Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.
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I always knew the day would come. It was one of the things that had been hammered into my skull again and again, something that had affected my journey as a Trainer since day one.
Once people knew about Betty – and Sol, for that matter – people were going to be interested. Titan Pokémon were rare enough. A Pseudo-Legendary Dragon-Type? One weak enough that a new Trainer might be able to handle her?
Legally and otherwise, they were always going to try to take her from me.
They would fail.
"You-"
"Get her!"
The bounty hunter squeaked in the face of the barrage of elemental attacks coming her way in a twisting blast of electrified winter and icicles. Shielding her face with her arms was a futile effort, the swirling, razor-sharp ice shards ripping right through both her and her Ghost-Type, as well as the trunks of three trees behind them.
Only, instead of falling to the ground in a grotesque waterfall of gore, their forms wavered as they turned translucent and disappeared, right as Sol's monster of a Flamethrower followed behind the faster attacks and felled another score of trees.
She wasn't a complete amateur, then.
Good. I wanted to work for it.
Eevee, smart girl that she was, had held back from joining the combination attack, ears and eyes twitching and turning to locate our enemy. A flick of her large ears, and she turned 130 degrees with a cry and a quick Swift to alert the rest of us.
I spun around myself – already annoyed by the illusions and similarities to Petrel – just in time to see a big, light-brown blur sprint across the grass with admirable speed and slam into Sol with earthquaking force, sending the larger Arcanine flying until he smacked into the cliff.
Steam billowed from the large Tauros' nostrils, steel-hard, grey hoof digging into the ground as the massive Normal-Type stared at the stunned Sol with hateful eyes. On closer inspection, the bull Pokémon was well over two feet shorter than Sol, yet it was nearly as wide. The dark brown mane did little to hide the literal boulder-like shoulders and back hump that framed the small – in comparison – head, with large grey horns jutting out from either side. Three black tails with tufts of fur at the end whipped angrily behind it as it geared up for another attack.
"TUUOOOOOO!"
CRA-CRACK!
The bovine jumped at the last second, thighs as thick as my whole body launching the Tauros with zero regard for its own safety. Sol's eyes bugged out of his head as he was crushed between the cliff and a vicious Double Edge, the resulting recoil damage only serving to infuriate the Wild Bull Pokémon.
Another cry from Eevee, in the form of a Hyper Voice that ripped through the open plains and made everyone flinch, reminded me that there was more than just the cow.
Another shape, hard to see in the darkness but obviously smaller and slimmer than the Tauros, rushed at us. It stumbled slightly from the Hyper Voice, yet persevered. Betty fired a barrage of Water Bullets, staggering them for optimal coverage. However, with nimble feet and almost dance-like movements, the humanoid dodged them, pivoting as the globs of water barely grazed its dark blue skin. A gale of frost followed from Vulpix, the cone too wide to simply avoid. Instead, the Pokémon lowered its head, revealing a curved spike at the top and tanked the Icy Wind, sinister yellow eyes glowing in the campfire. The snake-esque pupils stared us down over what looked like a mouth-guard, the upper lip curling upwards at the ends.
Frost clung to the black-lined skin, but did little to slow the Pokémon. It leapt, much further and more agilely than the Tauros. A large red sack under its chin enlarged with a croak! as it threw its arms out, three fingers on each hand, and a longer claw emerging from the back of its hand.
The long claw glowed with what I recognized as Brick Break as the Fighting-Type swept its hands around in a complicated pattern, knocking all of Eevee's Swift stars out of the air and boring down on us with a dark liquid starting to leak from its claws. Honedge pressed into my hand while I stepped forward to meet the enemy. If I could block just one, it would be open to my team.
No need.
The venomous eyes bulged in shock as a large, yellow-and-black-striped fist planted itself in its stomach, the Toxicroak involuntarily folding around it. Hercules snorted as a deep pink color flashed an inch from the Poison/Fighting-Type's skin, a barrier appearing at the last second.
So there was a Psychic-Type as well. Good to know.
Not that Herc cared.
The Toxicroak had barely a second to cross its arms for defense as the Electabuzz's hand and forearm lit up with the same technique the frog had used, the Brick Break grinding against the Psychic barrier for a moment before it shattered into shards of prismatic glass-like energy.
CRA-CRASH!
Spit, poison, and blood flew from the Toxicroak's mouth before it hurled back the way it came, smashing through a tree and disappearing into the darkness. Herc snorted again and looked at me for permission.
I gave it quickly.
"All yours, watch for the poison and ambushes! Stay where I can see you!"
He nodded, pounding his fists together and lighting them up with dual Thunder Punches before rushing after his opponent, the Electric-Type move like a pair of light sticks at a rave with the way Herc was hounding the frog.
Tauros, Toxicroak, Misdreavus, and an unknown Psychic made four Pokémon, two of which were accounted for as Sol finally managed to get his hind legs under the bull and kicked it off of him.
The other two, as well as the presumed last two of a team of six, were with the cowardly bounty hunter, wherever the hell she'd hidden. The Toxicroak had distracted us enough that Eevee had lost them in the night-
My free hand darted down and closed around a thin, hard, and smooth surface as something ever so gently touched my belt. My eyes lowered as reality shifted, and a pair of fist-sized pale blue gems – sparkling like diamonds – peered back up at me. A fanged maw stuck in a perpetual grin gaped in surprise at my fingers around its wrist, clawed hand trying weakly to pull out of my grasp. Even with the illusion gone, parts of the thin and fragile-looking, purple body blended with the shadows and grew hazy at the edges, as if it was a struggle for it to remain in the material world. Inversely, the more solid parts shone like discoballs, gems, and crystal fragments – mostly purple and black – inlaid in the weird exoskeleton, all framed around a central ruby in the middle of its chest.
The Sableye didn't get to recover from its shock at being discovered before a near five-feet-tall lizard of pure hatred and bloodlust barreled into it, screeching in fury the whole time.
Behemoth did not enjoy hide-and-seek.
A Brick Break-enhanced, fingerless hand smashed through the much smaller Dark/Ghost-Type's head, phasing right through and cratering the ground beneath. The Sableye faded even more, its body turning transparent and distorted as it tried to retreat into the shadows.
I'd looked into Sableye out of idle curiosity, and it was a weird Pokémon, even for Ghost and Dark-Types. Its dual typing left it in a strange place of belonging nowhere, even the Distorted World, a solitary predator entirely defined by its own existence. The mineral exoskeleton that contained the chaotic and madness-inducing combination of Distortion and Denial was merely a shell it maintained to interact with and fool the world. Most attacks, even those that would rip through normal Ghosts, failed to even scratch the Darkness Pokémon.
A Sheer Power-fueled Dragon Breath inches from its face wasn't one of them. An unearthly shriek stabbed at our ears as it roasted, the pillar of dragon fire melting the earth into a glassed crater, the blue light surely visible from half a mile away in the night. A cracking sound was followed by popping explosions, some of the amethysts and black gems exploding from the heat, and an edge of mad fury tainted the scream.
Much like Hercules and Sol, I was pretty sure Betty had that, especially when she cut off her breath and leaned down, giant jaws shining with the Dark-Type energy of the move Bite and closing around the one-foot-tall bipedal Pokémon's head. I left her to it as more cracking and splintering sounds rang out, Sableye's scream switching to fear and pain.
I had a dumbass bounty hunter to catch. Luckily, Swift had a very interesting effect.
"Swift everywhere, smoke her out!"
Eevee understood my intention immediately. A hail of star-shaped Normal-Type energy erupted from her mouth like a sprinkler, dozens piercing through bushes and splashing harmlessly against rock and bark. She had sacrificed strength for numbers, each whirling shuriken barely leaving a dent, but they weren't meant to. A few curved upwards and together like homing missiles, chasing a fleeing Hoothoot startled by the sudden violence.
And another bunch swung wide before congregating on one of the larger shrubs nearby, a pink barrier blocking the Swift, and a whiny shriek quickly being stifled.
"Found you," I pointed at the bush dramatically, feeling good. I'd been slightly worried, but so far, the bounty hunter had been significantly easier than a Rocket Executive. Shit, Erika might've been more of a challenge. "Ice her!"
Siren and Vulpix followed my order, Eevee still on the lookout for any more tricks. In short order, the leaves crumbled into sparkling dust, and the branches snapped from their sudden brittleness. Left behind was the bounty hunter, crouched behind a humanoid figure holding its hands up to project a Barrier, ice covering the Psychic projection.
I wrinkled my nose at the creepy smile and mime features of the Pokémon. Of course, she would have a Mr. Mime. Awful people and awful Pokémon went hand in hand.
"Man, this is not going well for you," I taunted, swinging Honedge casually as I approached. The Misdreavus seeped out of the blonde woman's shadow, where it had been hiding, so as not to interfere with the Psychic defense. "Give up now, and I won't beat your ass too bad before calling the cops. Or don't, I got some frustrations to work out."
The bounty hunter rose slowly, eyes flickering between the four – or five, but Honedge and I counted as one – of us. She opened her mouth to speak, but moved a little too quickly for Siren's taste, and the Mr. Mime had to block a Water Bullet from breaking the woman's nose.
She kept her hands up from then on.
She had a scheming look on her face, and for a moment, I thought she might keep going. Then the ground shook as something rolled by us, hitting a large rock and breaking it.
Tauros staggered to its feet, panting heavily with blood leaking from its mouth and forehead. The left side of its chest rose and fell weirdly, a wheezing sound coming with every breath, and it moved its leg carefully. Its fur was gone there as well, melted and blackened alongside its skin, the smell of roasted meat hitting my nostrils.
The bull mooed, but it was a pale imitation of the original battle cry, and as my back grew warmer and an orange light bathed our surroundings, I had the pleasure of seeing the Wild Bull Pokémon back up in fear, snoring nervously.
Sol strode by, head lowered and teeth bared in a snarl, smoke curling between his fangs. His eyes were bloodshot and wide, locked onto Tauros with uncharacteristic ferociousness. Grass wilted beneath his paws, the very air shimmering around him. Randomly across his massive body, patches of his bright fur became indistinct and wavered like underwater before igniting into flame that leapt and danced through his pelt.
Sol could wake up without the sun. But nobody was going to have a good time.
CRRRR-CRUNCH!
The bounty hunter flinched at the screeching crack, wide eyes staring at Betty. The Bagon looked back smugly, the limp body of Sableye dangling from her mouth. A miamsa of Denial and Distortion leaked from the headless stump at the end of its neck, jagged like glass. Splinters of purple, hard carapace, and pale crystal lay at her feet and stabbed into her gums. Despite the blood leaking from the corner of her mouth, she seemed extremely pleased with herself.
Right until she inhaled the toxic mixture seeping from the decapitated Pokémon. Spitting it out immediately, she hacked and coughed furiously, retching loudly to try and get rid of the foul taste. I quickly recalled her to her PokéBall with a sigh as the moron essentially poisoned herself trying to eat a Dark/Ghost-Type.
Normally, I'd feel worse, but while most Ghost-Types with a physical shell wouldn't survive, Sableye was barely alive to begin with. It probably couldn't put its body back together, but in the worst-case scenario, it would make its way back to the Distorted World and start over.
Regardless, the battle, or whatever you wanted to call the few minutes-long ass kicking, was all but over.
Taking all of it in, the bounty hunter nodded to herself and straightened up, clearly coming to the same conclusion as me.
"Hmmm, this does not seem to be going in my favor."
Then she spun on her heel and ran for her life, dodging behind boulders and trees to try and get away. In a display of acrobatics I'd never thought the species capable of, the Mr. Mime seemed to almost fly across the ground, held aloft by its own power, and clamped its arms and legs around its Trainer, clinging to her like a demented backpack.
I stared, stunned, for a second as she abandoned her Tauros, Toxicroak, and Sableye – or the hollow husk that used to be a Sableye.
Then I sprinted after her. The Misdreavus opened her mouth comically and unleashed a widespread Ominous Wind. That was the wrong choice of move, however. Honedge and its scabbard blocked the worst for me, and Eevee ran straight through the purple and green mist, her very being incompatible with the Distortion unleashed.
Vulpix definitely felt the worst of it, but much like in the underground Rocket base, she seemed completely swept up in the battle and ignored the pain, shooting an Icy Wind back.
"HEY, GET BACK HERE!" The blonde glanced over her shoulder, her visage pale and fear-stricken as she saw me coming. Little by little, I was closing the distance, despite her longer legs. "FUCK, STOP RUNNING AND TAKE YOU BEATING LIKE A MAN-WOMAN-WHATEVER!"
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" The arrogance that had saturated her voice at the beginning was nowhere to be seen.
"WHA-NO! YOU STARTED THIS, BITCH! DON'T YOU WANNA GET YOUR POKÉMON!?"
"KEEP THEM, JUST LEAVE ME!" Eevee and Vulpix jumped past me, enhanced by Quick Attack. The Mr. Mime reached a hand backwards and blasted them both back with a wave of telekinesis, yet I only stumbled briefly, Honedge deflecting a Shadow Ball with a sweeping parry.
"MAN YOU SUCK!" The very edge of Honedge's point carved through Mr. Mime's shield, the purple and lavender Shadow Claw leaving a thin wound across the Psychic's chest. Staying true to form, the Psychic-Type's cry was silent, but the flickering and instability of the pink filter of power over its eyes was unmistakable.
The bounty hunter apparently recognized it too, looking over her shoulder again with a conflicted look on her face.
"Sorry." I was confused about the apology from someone who just abandoned half their team. "MISDREAVUS, GET US OUT OF HERE! SHADOW SNEAK!"
For the first time, I had the misfortune of watching a Mr. Mime's smile flip upside down into the deepest frown imaginable, forehead wrinkling, right before the Psychic, the Trainer, and the Misdreavus all sank into the shadow beneath them. The shadow expanded into a wide pool and darted off across the ground, much faster than I could keep up with.
Once more, I was stunned by the woman's audacity. Dragging a Psychic to the border between the material world and the Distorted World was akin to torture. It wasn't unheard of for the Pokémon in question to fall into a coma, or even die.
The sheer disregard, the casual cruelty, and the disdain for her Pokémon infuriated me even more than the attempt to attack me. That was the kind of person who thought they had the right – never mind the ability – to have Sol and Betty at their side?
Absolutely not. And I wasn't going to give her another chance to wrangle up another team of disposable pawns to abuse for her whims.
"Honedge, after them!"
It was a bad idea; I knew that even before the others' complaints reached my ears, but by then I was already ankle-deep in my shadow as Honedge dragged me down. It wasn't something we'd trained for, and it really was not something you wanted to attempt for the first time in the heat of the moment lest you end up flung into the Distorted World and lost for all eternity. Still, hopefully, my own semi-Distorted nature would help.
We were still moving as the ground reached my waist, and then my shoulders. It was like sinking into ice water, my skin prickling and stinging from the sudden cold. I tried to hold my breath as it came over my mouth, but I couldn't help gasping as I was fully submerged-
-being dragged by the arm as they were suddenly moving a lot faster, hurling through 'space'. Above them, he could still see the world rush past, but the colors were muted and faded. Greys and blacks were all that remained, the shapes and forms flickering like a hologram.
And below, chaos, familiar and new, missed and dreaded.
An ocean, wide and endless, of lightless non-existence stretched forever. Shapes no human had ever contemplated formed and disappeared at the same time, visible and indistinct. Whispers lurked at the edge of his hearing, muffled and distant, promising everything he couldn't understand.
Up ahead, shining shadows swam through the nothingness much like they did. The lights were fleeing fast, but they were less native, more foreign than he was. Closer and closer they got, the scent of desperation audible as the prey finally had no choice and curved upwards to escape, forcing them to follow-
-I tripped, faceplanted into the dew-soaked grass, and rolled ass over end several times, cursing every time. Again and again I flipped until I finally came to a rest on my back. Groaning, both from the tumble and that little excursion, I sat up, Honedge slowly floating over to hover in front of me.
"What the fu-where are they!? Where are we!? Did we miss!?" I rubbed my forehead, pushing both the headache and the painful sting of loss away. It was not the time to think about that.
Looking around, I growled to myself when I saw nothing but a field of rocks, some big and some small. What I couldn't see, though, was the bounty hunter.
"STOP HIDING, COWARD!"
The words had only just left my mouth before Honedge shot up in front of me. Sparks flew as something small and buzzing ground against the sword Pokémon for a moment before it was suddenly gone in a blast of wind, the metallic shine of a pair of wings the only sign it ever existed. I twisted my head to try to follow it, but it vanished instantly into the darkness, the technique fading so it wouldn't give it away.
Less than a second later, I jerked to the side, something sharp slicing through my cheek as it flew past like a bullet.
Ah.
It was a trap.
For fucks sake, Peri.
"All that power, and still just a kid. How sad." Aaannd, the smugness was back, the bounty hunter's voice seeming to come from all around me.
"FUCK YOU!" Honedge barely parried another rush from the freakishly fast Pokémon attacking us, deflecting it to the side.
Instead of missing, however, the Pokémon stopped almost instantly and shot back towards me. I had a split second to see a black carapace with yellow and gray highlights. Most of the insectoid head was yellow, except for a black band between the unblinking red eyes. A pair of large, veined wings with triangular, red tips buzzed so fast they almost seemed to be still.
Then the Ninjask vanished, and a new wound on my hip appeared.
"AH!"
"Because you were so very generous earlier," another cut across my back, "I will give you a similar offer. Give up now, and I might be kind enough to leave you with your remaining Pokémon."
"SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!"
"Your funeral." A panicked yip from behind made me look, seeing Eevee finally catch up with us, Quick Attack fading. "Eevees are always good for a decent paycheck, but needs must. Ninjask, demonstrate."
Time seemed to slow down as the buzzing grew louder and louder. My legs refused to move anywhere near as fast as I wanted them to, feet like lead. Eevee was running towards me without her usual caution after my disappearance, eyes only on me. Even as my hand touched her PokéBall, a blast of air right next to my ear forced me to flinch as the Ninjask flew past at untraceable speeds. The grass parted in its wake, and in less than a second, it was gone into the night.
Eevee slowly stopped running, coming to a halt as she blinked at me, confused. At the same time, both our gazes lowered to her neck and flank while a thin line of red appeared and swiftly widened.
Blinking again, Eevee's brown eyes moved back to me.
Then she collapsed.
"NOOOOO!" Unfazed by anything else, I rushed across the field to my injured Pokémon. She whimpered, legs moving weakly as her thick fur became soaked with blood almost instantly, the red liquid pumping out of a long slit across her throat and down her side.
"Okay, okay, I got you," I tried to reassure her, ripping my shirt in half and pressing it against her wound with one hand while fumbling with her PokéBall with the other. The slick metal slipped between my wet fingers, falling to the ground before I managed to grasp it and click it open. My last sight before Eevee vanished in a flash of energy – which I couldn't help but think looked very blood-red – was her wide, panicked eyes.
"You only have yourself to blame," she continued while I remained on my knees, staring at the blood pooling on the ground and dripping from my fingers as the bounty hunter kept yapping. While the PokéBall could keep an injured Pokémon from getting worse for a while, it wasn't true stasis. With that kind of wound, Eevee didn't have the time for us to get to a PokéCenter. "yo-ARRRGH! GET OFF ME!"
Hearing a commotion, I looked over to see the blonde woman stumble into view, her illusion fading as she struggled with something invisible. Managing to get a grip on it, she threw my stealthy accomplice away with a huff and pushed back her hair.
It was only then that she seemed to realize that she was out in the open. She looked up and met my eyes. I felt nothing but cold when she looked away.
My backpack was filled with healing items, but it was all the way back at the camp.
And she was in my way of getting there.
"You-" She was cut off when something hit her in the chest, making her stumble back a few steps. Slowly raising a hand, she gasped as her fingers touched Honedge's hilt, flinching from the feeling. Slowly, she looked down to meet the gaze of the sword Pokémon's blue eye, where the hilt was pressed against her breastbone, right between her breasts. A trickle of blood leaked from the seam, and I could see her other hand reach for her back as she slowly raised her head and looked at me. She seemed… confused.
And then she fell over, my hand pulling Honedge's blood-coated blade from her body with a wet slurp! and letting the bounty hunter hit the ground.
Looking down at her, I turned her over with my boot. Staring into her eyes, I saw them glaze over as they went unfocused, her mouth dropping open, and a strange stillness taking her. I didn't look away, even as the same buzzing returned louder than ever and getting closer at a rapid rate, nor when a great flash of light and heat from behind me silenced that buzzing.
For all my whining and bellyaching about it, I felt nothing at the corpse by my feet, simply turning around and leaving her there. Another time, I might've fallen apart from it, or at least buried her body.
As it was, I had a Pokémon to save from my own stupidity.
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"You are hurt."
"And here I thought Psychic-Types were the intellectual ones, but look at you go." I forced out between gritted teeth, thumping down across from the small fire with a large pot hanging over it. Bruno shoveled another mouthful of stew that looked eerily similar to the one Grant had fed me into his mouth, the overly muscled man still shirtless despite the sun having set.
"Hmm." I snorted at the hum, looking around the Elite Four's campsite. Surrounded by larger cliffs and up atop a hill, the area was well shielded from view and the elements. Hell, I'd have walked past it if I wasn't looking for it. The fire was built outside a medium-sized cave that overlooked the almost bowl-shaped encirclement.
"...It's not my blood." I don't know why I said it without prompting. Maybe it was just to explain why I was wearing a shirt that had been torn in half and was covered in dried blood.
Despite it being two days since we were attacked, I still hadn't changed my clothes.
"I realized. Are they all alive?" He calmly filled a second bowl and held it out for me. I nearly slapped it out of his hands with how hard I waved him off, despite my stomach growling at the reminder that I hadn't eaten since the attack.
I clenched my hands until my knuckles popped, feeling the dried blood flake off and drift to the ground. "No thanks to me." It had been close, much, much closer than I could handle, but I'd managed to stabilize Eevee. Even with some of the best healing items a civilian's money could buy, she was still unconscious, and it would be weeks before she was fully healed.
Opening my backpack, I pulled out the four PokéBalls containing what was left of the bounty hunter's team, the Sableye killed by Betty and the Ninjask charred beyond recognition by Sol's fury.
"Hmm."
"That's all you got!?" I snapped. Eevee almost died, and all he had was 'hmm'!?
"Did you expect a therapist?" Despite my anger, he didn't even look up, scraping his spoon along his bowl to get the last of the stew. Despite my untouched bowl slowly getting cold, he still refilled his own. "If so, you've come to the wrong place. That is not what I invited you for."
"And what would that be for anyway, huh? Fuck your grandpa, fuck that manchild Lance, why did you invite me out here!?"
"Because I see potential in you." The answer came quickly and without hesitation. "Beyond the innate strength and power of your team, they trust you. Despite your words, your actions show someone trying to do what they think is right. And your interactions with the League have not been positive."
"That's it?" I breathed incredulously. "Yo-you think you can, what, win me over with some training and have me join the League?" A disbelieving chuckle escaped my lips at the thought. Join the rotten, corrupt, blackmailing, Pokémon-stealing dumbasses of the Indigo League?
Yeah right.
"That is my hope." He still didn't look at me, filling his bowl for a third time, somehow. Guess he needed the calories to have more muscles than the bounty hunter's Tauros. "I realize it is unlikely at this stage, but the earlier we start working on it, the better."
"Unlikely? Try insane."
"Then this should be quite the deal for you." He picked my bowl up again and held it out to me. "I expect no commitment. If you wish to take my training and never interact with the League again, that is your choice."
I stared at him for a bit before snorting and yoinking the bowl from his hands, suppressing a moan as the hot broth filled my mouth.
Alright, if he insisted. I clearly needed real training more than just more raw power, and hiding behind Bruno for a second while I got that training sounded like a great idea.
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Did I get any of you with Eevee? One of the benefits of having killed off most of my cast in chapter 6 is that you know I'll fucking do it.
Despite barely having written him yet, I like Bruno. There's no screwing around with him or hidden motives. He just slaps his meat on the table and handles the problems that'll cause.
Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY liked it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.