do you guys think it can wait?" I asked. "I haven't gotten much sleep lately and besides, I want to go night hunting tonight."

"Sorry, Zack," Ted said. "Your night hunting is going to have to wait. This can't." Did my ears hear right? Did Ted just call me by my name without using the word bro? I guess that when he doesn't use the word, it means that he's serious about things like this. It was enough to get me intrigued as I sat up.

"O.K.," I said. "You now have my attention. So what do you guys want to talk about?"

"It's time that you told us about what that was all about back there in the cave," Charcoal answered. "About who that pokemon was, or rather, is, and what their mumbo jumbo was all about with spaceships and taking over the world and stuff."

"Yes," Ted said. "I do recall that pokemon mentioning something like that. You mentioned that you met him before in Viridian Forest. So who is he?"

"Well," I began. "I don't know much about the guy. I know his name is Destiny and he's out to take over the world, such as he said."

"Destiny?" Charcoal asked, an eye scale raised. "Quite an odd name for a pokemon like him."

"But not normally uncommon, perhaps?" Ted questioned, receiving a shrug of the shoulders from Charcoal.

"The last time I ran into Destiny, he mentioned something about absorbing the powers of legendary pokemon to overthrow the humans and rule among them."

"What!" Charcoal questioned. "Absorb a legendary's power? That's absurd. How can a pokemon absorb the powers of a legendary? Why would he want to?"

"Like I said," I said. "I don't know much about what's going on. Destiny had only formed that group when I first ran into him back in the forest. Running into him back in the caves means he's going through with what he said."

"And like I said, absorbing a legendary's power can't be done," Charcoal said.

"I wouldn't say that for positive, Charc. bro," Ted said, back to adding his "bro" at the end after saying one's name. "Always believe in possibilities. There could be ways to do such a thing."

"Even if there were, one would have to have some sort of special item that could zap those powers," Charcoal said. "That or Destiny would have to have a tremendous amount of high powers beyond those who can only raise their power up to a certain limit. By the way, what kind of pokemon is Destiny anyway?"

That questioned stumped me, for I had no known idea what Destiny was. Thankfully Ted managed to answer that question. "I suppose an Alakazam would have such power as you just described, wouldn't it?"

"An Alakazam!" Charcoal asked in surprise. "Are you sure it wasn't any other pokemon?"

"Why would I have reason to lie?" Ted asked. "You can ask Zack yourself if you don't believe me." Charcoal turned to me, awaiting whether or not Ted's confirmations were true. Of course, I had to go and ask the most obvious question I had to ask.

"What's an Alakazam?"

I watched as Charcoal stopped breathing and Ted's eyes widened in surprise. Obviously I went and had to ask a stupid question. The three of us remained silent, not saying a word. I could see Charcoal's face starting to turn blue due to him not breathing. "Uh, Charcoal," I said. "You may want to breathe."

He took a deep breath, the color returning to his face. As he exhaled, he said quite softly, "Please tell me you're joking." I remained silent, not sure how to answer that question. "Oh dear Mew he's not!" Charcoal pinched the area between his eyes as Ted recovered from his momentary shock.

"Should have known," he mumbled under his breath with a small smile.

"Excuse me a moment," Charcoal said, turning about and walking right on over to our trainer, catching his attention by poking him in the leg.

"Hmm?" he said, looking down. "What's up, Charcoal?" Charcoal made a hand/paw motion for him to lower, our trainer doing so. Next thing I knew, Charcoal reached inside our trainer's jacket

and took out the handheld device our trainer carried, walking back over to us with it. "Did Charcoal just take my Pokedex from me and walk off?" I heard our trainer ask in disbelief.

"Don't look at me," Laura said. "You're the one with the abnormal pokemon." Ted stifled a laugh as Charcoal opened up the Pokedex thing and apparently was looking for something inside it, coming to a stop and flipping it around so that I could see what it was he was looking for. Sure enough, on screen was Destiny the way I remembered seeing him. That long facial hair coming down from his nose and curving slightly upward along with the objects he held in his hands.

"That's Destiny," I stated as Charcoal hit a button opposite the picture.

"Alakazam, the Psychic type pokemon,"

a computerized voice spoke out from it. "Alakazam is the final evolved form of Abra and are revered to be the highest ranking of psychic pokemon. In its hands it holds spoons to help it concentrate its psychic abilities."

"Huh," I said once the Pokedex was finished. "What's a Psychic type?" Again with the stupid questions as Charcoal lowered the Pokedex object and stared at me in disbelief.

"Basically Psychic types are pokemon who focus their minds on supernatural forces not of this world," Ted explained to me. "Or so I'm told."

I think what Ted's saying is that a Psychic type's brain is at a higher level than all other pokemon, granting them access to powers no other elemental pokemon can have," Charcoal summoned it up.

"So what can a Psychic pokemon do for instance?" I asked.

"Just about anything they want to," Ted answered. "Though it really depends on the type of pokemon they want to be. Psychic types can move objects and stay hidden in the shadows, making it seem like ghosts are the cause behind it and make everyone believe it so."

"So Psychic is also an attack?" I asked on.

"Like your trainer commanded when you and I battled, bro," Ted said, refreshing my memory to that day.

"Oh yeah!" I said. "I remember him commanding me to use that or something. Just out of curiosity, when a pokemon uses Psychic, does their eyes turn a bluish color?"

"I do believe so," Ted said thoughtfully. "I take it that Destiny tried using that attack upon you?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Though nothing seemed to happen."

"Well I don't see why anything should have," Charcoal said. "After all, Dark types such as yourself aren't affected by Psychic."

"I'm not?" I questioned, surprised by this fact. "I'm a Dark type?"

"What type did you think you were?" Charcoal asked, which got me to thinking for a bit.

"You know, I'm not really sure!" I said sheepishly, receiving an annoyed sigh from Charcoal. "I never really stopped to think about what type of element I was. But I am curious to know why Psychic can't hurt Dark types."

"It's kind of a yin-yang thing," Charcoal explained. "You see, the world is always going to need balance. Good versus evil kind of thing. If one thing is to simply bloop out of existence, the whole Earth becomes unbalanced due to the one existing side taking over in their own beliefs of righteousness. You and Destiny are polar opposites, day and night, right and wrong. If one of you were to be killed, well, it's kind of a complicated mess after that. Trust me. There are some things you don't want to know about."

My head was in a whirl at this point, lost by Charcoal's all knowing brain. Was he sure he wasn't a Psychic type himself? "Don't worry about it," I said. "My brain's kind of hurting gathering in all this information."

"Indeed," Charcoal said. "Knowing too much information can cause the brain to overload and crash. A terrible way to meet an end."

"I agree with the scaly lizard!" Skitty suddenly blurted in. Where did she come from? And when did she join in on the conversation? I must have really been engrossed talking with Ted and Charcoal that I didn't notice her walk over. Her sudden out spoke startled me, I leapt about three feet off the ground. Ted and Charcoal must not have known she was there, for they were just as surprised to see her there as I was.

Silence occurred for at least a second before Charcoal asked, "Do you have any idea what we're talking about?"

Skitty remained silent, staring directly at Charcoal before looking at the ground, giving it some thought apparently. She looked up after about a few minutes, tilting her head to the side before coming up with her answer. "Fish sticks!

Charcoal stood there, giving Skitty the blankest look I have ever seen anyone. After him standing there for what felt like a lifetime, Charcoal slowly turned to Ted with a questionable look maybe? Or maybe a look that looked like he gave up and needed an answer. "They're her favorite treat," Ted explained to him. "Laura tends to feed her some every now and then. And you know how cats attract to fish."

Charcoal remained looking the way he did as he eventually turned his attention back to Skitty. "How do fish sticks even relate to what we're talking about?" he asked.

"I don't know," Skitty replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "Isn't that what we're talking about?"

"Not entirely," Ted said to her. "But don't worry about it. It's just guy stuff."

"Oh. O.K.!" she said before trotting off and pouncing all over the place.

"Oh yeah!" I said suddenly. "I just remembered. When Destiny tried using Psychic on me, he said something about me being immune to his Psychic. Does that mean anything to you guys?"

"Interesting topic you brought up there, Zack bro," Ted said. "Very interesting indeed."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, you just mentioned that Destiny used Psychic on you, yet you claimed that nothing happened, seeing as how you've never met a Psychic type pokemon and don't know its strengths and weaknesses. And if Destiny had tried using his Psychic on you, it can only rule out the fact that he doesn't know that Psychic can't harm you, meaning that he's using his high ranking powers to frighten all other pokemon without having to use Psychic on them."

"I see where you're going with this," Charcoal said. "We have an advantage over Destiny. As long as he thinks Psychic will affect you, Zack, we'll always have the upper hand against him. Of course, on the down side, if he trains to better his Psychic to use against you, a lot of innocent lives will be in danger, not to mention lost."

"We can't have it both ways, Charc. Bro," Ted stated.

"True," Charcoal said, looking defeated. "I just hate the fact that he's using other pokemon out there as target practice for his powers. It's sickening to even think about it."

"Well let's not worry about it right now," I said. "After all, we did manage to win a battle in those caves. I'm certain it will be some time before he makes another move for world domination."

"And you know this how?" Charcoal asked, arms crossed.

"Don't all evil people and pokemon need to take breaks in between taking over the world?" I questioned.

"Taking breaks, definitely no," Ted said. "It's more like going straight back to the drawing board to calculate a new move. We'll need to figure out our next move against them as well if we want to keep him from absorbing any legendary's powers. But in the meantime, we did win a victory against him. I'd say that deserves us a break. We'll worry more about Destiny next time we come across him."

"You guys go ahead and take your breaks," Charcoal said. "I'll be off busy strategizing how to defeat this powerful Psychic type."

"Good luck with that," Ted said as Charcoal got up and walked off towards the humans. "Sorry for ruining your night, bro."

"It's all right," I said with a yawn. "I need to catch up on some sleep anyway."

"Sleep well, Zack bro," Ted said as I shut my eyes. Moments later, all senses shut down as sleep quickly came.