The Quest for the Legends

[Skitty_Pelliper]

I love Skitty, except for the name which has a rather unpleasand meaning in Icelandic.

What does it mean in Icelandic?

[Dragonfree]

Change the K to H. Well, it would be incorrect grammar and the I should be accented, but the name still disturbs me. It's worse in Swedish, where there's no incorrect grammar and no accented I, just plain rude meaning. Same with Surskit.

[HedgeCat]

Originally posted by Dragonfree

Besides, why did you want Mark to catch one, anyway?

Well, after the Moment of Maddness/War of the Ledgends, wouldn't Mark be able to use his ledgendaries? Or would he just set them free?

[Dragonfree]

A little kid using legendary pokémon to battle? Are you insane?

Look, I may be obsessed with stats, but I do think logically and I so no reason at all why a legendary pokémon would battle for a little kid. According to my theory, pokémon battle for trainers because they consider that as the best way to become strong, and legendary pokémon are strong enough already, besides that I think they'd consider it an embarrassment to be caught at all.

Besides, the fic doesn't go on after the Moment of Madness. Just a little conclusion and an epilogue, then it's over. The pokémon league is in it, but that's long before the end. I'll be happy when I finally get that out of the way. Unlike most trainer fics, it doesn't end in the pokémon league. It's the gyms and league that are the little plot twist, not the War of the Legends.

[HedgeCat]

Originally posted by Dragonfree
A little kid using legendary pokémon to battle? Are you insane?

Yes, why do you ask?

Originally posted by Dragonfree
Look, I may be obsessed with stats, but I do think logically and I so no reason at all why a legendary pokémon would battle for a little kid. According to my theory, pokémon battle for trainers because they consider that as the best way to become strong, and legendary pokémon are strong enough already, besides that I think they'd consider it an embarrassment to be caught at all.

Alan caught Raiteicune, remember? Isn't Raiteicune startonger than the Waraiders? And ALan isn't much older than Mark is he?

and XD about Skitty's name.

[Dragonfree]

Rainteicune was level one when Alan caught it (I think pokémon should be level one when they hatch, level five makes no sense). Rainteicune had just formed when Alan happened to drop by. So no, Rainteicune wasn't strong at all when Alan caught it. The Waraider & evos are level 100 like all legendary pokémon. Big difference there. Legendary pokémon were the first Chaletwo and Mew created, so they're all very old and have had plenty of time to get to level 100. Raiteicune was born by accident almost a thousand years later.

[Chris 2.1]

IIIIIIIIIII think that Mark should catch a Legendary, but it kills him, or critically injures him anyway, after he tries training it. This could develop Mark's and the legendaries characters....and NO, i'm not sadistic! *whine*

Well I popped in to read some more; I enjoyed the poem in the chapter from last (are you releasing a 'TQFTL' soundtrack?), and btw you've got a few nominations in the nominations thread!

[Dragonfree]

*Runs off to nominations* WHOA! Thanks Chris! And... Mist too? Never realized people liked The Type Chart so much...

Hehe... no, Mark isn't that stupid... If he does manage to catch them all, he'll release them.

OK... chapter 32. And guess what? More Scyther. I'm seriously in love with that guy (AND I made Neo into a Scyther in The Type Chart... is Scyther turning into my favorite?). Chapter 33... even more Scyther. AND chapter 34. Anyway... Scyther's character is developing a lot, revealing one bit after another... and this is just one more bit. A very interesting one, in fact...


Chapter 32: Scyther’s revenge


May and Alan were still waiting for him, and had apparently been talking but had nothing more to say so they now just sat there and stared into nowhere. Sandslash was there too, and Mark saw that Charizard was just returning. He waited, and Dragonair returned soon, as well as Jolteon who had seemingly enjoyed himself a lot. But Scyther didn’t return.

After waiting for quite a while, Mark stood up.

“I’m going into the forest to search for him,” he announced. May looked up.

“Don’t take too long,” she just said.

Mark walked into the forest. This part of it was thick, dark and creepy. Mark wondered if it had been a good idea to go into the forest without any pokémon...

He wandered into the forest, and in the end he caught a glimpse of his faithful pokémon.

“Scyther!”

He turned around and quickly hid his scythes behind his back. Mark walked towards him.

“What are you hiding?”

Scyther didn’t say anything. Mark leaned to the side to see, but Scyther turned too. But before his scythes were covered from view again, Mark caught a glimpse of red.

He quickly looked around. Behind Scyther, there was a bush, and in between the branches, he saw something white. He observed it better, and after peering at it for a few seconds, he saw what it was.

A shoe.

His heart started beating, then he said weakly:

“Scyther! You’ve killed someone!”

“No,” said Scyther in his usual voice.

“Don’t lie to me,” said Mark, his voice shaking. “The body’s right there!”

“He’s not dead,” Scyther said, still in that stupidly calm tone. How dare he, Mark thought, how dare he speak about this in that voice...

“Who is this?” Mark asked.

“Scizor’s trainer,” Scyther said hatefully.

“Scizor’s?” Mark asked blankly.

“Hers,” Scyther said in the same tone.

“What are you doing, anyway, that kept you for so long?”

“I told you, he’s not dead,” said Scyther. “Not yet.”

Mark got a sting in his stomach. Trembling, he asked:

“Do you mean... you’re trying to kill him?”

“Yes,” said Scyther.

Mark’s image of Scyther as this vicious-looking guy who’d still never hurt anyone was ruined by that one answer.

“What... why didn’t you kill him already if that’s what you were trying to...”

“He deserves more suffering than a quick throat-cut,” Scyther hissed, his eyes narrowing. “I’m making him bleed to death.”

“But we have to do something! Call an ambulance...”

“Do we have to?” Scyther interrupted.

What was left of Mark’s former image of Scyther shattered to pieces.

“Of course we have to! I’m not a murderer! Trainers are responsible for what their pokémon do!”

“I did not do this to get you into trouble, Mark,” said Scyther. “I... had to. I just saw him walk here, and I had to.”

“You didn’t ‘have to’!”

“Mark!” Scyther thundered. “You don’t understand this, do you? Half of me loves her, half of me hates her. At the moment I hate her. But the whole of me hates him, one half for evolving the Scyther I cared most about in life, the other half for making me hate her, and the whole of me for causing all of my pain since way back then. And when not a single moment passes when I don’t think about her, not a single moment passes when I don’t think about my hate for him, I loathe this human who did this to me...”

Mark suddenly remembered what he had witnessed this morning. He remembered Scyther’s tears and the way he had hugged the sleeping bag while he said “I hate you”. His pity returned.

“Love?” he whispered. “Can love be this lethal? Can extreme hate and a murder be caused by... love?”

Mark was still shocked, but he wasn’t angry at Scyther anymore.

“Yes, we need to call an ambulance. May has a cellphone in her pokégear, we just need to go back.”

Mark walked a few steps forward, but Scyther didn’t follow.

“I can’t go with you,” he said. “My scythes have blood on them. I need to clean them.”

“You’re coming,” Mark just said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“What if someone walks past? What if someone discovers him, and there turns out to be a trainer who has a Scyther with blood on his scythes just round the corner?”

Mark paused. “I’ll wait for you,” he then said.

“You can’t do that either. Someone could come here. A lot of people go between Green town and Stormy town. If you went and someone came and saw me cleaning my scythes, I could just pretend I’m a wild Scyther.”

“Come,” Mark repeated.

“Mark, you are going to get into trouble.”

Get my hint, Scyther, Mark thought, get my hint...

“What would I think you will do if I went and left you alone with a person you want to kill?”

“I won’t,” said Scyther.

“Can you promise that?”

“No,” Scyther answered.

“And why not?”

“I don’t make promises. It’s the only way to be sure that I’ll never be forced to break any.”

“You’re coming. Now,” Mark just said.

“No,” said Scyther. “Oh, and tell them he was attacked by a wild Sneasel. There’s a plenty of them around here. Also tell them that you left me here to make sure the Sneasels didn’t get to him again, or some other pokémon that could be attracted by the smell of blood.”

“Come,” Mark said yet again.

“Mark, get down to earth. No matter what you tell them, they’re never going to believe you if you hold a Scyther with bloody scythes in one of your pokéballs, especially not when a DNA test shows that it’s the blood of the victim.”

“I could tell them the truth,” Mark simply said.

“Mark... when a pokémon kills or attempts to kill a human, do you know what they do if the trainer can not be held responsible, as you are clearly hoping?” Scyther asked and glared at Mark. He shook his head.

“They get rid of the pokémon. For good. Because pokémon who attack humans could be dangerous to their surroundings, according to the laws in this country. You know what getting rid of somebody means, I trust?”

Mark swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Is that what you want? Would you prefer that over trusting my word that I won’t touch him while you’re away?”

Mark stared at Scyther. After all, had he ever lied? Had he ever not been faithful to Mark?

He took a deep breath, turned and then broke into a run.

[HedgeCat]

So Scyther kills the Scizor trainer. Bleh, i didn't really like him anyway. Wait...

Is Mark going to take his Scizor after, keep her, wait until the MoM/WotL is over, then get Molzapart to de-vovle the scizor? If that happened, it would be a fairy-tale ending. =P

[Dragonfree]

Don't jump to conclusions... Mark doesn't steal pokémon off other people. Besides Scyther hates her at the moment.

[Skitty_Pelliper]

That was a short chapter.

[Dragonfree]

Yeah, pretty short, but I had to leave it this short because I wanted the chapter to end exactly there.

Anyway, you'll like this chapter, Iveechan, if you're still reading, because I kinda... borrowed a lot of your ideas. It's time for Fury's return...

Chapter 33: Fury

(A/N: This chapter was inspired by Iveechan. I don’t take credit for those of her ideas I nabbed for this chapter. I’m not spoiling anything, but you should recognize it when you see it...)


Mark wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him when he returned with the doctors to show them where the trainer was. He hoped that Scyther had been sensible enough to hide the body somewhere and then come back and claim that some other pokémon took him and he followed but couldn’t catch up. But what if Scyther was still having the pleasure of cutting him up? How would he explain that? He had told them, as well as May and Alan, that the boy was attacked by a wild Sneasel, like Scyther had advised. Now it was just hoping that Scyther wouldn’t get him into serious trouble...

Whatever Mark had expected, it was definitely not this. Not only had Scyther been true to his word, but he was actually fending off three Sneasels that were hoping for a good meal, so fast that it seemed like three scythes were slashing at the same time.

“Hey! Shoo!” Mark shouted and ran towards them, waving his arms. The doctors came hurriedly after him, saw the cuts, complimented Scyther for managing to fight the Sneasels off before they managed to do anything more. They got him into the ambulance and drove off. Mark just stood there and couldn’t believe his luck. At the same time, he felt guilty for being so sure Scyther would kill the trainer.

The boy and his pokémon walked together back to May and Alan. Neither of them had the need to say anything. They silently joined up with the others, May and Alan handed Mark his pokéballs, but Mark imagined Scyther wasn’t there and didn’t recall him. Why he was more comfortable that way he didn’t know, but he was. But before the kids walked on into the forest, they had a last look back east towards Green town.

They saw somebody walking towards them. The rising sun made it hard to distinguish the shape, but when the figure came nearer, they saw it was a Hitmonchan.

He was naked, showing his cream-colored chest, the delicate fingers and the different-colored gems used for elemental punches. Since by law, trainers must dress their Hitmonchans up in the standard uniform (boxing gloves and a tunic), Mark presumed he was wild. But he certainly didn’t behave like a wild pokémon. Wild pokémon hide when they see trainers, they don’t just walk there. Actually, when he thought about it, wild pokémon usually don’t walk like that at all. They don’t just walk between towns like any human.

While Mark was in those speculations, the Hitmonchan walked all the way up to them. He looked from one kid to the next, then at Scyther, then at Mark again and simply said “Hello”.

Mark just stared. So did the other kids. The Hitmonchan grinned broadly, like he really enjoyed being a mystery for a few seconds.

Scyther was the first one to knock his manners back into his head. He held forward his scythe, and then said: “Fury, right? From the Pokémon Frenzy Tournament?”

“Yup,” said the Hitmonchan and shook Scyther’s arm. “Your name is...?”

Mark was very surprised at how Fury behaved... well, like a human.

“I’m just Scyther,” the mantis pokémon said.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Fury politely and shook Scyther’s arm.

“But... where’s your trainer?” Mark stammered.

“I am my own trainer,” Fury replied.

“You mean you’re wild?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Fury said calmly. “I’m the fully qualified trainer of myself.” When he saw how the kids stared at him, he added: “I have a license.”

“Oh...” Mark uttered, not really knowing what to say. Thankfully, May said what he meant to ask for him.

“Can pokémon get trainer licenses?”

Fury smiled. “I’m the first,” he replied. “But I hope many will follow my example and get one.”

“But why did you want a trainer license? Couldn’t you just go to the wild?” Mark asked, still not understanding anything.

“Wild?” Fury said slowly. “We’re an all male species. We’re bred in captivity. We’re too valuable to be in the wild for any loser at all to catch. Why should pokémon not be able to command themselves through the pokémon league? Now that the communication problems are out of the picture, why shouldn’t pokémon be able to become pokémon masters?”

“Can you catch pokémon, then?” Mark questioned.

“I could,” he answered. “But I’m not interested. What would I know about how to battle using another pokémon? I’ve been myself since birth. It gives me an advantage, in place of you being able to have up to six pokémon.”

“But what if you’re beaten?” Alan asked. “You’ll just be unconscious, and nobody to recall you...”

Fury smiled mysteriously. “I know myself better than that. I know what I can do and what I can not do. I would forfeit before that happens.”

“But if it happened anyway?”

“Well,” Fury said matter-of-factly, “I do tell all trainers I battle to use one of their Revives in the case of a faint, and I’d pay them back once I were back to health. Or, if they’ve run short, get one of their pokémon to pick me up to the next pokémon center. Or just “catch” me in one of their pokéballs and then release me as soon as they’ve healed me at the next pokémon center, I could sue them if they tried to keep me.”

He looked meaningfully at Mark, who knew what he was trying to say.

“Am I understanding you correctly?” he still asked.

“Yup,” said Fury and smiled. “One on one. I’d love to see if you’re clever enough to outwit pokémon acting on their own orders.”

Fury’s smile widened and got a bit mischievous. Mark decided he would give Sandslash a chance this time. He didn’t really trust Jolteon to have the physical defenses to be able to take a Hitmonchan’s punch.

Fury stretched happily, tried out a few punches and kicks on the air and then sat down, looked up and closed his eyes in some kind of meditation. Mark noticed that he had boxing gloves around his neck.

“I hope you don’t mind if I screw the tunic,” said Fury finally, rising up. “I’ve studied the law, and the tunic is just neccessary for official battles like in the pokémon league or any other kind of audienced fights because of certain groups who find naked pokémon with a resemblance to humans apparently... a bit disturbing. Don’t get what’s the difference between us and any other pokémon in those matters, though – I’m excatly as much of a pokémon as our mantis friend here.” He did a little nod in Scyther’s direction, then he sighed, untying the string that linked the gloves together. “The gloves are an absolute must, though. They make the force of a punch spread around a larger area, which is important since Hitmonchans were known to crack their opponents’ skulls with a single punch before they made a law about it.” Fury stretched out his fingers and then resentfully pulled on the gloves. He peered at the gloves from various angles before he was satisfied.

“So,” Fury said, grinning, “begin, shall we?”

While Fury didn’t realize it himself, the part about Hitmonchan cracking pokémon’s skulls had not been encouraging for Mark. At least he knew that Sandslash was a very hard-skinned pokémon, so he should be all right, but he shivered at the thought of what could have happened to Charmeleon. He slowly took out the pokéball and had to think a bit before he remembered that he wouldn’t have to wait for Fury to take out one. He threw the ball forward and Sandslash emerged. Fury got into a fighting stance, his keen eyes watching Sandslash closely.

“Sandslash, Earthquake!” Mark shouted. Sandslash rose up to his hind legs, but just before he smashed his claws into the ground again, Fury jumped up. Before he landed, he turned in the air and kicked a tree, sending him flying straight at Sandslash with his fist pulled back. Luckily, Sandslash’s reflexes were much faster than Mark’s, so while his trainer just stood there and stared, he curled up into a spiky ball. When Fury hit it, it flew back (Mark narrowly avoiding it), and hit a tree, while the fighting pokémon landed on his feet, completely unhurt.

Mark just stared, but Sandslash got up, not very hurt either due to his Defense curl, and walked slowly forward to face Fury again.

“Slash!” Mark roared. Sandslash didn’t move for a few seconds, Fury went very alarm and wary, then Sandslash decided to go with the element of surprise and slashed the Hitmonchan’s leg swiftly and powerfully. Blood prickled down the calf of Fury’s leg, but he didn’t hesitate and plunged his fist, shimmering a bright blue, forward right into Sandslash’s face. Small icicles started spreading around his scales, and he shivered of cold, having a hard time moving.

Fury jumped backwards, pulled his arm back and then smashed his fist at Sandslash, who was unprotected this time, not having had the time to curl up for defense. Fury hit him in the stomach, and the wind was knocked out of Sandslash, who fell unconscious. Mark recalled him, and Fury took his gloves off again, tying them together like they were and putting them around his neck.

“You’re too slow,” he suddenly said, looking at Mark.

“Huh?”

“Too slow,” Fury repeated. “Your reflexes need to be quicker. Your pokémon battle better without you, no offense meant to you as a person.”

Mark just nodded. While he had really been thinking of the very same thing, how Charmeleon had beaten Fury without a trainer but Sandslash lost with one, hearing it from someone else hurt.

“Mark, listen,” said Fury quietly, grabbing hold of his shoulders and looking him in the eyes. “While you aren’t born with talent as a battler and will never be able to guide your pokémon as well through a battle as some lucky people who are, you have another gift. Use it to make up for that. Be one with your pokémon. They might put in their own tweaks to your commands, but they’ll battle with all their might, because they’re battling for you. This will lead you to victory. Let your pokémon feel your will and respond to it as they would like. Some trainers don’t know what to do and let their pokémon battle alone. Some trainers think for their pokémon, who respond to the trainer’s will whatever it is. But some trainers, Mark, combine their force with their pokémon’s, and they are the ones who get far. When you’re battling, don’t tell the pokémon what to do, be the pokémon. Do you know what gives me an advantage? The bond of perfection, the trainer and the pokémon being one and the same. There is no way for you to achieve that, but you can get very near it.”

Fury released him slowly, then smiled.

“Good luck,” he said, walking away into the forest.

[ralts_mudkip]

I'd have to say that chapters 30, 31, & 33 are my favorite chapters thus far.
Syther and Gyrados's backstory, for example, were truly fasinating(eg: suicune's odd behavior), and when I thought I was sypathetic with Syther's hate for Sizors, his reflections on his past made me feel even more sory for him.

And the Bioligy of pokemon, and fury's advantige on sparing is also realy cool.

And so I here by dub you,

~Dame Dragonfree, explorer in the ways of pokemon~

just kidding. ;o

[Dragonfree]

Here's chapter 34, finally... I've had some writer's block with it, although I've known what to put in it for a long time... the character this chapter revolves around is - yup, you guessed it - Scyther, yet again. You'd better like him as much as I do...



Chapter 34: Stormblade and Shadowdart


They journeyed through Ruxido without anything relatively interesting happening, apart from when they decided to let their pokémon out of their balls to get some fresh air. Apart, of course, from Gyarados and Lapras.

Mark noticed that Scyther kept staring at the treetops and looking around, and was thinking about asking when Scyther seemed to have read his thoughts.

“I used to live here when I was young, you know.”

“Really?” Mark asked. “Did you meet Scizor in here?”

“Yup,” Scyther sighed.

They didn’t say anything for a while, but due to Mark being very interested in Scyther’s past, he ended up asking:

“Was she... you know, beautiful?”

“Beautiful? Of course she was,” Scyther replied. “But don’t forget that I’m a Scyther and you’re a human. We measure beauty in different ways. Humans tend to think of beauty as something that equals being thin, using a lot of unnatural lotions to keep your skin smooth, and a load of other things that can only be seen on the outside.” Scyther snorted to show his disgust. “We, on the other hand, measure beauty in the scythes.”

“Isn’t that just on the outside too?” Mark said, raising his eyebrows.

“No, of course not,” Scyther said. “Your scythes reflect your personality. The way you care for them can be read like an open book to determine how much you respect yourself, and, more importantly, how much you respect your enemies.”

“How?”

“See, any Scyther can feel the difference between cuts from well sharpened scythes and cuts from badly sharpened ones. When we’re born, the scythes are soft and don’t cut at all, but when they start to harden, we need to start learning martial arts so we won’t be sliced up by our next opponent. The parents usually handle that teaching, and a part of it is caring for our scythes. A well-sharpened scythe gives you thin, deep cuts that don’t bleed much and don’t hurt much apart from a bit of stinging for a second. A badly sharpened scythe gives you thick, shallow cuts that bleed a lot, and hurt a lot.”

Scyther paused, then added: “You can also read your opponent’s wounds to see what they have battled. A Scyther who has only battled Scythers will only have those cuts. I have battled a Scizor, and a Scyther could easily see that just by examining my body a bit. Scizors can use their pincers like a hammer, if it hits well it can crack your skull but otherwise it just leaves a big bruise. They can use them to crush your arm or leg or something, that will usually get them cut off or you’ll have two thick, deep cuts that bleed a lot. They can also, in a desperate attempt to be like a Scyther, cut with the inside of their pincers, and that will give you tiny scratches you don’t even feel. At least, it is generally frowned upon to cause pain to your opponent by not sharpening your scythes properly. Torturing is low. But it still differs between individuals how much we do it. Some sharpen their scythes every day. Some even after every duel. Some consider it enough to do it when they’ve seen an opponent being in pain from their cuts. I myself developed a special way to know when I should sharpen them. Every night, I test them, and if they hurt, I need to sharpen them more.”

“Test them?”

“On myself.”

Scyther showed Mark a row of scars lined all over his arms. As they went farther down, they looked newer. At the very bottom there was one new-looking, very clean cut Mark presumed was from yesterday evening. He didn’t want to comment on Scyther’s way to keep his scythes intact, so he just nodded.

They walked on in more silence. Suddenly, Scyther stopped. Mark stopped too, May and Alan noticed it too and soon enough everybody was staring at Scyther, who seemed to be listening very hard.

All of a sudden, two Scythers darted over their heads and landed in front of Scyther.
“Long since we last met,” one of the new Scythers said. His voice was hoarse, and deeper than Mark’s Scyther’s.

“What have you been up to?” the other said. His voice was even deeper, but had a more powerful sound to it.

“Stormblade. Shadowdart,” Scyther just said.

“Razor,” answered Stormblade, the hoarse one, in exactly the same tone.

“What are you doing with those humans?” Shadowdart growled, his gaze rolling over to the kids, followed by Stormblade’s, as he narrowed his eyes. His arm twitched, and Mark noticed that a chunk seemed to be missing out of his scythe.

Stormblade, however, looked older than Shadowdart and Mark’s Scyther (whose name or nickname was apparently Razor), had an eye missing and was absolutely covered in cuts of all shapes and sizes. His wings were all torn up.

Scyther hesitated, but then whispered slowly, “He’s my trainer.”

“Your trainer?” Shadowdart said in disgust. “Are you trying to tell me you let some filthy human creature stuff you into a ball?”

Scyther didn’t say anything. Mark could see it in his eyes that he wanted to announce that Mark wasn’t filthy, but knew he could never say such a thing in front of another Scyther.

“What’s up with you still being intact?” Stormblade said and glared at Mark. “Can’t he afford a Metal coat?”

When they realized that Scyther wasn’t about to answer, Shadowdart decided to bring up another topic.

“So, you got her?”

“Nope,” Scyther said. “A trainer caught her.”

“Caught her!” Stormblade cried. “How is that possible? She had the scythes to level the whole of Ruxido, for crying out loud!”

“She was asleep…” Scyther said, his voice dying out at the end as he looked into the air.

“Ah, that explains it,” Stormblade said. “I don’t know what she was thinking, though, going to sleep. Who needs sleep? There are enemies on every side.”

“What, you saw it but didn’t do anything?” Shadowdart said sharply. Scyther shook his head painfully.

“What kind of lowly cowardice is that?” Shadowdart snapped furiously.

“My, my, that’s so unlike you,” Stormblade just said, surveying Scyther carefully. “You would normally have more guts than the two of us put together! You had the guts to…” Stormblade hesitated, looking quickly over to the kids, “…erm, I mean, the first try. I couldn’t until my third, Shadowdart needed nine to finally do it, and then he had to close his eyes!”

Scyther smiled at the thought, but Shadowdart looked like he wanted to disappear, so Mark assumed that whatever ‘it’ was, needing nine tries for it was ridiculously much, and that you were supposed to do it with your eyes open.

“I don’t know why I didn’t go and help,” Scyther finally said, slowly. “I just didn’t…”

“You’ve turned into a coward!” Shadowdart roared. “It might even be true that you begged for mercy, I’ve lost all faith in your sense of honour!”

“Now, now,” said Stormblade. “Don’t jump to conclusions, Shadowdart. I watched the battle myself, and I saw clearly that they just looked into each other’s eyes, and she spared him for no reason at all except that she thought he was too cute to die this young.”

He chuckled.

“Rubbish,” Shadowdart snarled. “I don’t believe in love. Nightmare is just a coward too, probably she didn’t mind becoming a Scizor…”

“How dare you,” Scyther hissed, suddenly regaining his confidence. “I demand a duel!”
“I don’t duel with losers,” Shadowdart snapped.

“So, I’m a loser now, am I?” Scyther said in a dangerous voice. “Who was it who needed nine attempts to collect the courage to kill for the first time?”

“I…” Shadowdart began, but Stormblade interrupted.

“I have to say that I’m more concerned about what Razor is doing with those humans.”

Scyther had the look in his eyes that showed that he was in the mood to let the scythes do the talking, but because of the confidence he had a sudden dose of, he was more than ready to answer.

“Want the full story now, do you? I followed the human who caught Nightmare. After he evolved her, I broke in through the window, I was almost shot to death and when I got outside again, I fainted from the shots. Next thing I knew, I was with an adult human. A human who respected scythes and wouldn’t have evolved me if he were paid for it. But he wasn’t interested in anything but Mew, and after a little encounter with Mark here where I was actually killed, Mew appeared and with his full interest rekindled, my trainer went off to search for Mew again. I had a choice of going back into the wild, staying with my former trainer or joining Mark. I didn’t want to stay with my former trainer because I knew he didn’t care about me now. But do you know why I preferred going with Mark? Do you?”

Scyther glared at Stormblade and Shadowdart, who were a bit stunned by his sudden speech, and then continued:

“Because I knew what you’d think! I had been caught by a freakin’ trainer, I had been defeated twice, my life had been spared once, I had been a coward, my pride had been reduced to dust, and I knew that I would never gain respect again in a Scyther society, I’d become an outcast if not worse…” Scyther said the last words very bitterly, then continued:

“Now, here we have Mark. Tell you what? I don’t regret my decision. I wouldn’t want to leave him for all of you, filled with prejudice. I knew that not having helped Nightmare would make Shadowdart despise me, I knew that being around humans would make Stormblade turn his back to me, I knew that simply having been defeated would drive everybody else away! For hell’s sake, my own parents didn’t even want to recognize me! What kind of life is that? I just realized that our society has a problem, and I have no desire to be a part of it anymore!”

For a moment, no sound was heard except for Scyther’s rapid breathing.

“Fine, be that way,” said Shadowdart, turned away and folded his arms.

“I’ll sure as hell be that way,” Scyther hissed. “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

“Why didn’t I leave you already when you were beaten?” Shadowdart just said bitterly.

“Because the only thing that changed was that I realized that winning isn’t everything,” said Scyther shortly. Shadowdart didn’t answer.

Stormblade finally opened his mouth.

“You… you… prefer humans over the rest of your kin?”

“Yes,” said Scyther determinedly.

Stormblade’s one eye stared at Mark.

“Are you sure you want to throw away the little that is left of your reputation?” he said slowly.

“Yes.”

There was a long silence.

“So be it, then…” said Stormblade, staring into the air. Shadowdart shook his head and took off. Stormblade said quietly “Farewell, Razor,” and then flapped his torn wings and shot off towards the sky.

[HedgeCat]

Whoo! Finally a chapter! Nice chapter. It kinda reflected Scyther's past. Stormblade and Shadowdart where nice additions to this chapter.

[Dragonfree]

Guess what? I've written chapter 35 already. More Scyther, but I promise this is the last Scyther chapter, at least for a while, because now it's time to get to business (meaning the legendary pokémon). And now there will be a bit of a focus on Gyarados and May...



WARNING: Gore. Not in the actual chapter, just in a description in the chapter. Even better, it's pretty random and doesn't serve that much of a purpose (meaning that I could easily have made the chapter without the gore). I just felt like it. Also, it contains something slightly political, but don't kill me for it, OK? Actually, the whole chapter doesn't serve much of a purpose unless you are very interested in reading more stuff about Scyther written mainly out of my love for him. Well, there is a bit that matters at the end.



Chapter 35: The animal world


“Nightmare? Is that Scizor’s name?” Mark asked.

“Nickname,” Scyther just said.

“What’s her real name, then?”

“Pokémon don’t give each other real names.”

“How?”

Scyther sighed. “Our language doesn’t allow just combining random sounds that flow nicely together and making it into a name. We need to use actual words or some combinations of them. Then we use nicknames that we find to fit the pokémon in question in some way or another, and that may not be the same for everybody. My friends called my Razor, but everybody called me by the names they thought to be fitting.”

“Should I call you Razor?”

“No,” said Scyther as they came out of the forest and into the open. “Your name for me has always been just plain Scyther, when pokémon introduce themselves to somebody they usually just refer to themselves as just another member of their species, not under a name. Fury was an exception, of course, because he’s mainly around humans and that’s the way they do it…”

“Should I call her Nightmare, then?”

Scyther shrugged. “If you want.”

“Oh, man,” Mark groaned and stopped. Welcoming them out of Ruxido was a gigantic patch of tall grass they were forced to go through. “I’ll bet there are wild pokémon all over that thing…”

Scyther, however, looked astonished.

“Wow… I’ve never seen so much tall grass in my life…”

He swept the kids away with a swing of his scythe which Mark narrowly avoided.

“Allow me.”

Scyther narrowed his eyes towards the grass blades waving gently in the wind, leaned backwards and then suddenly darted forward with his scythes raised.

Grass blades flew in all directions, in less than ten seconds Scyther had cut a clear path through the tall grass and was already back at their side.

“Whoa…” Alan breathed. “That was FAST.”

Scyther smiled at the compliment.

“How did you…?” May asked. Mark just stared.

“It’s easy, it’s the very first thing we learn to use our scythes for,” Scyther said casually. “Let’s go on…”

They started walking through the path Scyther had cut.

“You learn this before hunting, then?” Mark questioned.

“Yup,” said Scyther. “It’s important to learn this first, we’ll do it for fun and practise for our reflexes for the rest of our lives, if we learned to hunt first, this would just be boring and that might result in everybody hunting for fun…”

“You don’t?”

“We don’t what?”

“I just…” Mark already regretted having opened his mouth, “I… kinda thought Scythers did kill out of boredom…”

“Oh, yes, don’t we?” said Scyther in a record-breakingly sarcastic tone. “And while we’re at it, why don’t we just take over the world? I mean, it’s not like we couldn’t chop up every living being we come across, kill everything in our path, what’s there to stop us? We can do it, then of course we’ll do it at first chance!”

Mark blushed.

“Scythers are some of the most dangerous pokémon in the world, Mark,” said Scyther, seriously this time, not looking at Mark but instead straight forward. “We’re equipped with some of the most powerful weapons in the pokémon world from birth. We have the speed to strike before the far majority of our opponents. All adult Scythers have locked everything called pity for a victim in the cupboard long ago and don’t intend to take it out again. If all of us teamed up to take over the world, we’d be able to do it easier than blinking an eye. So why don’t we? Because we know better. Everybody should know better. Creatures with the brains to be greedy should know better than being greedy at someone else’s cost. That’s why life has survived. It has only happened once that a takeover of this kind was made…”

Scyther’s voice died out and he looked up into the air for a few seconds, then suddenly turned to Mark.

“Do you know about the animal world?”

“Yeah,” said Mark.

“That was there,” Scyther continued. “The humans thought they were higher than the rest of the inhabitants… they chopped down the rainforests for their own good, polluted the oceans, hunted millions of species to extinction, spent way too much of their time inventing ways to kill each other... over here pokémon have always been superior and humans have never gotten cocky even if their imagination is stronger than ours. Over there humans were absolutely dominant, and it went to their heads.”

“How?”

“Well, you see, the humans evolved in different ways. Here, their survival was built on pokémon’s co-operation, meaning that the importance of friendship and treating others like you want to be treated grew on them from birth. There, there was no such thing. They multiplied like rats, were in competion about the food, divided into many nations that hated each other so much that even their languages developed into completely different things. When the portal between the worlds was opened, people here were amazed by how war-loving they were. Kept trying to sell guns, nuclear bombs and heaven knows what over to the pokémon world, although thankfully the government refused and told them politely not to spoil our beautiful world with their tools of killing. They knew they should never let a pokémon into their world, but they sold animals over to keep as pets, and the people here were of course relieved that they wouldn’t be forced to eat their friends the pokémon anymore. They shared technology, most of ours wouldn’t help them, of course, because it was mostly something that was only possible with pokémon, but they brought us tons of neat stuff like computers, televisions, video game consoles, all that stuff which we’ve never really known enough about to evolve much further. But then World War III started…”

“World War three?” Mark interrupted, amazed. “Are you trying to tell me they were stupid enough to make three world wars?”

“Yes,” said Scyther. “And, well… do you know who Einstein was?”

“Yeah, some smart guy who discovered something in the physics of the animal world…”

“Exactly. He once said that if World War III would be fought with nuclear, World War IV would be fought with bows and arrows. But he was wrong. There never was a World War IV. After way too much of the planet had been blown up and the risk of getting cancer had skyrocketed, people were fed up, around a billion people moved to the pokémon world and became one with the nature like the rest of the people in the pokémon world. The rest were either already dead or died from cancer a few years later.”

He sighed.

“Now the animal world is a wasteland of radiation, cancer combined with the unbalance that now dominated killed all the animals sooner or later. Only some radiation-resistant bacteria live there now.”

After a few seconds of silence, Scyther suddenly started talking again.

“Isn’t this ironic?”

“What is?”

“I’m an extremely dangerous creature, it would take me half a second to cut your head off, but yet we’re walking here in a friendly conversation.”

“Come to think of it,” Mark muttered, “it is a bit weird.”

“I mean it, aren’t you ever afraid of me? I’ve threatened you once, I’ve almost killed you twice, doesn’t that increase your awareness?”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” said Mark, starting to feel a bit uncomfortable.

“It’s not a bad thing. It’s a symbol of how much trust humans and pokémon bear towards each other. But seriously…”

Scyther chuckled. The sound made a chill run down Mark’s spine; an old instinct was kicking in.

“I could kill you, Mark,” Scyther said slowly, with his eyes closed. “I could sneak up on you in the middle of the night, dash forward when you’re looking in the other direction, knock you down, swing my scythes at your friends so they run for it, cut your throat, rip open your ribcage, tear your lungs apart for the sheer pleasure of it, eat you, I wouldn’t even need to be hungry, because killing gets fun when you’ve done it your whole life, the smell of blood makes your heart pound, it becomes a pleasure to rip the meat off the bone, just the color red alone gets you high… am I disgusting you?” he suddenly added, looking into Mark’s face again.

“Just a bit,” Mark said, when in fact he felt totally sick. What bothered him more than the gory description itself was that Scyther had said all of this in a certain tone of voice that made it sound more like a memory than something made-up.

“Sorry,” said Scyther. “I got a bit carried away…”

They walked on for a while, and while Mark tried to act as normal as he could regardless of the suspicions that were now nagging him, Scyther certainly noticed something as he kept glancing anxiously at Mark.

“You weren’t just making that up, were you?” Mark finally said quietly.

Scyther took a deep breath.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” he muttered, looking in the other direction.

“Was it a pokémon or…?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Scyther repeated and sighed. But that was enough of an answer to both of his questions.

“When was it?”

“Long ago,” Scyther just answered.

“Why did you kill a human?” said Mark slowly.

“First prey,” Scyther replied. “When young Scythers are considered capable of hunting on their own, they have to prove it by finding prey and killing it, all by themselves, but there are witnesses hiding somewhere to make sure they actually did it without help. Before somebody goes on their first hunt, they usually make a bet with their friends about how often they’ll need to attack a creature before being able to actually kill with their own scythes. The average is somewhere between four and five tries – we’re born just as innocent as other species, you know. Me and Stormblade were both under average, I’m very proud of my score, one try, and Stormblade’s three tries aren’t too shabby either. But Shadowdart – what a laugh me and Stormblade had. He’s a year younger than me – wanted to tie, but failed miserably – you heard when we mentioned it, he let eight small pokémon get away before managing to kill one. He made up for that by training incredibly well – he was very skilled just a month later and easily the fastest in the swarm for his age.”

“Why a human?” Mark repeated.

“Because three kids walking were the first thing I came across, and I had been searching for a long time and was getting impatient,” Scyther sighed. “Can we talk about something else?”

Mark was about to ask more about it, but realized that he really didn’t want to know anything else, so they walked on. Meanwhile, May and Alan had been chatting and probably hadn’t heard any of Scyther and Mark’s conversation.

But what made Mark forget about Scyther for a second was that as they stepped over the next hill, they could see Stormy town. It was pretty small, the houses were all pretty small too, except for a big building Mark presumed was the pokémon gym. As it had supposedly been for the last twenty years, dark clouds hovered gloomily over the town and the mountain near it.

A lightning struck the top of the mountain. Four seconds afterwards, the roar of the thunder reached their ears.

“Come,” Alan said and they sped up a little bit, looking forward to reaching the town.


Coincidentally, Mark looked at the dark shadow under a large rock they passed halfway to the town. He stopped.

“What?” asked May, who came over.

“I just thought… I saw something… red eyes…” Mark muttered.

“Red eyes? You must be seeing things, there’s nothing there,” said May.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Mark and turned around.

Nevertheless, it was May who stared at the shadow under the rock for a few seconds before she went after the boys.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 36, then! You'll get some mystery-solving in chapter 37, so stay tuned...


Chapter 36: The Dragons of Ouen


A/N: This chapter contains a bit of alcohol. Since alcohol isn’t illegal that shouldn’t really matter, but I’m warning you for safety.

As they entered the town, it was raining heavily. A lot of the buildings looked abandoned, which didn’t really surprise Mark, since he personally wouldn’t have wanted to live with a thunderstorm around him all the time. They had recalled their Pokémon as they drew nearer to the town, and therefore it was just the kids now. They quickly entered the Pokémon Center of Stormy town; the familiar white building with the red roof was positioned beside the gym, which was huge, three stories, heavily lit up and extremely attention-catching with the giant red neon letters saying “STORMY TOWN GYM – LET THE SPARK OF YOUR MIND LEAD YOU THROUGH A SHOCKING EXPERIENCE”. Mark figured it was an Electric Pokémon gym. He snickered at how far gym leaders would go with their puns these days. The gym leader was probably named Sparky or something about as lame.

They came into the Pokémon Center, soaked wet. Nurse Joy, who like the rest of them had pinkish-red hair and wore a white dress, greeted them with her normal serene smile as the thunderstorm roared outside.

“Oh dear, you look terrible,” she said. “Well, that’s become what this Pokémon Center is for, hasn’t it? After this storm started, it’s rained so much everybody who comes is soaked…”

She sighed.

“We offer free rooms, showers included, for trainers who have put themselves through the trouble of coming here,” she said softly. “Will you accept this service or have you made any other preparations?”

“I think we’ll take it,” said Mark, happy to think of the warm room. “Is there a restaurant in town?”

Nurse Joy smiled. “Practically everything in here has been moved to these two buildings, the gym and the Pokémon Center. The restaurant is over at the gym – don’t worry, Sparky (Mark rolled his eyes) is a wonderful cook. The rooms will be ready when you return.”

The kids showed their trainer cards to Nurse Joy, and then hurried into the neon-lit building beside the Pokémon Center.


Warmth greeted them as soon as they entered through the electrical doors. The floor was laid with pink tiles with quite a bit of space between them, which was filled with white. The walls were pale yellow, and corridors led to the left and right. A glass door right in front of them covering a staircase said “BATTLE ARENA – CAUTION: DO NOT ENTER WHILE A BATTLE IS GOING ON” in navy blue letters.

“Looking for food or Pokémon battles?”

The speaker was a rather short, thin man wearing silver shades, a navy t-shirt and light blue shorts. He had a goatee and long, bright blue, wavy hair. A gleeful, friendly expression filled his face, perhaps making him look younger than he actually was.

“Um, food for now, I guess,” Mark said. “A battle tomorrow, maybe.”

“Yeah, why not,” said the man, who Mark assumed was Sparky. “We’ll say tomorrow, then. A promise is a promise.”

He led the trainers to the left, through a door and into a room that was completely out of the blue when compared to the rest of the gym.

The walls looked ancient. All the furniture was made out of polished wood. While it did have tiles in the floor, these were just pretty dull, gray rock ones. Tables were lined along the left and right walls; a desk was at the far right corner, and from behind it there was a door Mark assumed must lead into the kitchen.

All three kids stared at the sudden change. Sparky laughed, taking his shades off and stuffing them in his pocket.

“This gives more of a restaurant atmosphere, don’t you think?” he said and winked. “By all means sit down; it’s been around two months since a trainer last bothered to stop by. Usually, they come, run into the Pokémon Center, come in here, battle, get their badge and then leave this cursed town, like they fear to get hit by a lightning.”

He giggled, like getting hit by a lightning in the town was the most unlikely thing that could ever happen.

“So, sit down, will you?”

They sat down at the nearest table and Sparky got three menus for them.

“Um… I think I’ll have a hamburger, please,” Mark said after skimming through the menu. “A cheeseburger,” he then added.

“I’ll have a pizza, thank you,” said May. “With pepperoni and extra cheese.”

“I’d like the beef steak,” Alan announced. Sparky wrote it down in a small notepad.

“And your Pokémon?”

“Our Pokémon?” Mark questioned.

“Are they going to have something? Or will you just keep them inside their balls and miss all the decent food?” Sparky raised his eyebrows.

“Do Pokémon usually get food at restaurants?” asked Alan, looking puzzled.

“No, but it’s time for that to change,” said Sparky, reminding Mark of Fury. “And, I will cook for a full team of six Pokémon for the price of one trainer’s meal. Come on, this is an offer that you can’t refuse… they will be delighted to get proper food instead of the usual Pokémon food that always tastes the same,” he said persuasively.

“Um, okay then,” said Mark and let all his Pokémon out apart from Gyarados and Charizard, who wouldn’t fit inside the small restaurant. May and Alan did the same, excluding Lapras and Diamond.

“Don’t worry about the big ones, I’ll give you some to take with you for them,” said Sparky cheerfully. “So, what would you like to eat?”

The Pokémon looked confused at first, but after looking around a bit, they realized what was going on. Racko, Raichu and Jolteon started whispering excitedly about what to order. Scyther, however, seemed to be used to eating human food from his time with the Mew hunter, since he didn’t need to look at the menu before he said: “Just beer, thanks, I’m not really hungry.”

Sparky grinned. “Do you have any ideas of special equipment that would allow you to hold the can?”

“Just give me a bowl or something, I’ll lap it up.”

Sparky laughed. “Sure thing.”

But Scyther was the only Pokémon who wanted actual human food; the rest all ordered either a steak or a salad without everything.

All the Pokémon sat down at the floor, except Scyther, who sat down in the seat beside Mark.


When their food arrived (which actually didn’t take all that long), Sparky first came with Scyther’s order; he put a huge bowl in front of him, poured the beer into it and then went back to get the kids’ meals. Then he came again, followed by four people Mark assumed were his junior trainers, with the other orders. After they were gone and the kids had started their meal, Scyther dipped his head into the bowl for a few seconds.

“Ahh, refreshing,” he said, coming out of it again. “Just like in the old days…”

He drank all of it in a remarkably short time.

“Wonder if he’s got more,” Scyther muttered, just as Sparky came and filled the bowl again. Scyther didn’t even say thanks; he just started drinking again, even faster this time. Meanwhile, Mark and Alan finished eating, but May ate unnaturally slowly and was still on her second slice. The Pokémon had also finished.

Scyther looked up from the bowl which he hadn’t fully finished yet, sighed, and looked at Mark with his eyes half-closed and dizzy-looking. “This brings back some memories from when the Mew hunter took me and Kabutops to the Gamesharked Skarmory in Metal city… great restaurant, I tell ya…” he said in a faint voice, then dipped his head into the bowl again and drank the remains.

“If you want a piece of advice from an adult, kids…” he said, louder than before, “don’t ever fall in love. Even in the unlikely case that he or she likes you too, something will probably get in your way, like hate between species or a trainer who catches one of you, or a Fangcat that kills you. Kills you with cold blood… you know, it’s quite enjoyable… first you don’t know why you like it so much, but then you realize it: killing is fun… delightful… so… tasty… crunchy Caterpies…”

Mark stared blankly at Scyther, but May said what he wanted to say.

“Scyther, you’re drunk. And I don’t think all that alcohol is very good for Pokémon.”

“Whatever,” said Scyther, suddenly dropping onto the table as he started to snore.

Sparky looked at the Pokémon with a fatherly smile and said: “Poor guy. Well, at least I’ve learned something: Never serve alcoholic drinks to Pokémon, even those who aren’t underage.” He patted Scyther on the back. “I would recall him if I were you,” he then whispered into Mark’s ear. He nodded, tapped his mantis lightly with his Pokéball and absorbed him into the red and white sphere.

They finished eating, paid (it was relatively cheap), and then went back to the Pokémon Center, where Nurse Joy was waiting.

“Your beds are ready,” she said with a small bow. “You each get your own room to share with your Pokémon. Whether you let them sleep on the floor, at the other end of your bed, or in their Pokéballs, is up to you. The rooms are in the corridor back here.” She pointed at a door beside the desk. The kids received the keys from her and then each went to their own bedrooms. Mark let Jolteon, Sandslash, Scyther and Dragonair out of their Pokéballs, took a shower, undressed and lay down in the double bed beside Jolteon, who was already fast asleep on top of the sheets. His thoughts got cloudy and when he felt he was no longer in charge of what went on in his head, he sank himself into the cinema of his brain.


Mark stood in the grass outside Green town. The people all around him were counting down. Chaletwo’s purple shape appeared when they came to zero. The terribly bright eyes opened, and Mark felt immense pain as everything around the eyes went black in comparison to their brightness…


Jolteon was facing a Dugtrio. All three menacing heads glinted evilly at him with six eyes. He felt completely calm; he knew that he was unbeatable.

The mole Pokémon’s heads started moving up and down; slowly at first, then faster until the earth started shaking. The earthquake then turned into like a real earthquake. Jolteon opened his eyes a bit, rather annoyed, discovering that the earthquake that woke him had just been the sheets moving as Mark was flailing around in his sleep and mumbling. Then he finally came to a rest.

Jolteon’s nose touched his trainer’s forehead gently. It was cold and sweaty. As to comfort him, the Pokémon laid his head onto the boy’s shoulder, carefully making sure not to discharge any electricity. He closed his eyes and was soon fast asleep again.


Suddenly, Chaletwo’s eyelids came slowly down, covering the eyes again. The environment slowly went back to its normal colors, but he was no longer outside Green town. He was atop the mountain beside Stormy town, Chaletwo standing beside him and looking gloomily over the town. The thunderstorm raged all around them.

“I sense great power,” said Chaletwo’s echoing voice inside Mark’s head. Chaletwo still stared into the town.

“The thunderstorm,” Mark said without thinking. “The electricity charged in the clouds, probably.”

“No,” said Chaletwo. “It is growing power… it is a Pokémon’s power… it is the reason for that thunderstorm… it’s a legendary Pokémon.”

“Raikou? Zapdos?” Mark suggested.

“No,” said the legendary Pokémon, still staring down into the town. “Rick has them.”

“What could it be then?” Mark asked.

“It could only be one Pokémon…” said Chaletwo’s voice. “One that nobody has ever seen or heard of. The electric dragon of Ouen… Thunderyu.”

“What? You know it?” Mark questioned.

“Of course I know it, I created it!” hissed Chaletwo, now finally looking at Mark.

“Created it?” Mark asked. Chaletwo looked down into the town again.

“Yes, created it, and I’ve never regretted anything as much as I now regret that,” Chaletwo sighed.

“The last War of the Legends was just over, and me and Mew were creating new Pokémon… we created the legendaries first… Mew instructed me on everything. There were three birds of Kanto, three beasts of Johto and three golems of Hoenn. I asked Mew why there were none in Ouen. Mew just said that there weren’t supposed to be any. I was just a kid… freshly born with childish ideas of ruling the world. I created my own three legendary Pokémon for Ouen. There was Thunderyu, the dragon of thunder, bringing thunderstorms wherever it went. There was Volcaryu, the dragon of lava, with control over volcanoes and the ability to make them erupt. There was Polaryu, the dragon of winter, capable of bringing the temperature down to absolute zero with a single thought. But I didn’t want Mew to know I had disobeyed, so I made chambers that no eyes could see into save from my own, deep underground, where they would be in deep sleep until I had gained so much power that even Mew would fear me. Ridiculous ideas, of course – but I forgot about them, and now I pay the price… their added power has woken them up, which is why this thunderstorm started, and they will be trying to break out… I made them hate each other more than anything has ever hated… they won’t be at rest until only one of them lives…they will destroy everything in their path if they have to in order to reach the others…”

Chaletwo paused, then looked back at Mark, and said: “The world is in danger.”

[HedgeCat]

I liked this chapter. It explained more about Chaletwo and it introduced the 3 ledgends of Ouen. It was funny when Scyther got drunk.

[Dragonfree]

OK... so, I'm rewriting the story... old readers will find that it has changed VERY much (the first chapters, at least) although the basic plot stays the same. The first chapters aren't nearly as boring.

New readers, it takes a bit long for this fic to get to the actual point, but the all-new prologue should give you a little sneak peek, hopefully making you want to read on and find out what this is all about.




-------
RATING

Violence: None, but the whole thing is aftermath of violence.

Gore: A bit. Well... quite a bit, actually.

Sexuality: None at all.

Profanity: None.

Other: Nothing special.
------



Prologue

The flaming remains of a town burned sadly in the sharp wind. Gray, gloomy clouds covered the sky, a bit of vibrant red sunlight reaching through them in the west.

The blood-soaked ground was covered in corpses. Most of them were rather whole. In fact, a few might still have been breathing some of the last breaths of their lives. Others were completely torn apart, so that it seemed like a supernatural being had swept past with the sole intention of killing them, but its mere presence had made everything else drop dead too.

There was one thing that the torn apart ones had in common: while they lived, they had been known as Legendary Pokémon. These former streets contained the remains of twelve Legendary Pokémon. All but two of them would soon be buried in the sands of time, forgotten and insignificant in history.

These two others had another thing to tell them apart from the others, which was that they were still in one piece. And in fact, had anyone been there to compare them, he would have found them distantly similar. Both of them had somewhat catlike heads and a long tail with an oval on the end, but one was smaller, pinkish-white and had a rabbit-like contrast in the length of the four legs, the front ones being short but the back ones long. It was breathing faintly. The other was larger, more human-shaped overall, had a light purplish gray body and a deep purple, muscular tail. It also had a large, bleeding wound in the middle of its chest, clarifying it as dead.

After a while, the small one stirred. The life slowly returned to the little body. A leg twitched. Soon enough, its eyes opened.

“Mew?”

The small creature rose up and stared wide-eyed at the destruction.

The Legendary Pokémon levitated a meter or so into the air as its big, innocent-looking sapphire blue eyes fearfully scanned the area, as if looking for something. Then it seemed to have found what it was looking for; it stopped, kicked the air with both of its rabbit-like hind legs and darted towards the left.

Terrified, the Legendary looked upon a black, feline-like head with neon green markings. The same green shade was also on six long spikes which sprouted from the back of its head, three on each side. The left eye socket was empty; what had been the right eyeball was now merely a bloody mess.

The pink Legend’s disbelieving eyes stared at the head in horror. Silent tears filled them.

“Chalenor…” sounded a telepathic voice around the lifeless town.

[Dragonfree]

ps: Where is everyone?

I was wondering about that too. Perhaps they're too speechless.

(By the way... if you'll do me a favor, can you read the prologues to the two new fic threads I made, 'The Quest for the Legends (REWRITE)' and 'The Second World (from the suggestion topic)'? They're both short, so you won't be losing much more than ten or fifteen minutes of your time)

[Chris 2.1]

Hmm, I remember this.... it was up like 2 days ago ^^

Umm a very short Prologue, IMHO, I don't know if it really does its job. Ideally A Prologue could be a bit longer, but you get the prologue-ish-ness across well enough I guess. Each to their own.

The plot's gearing up to be exciting. Whee it hasa Scyther. Umm that's my 50 cents on the subject.

Baii.
Chris

[Dragonfree]

Heh, my parts just tend to be shorter than yours in general, therefore a prologue (which is usually shorter than a real chapter) would be very short as you see it. I couldn't really make it much longer, though; I wanted to keep the dark-ish feel througout without spoiling anything, so it had to begin exactly there and end exactly there. Did my best to draw out the middle without making it lengthy. As for doing its job, its main job is to be there and tell people that this IS not just a random trainer fic with no plot. But yeah, it is kinda short. Too bad I couldn't make it any longer than that.

Scyther? He's not until chapter 11, why are you suddenly talking about him?


EDIT: Oh, heck, I'll just post chapter 1 while I'm at it. You're in for a big improvement...



-------
RATING

Violence: None.

Gore: None.

Sexuality: None.

Profanity: Nothing real. Just one occurrence of “butt”, if you're going to be really picky.

Other: Nothing special.
-------




Chapter 1: The Pokémon on the Road

Exactly 999 years later, it was a beautiful morning in the town of Sailance in North-West Ouen.

The trees’ branches swayed gently in the soft breeze, providing a constant, quiet rustle. The sun was rising, coloring the sky in a glorious, vibrant red. The air was comfortably warm and fresh. The only thing the scenery lacked was birdsong. That was also the only part of it that Mark Greenlet even remotely cared about.

He was short, thin, dark-haired, and currently on the way to school. A year ago, he would’ve been with his best friend Alex, chatting and feeling good. Now, Alex was probably somewhere with his Totodile having fun, while Mark was home in Sailance, walking alone, quiet and feeling miserable.

Mark’s parents were over-protective. There was no question about that. Almost all the other kids had been taken to Green town last year to receive a Pokémon from Ash Ketchum. Out of the ones left, Mark was the only one who had been looking forward to it for his whole life, only to have his parents tell him that it was too dangerous. What did they know, anyway – they had lived in North-West Ouen for their whole lives and never been trainers.

The problem was that North-West Ouen had no Pokémon in it, for some reason that Pokémon experts had always debated about. The people who lived there were all lawyers or other rich people who wanted a life in peace without Pokémon and little kids asking them for a battle all day. And if there was anything that people who had lived there for more than thirty years did not understand, it was the concept of Pokémon training. Mark’s parents kept pointing out to him the possibility of getting a ‘real’ job. A programmer? How about a professional artist, since you draw so well? They would ask questions like that every time he mentioned that he wanted a Pokémon of his own, and were absolutely incapable of understanding how he felt when all his classmates and friends left.

Mark walked into the school building. He hated it, especially the prison-like outwards appearance and that dull, lifeless, rock-gray color of it. Mark loved living things; he had since he was little, and hated gray because it was so lifeless. The corridors were even duller, even grayer and even more lifeless, which only added to the depressing feeling of the whole building. To top it all, all the students were snappy and irritated, usually because they wanted to train Pokémon, and the teachers were all snappy and irritated too, simply because of the gloomy atmosphere that never left the building.

Mark’s first lesson on Thursdays was Battling Strategies, a branch of Pokémonology. He sighed as he sat down in front of the classroom. What a waste of time for somebody like him who was never going to get to train Pokémon anyway. Besides, whether it was because of his rather negative opinion on the classes or because he would rather spend them drawing on the back of his school papers, he was completely lousy at Pokémonology. For tests, he desperately sank himself into the textbook and sure enough, he managed to learn the bits of the text he found the most interesting pretty well. The problem was that they always asked about the most boring and uninteresting things, such as the level at which one Pokémon approximately evolved into another. This just made him despise Pokémonology even more.

He preferred Pokémon Communication classes by far – ‘Pokémonish’, as they were usually referred to in everyday speech. He was much better at languages than learning stupid things by heart, besides finding Pokémon’s language very interesting in general. Those few things in Pokémonology that had sunk in over the years mostly had something to do with this remarkable language of syllables, bodily expressions and voice tones anyway.

One of the very best things in Pokémonish, also, was that in exams, live Pokémon were brought to classes and the kids got one Pokémon each to stage a normal casual chat with. At the end of the class, the Pokémon each gave the teacher a report on how well the students handled the conversation. Mark was very good at it, which he was deep inside rather proud of although he didn’t like to brag. He remembered the test last year where he had discussed Pokémon rights with a Vulpix. He smiled faintly at the thought; it was probably one of the best memories of his life. The two of them had had so much in common, and they had ended up in an exciting discussion about Pokémon rights that went way past the time the exam was supposed to take. The teacher had been forced to recall the Vulpix into his Pokéball in order to get Mark to leave the classroom. Since then, Mark had been daydreaming about one day sneaking out to Green town on his own account and getting a Vulpix; this one incident had bumped the red fox Pokémon to the ‘awesome’ section of his favorite Pokémon list.

But the class he enjoyed the most was Art. His Pokémon pictures received very positive comments by Miss Taintor, who was a professional artist along with her teaching. She was the type of person that was always honest and all but afraid of telling somebody basically that their pictures sucked, but she mysteriously managed not to sound mean, however bad she thought the picture was. Mark was weird when it came to criticism; he subconsciously hated being criticized at all by other people, even if he completely agreed. That could be a good thing; in fact, it had been what caused him to suddenly decide to draw all day during the summer when he turned nine. When Miss Taintor saw his art in fourth grade, she had said, as he still remembered word for word: “Big improvement, young man – if there were more students like you in this stupid school, I’d be out of a job.” Probably another one of his very best memories – being congratulated by a harsh critic felt a lot better than the constant compliments from his parents and relatives who always pretended that everything he did was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and hearing a teacher call the school stupid made him feel like they were on the same team. After that, he had started to appreciate constructive criticism – he still didn’t technically like it, but it definitely helped.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing. Mark hated that sound; it hurt his ears. To his opinion, it should just be about as loud as the beep of his digital watch – at least everybody in the classroom could hear it quite clearly if he had forgotten to disable the alarm, and not even his own sensitive ears considered the noise too loud.

At least, he heavily stood up, and got in line with the few other kids in sixth grade who weren’t out training Pokémon. Mrs. Grodski, who taught Pokémonology, was a very grumpy old lady who wore the biggest glasses Mark had ever seen, spoke through her overly large nose and had developed a strong hatred for Mark for some reason he had never understood.

“Good morning, class,” she said sternly as everybody had taken their places standing behind their chairs.

“Good morning, Mrs. Grodski,” the class mumbled, apart from Mark, who said his usual “Good morning, Mrs. Grumpy.” He knew it was safe; it drowned completely in the rest of the class’s murmurs.

“Today,” Mrs. Grodski announced with a frown at how tired all the kids sounded, “we will be studying up on recoil attacks. Sit down and turn to page forty-two, please.”

Mark sighed and opened his book as Mrs. Grodski watched him carefully, but as soon as she began talking, he silently took out his binder and started to draw a Lugia on the back of an English assignment. It was his favorite Pokémon of all; he drew it all the time. Articuno, his second favorite, was a bit trickier to draw, but that didn’t make him like it any less. He loved all the Legendary Pokémon. In fact, he was utterly obsessed with them. He had been fascinated by those ultimate beings of the world since he was little.

“And just what do you think you’re doing, Mr. Greenlet?” Mrs. Grodski’s voice snapped. He looked slowly up from his Lugia, partially covering it with his hand. Mark had a hard time hiding his laughter behind an innocent expression.

“I believe I’m drawing, Mrs. Grodski, unless I’m very much mistaken,” he said in a sarcastically polite voice. There were some snickers from behind.

“Quiet!” the teacher screeched. “And stop scribbling on your papers, least of all in my class!”

Mark grimaced at her as she returned to her desk, and made the textbook stand open on the table, shielding the binder and making him look like he was actually reading.

-------

Finally, the day was over. The sky was now slowly getting covered with depressing clouds. Mark went to play soccer with the fifth graders as usual, not really concentrating.

It was early May. May was something that Mark subconsciously connected to the bad knot in his stomach that formed every year as he watched all the lucky ten-year-olds drive away for Green town at the end of the month to get a Pokémon. The kids he was with now would probably all leave on an adventurous Pokémon journey soon while he would be left at home, standing at some street corner and drawing the city with imaginary Rattata poking out of the dustbins, Taillow singing in the trees and maybe a lone Meowth staring hungrily at them from below.

The ball came flying towards him and he kicked it away very hard, not bothering to aim anywhere. Stupid Pokémon! Why couldn’t they just get their butts over to North-West Ouen!

Mark felt all the unfairness of the situation load up behind his eyes and attempting to get out in liquid form.

Oh, no, you don’t, you’re staying in there, he ordered, screwing his eyes shut for a second and opening them again. He felt a strong urge to be alone.

He ended up leaving the game and going home to sulk.

The weather was now gray and gloomy, fitting Mark’s mood perfectly; the clouds were thickening up and it would likely start raining soon. He quickened his pace as he turned down his home street. When he was just about to cross it, he heard something. Something that came from the bushes his back was currently turned to.

He jumped, twisting around immediately. Dead quiet, he waited for a few seconds. Then it happened again – a branch moved and a twig cracked.

Very slowly and carefully, his heart beating like a drum in his chest, he stepped up to the bush and pulled the branches apart. To his great disappointment, there was nothing there at all. He sighed. He had been hoping he had found the first Pokémon of North-West Ouen… maybe a Vulpix. He grinned at the thought, but then shook his head.

“Come on,” he said bitterly to himself, “stop daydreaming… you’re never going to become a Pokémon trainer.”

He ran across the street. It was starting to rain.

-------

After a very normal, quiet dinner with his parents while watching Bravo Trainer, he sat down in the sofa in the living room, and stared outside through the blurry, wet glass in the window facing the street.

He stopped dead.

There was definitely something moving out there. Something… reddish?

The word ‘Vulpix’ instantly crossed his mind, although he knew it was ridiculous to assume that the starter Pokémon of his dreams had suddenly appeared in front of his house. Mark leapt to the front door, into his boots and pulled the door open.

There was indeed a Pokémon there, but it wasn’t a Vulpix. It was an orange, cute-looking bipedal lizard; one of those he had used to point at in picture books when he was little, announcing that it was a Fire-type in order to make his parents nod appreciatively and tell him he was really smart remembering it all.

But this was a real, living Charmander, not a picture in a book, and this fact made the Pokémon seem scary and foreign. It was lying limply on the middle of the road, and the flame that was supposed to be on the tip of its tail was merely a small, bright glow. That was still enough to indicate that it was alive.

At first, Mark just stood there like a cow, staring, but then he was knocked to his senses by the sound of a car. He ran out onto the road, picked up the Pokémon and hurried inside with it, already soaked wet by the downpour.

Mark slammed the door shut and started fanning the Charmander’s tail flame stupidly with his hand in order to revive it, with little success.

“Mom! I – I found a Charmander on the road!” he panted.

“Really?” sounded his mother’s voice absent-mindedly from upstairs. “Very nice, but why don’t you just go into your room, dear?”

“Parents,” Mark hissed at nobody but himself and the unconscious Pokémon in his arms. Then he yelled: “Aren’t you listening? I FOUND A FREAKING CHARMANDER!”

He heard his mother, clearly thinking this was some kind of a game, sigh and stand up before coming down the stairs with red, tired eyes and a cup of coffee in her hands.

Crash! She dropped the cup and it fell to the floor, shattering to a thousand pieces and spilling coffee all over.

“Wha - what is that thing?” she then squeaked, sounding like this was the first time she saw a Pokémon close-up, which is probably was.

“It’s a Charmander!” Mark snapped. “A Pokémon! And it’s dying!”

“Oh God!” she uttered out, speechless. “John!”

“Not now,” Mark’s father mumbled from upstairs, sounding half-asleep. She dug her fingers deep into her curly mess of blond hair, repeating “Oh, what can we do? What can we do?” in a panicky voice.

Mark rolled his eyes, sighed and started waving his hand again in attempts to get the Charmander’s flame burning properly again. Slowly as the tail tip dried, the flame was restored. Mark breathed in relief; half because the Charmander was saved, half because his hand was getting stiff from all the fanning.

“Is… is it okay?” his mother asked carefully as Mark shook his entire arm to loosen the hand muscles.

“Yeah,” he said and smiled. “But I think it needs rest. Er… I guess you should go and get some old cloth so I can put it in my bed, otherwise it’ll burn the house down.”

His mother went back upstairs and got some old clothes of Mark he didn’t fit into anymore. He took them to his bedroom and placed them in the corner of his bed, laying the Charmander gently on top of them. The tail flame burned peacefully. Mark wondered who originally had the idea of making clothes flame-proof; it had always seemed very pointless to him, but now it sure came in handy.

He picked up the book about the Johto Legendary Pokémon on his desk and started to read, keeping an eye on the lizard. He was starting to calm down and think reasonably. Of course, this Charmander wasn’t wild. It obviously was trained. Charmander were very rare Pokémon from Kanto, how would one suddenly be in Ouen, let alone the North-West part? Its trainer was probably looking for it. Maybe he’d get a reward for finding it? Or maybe, just maybe… it had been released on purpose?

Mark grinned, looking forward to next morning.

[Tutankhamun]

Nice! I didn't get the chance to read the original story because of all the catching up I had to do (or maybe that was another story...hm.) Anyways, I really enjoyed reading it. I'm curiouse, however, how he is going to catch legendary pokemon, that is, if he is planning on catching legendary pokemon.

I also had to laugh at "Pokémonish" and "Pokémonology." Creative subjects there!

Please continue! I'll be waiting for the next chapter!

[mistysakura]

II've always wanted to read this fic, but too much to catch up on. So this is cool. I relaly like the fic so far; there's obviously something going on with the legendary Pokemon, possibly to do with the millenium... Your style's really flowing, and finding Charmander was quite original.The bit I really liked was the subject description though; Mrs. Grumpy I just had to laugh at.

Have fun rewriting...

[Dragonfree]

---EXTRA II---

Wait a minute… levels?

“The problem was that they always asked about the most boring and uninteresting things, such as the level at which one Pokémon approximately evolved into another.” – Chapter 1

Level?

Hey, levels don’t exist! Oh darn, this is another one of those fics… *stops reading*

If you’re thinking something like that: hey, hey, hey, not so fast. I’ve been criticized so much for having levels in it that I was forced to make a whole extra explaining why I have them in.

OK, just if you were wondering, this fic does not portray Pokémon as digital creatures of some sort, lines of code, whose powers consist of calculated numbers. Not at all. The Pokémon in it are very much living creatures and can definitely not be explained in a few numbers.

You all know what an IQ is, right? Human intelligence doesn’t really consist of a number, but it is measured in a number.

In my fics, Pokémon stats and levels are ‘IQs’; that is, they don’t actually consist of a number, but are scientifically measured in numbers for convenience. Base stats are averages, created to compare the different species of Pokémon in their power. Not absolutely accurately, of course – but they can at least tell you that a Dragonite is much more powerful than a Caterpie. That does not mean, however, that a clever, determined Caterpie can’t defeat a Dragonite with some strategy, although such incidents are obviously very rare.

The stats all measure different things. Speed measures speed and reflexes. Attack measures the strength of a Pokémon’s muscles; basically physical strength. Special attack measures the power of the Pokémon’s elemental attacks (such as how hot the flames the Pokémon can breathe are, how many volts the electric charge it can give off is, etc.). Defense measures how well the Pokémon’s body is built to absorb physical attacks; a Pokémon with high Defense will feel less pain when punched than a Pokémon with low Defense, assuming, of course, that neither has a weakness or resistance to the punch. Same with Special defense, except for special attacks. Finally, HP measures how much pain a Pokémon can take before fainting.

IVs represent the differences between individuals. Effort values stand for how adept the Pokémon is at using a specific aspect of its power.

Finally, attacks and evolution. You may have noticed the ‘approximately’ in that quote above. Well, I believe the exact timing of learning attacks or evolving is individual-based, but again it’s an average; at least most Mareep will need less training in order to evolve than the average Dratini.

If the implementation of these things still bothers you, I’m afraid I’m keeping them in whether you like it or not, so just try to accept them, OK?



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RATING

Violence: Only talked about, not described.

Gore: None.

Sexuality: None.

Profanity: None.

Other: Nothing special.
-------




Chapter 2: The Book

When Mark woke up, the Charmander was still asleep, but this time curled up with the tail flame burning peacefully beside its head. Mark carefully placed his hand onto the Pokémon’s back. It was warm and was breathing normally. He gave a faint smile, dressed quickly and then tiptoed into the kitchen, where he was greeted by his parents’ serious faces and folded arms.

“Mark,” his father sighed, “we need to talk.”

-------

“Why not??” Mark shouted across the table, crushing his cornflakes violently. He couldn’t help noticing that despite his parents being very much unlike each other in outwards appearance – his father having black hair and being short just like him, but his mother a tall, thin blonde with big, toadlike eyes – they managed to look remarkably similar when they were both of the same mind.

“It’s very simple, Mark; it’s dangerous out there,” his father sighed.

“So what? I’d have a Pokémon for my protection!” Mark said eagerly.

His mother replied quietly: “But what if your Pokémon turns against you?”

“That… that… just… doesn’t happen!” Mark said lamely. In fact, he had no idea, but he would soon learn it, if only they would stop getting in his way.

“Are you sure?” his mother asked kindly.

“Well, no, not really, but…”

“See, we just want to keep you safe,” she said in a voice Mark recognized as the one she used when she was trying to be convincing. Needless to say, Mark had grown completely oblivious to it over those eleven years.

“But, oh, mom…”

“Besides,” his father interrupted, “we’ve yet to check all the reported lost Pokémon.”

Mark didn’t say anything; he was aware of that, but he was still hoping somebody had released the Charmander on purpose. His father stood slowly up, not taking his eyes off Mark, went to the computer in the corner (which was mainly used to find recipes online) and typed ‘www.lostandfound.com’ into the address bar. Mark quickly jumped to read over his shoulder as he searched for ‘Charmander’.

A broad grin spread through Mark’s face as the results appeared: Two lost Charmander, both of them in Kanto.

His father sighed. “That does not mean you’re about to go on a journey.”

Mark was going to protest, but was interrupted by a sound:

“Char?”

The little lizard carefully stepped into the kitchen and looked curiously around.

“Oh, it’s awake,” Mark’s father groaned.

“I’m not an ‘it’,” said the Charmander offended, at least if Mark’s knowledge of Pokémonish was as accurate as ever. The Pokémon’s voice, though rather high-pitched on human scale, was clearly masculine.

Mark turned to his father with and said in a scolding tone: “He’s a he, dad. Should I have said ‘Oh, it’s awake’ when I came in here and saw you?”

“What’s going on?” asked Charmander, puzzled.

“We’re arguing over whether you will go psycho and kill me,” said Mark and shot a ‘what-weirdoes-those-adults-can-be’ look back at his parents. Charmander raised an eyebrow.

“Look, hon, that’s not quite the way we put it,” Mark’s mother began in an apologetic tone, but Charmander interrupted loudly:

“What am I doing here, anyway?”

“Er,” was all Mark’s father said.

“I brought you in here when you fell unconscious on the road in the rain yesterday,” said Mark, leaning down to Charmander’s level. “And the reason we’re arguing is that I was… uh… wondering…” Suddenly he felt like abandoning the idea; it all of a sudden seemed so ridiculous.

“If you can be my trainer?” Charmander finished for him, sensing that Mark wasn’t about to continue. Mark nodded nervously; the Pokémon just smiled. “Sure, why not, since you saved me and all… I need a new trainer anyway…”

“What’s your name?” Mark immediately asked, feeling comfortably warm and light.

“I don’t really have one, just call me Charmander,” he answered cheerfully. Both of them looked hopefully up at Mark’s parents, wearing the broadest grins they could manage.

“No way,” said his father, folding his arms. Charmander’s expression dropped.

“Maybe I should just leave, then,” he said emptily, turning around.

“No, wait… you can stay here and all… just as a pet or something!” Mark’s father called after him, not wanting to send the poor thing out to die in the next downpour. Charmander turned slowly back to them.

“Do you trust me more here than out there?”

“It’s just that...” Mark’s father started, but his wife interrupted:

“You can’t deny that there are dangerous Pokémon out there – and you’re too small to handle them if they do attack.”

“But they’re usually nowhere near Sailance!” Mark argued.

“Usually,” his father emphasized.

Charmander couldn’t think of anything to say – it looked like his and Mark’s silent plan wasn’t working.

Yet.

-------

For a few days, Charmander was Mark’s pet. They had a really fun time – always went to bed very early, but set Mark’s digital watch to beep at two AM or so, and then in the dark bedroom with Charmander’s tail flame as the only light source, they discussed ways to get out on a journey. Just for fun, they started imagining this was the dungeon in the castle of two evil lords who kept them imprisoned, inventing loads of ideas of how to escape, each more absurd than the other.

“I think we must use our cunningness for this,” Mark whispered, leaning closer to Charmander. “You will set the castle on fire and while they burn, we will run and tell the world of their dictatorship so that peace can reign in Ouen again.”

They both snickered.

“Hey, Mark…” said Charmander thoughtfully, “I think I have an idea. A real idea…”

-------

Mark walked into the kitchen in the morning, his face expressionless.

“I don’t want breakfast, mom,” he said gloomily. “I just came to say goodbye.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna kill myself.”

Crash. Another cup went to waste. His mother’s expression was so priceless he almost burst out laughing, but resisted it; he had to keep the depressed-and-tired-of-life face.

“No, you’re not!” she screeched.

“It’s just… my friends are all gone,” he went on.

“But how do we fix that, dear?” she asked in a worried tone.

“I just wish I could go and meet up with them, on my own journey.” Mark immediately realized that the smile that followed was far too hopeful. And too un-depressed. His mother sighed.

“You’re not funny, Mark. I mean… do you even have any idea how much that cup cost?”

“A lot, if I know you correctly,” Mark muttered, well aware that the cup was just a random thing she turned her attention to because she had been very upset. Neither of them said anything for a while, until his mother sighed again.

“Are you that desperate to go on that journey of yours?”

“Of course I am!” Mark replied, his expression brightening up. “Mom, Charmander and I have been secretly thinking up plans at night! We’ve been imagining you’re evil dictators keeping us inside a dungeon and planning our escape in the middle of the night!”

“And,” said Charmander’s threatening voice as the lizard Pokémon entered the room, “we will do that every night from now on and there’s no way for you to stop us.”

Mark’s mother got a weird expression halfway between a smile and a hopeless look, and then said: “You’re incredible, boys – I think there’s no way to keep you in here for very long before you think of a way to force us to.”

“YES!” Charmander shouted.

“WHOOOOO!!!!” Mark yelled, giving his Pokémon a high five. He hugged his mother tightly.

“Thanks, mom.”

She just hugged him back, tears in her eyes.

-------

Things were being packed into an old red and blue backpack that looked like it could burst at any time. Mark’s father was not happy, but he had ended up giving in to his wife, who was suddenly all for it like she had never thought otherwise. Mark and Charmander bounced around the house in a wild celebration-dance. He got a nice sum of money to buy things for. Finally, he set off with Charmander by his side.

“Bye dad! Bye mom! I promise I won’t get myself killed!” Mark’s mother smiled through the tears as he waved. Then he turned and started running.

The Gyms in Ouen had been arranged so that the recommended first Gym was in Cleanwater city, a big one which was conveniently not that far from Sailance, then went in a spiral inwards until the last gym was in Acaria city in the heart of the continent. Cleanwater was near the edge of the Pokémon-inhabited part of Ouen, built near a mysterious lake which was famous for being so clear that the bottom was always visible in details, despite being the second-deepest lake in the whole of Ouen. It was therefore called “The Lake of Purity”.

But Mark was not headed to Cleanwater city yet. He was going to the Sailance Library to get a book about Pokémon training.

Mark, despite all his interest in Pokémon, was a rookie when it came to the trainer career itself. He knew how it worked, of course, and the rules of the Pokémon League, but frankly he was rather clueless about the rest. His parents knew no more, seeing as they had never been trainers, so they had advised him to go to the library. There had to be some kind of a book explaining all that stuff. He had just never looked for one since he never thought he’d need it.

The library was a huge, bright white building in the middle of the town. The walls were decorated with carvings of various Pokémon; Mark’s favorite was located over the door and was a big Articuno flying to the left, its tail feather swishing behind it and looking amazingly alive. As always when Mark entered the library, he bowed his head slightly as he looked at the magnificent bird. The automatic door slowly slid open before him, and he prepared to walk inside when he remembered that Pokémon weren’t allowed in the library.

“Sorry, Charmander, you’ll have to wait outside,” he said guiltily. “I won’t be long.”

“No problem,” said Charmander, smiling. “It’s not like anybody could steal me without getting roasted or anything.”

Mark eyed a few people staring at the Pokémon like a miracle, and pride started spreading around his chest. To think of it… he was a trainer.

He smiled back at his Pokémon friend, and then entered the building.

The search computers along with a few shelves of paperbacks with huge titles greeted him, along with the familiar smell of books that Mark had always loved. But he ignored them and walked right to the elevators, as this book would be on the second floor, which was devoted to Pokémon training.

As he entered the lift, an endless row of Marks stared back at him from the mirrors on the sides. All of them turned to the buttons at the same time, and all of them managed to slip their fingers between buttons two and three, accidentally highlighting both as the elevator started ascending.

It stopped on the second floor and a tall, thin young man with a suitcase stepped in, holding a book. Curious as to why such a man would be reading something on Pokémon training, Mark took a peek at the title. It was something stupid about Pokémon battles being a bad influence on kids; however, Mark completely forgot to get out of the lift until he discovered that the door had closed and they were starting to go up again, thanks to Mark’s accidental pressing of both buttons. The elevator came to a halt and the door opened. Mark looked uncomfortably up at the man, who looked out of the book and seemed to wonder why Mark hadn’t exited yet. He hated to be stared at by strangers; that feeling pushed him out through the door to enter the floor about Pokémon in general.

This was the floor he usually stopped at when he went to the library. Every so often, he would return his books and take new ones, most of which were always about Legendary Pokémon. The shelf containing those books was located… right in front of him.

He had automatically walked straight up to that shelf when he exited the elevator. And as he had so often seen that shelf, he immediately noticed a new book that made his heart pound faster. On the black spine, golden, curly letters formed the title:

The Ouen Legends

It was an interesting fact that while all the Legendary Pokémon of Kanto, Johto and Hoenn were well known and their existence definite, the Ouen ones appeared to be very shy. Many scientists didn’t even believe they were real. All photos were too blurry to tell if the creatures on them were anything more than normal Pokémon. No Pokédex data recorded. A ton of reported sightings with no evidence to support them. Hence, Mark could well imagine why it would be hard to write a book about them; at least it had to be, considering that he had never seen one before.

That fact only made his need to read this book even more overwhelming. He felt drawn to it like a fly to a lightbulb. Barely even realizing what he was doing, he extended his hand and grabbed the book with a firm grip, slowly drawing it out of the shelf. What surprised him was that the book was dusty, like it had been there for years.

Mark shook his head and, with the book in his hands, walked over to a big, fluffy and comfortable-looking green couch. He flung himself into it, examining the cover illustration. At the top were six dragons in different colors, the so-called Color Dragons. Below them, eight unicorns. At the very bottom… Mewtwo?

Yup, he was sure of it. The whitish-purple anthro cat-like shape was unmistakably that of the first super-clone that had ever been created and had gotten such experiments banned. A Kanto Legendary.

[]What’s Mewtwo doing on the cover of a book about the Ouen legendaries?[/i] Mark thought. He looked better at Mewtwo’s shape. The eyes were closed, but looked creepily open all the same. It’s that highlight, said Mark’s artist eye. The shading gives that effect, the highlight on the eyelid looks distantly like a pupil. But it was still scary, with those closed eyes that seemed to be watching. Had the cover artist drawn it like that on purpose?

Either way, Mewtwo wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Mark scanned his head for a reason why Mewtwo would be on the cover of a book about the Ouen Legendaries, but found none.

He shrugged and opened the book. He flicked past the title pages, leant backwards and sank himself into the book.

It started with the Color Dragons. The left page had a watercolor illustration of them, with their names written near them.

Lidreki was small and cute with silver scales. What caught Mark’s attention about it, however, was that somehow, the scales broke the light into the colors of the rainbow at the places where the light shone directly at them. But Lidreki wasn’t one of the real Color Dragons; it evolved into them. That made it no less of a Legendary, though, as it was just as shrouded in mystery as its adult forms. The Color Dragons themselves were all larger than Lidreki; they were basically European-style dragons with big, clawed legs, small arms and broad wings spreading out from their shoulders.

Dragoreen, the Dragon of the Poor, was a metallic green, feminine-looking dragon and didn’t have any outstanding features over the others. She glared hatefully at Preciure, the Dragon of Wealth, opposite her on the page; he was a golden male with silver spikes lined down his back. He returned the gaze, full of loathing.

The crimson dragon above Preciure was a female: Raudra, the Dragon of Fire. She shook her golden mane, facing her back at her brother Dracobalt, the Dragon of Water. He was deep blue in color, with a fin down his entire back, and shot a sideways glance at Raudra, clearly not too keen on her either.

The last two were Puragon, the White Dragon, and Venoir, the Black Dragon. Puragon was a pearly white female with four narrow crystalline horns, looking serenely at the viewer. Venoir, on the other hand, was pitch-black in color, a male and had dark purple, bull-like horns. His eyes were creepily red, staring hungrily at his sister across the page.

Mark smiled, his gaze moving over to the right page.


THE COLOR DRAGONS

The legend says that an ancient, powerful dragon Pokémon named Vaxil, the Dragon of the Rainbow, laid six eggs and hid them where no living creature could harm them. One she dropped into the crater of a volcano, one she hid at the bottom of a deep lake, one she secured in a dark cave, one she buried in snow, and two she took with her to her own cave, filled with gold and treasures.

The first egg to hatch was one of the eggs that Vaxil had taken with her. As the other eggs would later, it hatched into a Lidreki. He was greedy and loved nothing more than burying himself in his mother’s gold.

The second egg to hatch was the one in the volcano. That Lidreki was female, and she loved the lava, fed on it and never felt the need to leave the volcano’s crater. The third egg was the one in the dark cave. It was a male, and he fed on poisonous Pokémon that lurked there in the dark, without ever finding out that there was anything outside the cave.

The fourth egg that hatched was the one in the snow. The young Lidreki was a female, and slowly became oblivious to the cold. The fifth egg was the one at the bottom of the lake. A male, he adapted to underwater life, hunted fish and rarely went out of the lake.

Finally, the sixth egg hatched – the other egg that Vaxil had taken with her. It was a female, and a deep rivalry immediately started between her and her older brother. They hated each other, and one day, he fought her out of the cave, and she sought her brothers and sisters to help resisting him.

She went to her sister in the volcano, she went to her brother in the lake. She went to her brother in the cave, she went to her sister in the snow. She lived with all of them for a while, and told them all – because Vaxil had told her – where the other ones were hidden, and asked them to come and help against her oldest brother. They came, rather for seeing their mother than for helping their sister, but as they traveled, they developed hate for each other in pairs, and upon their arrival in Vaxil’s cave, a fight broke out. The oldest brother fought the youngest sister, the sister from the volcano fought her brother from the lake, and the brother in the cave fought his sister in the snow. Vaxil attempted to stop them, but they merely fought her back and in the end Vaxil threw herself off the cliff to her death. The siblings were horrified, each blaming another, but slowly they became enveloped in a white glow and evolved, each to one of the Color dragons depending on their habitats from birth

Due to their mother’s death, they decided not to keep fighting and let each other leave in peace, and supposedly they still lurk there, desiring only superiority over the opposite sibling.

All of them have special abilities. Raudra, Dracobalt, Puragon and Venoir have immense powers of fire, water, ice and poison respectively, but Dragoreen and Preciure have different powers; Dragoreen’s attacks are independent on the defender’s weaknesses or resistances, and Preciure’s golden scales can repel any attack well and effectively.


Mark turned past some pages consisting of the few things he already knew, interviews with people who claimed to have seen them and some old paintings of the Color Dragons, and finally reached the next chapter.

The left page again had a watercolor illustration. It showed the unicorns all together, dashing towards the viewer. The first one, Waraider, was white with a bony, swirled horn and broad, feathered wings extending from his shoulder blades. Emphire, to Waraider’s left, was also white but had a flaming mane and tail, a golden horn and fiery wings of some sort flapping at his sides.

Next was Seasar, who was dark blue in color. He didn’t appear to have a tail or mane at all; instead, a stream of water flowed smoothly down his neck, along his whole back and then gracefully dropped down behind him like a waterfall, only to dissolve into thin air before reaching the ground. Although hard to see, he had wispy, formless, vaporous wings.

Electhrone was the fourth one, to the left of Seasar. He was whitish-yellow, but sparks of electricity appeared to replace his mane and tail. The horn was a bit crooked; odd, very straight, pointed feathers formed his two wings.

Natruler was next; his fur was off-white, but where the mane and tail should have been, grass and leaves sprouted right out of his skin. Long, feather-shaped leaves formed into his thin wings, and the horn looked almost wooden. At Natruler’s side was an icily bluish-white one, Freezaroy. His silky mane and tail produced snow that spiraled after him, blown away by the flapping of his giant wings. The wings were made of thin icicles rather than feathers. So was the horn on his forehead.

The last two were Mysticrown and Darkhan. Mysticrown’s tail and mane were magenta, and a big, purple gem replaced the horn. Similar smaller ones glistened in various places on his body, most noticeably on all of his white wing feathers. Darkhan, on the other hand, was pitch-black with leathery, bat-like wings and some kind of a black smoke forming his mane and tail.

Mark turned to the information page.


WARAIDER’S HERD

Waraider the Normal type leads the group of his special-typed counterparts; unlike the Color dragons, all of them supposedly keep close together wherever they go. According to the legend, their being together keeps the world balanced, and should they ever be separated, chaos would reign until they reunited.

There have been interestingly many reported sightings of the herd, but neither photos nor Pokédex data exist to prove any of them.


Mark skipped past a lot of pages, just for the sake of finding out what he was the most curious about: why Mewtwo was in that book. He thought he remembered one more Legendary – if he knew correctly, one of them was in fact confirmed to be real – but the name escaped him at the moment.

He looked at the illustration first as he had done before. Again, its eyes were closed in that creepy ‘watching’ manner that had been on the cover picture. Mark couldn’t help wondering why it was drawn like that, though. He would’ve believed Mewtwo’s eyes would usually be open.

The answer was on the right page, where the title – partially – explained it:


CHALETWO


“Oh, yeah,” Mark muttered to himself. “That was the name.” He definitely remembered Chaletwo as one of the Legendary Pokémon – however, he didn’t believe he had ever seen any pictures of it. At least he thought he’d remember if there was an Ouen Legendary that looked exactly like Mewtwo.

He started reading the text.


Chaletwo is the only one of the Ouen Legendaries whose existence is definite and confirmed. He appears every year at the exact same time and place; 4:26:45 PM on the 25th of May, just outside Green Town. It is thanks to the tourist attraction that sprouted from this fact that Green Town became so big.

The first time that a human witnessed him, he supposedly said telepathically: “Do not fear. I am Chaletwo and do not intend to harm you nor any other living thing. I only wish to come here once a year and have a quick look around the world before leaving.”

Nobody knows why he bears such a striking resemblance to Mewtwo, who is in fact a Kanto Legendary (although that is arguable, considering that he is man-created).


Well, at least it wasn’t just something that Mark had never found out.


Due to Chaletwo’s limited availability, Mewtwo has been asked about this by a reporter.

“Do you think I wouldn’t like to know?” he answered before teleporting away. “He said he didn’t wish to tell, least of all me. He wouldn’t reveal anything else. Stop asking.”

People wonder whether Chaletwo might be another Super-clone, backing that up with the name he after all introduced himself with, which ends in the trademark “-two” of a genetically modified Pokémon clone, but experts doubt it.

“He’s not just a simple second Mew clone,” Pokémon researcher Ash Ketchum explains. “I’ve studied both of them carefully, and I’m telling you that every last hair on their bodies is the exact same. Technically, Mewtwo’s creators could have made an additional one with almost the exact same genetic code, resulting in a clone that’s the same, but face it, according to all sources we have, Mewtwo destroyed the lab and everything in it, which would have had to include another embryo if one had been there.”

Chaletwo differs from Mewtwo in two aspects: his eyes will destroy or kill anything they are pointed at except his own eyelids, and Pokédexes record a Dark element in him in addition to the Psychic that Mewtwo has. Pokédexes also classify him as the most powerful Pokémon in the world, tied with…


Mark checked his watch, discovering for how long he had been reading, and jumped up, quickly returning the book to the shelf as he ran down to meet up with Charmander again.

[mistysakura]

I like those legendaryies. The whole intuition thing with finding the book was a bit... too coincedental, amybe? Unless you actually plan on including supernatural powers in the fic, of course. The descriptions of the legendary Pokemon were good, adn I didn't mind their names; but I think there were a bit too many to keep track of, especially the unicorns and stuff. Chaletwo's interesting though, a very good creation; its eyes remind me of the basilisk. I like the "once a year" occurence, and the tourist relations as well.

And Charmander's idea reminds me of an old joke... Good chapter.

[mr_pikachu]

Heh, I'm glad I started reading this. Good stuff. We don't really know that much about Mark's appearance yet, but his actions will suffice - for now. But pretty soon, we'll need to know what he looks like, so we can really get a clear mental image.

Love the ideas, especially the suicide bit. The conniving snake! Seriously though, his parents should have more faith in him. I mean, there's no chance he's going to run into anything bad out there, right? Right?? Oh wait, I forgot, this wouldn't be a good fic without danger. Carry on, then.

Well, I'll look forward to your next chapter! See you then!

[Dragonfree]

mistysakura: Ahh, you'll see why. It was meant to sound faaaar to coincidental... glad you like Chaletwo, he's very interesting...

Hey, which reminds me, I haven't posted Extra I here yet. Better do that now... although it was supposed to come after the prologue, actually. Meh, you'll get two extras in a row, then... Extra II is coming soon. The extras are little thingies, pretty short, which are not parts of the plot, but have something to do with the fic. Can be anything from background information to short stories... in the cases of extras I and II, they're background information. I think I'll edit Extra I into the first post, for future readers... you should go check it out to, even though it's a bit weird AFTER chapter two.

mr_pikachu: Mark's appearance? Well, you already have:

He was eleven years old, thin, dark-haired, green-eyed...

and

he was short enough for them to be able to imagine he was just a tall ten-year-old

and that he has a digital watch. I hate describing clothes, so I'm afraid you'll find me doing that very rarely unless the clothes are something that's very notable about the character.

Oh, yeah, notice very well what the last thing he says to his parents is.

[HedgeCat]

The new chapter 2 is a lot better. I liked CHarmander's plan, and the new way of finding out about the legends.

[Dragonfree]

Extra II... it's boring, just to warn you.




---EXTRA II---

Game-wise

Lidreki
Pronunciation: LIH-dreh-kee
Type: Dragon
Ability: Color Change
Stats from highest to lowest: All equal

Dragoreen
Pronunciation: DRAH-gore-een
Type: Dragon/Flying
Ability: Adaptation (weakness and resistance are not applied to Dragoreen’s attacks)
Stats from highest to lowest: All equal

Raudra
Pronunciation: RUY-drah
Type: Dragon/Flying
Ability: Hellfire (Fire attacks gain STAB)
Stats from highest to lowest: Speed, Special attack, Attack, HP, Special defense, Defense

Dracobalt
Pronunciation: DRAY-cobalt
Type: Dragon/Flying
Ability: Mystic river (Water attacks gain STAB)
Stats from highest to lowest: Defense, Special defense, Special attack, HP, Speed, Attack

Puragon
Pronunciation: PURE-ah-gon
Type: Dragon/Flying
Ability: Snowstorm (Ice attacks gain STAB)
Stats from highest to lowest: Special attack, Special defense, Speed, HP, Attack, Defense

Venoir
Pronunciation: VE-nwa
Type: Dragon/Flying
Ability: Plague (Poison attacks gain STAB)
Stats from highest to lowest: Attack, Speed, Special attack, Defense, Special defense, HP

Preciure
Pronunciation: PRES-sure
Type: Dragon/Flying
Ability: Gold scales (weakness and resistance are not applied to the opponent’s attacks)
Stats from highest to lowest: Defense, Special defense, HP, Attack, Special attack, Speed

Waraider
Pronunciation: WAR-raider
Type: Normal
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Attack, Speed, HP, Special defense, Defense, Special attack

Emphire
Pronunciation: EM-fire
Type: Fire
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Special attack, Speed, Attack, Special defense, HP, Defense

Seasar
Pronunciation: Caesar
Type: Water
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Special defense, Special attack, Defense, HP, Speed, Attack

Electhrone
Pronunciation: EH-lec-throne
Type: Electric
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Speed, Special attack, Special defense, Attack, HP, Defense

Natruler
Pronunciation: NAT-ruler
Type: Grass
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Special defense, Special attack, Attack, Defense, HP, Speed

Freezaroy
Pronunciation: FREEZE-ah-roy
Type: Ice
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Special attack, Speed, Special defense, HP, Defense, Attack

Mysticrown
Pronunciation: Mystic-crown
Type: Psychic
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Speed, Special attack, Special defense, HP, Defense, Attack

Darkhan
Pronunciation: DARK-khan
Type: Dark
Ability: Levitate
Stats from highest to lowest: Defense, Special attack, Speed, Attack, Special defense, HP

Chaletwo
Pronunciation: CHA-leh-too
Type: Dark/Psychic
Ability: Pressure
Stats from highest to lowest: Special attack, Speed, Attack, Special defense, HP, Defense

[Dragonfree]

I decided I should end chapter three here, so it's a bit short. Just a bit shorter than chapter one, though. Then there will be an extra (I'm always with those extras all over) which will be up VERY soon, maybe just in ten minutes or so. Oh, and chapter three's name is pretty stupid.



Chapter 3: Vuiiii!

When Mark was out of the library, Charmander was sitting on the stone steps, his head resting against the wall and his eyes closed peacefully; basically, he was looking absolutely adorable, attracting quite a few ‘awww’s from passing people.

“Are you asleep?” Mark asked cautiously, poking Charmander’s shoulder. The Pokémon jumped, eyes opening wide.

“Wha… no, I was just… er, in deep thought,” he replied awkwardly.

“Right,” said Mark and grinned. “Shouldn’t we move on?”

Charmander stood up, and they walked out of town while dark clouds gathered above them.

***

Keep running, keep running…

Four small paws beat the ground soundlessly.

He had no idea where he was running, nor did he care.

It didn’t matter.

Why would it? He had better things to worry about.

A bright white lightning flashed with a terrible roar of thunder. He shrieked in fear, turned around and ran even faster in the other direction.

Small drops of water started falling, prickling down his beautifully light brown fur coat and soaking the soft, creamy-colored ruff around his neck. He shivered, but kept running.

***

It had started to rain. Charmander’s tail flame was spouting thick steam; Mark glanced worriedly at it every now and then as they walked down the road to Cleanwater.

“Are you going to be OK?”

“Yeah, I’ve been through more rain,” said Charmander casually, obviously referring to the one Mark saved him out of.

“If you think so,” said Mark doubtfully, still keeping an eye on his friend.

***

Should he give up all hope?

No…

It… couldn’t be…

He was far too exhausted to run, but the knowledge that by every passing second, his greatest fear was more likely to have come true, drove him on.

His forepaw hit a small rock hidden in the wet grass. He tried to keep his balance, but tumbled over. He got up right away and despite the pain nailing his left front paw, he aced it and kept going at the same pace.

***

“Hey, Charmander, have you ever thought about evolution?”

“Yeah, why?” Charmander questioned.

“Do you want to?” Mark rephrased his question.

“Huh?”

“Do you want to evolve?”

“Why are you asking?” Charmander said, puzzled, looking up at Mark.

“Shouldn’t I ask you?” Mark asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course you should,” Charmander said, looking down. “But most trainers wouldn’t, that’s why I was surprised. My old trainer wouldn’t.” He spat the last words in a resentful tone.

“Yeah, that’s one thing,” Mark said thoughtfully, “did your trainer release you?”

“No… not really…” said Charmander faintly.

“What happened?”

“Well… he battled a girl with a Quilava once. Didn’t use me for it, he never used me at all. But she beat him and he showed her me, lied that I was level 15 like her Quilava was, and asked to trade. She bought it and decided to trade, she didn’t really appear to like her Quilava all that much for whatever reason. They just did an unofficial trade by handing each other the Pokéballs, and then my trainer quietly made himself disappear. Then it appears that when the girl registered me to her Pokédex and found out I was level five, she tossed the ball to the ground in anger and ran after my old trainer, so I popped out of the ball and was left there. Then I just walked off in a random direction, and ended up in that monsoon.”

“Oh…” was all Mark could say. He paused, then added: “He must’ve been a selfish little brat.”

“Yup,” said Charmander and sighed.

***

He was beyond exhausted. He was even starting to slow down. He tried to order his legs to speed up again, but they refused and answered simply by collapsing under him. He helplessly crawled a bit on through the tall grass, and to his horror he realized that he was lost either way.

It was too painful…

He eyed the road and the cars just a few meters away, and made his hopeless decision.

***

“Hey,” Charmander suddenly exclaimed, “did you hear something?”

“No,” said Mark.

“It was just, you know, a small rustle…”

“Like a Pokémon in the grass?” Mark suggested hopefully.

“Yeah…”

Mark stopped and looked around the dry grass on both sides of the road. Something moved, just a few inches from the roadside.

He carefully came a bit nearer, and saw that it was a little brown furball with long, rabbit-like ears. A thick, creamy ruff covered its neck and a bushy tail extended from its backside. It was flailing around a bit, apparently trying to crawl but not really being successful.

“An Eevee!” Mark shouted so loudly that the Pokémon made a desperate, yet unsuccessful attempt to get up and run away before fainting with fear. He quickly realized the mistake of his over-excitement, and started thinking about his next problem.

“Why do I have to run across an Eevee just when I don’t have any Pokéballs?” he moaned. “Just my luck…”

Exactly then, he caught a glimpse of something in the grass, a few meters away from the Eevee. It was a familiar red and white sphere…

He couldn’t believe it. A Pokéball was lying there, exactly when he needed it.

He quickly walked over to it, bent down and picked up the ball. It felt cold and metallic; a few grass blades were glued to its wet surface by the water. Nevertheless, it would work just as well. He took aim at the Pokémon.

“Pokéball, GO!” he yelled, just like he had seen on TV.

“What do you think you’re doing??”

Charmander jumped up and punched the ball away in the air so it missed its target.

“What was that for?” Mark groaned.

“What was it for?” Charmander snapped, raising up his tiny thumb. “One: He’s unconscious.” Charmander raised his forefinger, continuing: “Two: He’s obviously too young to battle at all, don’t you see how small he is?” He raised the third miniscule finger: “And three: He’s in an absolutely terrible state; he’s obviously been through h@ll before we came here.” He lowered his hand firmly. “Don’t you know the Agreement? If a Pokémon is caught while unable to put up a fair fight for its freedom, it is free to ignore or even attack its trainer until released back into the wild.”

Mark blushed; of course he knew this. The Agreement between Pokémon and humans clearly stated that Pokémon must only be caught while they were still in proper condition to battle. He had forgotten all about it in the shock of seeing one of the most sought-after Pokémon in the world.

“Also,” Charmander went on with folded arms, “he’s young enough for me to strongly suspect that he shouldn’t be wandering around on his own. I think he must have lost his mother.”

Mark now felt terrible about his foolish longing to throw a metal ball at the little thing. It could’ve died; what was he thinking?

“A male, you say?” Mark questioned.

“Yeah,” Charmander nodded.

Mark slowly walked towards the fainted Pokémon, bent down and touched the fur on the head. It was soft, thick and very smooth, but with a few twigs tangled in it. He brushed them off, and the Eevee’s body twitched a bit.

Carefully, he picked the Pokémon up. Its body was warm; Mark felt weird holding it. He stroked a few times over the fur on the head with some soothing words, and to his delight found that Eevee’s eyes opened a bit.

“Vuii!” he shrieked and weakly struggled to get away, but Mark held him tightly. Eevee seemed to find the warmth from a living body to be comforting and in the end just curled himself up in his arms.

For a few seconds, Mark just stood there like in a trance, but then snapped out of it.

“We’d better hurry to Cleanwater to get him help,” he said to Charmander before breaking into a run. The lizard followed on his heels.

A lone Pokéball was left by the roadside.

[mr_pikachu]

Oh, I don't think the title's that bad. It kinda added suspense and wonder to what kind of Pokemon Mark might come across. I thought it was a nice effect, personally.

Interesting about the "Agreement" between Pokemon and trainers. A lot of trainers, IMO take advantage of that sort of thing in fics, so it was interesting to see a forced change from that rule. I like Charmander's nature too. Seems like he's ignoring his trainer, too... Ironic first Pokemon capture... lol!

Good cliffhanger-type thing at the end, too. Will Eevee be okay? We'll just have to wait and see...

[Dragonfree]

Extra III. Told you it would be up soon...



---EXTRA III---

The Agreement

The Agreement is basically the “ten commandments” of the Pokémon world. It’s my own idea, by the way, so don’t steal it. It goes like this:


1. If a Pokémon is not in the state to battle due to age, injuries, or any other reason, it must not be caught. A Pokémon that is caught under these circumstances does not rightfully belong to its trainer, and is by law free. If the Trainer does not release the Pokémon to be permanently free from the Pokéball, the Pokémon may ignore or even lightly attack the Trainer if necessary in order for the Pokémon to gain its rightful freedom.

2. If a Trainer’s Pokémon possesses an Attack capable of killing its opponent, it is on the Pokémon’s own responsibility to dampen or aim its attacks so that they will not cause fatal injuries to another Trainer’s Pokémon. Likewise, a Trainer may not command his or her own Pokémon to kill another Trainer’s Pokémon in any case. For example, a Scyther may never aim its Slash at its opponent’s neck, and a Flareon must keep its Flamethrower’s temperature at a low enough level not to cause serious burns.

3. A Trainer’s Pokémon may not in any case attack a human with the intention of killing or seriously injuring him or her. Likewise, a Trainer must never order his or her Pokémon to attack a human with the aforementioned intentions.

4. Pokémon battles should be a sport, and a sport only; they should not be used to settle personal disputes between Trainers, in order to humiliate another Trainer, or to threaten another Trainer.

5. If a Pokémon does not wish to battle for whatever reasons, its Trainer must not force the Pokémon to battle.

6. A Pokémon should never be stolen from its Trainer in any case.

7. Pokémon shall never be punished for disobedience or failure. If physical punishment is attempted, the Pokémon is free to defend itself.

8. A Trainer must not let his or her Pokémon be without food, drink, or proper health care. If the Trainer does not have access to these primary needs, the Trainer must try to obtain them as soon as possible.

9. A Pokémon has equal freedom of speech to a human.

10. Neither Trainers nor Pokémon may abuse the rights specified in this Agreement.

[Iveechan]

I guess Rick from my fic never heard of The Agreement.

Yeah, Mark is much more well-rounded this time around, more defined. I think that you could've used a line of asterixes to seperate the Eevee's scene from Mark and Charmander's though. Other than that, well done.

[Chris 2.1]

Hey, I'm still here! Nice to see your fic progressing, and some of the chapter tweaks you added do really make a difference.

Poor Charmander I'd never abandon a wee tyke like him. Also, it's one of the few fics I see with levels in it. Nice.

Keep up the good work, and I'll make Ch21 of MR as Dynamic as I can ^^

[Dragonfree]

Iveechan: Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Don't remember why I decided not to, though. Will probably fix it for the final version...

Chris: I'm too much of a gamer to leave the levels out, heh. I don't think it's bad for fics to have levels in them at all if they still follow the animé style of battles.

Anyway, chapter four. I'm still behind the UMR (previous verision), so that it ends actually before chapter four in the old version actually began... chapter five will be a lot longer, though, having the whole of the Lake of Purity stuff in it. Mainly information, not that much important stuff.



Chapter 4: Cleanwater City

After ten minutes or so, Mark and Charmander arrived at the Cleanwater city Pokémon Center, panting.

Mark went straight up to the bell on the desk and hammered it with his hand until a red-haired nurse dressed in white, whose name was most likely Joy, came out of a room in the back.

“No need to be so harsh on the bell,” she said serenely.

“I… I found this Eevee,” Mark panted, attempting to catch his breath, and gently placed the little Pokémon, unconscious, on the desk. “He was fainted near the road to Sailance…”

“Sailance?” the nurse, whom Mark just decided to call Joy, questioned. “Isn’t that out of the Pokémon-inhabited area?”

“Yes, it is, is Eevee going to be fine?” Mark asked very quickly.

“What was an Eevee doing there?” repeated Nurse ‘Joy’.

“Should I know that?” Mark said loudly. “I asked: Is he going to be all right?”

Nurse Joy took out a small tool resembling a red cellphone, pointed it at Eevee and pressed a button. A little beep was heard before she took it and read of it.

“He’s just exhausted, hungry and cold,” Nurse Joy announced upon looking back at Mark, smiling. “He will be fine, but it could take some time to revive him. Just have a seat, and I’ll alert you when something happens.”

Mark sighed in relief as Nurse Joy took Eevee into the room at the back, then turned around and as he was now breathing normally again, he took some time to look around.

The floor was covered in a light pink, fluffy carpet. The room was very large, and at random places all over except in the direct path from the automatic door to the counter, there were big, comfy-looking red sofas. Several trainers sat in them, either chatting or just staring into thin air, waiting for their Pokémon to be healed.

Mark walked towards the nearest sofa, which was empty, and sat down there, tapping his foot impatiently while observing the room better. The walls were painted white, but covered in posters and advertisements about everything from the Ouen league and challenges for trainers to always carry Potions with them, to cheap travel packages to Kanto. Meanwhile, Charmander stood at the foot of the sofa, watching his tail flame burn.

The automatic door slid open, catching Mark’s attention. A girl ran inside. She had long, brown hair and wore a pink sweater and a dark blue skirt.

She hurried to Nurse Joy, quickly handing her three of the Pokéballs attached to her belt, and then walked towards Mark’s sofa and sat down in it, glaring anxiously at the back room where Joy was treating her Pokémon.

Seeing as Mark had nothing better to do and many things to ask, he decided to talk to the girl.

“Um, excuse me…” he said, turning carefully in her direction. She jerked her head in his direction, and upon realizing he was waiting for an answer, she replied with a dry “Hello”.

“Do you live here?” Mark asked. The girl nodded.

“Can you tell me something about the Pokémon Gym here?”

The girl shrugged. “Sure. What would you like to know?”

“What type of Pokémon does the gym leader train?” Mark asked, happy to have managed to get to the point so quickly.

“Legendary Pokémon,” she answered simply.

“What?!” Mark yelled so loudly that a few people stopped talking to stare at him. He lowered his voice, his face going red. “Erm… how does a Gym leader train Legendary Pokémon?”

The girl giggled. “You’ve never heard of Rick? He spent ten years of his life finding the Legendary Pokémon of all four regions. He got some hairs, feathers, whatever of them, and cloned the Legendaries for himself and his junior trainers. They don’t train them much at all, though, so they’re really low-leveled.”

“Cloned? But that’s illegal!” Mark protested.

“Super-clones are illegal,” the girl corrected. “And only if they could wreck something. His Pokéballs prevent the Pokémon they hold from directly disobeying a command, making them harmless. He made the balls himself. He even got a special license allowing him to keep one super-clone, no higher than level ten, mainly for experimental purposes.”

“But affecting Pokémon’s free will is breaking the Agreement!” Mark argued. The girl just shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe, but Rick’s got the police in his pocket. He’s capable of world domination with all those legendary clones, and they know it only too well. As long as he isn’t doing anything they absolutely have to do something about, they won’t. They’d get completely screwed unless they attacked in hundreds.”

“But he isn’t about to do anything like that, is he?” Mark asked worriedly.

“Of course not, he’s a respectable man with a little brother,” said the girl.

“What’s a little brother got to do with anything?” Mark questioned, puzzled.

“Their parents died in a car crash when Rick was fifteen, leaving him alone with his two-year-old brother,” the girl explained. “Rick has been like a parent for his brother since then. Shows that he’s responsible and knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh.” Mark paused. “Are all of the Legendaries at very low levels, then?” he then asked.

“Yeah, they don’t go higher than level 15,” the girl said. “And the more Pokémon a junior trainer has, the lower are their levels. The strongest ones are possessed by the junior trainers with the fewest Pokémon.”

“Sounds balanced,” Mark said.

“But remember that they’re Legendaries after all,” she warned him.

“OK, thanks,” Mark said, and was about to ask something else when Nurse Joy stepped forward and pointed for both of them to come. Both kids stood up and walked towards the counter.

“Megan, your Pokémon have been fully healed,” Nurse Joy said with a small bow, handing three Pokéballs to the girl, then turning to Mark, “and your Eevee is going to be in perfect battle condition tomorrow. The hotel is just round the corner, if you plan on staying there.”

“Battle condition?” Mark questioned. “But isn’t he too young to battle?”

“Technically, yes,” Nurse Joy sighed. “But he’s been battling, apparently. Got some Rattata bites and scratches. Goodness knows what he’s been through…”

“Oh, okay,” said Mark. “But I’ll release him afterwards, right? He isn’t caught in a Pokéball…”

“Well…” said Nurse Joy sadly, “I have to admit that I don’t think that’s a very good idea. He’s been battling, but hasn’t fared all too well. If he came across a Raticate or Sandslash…”

“You mean I should take him?” asked Mark, shocked.

“I mean that we should explain the situation to him when he wakes up, and ask him what he wants to do.”

Mark didn’t answer; he wanted to own an Eevee, of course, but tried not to because he knew then he’d be disappointed if Eevee rather wanted to be released.

“Is your Charmander fine?” Nurse Joy asked, smiling.

“Yeah,” said Mark, snapping out of his thoughts. “Anyway, thanks. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Next, Mark went to the Pokémart with Charmander. It looked a bit like the Pokémon center beside it; a big, white building with an automatic door and a dome-shaped roof, except that instead of the Pokémon center’s red color, the Pokémart’s roof was blue. Beside the door, a large sign clarified the building’s identity.

Mark walked inside. To the left, there was a counter with a funnily-dressed punk guy behind it, busy claiming cash for people’s purchases. To the right, metallic shelves with healing items, Pokémon food, and all sorts of Pokémon equipment stood in straight rows all the way to the back of the shop.

Mark examined the contents of the first shelf. They were healing items; to the far left, cheap Potions and status recovering items were stacked; then they gradually went more expensive as they went farther to the right. Mark grabbed a few of the purple and green spray bottles known as Potions, then walked a few steps on. Most of the things he wasn’t all that interested in; this early on, they wouldn’t be worth their price.

At the end of the row, he stared longingly at a little white box with a red cross on it; a Pocket healer, one could place a Pokéball into it and press a button, and the Pokémon inside would be refreshed with energy in an instant, besides gaining a boost to its natural recovering abilities while inside, being able to fully heal of all its wounds in a remarkably short time. Of course, this item was reserved for out-of-battle usage.

Unfortunately, the price tag contained the rather unattractive number of 98,000. Mark quit dreaming, and went on.

He browsed through the shelves. Stat-boosting items were for more advanced trainers, and he didn’t want to buy TM and HM moves until he had planned his Pokémon a bit better. If Eevee would come with him, he would maybe buy an evolution stone for him; of course, he reminded himself as he walked past them, Eevee might not come with him at all, and might not want to evolve, or would rather evolve into Espeon or Umbreon.

The Pokédolls he wasn’t too interested in, but near them were the Pokéballs and Pokéball belts, so Mark took one belt with six Pokéballs attached to it. Finally, he bought a bit of canned Pokémon food for Charmander and Eevee, and walked to the counter in order to pay. All this stuff put a huge dent into the money he had brought, but that was what the money was for, after all. He just hoped he had enough left for the hotel.

Once outside, Mark pressed the little buttons on the Potion bottles one by one, minimizing them to the right size to fit neatly into his backpack. He also put on his Pokéball belt. He checked his watch; it was six o’clock, and the rain had subsided. Finally, he stuffed the cans of Pokémon food into the bag; it was now getting full.

He eyed the hotel sign behind the shop, picked up his bag with a sigh and walked to the hotel, Charmander following him like a fiery ghost.

[HedgeCat]

Hmm, I see you renamed May to Megan. Seems more origanal. (I know you had the name May before the english name of the female RS trainer, but people we be all "OMGZ U STEEL TAHT NAEM!112Z!@") Great job with the newer parts, like the agreement when Mark and Megan talked baout Rick, the pocket healer in the stole, and better description.

[Dragonfree]

No, actually Megan is just a andom girl I put in there to tell Mark about Rick. She will probably also be in the Ouen League, but she's definitely just a side character. May, in case you forgot, lives in New Bark Town, Johto, came to Ouen for her favorite Pokémon, Skarmory, and looks pretty much like the Crystal girl player except for wearing different-colored clothes and lacking the cap. I did a sprite of her, actually...



Besides, of course, that she would talk very differently, would definitely answer Mark's first "Excuse me..." with something like "And who might you be?" and would probably be a lot more snappy in the whole of it.

[HedgeCat]

Oh right. I just thought it was May because I remember they meet around this time. Heh heh.

[Skye]

This is a pretty good story. The messed up ""s and stuff makes it all a bit confusing, but overall, nice. Please post the next chapter soon.