PancaKe
20th April 2003, 03:01 AM
I know you guys have been waiting for this for a while so here it is. The very first chapter of Lapras Valley High 2. You can still access the origional LVH1 in the Fanfic Archive so for those who may get a tad confused, and who have trouble understanding my bad summary then you can go ahead and read all 38 chapters of LVH1. But for now here is LVH2 - Shadows.
~Mist
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Lapras Valley High II ~ Shadows of the Night
Chapter One – Introducing... Suspicion
****************************************
“Do you think that you could get out of the pool now?” Fury began her round of complaining for the day by sitting by the pool and looking in. Ashley was at one end of the in-ground water hole; I was at the other with the water with the volleyball in my hand. Ashley looked ready, and with a swing of my fist I hit the ball over the net and into her waters.
“Fury chill okay?” I replied, diving for the ball and hitting it back over the net where it landed in Ashley’s water. “We’re on holiday. Let us have some fun please.”
“In the water?” Fury raised an eyebrow. “I remember one pool you hated.”
“Don’t bring that up okay?” I snapped back. Fury was referring to the pool in the back yard of Lady Blastoise, our long hated enemy. Before I had the life, the free life, I was living practically under her dictation. She hated Fury and I. She wanted our lives to be hell.
Only last year had we finally kicked her *** and gotten our life back. It was actually a lot like a soapie that you would watch on TV. To sum up my whole life, I used to live in an orphanage. My parents were killed by a werewolf, that same werewolf was Lady Blastoise. I became a werewolf yet I never wanted to join the pack seeing I had Fury and Ashley around. Lady Blastoise was the leader of the pack, her werewolf name being Canis. Lady Blastoise had a theory, if my life were hell I’d want to stay with the pack and not try to avoid being with them.
I was called to stay at her mansion while living in the orphanage one time, and she made it as bad as it could be, forcing Fury to swim laps of her Olympic sized swimming pool everyday until she almost died. A member of the pack, who was pretty high ranked, had tried to warn me and stop me from being there and get me to run away. That was Nafeti, or Jackie as I now know her as. She is the principal of Lapras Valley High, which explained why she knew so much about me on the first day.
A few years after that I hated her and she hated me, I was told that the orphanage of Quagsire Heights which is where I lived, was shutting down. And I could either live with Lady Blastoise or go to a school called Lapras Valley High. Guess which one I chose.
Ashley accompanied us there a week later where we made many friends and formed a close circle of friends including Nayia, Martin, Craig, Kayla, Spike and Greg. Lady Blastoise became a teacher at the school and haunted me all year with sly tactics and hell for class. Jackie was a great principal, she seemed to understand where we were all coming from. I found out at the end of the year that she was Nafeti and she helped explain a lot that was confusing.
The war between Lady Blastoise and I raged on all year, with her trying such tactics as punishing my friends, then attacking Fury, my Vulpix whose stuck by me for as long as I can remember, and attacking Greg. The final straw was when she organized a class outing on a full moon night, hoping to expose me for what I was.
That was a night of hell and war. For about an hour and a half I ran, trying to get a head start out of there before sundown. My friends joined me just as I ran into Lady Blastoise and just as I was changing into a werewolf. Lady Blastoise sent out her pokemon, and a big battle formed, which ended in a mass of tired pokemon. Lady Blastoise knew my weakness, my friends.
And so they became the target. They were chased through Shady Thicket, the forest behind Lapras Valley High, by an evil demon spirit which managed to stab Kayla in the back and almost kill her. But she came back to life in the early morning. Lady Blastoise’s slave, or maybe you might call him a traitor seeing he hung out with us for most of the year, hung back. Blaron Haystacker was shot in the head just so Lady Blastoise could prove that she was being serious.
Lady Blastoise transformed later, fought with me for the rest of the night until the sun rose. Ashley picked up her gun after she transformed and shot her when she was human and I guess long story short we kicked ***. But it was a very twisted tale and personally, I was looking forward to a less twisted year.
“Fury why don’t you hang out with Sugar for a while?” Ashley suggested, serving me the ball. I dived for it and hit it back where it neatly landed behind Ashley.
“Yeah,” Fury shrugged. She got up to leave. “We’ll be wandering around bored okay?”
“Fine,” I replied, serving the volleyball.
*
Dinner was served. Jackie’s relative, whether it be cousin or aunty or sister (I didn’t remember), was a fantastic cook. On the table was laid out a big feast, it looked delicious. Sitting down, we waited for the okay from Jackie and her relative Susan to start eating.
“Enjoy this meal,” Susan beamed. “It’s your last one here.”
“What?” Ashley asked, surprised.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Jackie explained. “Didn’t I tell you? Remember I have to be at school two weeks early? So you can hang out there.”
“Do we have to?” Fury whined. I began to eat as much as I could, Susan cooked great food compared to the cafeteria ladies and I knew that for the next two weeks we would be living off instant noodles and frozen dinners.
“Yeah,” Jackie nodded. “If I could I would dump you guys on Susan for the next two weeks then you could catch the train from here but there isn’t any train lines that run to this neck of the woods. They have train lines in Amber South but that’s about half an hour from here.”
“So we’re being hauled with you,” Ashley concluded. “Its okay, we don’t mind. It should be fun. Having the whole school to ourselves.”
“Just don’t go round ruining rooms okay?” Jackie instructed. “We don’t allow sex at school but some people still might have rubber down the bottom of their draws. Get what I mean?”
I grinned. Jackie was a great principal, down to earth and laid back. She liked her school that way, and everybody pretty much went by the rules. The rules weren’t easy to break either unless you wanted to spray paint a whole classroom wall or smash a window. Then there would be serious outrage coming from Jackie.
When she wants to she can get mean. But she’s really level and cool and takes care of Ashley and I like we’re her best friends. She has a lot of concern for Fury and I. She understands the type of torture we’ve been through, she experienced a small share of it too when Lady Blastoise and I had our showdown. She is really cool, and she’s like an older sister to me. I already have a best friend.
It’s pretty obvious that Ashley is my best friend. She is just one of a kind, really calming and understanding and she is kind of hard to describe. She’s just Ashley. Basically this means that while she is quiet, calm, understanding she is also great fun when she wants to be. But she can sympathize very well; she’s had a lot of it hanging around me.
Fury on the other hand has been hanging around me for ages, about as long as Ashley has, but there are many things to be said about Fury. She is tough, rough, a fighter. She’s like an overcooked steak (Susan’s steaks were always great!) with a side dish of sarcastic rice. Tough and sarcastic but that’s only how she appears. She seems to know the solution to every problem as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. She’s really smart and knows everything about me.
Fury is my first and only pokemon. She’s stronger than most of the pokemon in our grade due to intense struggles for survival in the wild and plenty of experience. She was so brave and strong, I admired her for that. Also she could talk. I don’t particularly have an explanation for that, all I know is that she’s been able to do that for as long as I’ve known her and I’m not sure why. But I hadn’t been bothered to ask her.
“And Sal, if your still listening we’ll have to be packing tonight,” Jackie continued talking. I snapped back to reality and grinned sheepishly. “So get packing as soon as you finish your meal okay?”
“Yeah.” I kept eating, shoving the food into my mouth. Without the cafeteria ladies at the canteen for a few weeks it’d be all two-minute noodles and fast food from now on.
*
The moonlight reflected off the still water of the pool, each ripple dancing the rays of light along the liquid mass. The night was clear, with the moon shining down, lighting the backyard of Susan’s house. It was a nice place, it would be a pity to leave so soon. I looked around the yard, a few trees planted over by the fence, with a nest of annoying Spearow that screeched in the early hours of the morning. The lawn had been mowed thanks to yours truly earlier this afternoon, and now was a neat short length. I let my eyes move across the beauty the moonlight gave to the simple backyard, wishing that I wouldn’t have to leave. Part of me wanted to go back but I wanted to stay here, the food was great and Susan was a lovely person.
Snapping my eyes back to the pool, I looked from the reflection of the sky up to the real thing, searching for what I had just seen. A shadow had shot straight over the backyard, quite a large shadow as well. It had gone in a flash but I could have sworn I saw it.
Thinking I must have been imagining, I kept my eyes on the sky just in case. A pair of wet hands suddenly clasped my neck, causing me to jump a mile. “Ashley don’t!” I gasped in surprise. “I almost fell out the window!”
“Sorry,” Ashley smiled. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just looking out the window,” I answered.
“Have you packed?” I shook my head. “We have to leave tomorrow morning,” Ashley reminded. I shrugged.
“So?” I turned around and faced her. Dim light came up through the attic door, half lighting the room. “I’ll pack. I don’t have much anyway.” As I talked, out the corner of my eye something large moved across the yard. I spun around and stuck my head out the window searching the sky for what I saw. “Did you see that?” I asked Ashley.
“See what?” Ashley replied.
“That big shadow,” I answered, withdrawing my head from the window. “That’s twice tonight I saw a large shadow going over the house.”
“Maybe you’re just tired and your eyes are playing tricks on you,” Ashley suggested, trying to come up for a valid excuse for the suspected insanity she sensed. She walked over and stuck her head out the window into the still air of the night. “I don’t see anything,” she announced. “We should go to bed, you’re probably tired and that’s what you probably saw.”
I shrugged. I may have been tired but I wasn’t going to agree to that excuse. I knew what I saw and it wasn’t an illusion, no matter what anybody said.
*
“No can’t you see!” Jackie growled into the phone. “Look, the students are allowed to come in two weeks and just because you want to go on a holiday with some guy you’ll dump right after anyway it doesn’t mean you can dump your child on me. She’s your child!” Jackie spun around in her chair, and took a sip of her drink, most likely to be alcoholic. “I don’t care! If you wanted to have sex then this is the consequence. Nothing I can do here. You may send your daughter here in two weeks. Goodbye.”
A slam echoed the office as Jackie forced the phone onto its hook with rage. She took a large sip of her drink and placed the neatly shaped bottle on the desk. She sighed. The first two weeks back before others arrived was always hectic. There was always the work to be done that hadn’t been done on her laptop, waiting for her when she returned.
“At least I don’t have to put up with the worst ones all the time,” Jackie reassured herself, thoughts of Ashley, Fury and I appearing.
*
“It’s so empty in the school without everybody else,” Ashley commented. “Makes you feel like you’re in one of those weird dreams where you get locked in the school over the holidays.”
“I’m off,” Fury announced, getting up. “I think I’m going to go and take a wander around the school. That should be even more entertaining than this.”
“Bored Fury?” I raised my eyebrows at Fury’s sarcastic comments. Fury shot me a look, plainly asking how dumb I really was. I poked my tongue out at her and she walked out the room, Sugar following behind her. “It is sort of dull around without Nayia and Kayla and Martin and Greg and Craig and Spike and everybody else who I forgot,” I commented.
Ashley smiled. “Yeah, it’d be so nice if dear Teresa was here to cheer us up,” she joked.
I glared at her, smiling at the same time. “You *****.” Ashley began to laugh and so did I. It was that time of the year, nothing to do, nothing on TV but reruns and soapies, and even though I enjoyed the company of Fury and Ashley and Jackie, I did wish everybody else would return. I’d changed so much, yet I hoped that they hadn’t changed at all.
*
“It’s so different here,” Fury stated, looking around at the dancing sunlight streaming in between the branches, creating patterns of negative shapes scattered across the floor. Sugar nodded in agreement, and tried her hardest at a little game where she wouldn’t step in any shapes of sunlight.
“Remember last year?” Fury asked. Sugar stopped her game and looked at Fury, scared. Sugar only remembered a small portion of the events that had taken place in Shady Thicket the year before, the horrific battle between pokemon, the pain she had endured, and finally the last look at Fury’s face while she was being recalled. The look of fear blazing in the depths of Fury’s raven pupils.
Sugar shuddered and nodded. “Yeah I remember,” she answered, yet only Fury could understand her words. She spoke in her Eevee language, and even though Fury could speak a language both humans and pokemon understood, it was only possible for the other pokemon of the area to speak their own tongue. “Don’t remind me please.”
“Sorry,” Fury apologized. Fury tended to not be as sarcastic around Sugar, perhaps the reason being that Sugar was one of Fury’s closest pokemon friends. “Hey do you reckon that Nixie will evolve this year?”
“I don’t know,” Sugar responded. “I haven’t evolved, you haven’t evolved.”
“I don’t want to evolve,” Fury stubbornly interrupted. “I’m staying like this until I’m dead and buried.”
“Hey look over there,” Sugar suddenly pointed through the trees and over to where two fox pokemon stood, talking to one another, glancing at Fury and Sugar every now and then. “Why are they looking at us?”
“I don’t know…” Fury replied slowly, in a low voice. The two Vulpix across from them were both male, obviously. They continued their conversation, looking at Fury, who looked back at them with an even gaze. With a nudge from one, the other Vulpix stumbled his way over to Fury and Sugar.
“…Hi…” he greeted in a forced manner. Fury looked him over. His fringe was wild and a light golden brown color, unlike Fury’s dark orange one. His eyes were bright brown and his fur was a light peach orange. The other one sensed that he was in an awkward position and ran over. Fury sized him up also. His fringe and tail hair was chocolate brown, and his eyes showed hazel, with vivid dancing greens and browns. His fur was a dark peach color yet his chest fur was light cream, which also covered his toes.
These Vulpix were different, Fury could tell. Her theory was that this is what the Vulpix of Shady Thicket looked like, different to the city furs of reds and oranges and pinks. “What’s with you staring at us?” Fury asked.
“Um… nothing…” the second Vulpix laughed at the nervousness of the first.
“Well what the hell are your names then?” Fury demanded. “And I don’t appreciate being stared at without knowing the reason why so you can freaking tell me that too.”
The guys looked a bit taken back by her sudden outburst. They would have to get used to the rough attitude she contained. “I’m Rokon,” the first Vulpix introduced himself. “And this is…”
The second Vulpix interrupted Rokon rudely. “I’m Hellfire,” he winked. “But you can call me Hell.”
“Shut up!” Rokon hit his friend. “His name is Goupix.”
“Goupix?” Fury raised an eyebrow. Sugar coughed, trying to politely cover up any giggles. “Were your parents hippies or something?”
“No,” Goupix scowled. “Shut up. It just means Vulpix in Russian or German or something.” Goupix continued his frown. “And I suppose you have a better name,” he shot back.
“I’m Fury and this is Sugar,” Fury introduced. “And yes our names are better than Goupix.”
“Sounds like you have trainer names,” Goupix commented. Rokon seemed quieter now that Goupix had began talking. Fury studied Rokon’s expression, the way he just watched on and let Goupix take the lead. He seemed shyer, yet he had something about him. It might have been the way the light struck his fur, and cast the shadows mysteriously across his face. Fury couldn’t tell.
“Yeah we’re trained,” Sugar replied. “It’s not really a big deal. My trainer is really nice and so is Fury’s. And even though I have a trainer name it’s really okay.”
“My name isn’t a trainer name anyway,” Fury interrupted. “I don’t remember how I was named but I’ve always been known as Fury.”
“Right…” Goupix trailed off. “So what’s your trainers name?”
“Oh we have separate trainers,” Sugar answered. Rokon suddenly pricked his ears, attentive to the answer. “My trainer’s name is Ashley Lien and –“
“And oh my gosh look at the time,” Fury suddenly exclaimed, looking up at the sky. It was mid afternoon, and the sun was shining down on the group with bright light, even if it was blocked by the trees leafy canvas. “We have to go now sorry, nice meeting you.” Fury turned and began to run away quickly. Sugar said her farewells and followed after the speedy Fury.
Rokon looked at Goupix in confusion, hoping that his friend would have some theory of explanation. “What was that for?” he asked.
Goupix kept his stare fixed on the dashing Fury and Sugar. “That’s the one we were looking for,” he announced in a steady voice. “She’s the Fury.”
=+=+=+=+=
Next Time on Lapras Valley High
She’s been through it, she knows what its like. But what’ll happen when she sees somebody going through it as well?
If they’re younger than her?
I looked up. The shabby hotel had many open windows, but one particularly caught my eye. The cool breeze blew through the deserted street of Lapras Valley, carrying with it a shrill voice that pierced whatever calmness I had. The window was open, and anybody could see straight in to the curtain less window. A small boy, suspected age to be around twelve, stumbled through the room, followed by a raging teenage girl.
I would know that face anywhere.
It doesn’t seem to be turning into a good day for Sal today.
“Who the hell do you think you are to treat somebody younger than you like that?” I shouted, angered at the sight I had seen. The boy ran and grabbed his Azurill and holding the small creature to his chest ran into the far corner of the room, watching with a black eye and a cut cheek.
The whole world doesn’t revolve around Sal though, what ever happened to Fury and her friends?
“Sugar, you know those Vulpix we met yesterday?” Fury asked Sugar, who turned to look at her with curiosity. “This is only a hunch but I think they’re up to something big.”
Chapter Two: Different Side
~Mist
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Lapras Valley High II ~ Shadows of the Night
Chapter One – Introducing... Suspicion
****************************************
“Do you think that you could get out of the pool now?” Fury began her round of complaining for the day by sitting by the pool and looking in. Ashley was at one end of the in-ground water hole; I was at the other with the water with the volleyball in my hand. Ashley looked ready, and with a swing of my fist I hit the ball over the net and into her waters.
“Fury chill okay?” I replied, diving for the ball and hitting it back over the net where it landed in Ashley’s water. “We’re on holiday. Let us have some fun please.”
“In the water?” Fury raised an eyebrow. “I remember one pool you hated.”
“Don’t bring that up okay?” I snapped back. Fury was referring to the pool in the back yard of Lady Blastoise, our long hated enemy. Before I had the life, the free life, I was living practically under her dictation. She hated Fury and I. She wanted our lives to be hell.
Only last year had we finally kicked her *** and gotten our life back. It was actually a lot like a soapie that you would watch on TV. To sum up my whole life, I used to live in an orphanage. My parents were killed by a werewolf, that same werewolf was Lady Blastoise. I became a werewolf yet I never wanted to join the pack seeing I had Fury and Ashley around. Lady Blastoise was the leader of the pack, her werewolf name being Canis. Lady Blastoise had a theory, if my life were hell I’d want to stay with the pack and not try to avoid being with them.
I was called to stay at her mansion while living in the orphanage one time, and she made it as bad as it could be, forcing Fury to swim laps of her Olympic sized swimming pool everyday until she almost died. A member of the pack, who was pretty high ranked, had tried to warn me and stop me from being there and get me to run away. That was Nafeti, or Jackie as I now know her as. She is the principal of Lapras Valley High, which explained why she knew so much about me on the first day.
A few years after that I hated her and she hated me, I was told that the orphanage of Quagsire Heights which is where I lived, was shutting down. And I could either live with Lady Blastoise or go to a school called Lapras Valley High. Guess which one I chose.
Ashley accompanied us there a week later where we made many friends and formed a close circle of friends including Nayia, Martin, Craig, Kayla, Spike and Greg. Lady Blastoise became a teacher at the school and haunted me all year with sly tactics and hell for class. Jackie was a great principal, she seemed to understand where we were all coming from. I found out at the end of the year that she was Nafeti and she helped explain a lot that was confusing.
The war between Lady Blastoise and I raged on all year, with her trying such tactics as punishing my friends, then attacking Fury, my Vulpix whose stuck by me for as long as I can remember, and attacking Greg. The final straw was when she organized a class outing on a full moon night, hoping to expose me for what I was.
That was a night of hell and war. For about an hour and a half I ran, trying to get a head start out of there before sundown. My friends joined me just as I ran into Lady Blastoise and just as I was changing into a werewolf. Lady Blastoise sent out her pokemon, and a big battle formed, which ended in a mass of tired pokemon. Lady Blastoise knew my weakness, my friends.
And so they became the target. They were chased through Shady Thicket, the forest behind Lapras Valley High, by an evil demon spirit which managed to stab Kayla in the back and almost kill her. But she came back to life in the early morning. Lady Blastoise’s slave, or maybe you might call him a traitor seeing he hung out with us for most of the year, hung back. Blaron Haystacker was shot in the head just so Lady Blastoise could prove that she was being serious.
Lady Blastoise transformed later, fought with me for the rest of the night until the sun rose. Ashley picked up her gun after she transformed and shot her when she was human and I guess long story short we kicked ***. But it was a very twisted tale and personally, I was looking forward to a less twisted year.
“Fury why don’t you hang out with Sugar for a while?” Ashley suggested, serving me the ball. I dived for it and hit it back where it neatly landed behind Ashley.
“Yeah,” Fury shrugged. She got up to leave. “We’ll be wandering around bored okay?”
“Fine,” I replied, serving the volleyball.
*
Dinner was served. Jackie’s relative, whether it be cousin or aunty or sister (I didn’t remember), was a fantastic cook. On the table was laid out a big feast, it looked delicious. Sitting down, we waited for the okay from Jackie and her relative Susan to start eating.
“Enjoy this meal,” Susan beamed. “It’s your last one here.”
“What?” Ashley asked, surprised.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Jackie explained. “Didn’t I tell you? Remember I have to be at school two weeks early? So you can hang out there.”
“Do we have to?” Fury whined. I began to eat as much as I could, Susan cooked great food compared to the cafeteria ladies and I knew that for the next two weeks we would be living off instant noodles and frozen dinners.
“Yeah,” Jackie nodded. “If I could I would dump you guys on Susan for the next two weeks then you could catch the train from here but there isn’t any train lines that run to this neck of the woods. They have train lines in Amber South but that’s about half an hour from here.”
“So we’re being hauled with you,” Ashley concluded. “Its okay, we don’t mind. It should be fun. Having the whole school to ourselves.”
“Just don’t go round ruining rooms okay?” Jackie instructed. “We don’t allow sex at school but some people still might have rubber down the bottom of their draws. Get what I mean?”
I grinned. Jackie was a great principal, down to earth and laid back. She liked her school that way, and everybody pretty much went by the rules. The rules weren’t easy to break either unless you wanted to spray paint a whole classroom wall or smash a window. Then there would be serious outrage coming from Jackie.
When she wants to she can get mean. But she’s really level and cool and takes care of Ashley and I like we’re her best friends. She has a lot of concern for Fury and I. She understands the type of torture we’ve been through, she experienced a small share of it too when Lady Blastoise and I had our showdown. She is really cool, and she’s like an older sister to me. I already have a best friend.
It’s pretty obvious that Ashley is my best friend. She is just one of a kind, really calming and understanding and she is kind of hard to describe. She’s just Ashley. Basically this means that while she is quiet, calm, understanding she is also great fun when she wants to be. But she can sympathize very well; she’s had a lot of it hanging around me.
Fury on the other hand has been hanging around me for ages, about as long as Ashley has, but there are many things to be said about Fury. She is tough, rough, a fighter. She’s like an overcooked steak (Susan’s steaks were always great!) with a side dish of sarcastic rice. Tough and sarcastic but that’s only how she appears. She seems to know the solution to every problem as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. She’s really smart and knows everything about me.
Fury is my first and only pokemon. She’s stronger than most of the pokemon in our grade due to intense struggles for survival in the wild and plenty of experience. She was so brave and strong, I admired her for that. Also she could talk. I don’t particularly have an explanation for that, all I know is that she’s been able to do that for as long as I’ve known her and I’m not sure why. But I hadn’t been bothered to ask her.
“And Sal, if your still listening we’ll have to be packing tonight,” Jackie continued talking. I snapped back to reality and grinned sheepishly. “So get packing as soon as you finish your meal okay?”
“Yeah.” I kept eating, shoving the food into my mouth. Without the cafeteria ladies at the canteen for a few weeks it’d be all two-minute noodles and fast food from now on.
*
The moonlight reflected off the still water of the pool, each ripple dancing the rays of light along the liquid mass. The night was clear, with the moon shining down, lighting the backyard of Susan’s house. It was a nice place, it would be a pity to leave so soon. I looked around the yard, a few trees planted over by the fence, with a nest of annoying Spearow that screeched in the early hours of the morning. The lawn had been mowed thanks to yours truly earlier this afternoon, and now was a neat short length. I let my eyes move across the beauty the moonlight gave to the simple backyard, wishing that I wouldn’t have to leave. Part of me wanted to go back but I wanted to stay here, the food was great and Susan was a lovely person.
Snapping my eyes back to the pool, I looked from the reflection of the sky up to the real thing, searching for what I had just seen. A shadow had shot straight over the backyard, quite a large shadow as well. It had gone in a flash but I could have sworn I saw it.
Thinking I must have been imagining, I kept my eyes on the sky just in case. A pair of wet hands suddenly clasped my neck, causing me to jump a mile. “Ashley don’t!” I gasped in surprise. “I almost fell out the window!”
“Sorry,” Ashley smiled. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just looking out the window,” I answered.
“Have you packed?” I shook my head. “We have to leave tomorrow morning,” Ashley reminded. I shrugged.
“So?” I turned around and faced her. Dim light came up through the attic door, half lighting the room. “I’ll pack. I don’t have much anyway.” As I talked, out the corner of my eye something large moved across the yard. I spun around and stuck my head out the window searching the sky for what I saw. “Did you see that?” I asked Ashley.
“See what?” Ashley replied.
“That big shadow,” I answered, withdrawing my head from the window. “That’s twice tonight I saw a large shadow going over the house.”
“Maybe you’re just tired and your eyes are playing tricks on you,” Ashley suggested, trying to come up for a valid excuse for the suspected insanity she sensed. She walked over and stuck her head out the window into the still air of the night. “I don’t see anything,” she announced. “We should go to bed, you’re probably tired and that’s what you probably saw.”
I shrugged. I may have been tired but I wasn’t going to agree to that excuse. I knew what I saw and it wasn’t an illusion, no matter what anybody said.
*
“No can’t you see!” Jackie growled into the phone. “Look, the students are allowed to come in two weeks and just because you want to go on a holiday with some guy you’ll dump right after anyway it doesn’t mean you can dump your child on me. She’s your child!” Jackie spun around in her chair, and took a sip of her drink, most likely to be alcoholic. “I don’t care! If you wanted to have sex then this is the consequence. Nothing I can do here. You may send your daughter here in two weeks. Goodbye.”
A slam echoed the office as Jackie forced the phone onto its hook with rage. She took a large sip of her drink and placed the neatly shaped bottle on the desk. She sighed. The first two weeks back before others arrived was always hectic. There was always the work to be done that hadn’t been done on her laptop, waiting for her when she returned.
“At least I don’t have to put up with the worst ones all the time,” Jackie reassured herself, thoughts of Ashley, Fury and I appearing.
*
“It’s so empty in the school without everybody else,” Ashley commented. “Makes you feel like you’re in one of those weird dreams where you get locked in the school over the holidays.”
“I’m off,” Fury announced, getting up. “I think I’m going to go and take a wander around the school. That should be even more entertaining than this.”
“Bored Fury?” I raised my eyebrows at Fury’s sarcastic comments. Fury shot me a look, plainly asking how dumb I really was. I poked my tongue out at her and she walked out the room, Sugar following behind her. “It is sort of dull around without Nayia and Kayla and Martin and Greg and Craig and Spike and everybody else who I forgot,” I commented.
Ashley smiled. “Yeah, it’d be so nice if dear Teresa was here to cheer us up,” she joked.
I glared at her, smiling at the same time. “You *****.” Ashley began to laugh and so did I. It was that time of the year, nothing to do, nothing on TV but reruns and soapies, and even though I enjoyed the company of Fury and Ashley and Jackie, I did wish everybody else would return. I’d changed so much, yet I hoped that they hadn’t changed at all.
*
“It’s so different here,” Fury stated, looking around at the dancing sunlight streaming in between the branches, creating patterns of negative shapes scattered across the floor. Sugar nodded in agreement, and tried her hardest at a little game where she wouldn’t step in any shapes of sunlight.
“Remember last year?” Fury asked. Sugar stopped her game and looked at Fury, scared. Sugar only remembered a small portion of the events that had taken place in Shady Thicket the year before, the horrific battle between pokemon, the pain she had endured, and finally the last look at Fury’s face while she was being recalled. The look of fear blazing in the depths of Fury’s raven pupils.
Sugar shuddered and nodded. “Yeah I remember,” she answered, yet only Fury could understand her words. She spoke in her Eevee language, and even though Fury could speak a language both humans and pokemon understood, it was only possible for the other pokemon of the area to speak their own tongue. “Don’t remind me please.”
“Sorry,” Fury apologized. Fury tended to not be as sarcastic around Sugar, perhaps the reason being that Sugar was one of Fury’s closest pokemon friends. “Hey do you reckon that Nixie will evolve this year?”
“I don’t know,” Sugar responded. “I haven’t evolved, you haven’t evolved.”
“I don’t want to evolve,” Fury stubbornly interrupted. “I’m staying like this until I’m dead and buried.”
“Hey look over there,” Sugar suddenly pointed through the trees and over to where two fox pokemon stood, talking to one another, glancing at Fury and Sugar every now and then. “Why are they looking at us?”
“I don’t know…” Fury replied slowly, in a low voice. The two Vulpix across from them were both male, obviously. They continued their conversation, looking at Fury, who looked back at them with an even gaze. With a nudge from one, the other Vulpix stumbled his way over to Fury and Sugar.
“…Hi…” he greeted in a forced manner. Fury looked him over. His fringe was wild and a light golden brown color, unlike Fury’s dark orange one. His eyes were bright brown and his fur was a light peach orange. The other one sensed that he was in an awkward position and ran over. Fury sized him up also. His fringe and tail hair was chocolate brown, and his eyes showed hazel, with vivid dancing greens and browns. His fur was a dark peach color yet his chest fur was light cream, which also covered his toes.
These Vulpix were different, Fury could tell. Her theory was that this is what the Vulpix of Shady Thicket looked like, different to the city furs of reds and oranges and pinks. “What’s with you staring at us?” Fury asked.
“Um… nothing…” the second Vulpix laughed at the nervousness of the first.
“Well what the hell are your names then?” Fury demanded. “And I don’t appreciate being stared at without knowing the reason why so you can freaking tell me that too.”
The guys looked a bit taken back by her sudden outburst. They would have to get used to the rough attitude she contained. “I’m Rokon,” the first Vulpix introduced himself. “And this is…”
The second Vulpix interrupted Rokon rudely. “I’m Hellfire,” he winked. “But you can call me Hell.”
“Shut up!” Rokon hit his friend. “His name is Goupix.”
“Goupix?” Fury raised an eyebrow. Sugar coughed, trying to politely cover up any giggles. “Were your parents hippies or something?”
“No,” Goupix scowled. “Shut up. It just means Vulpix in Russian or German or something.” Goupix continued his frown. “And I suppose you have a better name,” he shot back.
“I’m Fury and this is Sugar,” Fury introduced. “And yes our names are better than Goupix.”
“Sounds like you have trainer names,” Goupix commented. Rokon seemed quieter now that Goupix had began talking. Fury studied Rokon’s expression, the way he just watched on and let Goupix take the lead. He seemed shyer, yet he had something about him. It might have been the way the light struck his fur, and cast the shadows mysteriously across his face. Fury couldn’t tell.
“Yeah we’re trained,” Sugar replied. “It’s not really a big deal. My trainer is really nice and so is Fury’s. And even though I have a trainer name it’s really okay.”
“My name isn’t a trainer name anyway,” Fury interrupted. “I don’t remember how I was named but I’ve always been known as Fury.”
“Right…” Goupix trailed off. “So what’s your trainers name?”
“Oh we have separate trainers,” Sugar answered. Rokon suddenly pricked his ears, attentive to the answer. “My trainer’s name is Ashley Lien and –“
“And oh my gosh look at the time,” Fury suddenly exclaimed, looking up at the sky. It was mid afternoon, and the sun was shining down on the group with bright light, even if it was blocked by the trees leafy canvas. “We have to go now sorry, nice meeting you.” Fury turned and began to run away quickly. Sugar said her farewells and followed after the speedy Fury.
Rokon looked at Goupix in confusion, hoping that his friend would have some theory of explanation. “What was that for?” he asked.
Goupix kept his stare fixed on the dashing Fury and Sugar. “That’s the one we were looking for,” he announced in a steady voice. “She’s the Fury.”
=+=+=+=+=
Next Time on Lapras Valley High
She’s been through it, she knows what its like. But what’ll happen when she sees somebody going through it as well?
If they’re younger than her?
I looked up. The shabby hotel had many open windows, but one particularly caught my eye. The cool breeze blew through the deserted street of Lapras Valley, carrying with it a shrill voice that pierced whatever calmness I had. The window was open, and anybody could see straight in to the curtain less window. A small boy, suspected age to be around twelve, stumbled through the room, followed by a raging teenage girl.
I would know that face anywhere.
It doesn’t seem to be turning into a good day for Sal today.
“Who the hell do you think you are to treat somebody younger than you like that?” I shouted, angered at the sight I had seen. The boy ran and grabbed his Azurill and holding the small creature to his chest ran into the far corner of the room, watching with a black eye and a cut cheek.
The whole world doesn’t revolve around Sal though, what ever happened to Fury and her friends?
“Sugar, you know those Vulpix we met yesterday?” Fury asked Sugar, who turned to look at her with curiosity. “This is only a hunch but I think they’re up to something big.”
Chapter Two: Different Side