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10 minutes later.

Richard stopped walking when he noticed he couldn't hear a sound from Carter, he feared the worst. He slowly put Carter down from his back and felt his neck for a pulse… There was none, he was dead. Carter stared at him with lifeless eyes. Richard looked him over, his body was badly beaten and there was a lot of blood around his stomach where he had been stabbed. Richard nearly thought Carter to be indestructible, he always went on the deadliest missions and always came out on top even when all the others died around him. Richard just sat on the grassy ground with Carter's lifeless body, unable to think, just wanting this all to end.

It began to rain, but rain wasn't going to move Richard from his spot in the woods. The seconds turned into minutes. Before he knew it, he had been sitting there for a little over twenty minutes. The rain had turned into a storm. He replayed the events in his head, asking different questions. 'Why the fuck couldn't I just push myself off the ground and try find my gun to blow the fucker's brains out? Where did the rookies go? Are they still alive? Or did the big fat fuck kill them?' Richard asked himself a lot of questions but the one that always seemed to pop up was, 'Why am I still alive?'

Richard regained his senses and left Carter's body behind. Only when he stood up did he realize how cold he had gotten, he was freezing. He decided to look for shelter, he knew caves were common in this area, if he could find one, it just might save him from suffering the symptoms of hypothermia. He came across a cave only a few feet away from him and took shelter. Richard was exhausted, the adrenaline had left his body from the fight. Those nasty blows he had received from that man were really starting to hurt. He thought back to when the big man punched him in the face, and that's when he realized it wasn't just rain running down his face. As he thought back, he reached up to his nose. When his hand met his nose, it made him wince in pain a little. He then reached down to his nostrils and found crusty blood. He would have wiped it but he just didn't care anymore and he decided that there's nothing else to do except for wait in the cave till the storm goes down. He decided it was probably safer if he got into the back of the cave. If one of those psychos were still alive and found him sleeping, they would probably torture him before killing him. He slept a little further down the cave with his knife in his hand.

5 minutes later.

Footsteps and heavy breathing were the sounds that filled the cave. Richard was now awake and he knew that someone was there with him, someone who just entered the cave. Richard's grip on his knife tightened and he tried to remain as still as possible, he knew now that choosing to sleep in the darker end of the cave was the right call. He raised his head to try to get a good look at who entered the cave, hoping that its not one of the crazies. Richard looked to the entrance of the cave and was surprised by what he saw. It was a pokemon, black legs, blue thighs, long blue tail, cream colored torso with a spike coming from the center of its chest. It had blue arms, black paws with nasty looking spikes on it's wrists, big blue pointy ears, the head was mostly blue except for a black stripe along where its eyes were and down the middle of its head, that feature kind of reminded him of a raccoon except it looked more like a jackal. Richard knew very little about Pokemon but this one he knew straight away, it was a lucario. He knew them well because they were exceptional fighters, but that made him a little more cautious because if that lucario turns out to be hostile then he may very well get killed by it. Richard just looked closely at it. He or she was breathing heavily, and some blood could be seen on its fur. It looked like it was distressed about something, like it saw something terrible, just like Richard. Richard wanted to talk to it even though his survival instincts told him not to, he wanted to know what happened. He slipped his combat knife down the side of his boot and stood up making a shuffling noise in the process which startled the lucario.

"WHO'S THERE?!" the lucario shouted.

When the lucario shouted Richard realized something, it was female. Richard then stepped out where the Lucario could see him. The lucario examined from a distance, the faux hawk hair style, red hair with blond tips, a cut along the bridge of his nose which looks recent, his grayish blueish eyes, his height around about 5 foot 11 inches, His woodland army jacket stained with blood that didn't belong to him and camouflage trousers and his military issue boots. This only made the Lucario more nervous. Richard could see the fear in her eyes, he didn't want to scare her.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Richard said in a calming tone of voice.

"Wh-who are y-you?" Her voice was trembling.

Richard felt sorry for her, he wanted her to know that he would never hurt her and to gain her trust, he answered her question. "My name is Richard, who are you?" he asked the lucario.

"I… I don't know." The lucario answered looking slightly more calm but still clearly scared.

"You don't know?" Richard replied, more than a little confused by her response.

"No… what happened to you, Richard?" the lucario asked.

"We… I… I came here with 5 other men. We were all mercenaries." Richard stopped after she gave him a strange look.

"So, you were part of a group? Like a clan?" the female Lucario asked curiously.

Richard was wondering why she asked such a question. "Kind of. Anyway, we were tasked with wiping out some crazy killers in the woods and… it just turned into a nightmare..."

Five minutes went by as Richard explained what happened, how he got the cut along his nose and how he got his only friend killed. When he mentioned his friend the lucario noticed him holding back his tears.

"It wasn't your fault," the lucario said as she looked at Richard.

Richard looked at her, that's when he noticed her big crimson eyes. "But I could have saved him," Richard replied, his voice now sounding weak.

A moment of silence passed.

" … My name's Tera," the lucario said.

"I thought you said that you couldn't remember your name," Richard quickly pointed out.

"I had to know that I could trust you," the lucario replied.

Richard could understand, he wouldn't trust someone in blood stained clothes either. "I understand. What happened to you then?"

Tera took a deep breath and looked back up at Richard to answer. "... My clan was slaughtered… Only I made it out alive," she replied whilst moving her head to stare at the ground.

"When did it happen?" Richard asked.

"About two days ago," she said as her eyes appeared to twinkle with tears.

"You've been in this forest all alone for two days?" Richard asked with a little shock in his voice.

"Yes." The lucario looked as if she was going to breakdown into tears.

Richard wanted to calm her, he didn't want her to cry. "I… I'm sorry I brought it up," he apologized.

"... Its fine," the lucario sniffed.

Both of them stayed in the cave, waiting for the rain to pass. As they waited, Richard noticed something. Tera was shivering despite her thick fur. Concerned for her, he decided to do something about it. "Here, take this." Richard said before he placed his jacket over the shivering lucario.

"Thank you." Tera replied as she snuggled into Richards jacket which had been warmed by his body. Richard simply smiled as he saw her close her eyes. Richard tried to get some sleep himself, after shifting positions countless times before he finally fell asleep.

10 hours later.

Tera awoke with Richard's jacket still on her, she smiled slightly when she saw Richard sleeping sprawled out on the cave floor. Richard then awoke moments later and looked up at Tera.

"Hey... Has it stopped raining?" Richard asked whilst trying to rub his eyes.

"Yes," she said flatly.

"Is there something wrong?" Richard asked, sensing something was not right.

"... I don't have anywhere to go," she replied.

"Neither do I… Don't suppose you would like to, uh, travel with me would you?" Richard asked, hoping that she would come with him.

"Why would you want me to come along?" Tera asked, questioning his motives.

"Well a mercenary… Well, make that ex-mercenary, and a Lucario could make quite a team," Richard said to her.

"Y-you want me to be a part of your clan?" Tera asked still wondering whether she heard him right.

"Yep." Richard was slightly amused at the thought of being in a clan.

"Yes, I'll come along with you." Tera gave a big smile, as did Richard.

"But first I'm going to get those cuts of yours looked at," Richard told her.

"They will heal," the lucario insisted.

"I know, but I don't want to take any risks," Richard told her.

2 hours later

Richard and Tera now sat in a cafe they had found, both of them were starving so the counted themselves lucky. Richard dumped his blood stained jacket and wore the green T shirt that was underneath it. Richard noticed the TV on the wall, the news was on showing a "gruesome shootout" crime scene "The body count is estimated at 24" Was all he could make out from the TV with low volume. This made him think if they had found Carter's body yet. Tera could see the depression on his face and decided to talk to him to take his mind off things.

"Where do you come from Richard?" the lucario asked.

The question caught him off guard slightly. "I come from Johto," he answered.

"How old are you?" the lucario inquired.

"I'm 25, what about you?" Richard asked.

"I'm 24. Are you good at fighting?" the lucario responded.

Richard was intrigued as to what set off her curiosity. "Yes I am, can't be a mercenary if you can't fight… well, not a good one at least." As he finished his sentence he thought back to the rookies but quickly snapped his mind back to reality.

"Can you teach me some moves?" Tera asked.

Richard was surprised that the Lucario asked, all the things he heard about them suggested that they were exceptional fighters. He liked the idea of teaching to her, but it would have to wait until they were patched up, his head was still aching from the beating he took last night. "Sure, but it will have to wait until we've recovered. I don't want to reopen any wounds you might have," Richard said, still worried for her.

"Don't worry, I'm fine," the lucario said reassuringly.

Richard sighed. "Okay then, how does tomorrow sound?"

"Sounds great!" Tera said joyfully.

"Ok, but first we need to find a place to stay," Richard told her.

"I think I saw a hotel not too far from here," Tera replied.

"Great, lets head there now," Richard put some pokédollars on the table to pay for the food they had previously ate.

Both Richard and Tera got up from the table they were sitting at and walked out of the front walked out of the front door. The fresh air hit both Richard and Tera as soon as they came out of the cafe and made their way down to the hotel. Richard didn't know what was ahead of him, he only knew that he had better enjoy the peace while it lasted.

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Author's notes: So, this is another chapter I had to edit a lot simply because there was a lot of mistakes. Hopefully now it will make it easier to read for most people. Thank you all for reading this far!