A New Life: Part 3 - A Budding Friendship
#3 of A New Life
Have you ever seen any of those documentaries where the cameramen get really close to mother elephants, saying how they were very protective of their young, and then get charged at when they get too close. Well, this was sort of the same idea, only instead of a mother elephant, it was a mother pokémon who probably had about one hundred times the power-to-weight ratio of an elephant. That made the two creatures roughly equal when it came to sheer force.
I barely had time to react as I heard the thunder of paws approaching me; and before I knew it, there was a very angry espeon slamming into my side, knocking me down onto the ground. Before I could recover my breath, she pounced on top of me, pinning me down as she glared daggers at me. Luckily the eevee girl came to my rescue before her mother could do any lasting damage.
"Ma, stop it! She's my friend!", the eevee exclaimed. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for her mother to stop. In fact, it probably made her worse.
"What have I told you about making friends with strangers? They could be anyone! I bet you don't even know her name, do you?", the espeon replied. The eevee's ears dropped flat and her gaze shifted to the floor.
"No."
"Ugh", the mother said, annoyed but forgiving. "Please stop talking to strangers, Elizabeth." The espeon's eyes shifted to look at me, and her expression suddenly became much more serious. "As for you, missus dark pokémon, you are going to get out of here and never come back."
"But ma!", cried the eevee. "She tricked Blaze and stole nearly all of his oran berries! She's got to be a good pokémon for doing that."
The espeon's expression lightened for a brief second at the comment in what I thought might have been admiration before her face hardened again. I felt a little flattered at the statement, and then a whole lot more guilty because firstly; I had just happened to stumble in on those oran berries when I was hungry and didn't know that they belonged to anyone and secondly; it was more of a blind panic to not get found rather than trickery on my part. Oh well, the espeon probably wouldn't let me stay anyway. That statement was proved correct with her next sentence.
"Her stealing food from another pokémon just makes her even more suspicious, even if she did steal from that horrible houndour."
The espeon moved away from me and gave me a look which said the kind of 'go away' that you might expect from a heavily muscled wrestler-type guy when he catches you looking at his girlfriend. I stood up, aching where the espeon tackled me in the side and headed away from their home. The world really hated me today, didn't it?
I noticed that it was starting to get darker as I walked. It must have been quite late in the afternoon when I woke up in the pokémon centre if it was starting to get dark already. I wasn't feeling tired at all, and since I was a dark type, I guessed that I could become nocturnal for a while. It meant less people, less pokémon and made it easier to hide should either one of them decide to turn up.
Just as the sun had finally set I found a small clearing in which I would have enough space to practice some fighting techniques. I had recently played a game of Pokémon Black where I had cheated in a level one poochyena to catch and then used it as my only pokémon (plus a purrloin HM slave) to beat the champion with. It had reached level twenty-two before the game decided to crash when I had the DS screen folded down. Once that happened I couldn't be bothered to re-play the last half-hour of the game and instead went back to watching anime like the antisocial person I am.
Anyway, because of me playing the game, I could estimate what level I was by seeing what moves I currently knew. If I somehow managed to devise a test to see if I had the move Odor Sleuth and proved that I did in fact have it, then it meant that I was roughly the equivalent of level seventeen: one level away from evolving into a mightyena. Or at least that was if this dimension was anything like the games; which for all I knew could be a completely untrue statement.
Anyway, I decided that first, I might want to start off with the basics... Tackle.
I lined myself up with a nearby tree and prepared to charge at it. I counted down mentally in my head. This was either going to be the countdown for me finding out that I'm awesome, or me giving myself a major concussion. I started the count from three... two... one...
I launched myself at full speed towards the tree, sprinting forward for what seemed like minutes before I hit it head on. I heard the rustle of disturbed leaves along with the sharp crack of splintering wood and the annoyed chirps of some pidgeys who were sleeping in the nearby branches. I backed away and realised that I hadn't hurt myself at all. No bruises, no cuts, no memory loss. However, the same couldn't be said for the tree.
Where I had hit it, there was a massive, forehead-shaped indent along with splintered wood and a metre-long crack, which snaked vertically up from where my skull had connected with the unfortunate flora. I was amazed at how powerful I was; and extremely thankful that game physics apparently over-rode the Newtonian physics which seemed predominant in my 'home' dimension; specifically the law stating that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If it was real physics (although in fact they should probably be called 'false physics' here) that took the priority, I'm pretty sure that my brain would have been spilling onto the floor in some form of pink gloop by now.
Anyway, with my short celebration over it was time to test out some stronger moves. The next move that poochyena learns is Howl, but I didn't feel like letting everyone know exactly where I was; especially that houndour who I was going to squish sometime in the future. Next was Sand Attack, but I was pretty sure that I could do that anyway; since it's really just me kicking up some dirt in somebody's face, and I never found that not being a pokémon which knew that move stopped me from doing that to people before. After that was Bite, which would be much easier and way more fun to test.
I looked around for something to test my attack on. Despite the fact that it was almost pitch black by now, I had the same amount of vision, maybe more, than when it was daytime. Yet again, pokémon physics (although maybe this part was more to do with pokémon biology) was taking the upper hand in this world full of weirdos. I soon came across a fallen branch which I could comfortably fit my mouth around. I opened my mouth as wide as possible and surrounded the branch with my gaping maw. I did another countdown and when I bit down on the branch, I was astonished beyond measure.
Where there had once been a whole branch, there were now two pieces of wood which were about a third of the original length, along with the remaining third of the branch in splinters. I spat out the bits of wood that were in my mouth and stared at the desecrated tree limb. I was overpowered! I could beat that houndour without even trying. Or maybe it was normal for pokémon to have this much power. Either way, I think I should maybe change my power-to-weight comparison from one hundred times to one thousand times stronger.
With that test complete, I ticked off bite and moved on to the next move, Odor Sleuth. It would be hard to see whether I could actually use the move, but it gave me an excuse to play around with dark energy. I delved inside of me to try and find whatever the energy that was used to perform all of my special attacks. After plunging my consciousness into myself, I finally came across what seemed to be a pool of a black substance which seemed to be halfway between a liquid and a gas; flowing around in its container but not always sticking to where gravity says it should be.
I reached out to the pool and tried to mentally grab some of it and to my surprise when I pulled on it, the black substance flowed out, following where I directed it to go. I guided it out of my body until I could see it clearly in front of me. I wondered how I could turn this black blob that was floating in front of me into an actual move. Part of the move description of Odor Sleuth was that it lets you hit evasive foes. Does that mean you put it on like goggles or something and then it lets you see where they're going to move?
At the time I had no other ideas for what I could do, so I guided the energy towards my eyes and as soon as it made contact, it literally dived in. I was worried for a second when I realised that I had suddenly lost control of the energy and felt it disappear. However, after looking into my eyes (yes, I know it sounds strange but that's how it felt) I felt the energy inside of them, and once I looked back to my surroundings, I was amazed yet again by my powers.
It was as if I had turned on x-ray vision, only instead of seeing bones, I saw the energy of other creatures which filled their bodies. I could see everything in perfect detail. However, the trees and plants were getting in the way of my vision, so I tried to do something about it. I focused on the energy which filled the plants in the forest, and sort of tuned the energy in my eyes to ignore it. The results were spectacular; I could now see every pokémon in the forest without any of the foliage interrupting my vision.
I tried focusing on just the energy of the pidgeys and as a result could only see the pidgeys. I tried to go even further by singling out a single pokémon and to my extreme delight, I could now only see that one pokémon. I was ecstatic at my discoveries. Why didn't they have this in the games!
I revelled in my newly found powers until I used my reasoning skills to wonder if this kind of enhancement could be applicable to other senses. I moved the energy from my eyes to my ears. Once again, it took time for my body to adjust before the effects started to become noticeable; but when they did I felt it immediately. My hearing was enhanced to a level beyond comprehension. I was bombarded with the sounds of my surroundings. The breathing of nearby pokémon, which before now I couldn't hear, was now as loud as a jet engine whirring a mere few metres away. I could hear the scurrying of other nocturnal pokémon, the voice of a mother pidgeotto trying to get her children to sleep after they were woken up by a loud noise (Whoops, that was probably me). Everything I was experiencing now was something I had never thought was possible before five seconds ago.
Like before, I focused the energy towards different sounds and like before, I could now only hear those specified noises. I tried the same things with smell and touch, and they too were enhanced to the same level as my sight and hearing were. I was able to smell scents from weeks ago which any other pokémon wouldn't have even noticed. I could feel every disturbance in the area around me, sensing the vibrations through the earth to locate the nearby creatures with pinpoint accuracy. I discovered I could even do a four-way split, siphoning equal amounts of energy into each of the aforementioned senses to gain what was essentially a three-dimensional map of my nearby surroundings. Each of the senses separately were no longer as precise as they used to be, but combined they were the ultimate detection tool.
Unfortunately, I had the feeling that none of the powers I just experienced actually had anything to do with the move Odor Sleuth, but I thought that they were way cooler anyway; so I really couldn't have cared less at the time. Maybe if I came across a ghost pokémon I could ask them to help me out, but until then I had other awesome dark energy-related things to do.
I removed the energy from my body and pooled it in front of me. In these last twenty minutes I had found out that I had super strength and super senses; yet I still didn't have a decent ranged attack. Heh, I thought. Nothing that a bit of dark magic manipulation couldn't fix.
I formed the substance into the shape of a thin, pointed rod and directed it towards a nearby tree. It was of a pitiful size, being about a third of the length of a conventional javelin; but it was a start, I guess. With all of my concentration I focused on firing the energy at the tree and it rocketed off into the direction I specified; travelling at such as speed that had it been a physical object it would have ripped right through the tree and come right out of the other side.
Unfortunately for me, I completely overlooked making it a physical object so it flew right through the tree and came out the other side without leaving any mark whatsoever. What it did do though was barrel out the other side at such a high speed that I nearly lost control and let it fly off into the woodlands. Luckily for me, even if they were the only thing helping me in this world, my pokémon powers quickly took hold of the situation and dragged back the energy before it could fly any further than a few metres.
I formed the spear shape again, this time imagining it compacting and turning into a solid object. I stared in amazement as the black substance transformed into a perfectly smooth, translucent black crystal which glistened in the moonlight. I tried to move it around with my mind and to my surprise it followed my directions. I lined it up with a nearby tree and launched it. The results were beyond any of my expectations.
Where there had once been a smooth trunk, there was now a very splintered trunk with an inch-wide hole in it. The improvised spear had travelled straight through. As I searched for the spear, I discovered that the tree behind the original target also had a miniature tunnel that started on one side of the trunk and came right out the opposite side. The next tree behind had also suffered a similar fate. I was continually amazed as I walked past the destruction that my weapon had made. It was only until the fifth tree when I found the crystalline rod embedded halfway into the wood.
I gingerly pulled it out with my mind, worried that it might decide to explode after all of the energy forced upon it, and was ecstatic when I found that I could control it just as well as before. I re-shaped it into a blade and experimented hacking at the nearby bushes which parted effortlessly at the edge of the unnaturally fine blade. That houndour was going to get the surprise of his life when he next saw me.
As I returned to the clearing I absorbed the dark essence and returned it to the pool in my body where I had found it. It seemed as if it had been used up by my experimenting with it as it felt like I was putting back less than I had taken out. I was disappointed at the fact that my powers were a finite resource, but tonight had still been extremely productive. I had found out that I could use both tackle and bite with deadly force; and I could also use the dark power inside of me to either enhance my senses or use it as a powerful and destructive weapon, even if it would run out eventually if I used it too much without giving it time to regenerate.
I sat down and decided to practice a bit more with the energy. I practiced moving it about and forming intricate shapes with it. I tried to change it from its energy state to its solid state and then back again in as quick a time as possible; and I also used some of the unfortunate local shrubbery as targets for some experimental battling techniques. Just as I was about to cut another bush to shreds, I heard what I thought was a tiny sneeze, followed by a cry of 'eep!' as whatever creature it was saw that I had heard it.
I started searching around for whatever had created the noise, but then realised how stupid I was when I could have just used my enhanced senses to find the thing that was hiding nearby. I flooded the energy into my eyes as I scanned the nearby shrubbery. Eventually I found some energy that was in the shape of an... eevee? I called out in the eevee's direction.
"Hello? I can see you, you know", I said, hoping that I didn't scare it off, me being a dark pokémon and all.
"Hi. I'm sorry that I was watching you", came the reply from the bushes. A figure emerged from behind the leaves, and I immediately recognised it as the eevee which I had met earlier today. "I sometimes come here at night, but since you were practicing I didn't want to disturb you."
"Uhh, thanks?", I replied.
"You're welcome!", she exclaimed. "I've never seen those kind of moves before, but they looked really cool. Are they special dark type moves or something?"
The eevee looked so innocent when asking me these questions, yet she didn't have any clue as to what complicated thoughts she was bringing up in my mind. At the moment it seemed like there was a boxing match in my brain between Suspicion and Reason. 'Quick, kill her while there aren't any witnesses!', said Suspicion. 'Don't listen to him, he's crazy. Just make something up and hope that it doesn't catch you out later", said Reason.
If I hadn't realised by now that the world was out to screw me over, I might have been tempted to do what Suspicion said. However, killing an eevee with whom I was seen with by her overprotective mother only a few hours ago, and then having her body found in the direction where I had walked off to was most likely going to give me a bad reputation. And knowing the world, it would make sure that the news was spread so rapidly and exaggerated so much that wherever I went I would be attacked by pokémon who would think that I was a homicidal maniac; which, by that point, I probably would have been if I was listening to Mr. Suspicion for most of my advice.
Luckily, I managed to think of an excuse which didn't sound completely stupid.
"Uhh, its more of a genetic thing."
Okay, maybe it did sound completely stupid; but what's done is done, and I couldn't exactly correct myself otherwise it would just make her think I was even stranger than before. The young eevee tilted her head in confusion for a bit before brightening up and answering.
"Cool! Do you think I could learn it?"
I sighed inwardly at having to talk with someone so ignorant, but maybe it also meant that she wouldn't be able to tell if I was lying or not. Although, judging by my luck, she would probably end up pointing me out on the simplest of questions such as 'what is your name?'. It seemed that the world had heard my thoughts as that was the next question that the eevee asked me.
"What's your name?"
"It's Sam."
"I thought that was a boy's name?"
'Ha!' I mentally exclaimed. Screw you, world; I'd prepared this one ahead of time, and my excuse was specially designed so it meant that I could keep using my old name.
"It's short for Samantha."
"Isn't that a name from Sinnoh?"
Shit. I hadn't prepared for that.
"I was born there", I lied. I knew this was going to spiral out of control from here onwards.
"How come you're over here in Johto then?"
"Umm, I was with a trainer who came over here?", I guessed. It came out as more of a question than an answer, but it turned out that it was a good enough explanation as the eevee asked a different question. Unfortunately, it was even more awkward to answer than the previous one.
"How come you're in the wild then?"
"I ran away."
At least that last statement was partly true. I did run away from a trainer just this afternoon, and he was probably about to capture me. Well, I didn't know if that was true or not; but its the thought that counts, right?
"Why did you run away?", asked the eevee, looking shocked and confused at my answer. She obviously hadn't read any of the pokémon POV fanfics where they get caught in a pokéball and describe how terrible it was.
"Its horrible!", I replied dramatically. "They force you to fight battles against other pokémon for their own pleasure, and they keep you trapped inside these balls for hours on end!"
"Oh", the eevee meekly replied. "I'm sorry I mentioned it."
"Oh no, don't be sorry. Just don't talk about it, okay?"
"Okay."
Whew, that was close. There were a couple of times there when I thought that I would be busted, but I managed to keep up my act to a believable standard the whole way through. I was very impressed with myself. In fact, I felt so impressed that I decided to ask a question of my own.
"Anyway, what are you doing here at this time? Most eevees your age would be asleep by now."
For the last part I faked the voice of a mother who was scolding her child for staying up too late, and to my surprise, the little eevee actually laughed.
"Heeheehee, that sounds like my ma when she's angry at me for doing something I shouldn't", she exclaimed.
"Come on, you still haven't told me why you're here."
The eevee brought her head in close to me and whispered into my ear.
"It's 'cause I want to become an umbreon, but my ma doesn't know. I'm training so I can be big and strong and take on Blaze all by myself."
The sheer volume of determination in the eevee's voice astounded me, but I doubted that she would be able to get far in a battle against Blaze, who was most likely older and had more experience than her. Saying that, I had practically no experience of battling, yet I was aiming to fight the houndour sometime in the next few days. I figured that I might need some extra training, so I decided to strike a deal with the eevee.
"How about we train together then? I want to beat up that houndour as much as you do, and we'll get stronger faster if we practice with another pokémon."
"Sure! I can show you something I learnt yesterday."
"Alright then", I replied, preparing for the eevee to come slamming into me. However, that was not the case.
The eevee took a few steps back so that she was about a metre away from me, and then started growling at me. It was cute at first, but I was shocked when I suddenly became scared of her; a ten year old eevee who I could probably beat in a fight anytime. I couldn't help but give her my respect.
"Wow, I felt really scared for a moment there!", I praised.
"Its cool, isn't it!", she exclaimed as she ran around, growling at random trees and bushes. In doing so, she inadvertently managed to scare a pidgey off from its branch when it looked down to see what the noise was about and was confronted by the eevee's threatening snarl.
"Yeah, remind me not to get on your bad side!", I joked as she ran back towards me.
We spent the next couple of hours fighting with each other, playing what was essentially tag as we hurtled into one another. The eevee was surprisingly strong, and I had a couple of bruises from where she had tackled me. However, she was nowhere near as strong as I was, so I made sure that I didn't accidentally use one of my moves which might have ended up seriously hurting her.
At the end of it, I lay down under one of the trees as the eevee repeatedly pounced on me, trying to get me to play for a bit longer. Despite the fact that I had only been up for six hours, I was extremely tired and felt the need to sleep pressing upon me like dead weight. It seemed that the eevee was also starting to become tired as she lay down next to me; snuggling up against my front as I drifted off into the comforting arms of sleep.