The Quest for the Legends (IALCOTN)

[Dragonfree]

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote any of this. o-O Been too preoccupied with the ILCOE recently.



Chapter 4: Another Pokémon on the Road

Mark still couldn't believe how easy it had been. Even though he had been hoping his plan would work, he hadn't really expected it to; every other time he had tried to convince his parents to let him become a trainer, he had failed miserably.

Asking why they hadn't let him become a trainer earlier only made them mumble something about him being older now, but it sounded like it was just the first excuse they could think of. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of Charmander and Mark and would throw a party when they were gone. Or they had just finally realized that all kids should get the opportunity to train Pokémon, but didn't want to admit it.

He was busy stuffing things into his schoolbag and couldn't believe how people had survived before compression technology for inanimate objects was invented. In a similar fashion to Pokéballs, the small, light boxes he was stacking in the bag actually contained something much bigger and heavier that could be restored to its original size at the press of a button – clearly much more convenient than the old stuffed, heavy backpacks that had once been jokingly referred to as the most difficult part of a Pokémon journey.

"I think I've got everything, Mom," he called as he packed the minimized sleeping bag.

"Good," she said as she came into the room. "Mark, here is some money for a Pokédex – I hear you can somehow use them to pay for things directly from your bank account. I'm not really into that, but we'll be putting a bit of money on your account from time to time. Don't spend too much, though, dear."

"Thanks, Mom," Mark said, taking the money and stuffing it into his pocket. "I think I'm ready now." He glanced at Charmander, who was lying weakly on the floor beside him.

Mark's mother took a deep breath. "Well, good luck, then, sweetie. Don't get yourself into too much trouble."

"I won't, Mom," Mark said with a smile, hoisting the bag onto his shoulders and picking Charmander gently up into his arms.

"Mark!"

He turned around as his father walked hurriedly into the room.

"Well…yeah. Have fun, I guess… stay out of trouble… please do… and… good luck," he said awkwardly before giving Mark a forced pat on the back. Mark's parents both followed him to the door. His mom hugged him tightly in the doorway.

"Mom…" Mark said in a muffled voice, "I'm suffocating…"

She released him. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"Take care, honey… try to be responsible."

"I get it already," Mark said, rolling his eyes. "Bye Dad, bye Mom, I'll maybe call you sometime…"

He smiled brightly at them and then turned around to walk down the street.

"I won't get myself killed!" he yelled over his shoulder with a last wave before turning round a corner. Mark's shout of sheer joy echoed through the neighborhood.

His mother sighed, looking at her husband. "Well… he's gone."

He just nodded absent-mindedly, still staring after his son.

"Do you think he's going to be okay?" she asked quietly.

Mark's father took a deep breath. "I don't know," he said. "But after all… we want him to be happy, don't we?" He looked unsurely at his wife. "And at least… now is better than at the Pokémon Festival."

"Yes, you're right, I guess." She looked down the street that Mark had run down a few seconds before as if expecting him to come back. "Still, we were concerned for a reason."

-------

Sailance was one of the bigger cities in Ouen – crazy as it seemed to somebody like Mark, there were an awful lot of people out there that cherished the idea of living in a city completely devoid of Pokémon. Because of this (and the fact that he lived on the other side of town), it took him a while to get out of the web of streets spun around the city.

He nonetheless enjoyed his journey. Everything seemed brighter than usual despite the cloudy sky; the white, tall buildings that characterized Sailance seemed whiter, the trees planted in between them seemed greener, and even the usually black streets looked more of a friendly gray. While carrying the unconscious Charmander, Mark looked around and for the first time in a long while really thought the city was somewhat beautiful in its own way. Nothing like the outside world, of course – but not too bad.

As he walked under the huge archway that towered over the exit to the city and out into Route 201, however, this began to change as the lizard in his arms started to stir. It was only then that he first realized what he was doing: he had abused a Pokémon's unconsciousness to 'capture' it and was bringing it along with him without its consent.

Pokémon were not toys. That was a rule that had been hammered thoroughly into every kid's head from when they first started school. If a Pokémon was lying unconscious somewhere in your path, even if it was a shiny of your super-rare and powerful favorite Pokémon species, you could not catch it. Never catch it. A Pokémon had the right to a battle unless it volunteered to join you. Anything else was a direct violation of the Fifth Agreement of Pokémon Training, you'd get your license removed and your parents would pay a fine. Catching an unconscious Pokémon was bad. Period, end of discussion and so forth.

Mark quickly justified it to himself. He wasn't taking Charmander by force. He was helping him; heck, he didn't even have a Pokéball to catch him in. Of course he was only taking him to a more Pokémon-friendly area and would maybe ask casually in Cleanwater City, Hey, Charmander, I was wondering if I could be your new trainer? It would never even slip his mind to try to kidnap Charmander in any way. Never. Of course not.

He walked on south, shrugging those thoughts off. Cleanwater City was around the size of Sailance, and the first Pokémon Gym that most young trainers challenged was located there. What made it even more interesting, especially in Mark's opinion, was that the Gym used cloned legendary Pokémon. Supposedly the leader had spent many years of his life chasing down legendaries and collecting hairs and feathers of them, which he had then DNA-analyzed and used to create clones. Despite loud protests from just about every respectable Pokémon trainer organization in Ouen, he had been given some sort of official license to continue this practice as long as he kept the clone-legendaries at bay with specially designed Pokéballs which somehow gave the trainer added control over the Pokémon's actions. It had always rather puzzled most people with knowledge on the subject how Rick could not only get away with using mind-controlling Pokéballs (there were many past examples of people trying something in that direction but they had all gotten a few months in jail) but even get official papers that literally ordered him to do it, but somehow it happened, and the evidence was right there for all to see in the form of the Cleanwater City Gym.

Needless to say, all this was not common knowledge among eleven-year-olds, but Mark had thoroughly researched it, and the reason for that was that he was, for lack of a stronger word, obsessed with legendaries. Ever since he was little, they had fascinated him, consumed his mind and thought. He had read every book about them he had come across at least a dozen times, whined for more every Christmas and his birthday, and now, or so he thought, he knew everything there was to know that even distantly had to do with them. His dream was to lay his eyes on a legendary Pokémon just once in his lifetime. Obviously the clones wouldn't count, but this was one of the many reasons he had been so excited about becoming a trainer.

Mark suddenly realized that Charmander had opened his eyes. He looked slightly dazed, but he was blinking. Mark stopped and put the lizard Pokémon carefully down onto the ground. Charmander shakily got on his feet and looked around.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking up at Mark with a confused expression.

"Er… on Route 201," Mark said hesitantly.

"Why?" Charmander asked and looked around.

"Well, you fainted and we had to do something, so I had to take you out of town," Mark said in accordance with his politically corrected version of the story.

"Alone and with a backpack?" the Pokémon asked with a hint of amusement. Mark sighed.

"I just… really wanted to be a trainer," he muttered, looking down. Charmander would hate him now. He just knew it.

"Well, thanks for being honest," the Pokémon said and didn't sound too angry. Mark looked up.

"I kind of figured," Charmander said and shrugged, but smiled a little. "Never thought you'd actually go ahead and take me out of town without asking, though – how did your parents let you do that, anyway?"

Mark smiled slightly back. "They don't know a lot about Pokémon training and the Agreements. They didn't start teaching that stuff in Sailance until after they made it standard in Ouenian schools, which was just like ten years ago. That was a part of my plan." His smile faded again. "But well… what now?"

Charmander shrugged. "Well… there is a reason I volunteered to be a starter Pokémon in the first place. I wanted to try having a trainer and was ready to take a risk in who I might end up with, and I still am… and you sound really, really desperate." The lizard smiled.

Mark's face broke into a wide grin. "Thanks, Charmander."

"Besides, we've gotten to know each other, and you're a nice guy. Just don't break any more Agreements on me in the future, okay?" Charmander snickered a little. "Now let's go on to Cleanwater. I forgive you."

-------

As so many other things, Mark's extreme happiness at finally being a real Pokémon trainer didn't last very long. When it started raining almost as heavily as the day he first found the Pokémon, he started to worry about Charmander's wellbeing.

"I'm fine," Charmander told him for the two hundredth time. "You're shielding my tail flame when you're walking beside me, and besides, it's nowhere near as bad as that day. If it were, I'd have fainted ten minutes ago."

"Should I carry you?" Mark offered.

Charmander looked at him doubtfully, like he wasn't sure if he should consider it disrespectful to be carried around when fully conscious, but then he looked at his shrinking tail flame and shivered. "I guess."

Mark smiled and picked the lizard Pokémon carefully up. He himself had put on a raincoat when the rain started to get bad, so he was not wet. His mom had of course been the one who insisted that he pack it, and it was a rather ugly bright orange aside from being a bit big for him, but he was thankful for it now.

-------

He ran.

Rainwater trickled down his face and into his eyes. It washed the tears away, but his vision remained blurred. Not that it mattered. He was just running in a straight line anyway, and where it was taking him was the last thing he was worrying about.

And that was why he didn't notice the rock right in front of him.

He tripped and landed headfirst on the damp ground. Still he wasted no more time than necessary, scrambled back to his feet, shook the dizziness out of his head and tried to ignore the stinging pain in his leg. He realized he was limping.

But despite it all, he ran.

-------

Mark walked on for a little while with Charmander in his arms. The rain showed no signs of being about to subside even as the sky slowly grew darker, and to make things even worse, the road lay uphill and Mark was getting tired.

"Why can't they move Cleanwater closer to Sailance?" he groaned.

"Yeah, I really wonder why they don't want all their Pokémon to spontaneously faint and need to be moved in a huff to Alumine," Charmander said and rolled his eyes.

A few moments of silence passed.

"Good point, I guess."

-------

He wanted to give up.

His legs felt like jelly, he was completely soaked with water, and his ears were numb with cold. He gazed weakly at the road just a couple of meters ahead and it struck his mind just to lie down on it right where the hill would block a driver's view of him and wait for death to arrive on wheels. He was sure by now that he was dying anyway, whichever way it went.

He took the last shaky steps through the grass, still not entirely sure whether he was going to continue all the way across the street, but he never had to make that decision. Just as he felt the cold mortar under his feet, his exhaustion got the better of him and he slipped into unconsciousness.

-------

The first, crazy thing that popped into Mark's head when he saw little brown furball on the edge of the road was that it was some sort of a furry handbag that a girl had dropped. He had no idea why of all things it made him think of a furry handbag, but somehow it did.

It did not take him long, however, to realize that it was not a handbag but a small Pokémon, and as soon as he realized that, he took a few steps nearer to it to see what it was.

He blinked.

"It's an Eevee," he said blankly to no one in particular.

Eevee, as everybody knew, were rather rare Pokémon that everybody wanted but only the luckiest could get. Lately, admittedly, special action had been taken to conserve several popular but rare Pokémon species, and supposedly there had been some success in the Eevee department, but still he could not believe that he was looking at a real, living Eevee that was lying on the road just a few meters in front of him with an abandoned Pokéball in the grass just beside it.

He looked at Charmander. The lizard had fallen asleep.

Mark picked the Pokéball carefully up and examined it. The smooth metallic surface was wet, a few grass blades glued to it by the water. As he held it, the raindrops washed some of them away.

He rotated it in his hand so that the red half of the sphere pointed upwards. He fondled the round button in the middle of it as his gaze darted over to the Eevee.

He shook his head as a mental image of Charmander popped up in his head:

Just don't break any more Agreements on me in the future, okay?

Catching an unconscious Pokémon is bad, bad, bad.

Mark sighed deeply. He looked with regret at the Pokéball and then tossed it as hard as he could into the ground, gritting his teeth.

He walked a few difficult steps past the Eevee, seeing its long furred ears hanging limply onto the road. The fur on its forehead was matted with blood. The thick collar of creamy fur around its neck was torn and wet.

Mark forced his eyes to stop looking at it and instead fixed them on the lights of Cleanwater City beyond the hill, trying to focus on the warmth of the Pokémon Center that was waiting for him there. He was not very successful.

"****!" he hissed, turning once again to the small Pokémon that was lying helplessly by the roadside. He put Charmander quickly onto the ground in such a careless fashion that the lizard only just managed to land on his feet after snapping awake in mid-air.

"You'll have to walk," Mark said emptily as he picked up the soft little creature.

He ran bitterly towards Cleanwater with the Eevee in his arms without saying another word. Charmander followed him as fast as he could on his short legs, still confused about what had happened.

An open, slightly cracked Pokéball was left behind them on the road, slowly filling with water as the rain went on.











Chapter 4 Extra: The Ten Agreements of Pokémon Training

1. A Pokémon has, under all circumstances, an unquestionable right to disobey a trainer's command if the Pokémon so desires.
2. In a trainer to trainer battle, a Pokémon may not aim its attacks to be fatal and must, if necessary, decrease its attacks' power on purpose in order to make them relatively harmless. Likewise, a trainer may not order a Pokémon to kill its opponent.
3. A Pokémon currently staying with a trainer should not attack a human for any reason except in self-defense. The same applies to any human assaulting a trainer's Pokémon.
4. Trainers should view Pokémon battling as a sport, and a sport only. Pokémon battles should not be used to settle personal disputes between trainers.
5. A Pokémon has a right to fight any trainer who wishes to capture it, or, if it does not wish to be caught, to escape from the battle. If a Pokémon is captured without opportunity or ability to fight or run, such as when caught unconscious or when too young to fight, it should be regarded as unfairly obtained.
6. Any Pokémon that has been separated from a former trainer against its will and obtained by another trainer should be regarded as unfairly obtained.
7. A trainer is obliged to ensure his or her Pokémon's health and safety at all times. Any Pokémon whose health is violated or not cared for by its trainer should be regarded as abused.
8. Any Pokémon in a trainer's possession has a right to training and excercise. A trainer is obliged to train every Pokémon that he or she obtains appropriately for the Pokémon's endurance and needs. Any Pokémon denied of training should be regarded as abused.
9. Any Pokémon has a right to request to be released from a trainer's care if dissatisfied, and for that request to be respected. In accordance with Agreement #1, a Pokémon may disregard a trainer's orders until released if the trainer is reluctant to follow this rule.
10. If an abused or unfairly obtained Pokémon is not released upon its wish, an attack on the trainer, strictly for the purpose of freedom and no more serious than necessary, should be regarded as self-defense.

 

[Dragonfree]

Okay, chapter five. I actually intended it to cover a great deal more, but it was already this long before the main point of the chapter would even begin, so I figured I should just end the chapter there. Enjoy.


Chapter 5: The Pokédex

The door to the Pokémon Center was flung open with a shrill ringing of bells.

Mark found himself entering a large room with red sofas scattered around it in what seemed like a random manner. Each sofa lay in a curved shape, like the architect had been afraid of straight lines. He looked curiously around; he had never imagined Pokémon Centers to look anything like this. Most of the ones he had seen in movies had a very different interior design.

Realizing suddenly that just about every person in the whole Pokémon Center was looking at him and listening to his panting, Mark tried to look normal, took a deep breath and walked a few steps on the pink, furry carpet that covered the floor. Then he heard a weak knock on the door, smacked his forehead and opened it again to let Charmander inside. A couple of people snickered and Mark felt decidedly like fading out of existence, but he tried to pretend he didn't notice and walked towards the desk. A door was opening just behind it and a red-haired nurse (who at least looked exactly like every Nurse Joy he had ever seen pictures of) stepped behind the counter and smiled at him.

"I – I found this Eevee," Mark said to her as he reached the desk. He laid the unconscious Pokémon gently down on the desk and the nurse picked it up. She lifted its tail briefly.

"Where did you find him?" she asked, running a finger through the blood-matted fur on the Eevee's forehead and frowning slightly.

"On – on the road to Sailance," Mark replied nervously. "He was like this… I mean, I didn't knock him out or anything, if you thought…"

The nurse smiled a little as she held the Pokémon slightly away from her, like she was trying to get a better overall image of it. "I didn't think so. You didn't seem like the type."

Mark stared at her with a dumbfounded expression, somehow feeling a little bit more guilty now for having seriously considered throwing a Pokéball at the poor thing. She didn't notice it as she was picking up something small and red about the size and shape of a cigarette lighter from a drawer on the desk while holding the Eevee on her other arm. The nurse pointed the tool at Eevee and pressed a button, causing it to produce a small beep.

"Oh, hm, he should be fine," she said professionally, reading off the tool and slipping it back into the drawer. "He's young, though. Poor thing should probably still be in a nice, warm den with his mother, not wandering somewhere on the road to Sailance and getting beaten up by wild Pokémon."

Mark's heart sank for some reason.

"You should let me keep him at least overnight," the nurse finished, laying Eevee gently down on the table again.

"Well," Mark said painfully, "it's not like I have any authority over what you do with him."

She smiled in an understanding manner. "That's true. But you brought him here after all."

"Well, good night." Mark shrugged and turned to sit down in a nearby sofa. Only then did he suddenly notice Charmander standing on the floor in front of him.

His heart sank again.

"I'm sorry, Charmander, I was just…" What had he been thinking, anyway? Where had his common sense gone off to when he found Eevee? How could he have suddenly forgotten about his first Pokémon's existence? He mentally hit himself a few times with a baseball bat.

Charmander sighed. "You're making me realize how stupid it was of me to volunteer as a starter in the first place."

Mark looked down at the floor. "I… I… you're not going to leave me, are you?" he asked nervously. "I promise it won't happen again. I mean it."

The lizard smiled. "It's an annoying job, but hey, I did take it after all. It was stressed in our lecture that kids are always a little inconsiderate towards their Pokémon when they start out, and we shouldn't give up on them unless we really don't see any hope for them."

The lizard patted Mark's knee. "So don't worry, I'll make a man out of you." They both snickered.

"Thanks, Charmander."

"So anyway… what was with that Eevee?"

Mark explained the whole story, all the way from when he first saw what made him think of a furry handbag and until he threw the Pokéball away. He was realizing better and better by the minute how stupid he had suddenly become when he saw the Eevee.

"But yeah," he finished, "it seemed such a weird coincidence that there happened to be a Pokéball exactly there. People don't exactly drop empty Pokéballs often, do they? And trainers almost never come to Route 201 at all. I don't get it."

Charmander nodded thoughtfully. "Well, it may not have been as much of a coincidence as you think," he said. "Because you know when that girl threw my Pokéball away and ran off? That was just about there."

Mark stared at Charmander in astonishment. "So you're saying… that was your Pokéball?"

Charmander shrugged. "Well, yeah, most likely. As you said, there aren't a lot of trainers up there generally, and they certainly aren't dropping their Pokéballs all over."

"But then…"

"Yeah, you won't be able to put me in any other Pokéball, unless you go and get this one."

There was a short silence. Mark didn't feel like going out into that rain again at all.

"Let's talk to Joy," he just said, turning back to the nurse's desk. She had clearly carried Eevee off and returned, as the little Pokémon was nowhere to be seen.

"Er… I accidentally dropped my Charmander's Pokéball out in the rain," Mark began lying. "I was in a hurry to get Eevee over here, so…"

"It didn't open, did it?" the nurse interrupted.

Mark blinked. "Well, yeah, it did."

"Then I'm afraid there is nothing you can do about it now. The water will have damaged its inner mechanics already."

"Oh." Mark couldn't think of anything else to say; he wasn't sure how that fact had slipped his mind. "So I just have to go buy a new Pokéball now?"

"When Pokéballs are destroyed," Nurse Joy explained in a manner that made Mark suspect she had made that speech many times before, "the League keeps the Pokémon registered as caught in their database for three days afterwards. This is done mostly to act as a certain countermeasure against theft by preventing thieves from releasing Pokémon, destroying their Pokéballs immediately and then catching them in another ball to make them appear legally theirs before the real trainer can report the theft. Therefore he won't be able to be caught in another ball until seventy-two hours after the League HQ stops receiving signals from his old ball. Until then, he will have to walk or be carried." She smiled kindly.

"Oh… thanks." Mark turned around. He knew he was supposed to know all that, but this had of course been taught in Battling with Mrs. Grodski. Stupid teacher.

"Heard that?" he asked Charmander.

"Yeah," the Pokémon replied. "Well, all the more fun for us, right?"

Mark smiled. "Definitely."

There was a few seconds' silence.

"So… what now?" Charmander finally asked.

Mark shrugged. "Let's find out where we can stay for the night, I guess."

-------

In Cleanwater City, Nurse Joy told him, the Pokémon Center did not offer accommodation as it did in many other cities due to the amount of demand for the Pokémon Center alone. However, a basic hotel existed a couple of blocks away, and all one needed in order to receive a major trainer discount was to pay using a Pokédex.

That, of course, reminded Mark that he had to get himself a Pokédex for that money in his pocket.

He walked with Charmander over to the Pokémon Market next door (the rain was not as bad as it had been, so they did not get too wet) and looked down the many aisles. One with shelves of spray bottles containing healing potions; one with piles of Pokéballs of various shapes, sizes and colors; one with rows upon rows of shiny CD cases containing elusive TM moves… Mark felt dizzy looking at it all. Finally he saw a sign marking the rightmost aisle as "Trainer Equipment", and hurried over with the lizard at his heels.

This department was not very popular at the moment compared to the rest of the Pokémart (which was sensible, Mark figured; the majority of Ouenian trainers received a starter at the Pokémon Festival in Green Town, which was not until near the end of the month). Aside from Mark and one tall, lanky guy looking at the selection of Pokédexes, the aisle was completely deserted.

Mark began to browse through the different available Pokédex colors, but stopped dead when he noticed what the tall young man beside him was holding in his hand.

It was a Pokédex unlike all the simple, differently-colored versions of the same model that lined the shelves. It was small and colored in a smooth black, and from the looks of it, it had two flaps that needed to be opened to unfold it rather than one.

But what was making him stare open-mouthed at it was the white, curved, artistic outline on the surface, showing a shape that caught Mark's immediate attention.

It was his favorite Pokémon of all, Lugia.

And he wanted that Pokédex.

He suddenly noticed that the man was watching him. He was probably a little over twenty, very pale-faced, with dark hair and the shadow of a beard.

"Like it?" the man asked with a smile, holding up the Pokédex so Mark could see it a little better. "It's limited edition. A couple of years old, but some of the finest technology that existed when it was made. The Lugia image was made by that artist – the name escapes me at the moment – who illustrated Balance of Power. Too bad it's a little outdated."

Mark nodded. Balance of Power was a book he owned about the legendary Pokémon of Hoenn; he had recognized the artistic style right away.

"Would you sell it to me?" he blurted out. "I've got… I've got…" He rummaged through his pockets to see if he had any money of his own, but found only the money his mother had given to him. He counted it quickly. "3000 Pokédollars."

The man laughed. "My goodness, you seem enthusiastic! Well, to be honest, I was just going to trade it in for a new one. As I said, it is outdated."

"Who cares?" Mark answered, still staring at the device. "Can you please sell it to me?"

He laughed again. "Well, kiddo, you know what? I like seeing kids with a bit of a flare in them. You can have it – no, really, take it. I've got plenty of money anyway, and because it's outdated it's more of a collector's item – you might need your money to buy a new one. I already deleted my user info from it. All I want in return is you pick me a new Pokédex out of this shelf. All the available colors are giving me a hard time."

Mark stared at him in astonishment as the man handed the Pokédex to him. A voice in his head wanted to be humble and refuse the gift, but another voice silenced it; he was not too keen on risking the guy changing his mind. He took the device and admired it from all angles before putting it carefully into his pocket.

"Wow, thanks… I…" he began, but gave up and restarted the sentence. "You're the best, you know that?"

The guy gave another hearty laugh. "We'll see about that. Now pick a Pokédex for me."

Mark would perhaps ordinarily have been inclined to point at a random one in excitement and then go, but for some reason he couldn't help taking his end of the deal very seriously. He walked thoughtfully past all the Pokédexes a couple of times, picked some of them up and unfolded them to get a better look, and finally picked one that was sapphire blue with red decorations and a white inside.

"Kyogre edition," the man said, nodding thoughtfully. "Good choice. Thank you."

He smiled; Mark smiled back from ear to ear.

"Good luck on your journey," the man then said before turning around. "Don't forget to buy yourself a Pokéball belt – I forgot when I first started out."

"Thanks," Mark replied, and in a few seconds the man had disappeared towards the counter.

Mark blinked a few times and then picked up his new Pokédex again as if to make sure it was really there. He unfolded it and turned it on, just to see exactly how outdated it was.

It first prompted him to hold the scanner up to his eye in order to identify his iris. He did as the device instructed, vaguely remembering that this was always the first step of getting a Pokédex, and removed it from his eye when a beep indicated that he had been successfully identified.

The screen now contained information about him, including his full name, parents, an old, horrible school photo, his grades in Pokémon-related subjects and a brief physical description. Pressing the 'OK' button on the touch-sensitive screen brought up a short-lived 'Saving…' message before it switched to a neat main menu with various options and his ID number in the corner: 0439522166.

He browsed the features loosely for a little while, and couldn't find anything too drastically outdated about it: the Pokédex data itself was updated automatically and wirelessly from the Pokémon League databases whenever it changed, the graphic quality was perhaps a little worse than in new Pokédexes but not by much, and most of the features he missed from the Pokédex handling demos they had been given at school were rather trivial stuff anyway, such as demo videos of Pokémon executing attacks. There were even special features in this one which weren't in the newer ones, like how instead of a still image, each Pokémon's Pokédex entry showed a cool rotating 3D model of the Pokémon. It even had relatively newly-added features, such as the automatic electronic payment. Why the man had wanted to trade it in for a new one was beyond him – it could certainly satisfy the needs of a modern trainer unless he had overlooked something.

Charmander poked his leg. "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. I'm getting hungry. Why don't you get yourself a Pokéball belt and then we can go to the hotel and get ourselves something to eat?"

Mark started. "Oh, right." He turned the Pokédex off and folded it together, admiring the Lugia artwork for the last time before putting it into his pocket. He turned towards the Pokéball belts of all kinds that hung on pegs on the opposite wall.

"Let's see," Mark muttered as he looked through the belts. "****, most of these have some bizarre additional functions." He read aloud to Charmander off the product tag on one of them: "'Biker Belt – complete with built-in bicycle pump.' What the hell?"

Charmander snickered. "There's got to be a normal one there somewhere."

Mark finally found one ordinary kind of brown belt: a Pokédex and six minimized Pokéballs (which came free with the belt) could be attached to it, and that was it. Satisfied, he walked with it over to the reception counter to pay, poking into a couple of aisles on the way to stock up on potions and other essentials with some advice from Charmander. He felt so weird to be buying that stuff; he had been to this Pokémart before, but that was just in a class trip they had taken in Battling (twice, in fact, since he had had to repeat that course) and he still remembered the awful feeling of watching all those kids just his age looking thoughtfully at the price tags of various potions or asking their starter Pokémon which brand of Pokéfood they liked best. Now he was the one buying trainer items, and it was the little kid over there looking at him with envy.

He finally got to the counter, held his Pokédex and the items he was buying up to a scanner and waited a couple of seconds for a beep to indicate a successful transmission between bank accounts. No paper money, no trouble. Over the last twenty years or so, Pokédexes had gradually taken over the functions of all the various gadgets that trainers had previously had to use in addition to the Pokédex itself, but it was only very recently that this process had been completed with the abolition of trainer cards, which had previously had the role of identification and debit cards for trainers. Now the Pokédex was just a mega-gadget, bringing together all the tools a trainer needed.

After exiting the shop and stepping out into the cool evening air, Mark minimized all the items he had bought and stuffed them into his bag, and then – intentionally last – he took his new Pokéball belt and buckled it around his waist before moving his Lugia Pokédex out of his pocket and into the Pokédex holder on his belt.

It was then, at that moment, when it suddenly sank in that it was really happening: he was a trainer. A real Pokémon trainer who would collect badges and compete in the League. He shouted in joy for the heck of it. Nothing could stop him now. Nothing. They would fight. They would win. They would conquer.

"All right, Charmander," he said with a grin. "Let's go."

 

[Dragonfree]

Well, I randomly went on a writing spree (at five AM, of course - what are writing sprees without the burning eyeballs and persistent brain signals urging you to go to bed?) and finished chapter six. I'm not really happy with the final scene, but meh. I might edit it tomorrow or something, before I put it on my site.

Chapter 6: The Lake of Purity

After a good night's sleep, Mark woke up early the next morning, ready for his first true adventure as a Pokémon trainer.

He still couldn't quite believe his dream had finally come true. It had been so sudden. Why the heck had his parents let him go, anyway? He hadn't had any time to think about it properly before – he had been too busy being happy – but now that the novelty had worn out a little, he was profoundly puzzled. If there was one thing he had learned from living with his parents for nearly twelve years, it was that generally they were not at all easily pushed around once they were firmly convinced of something, and if they had not been firmly convinced he should not go on a Pokémon journey, he had clearly missed something big.

He blinked and sat up. Charmander was lying curled up on the floor beside the bed, with his tail resting on the small black stool that a cleaning woman had given him in order that the tail flame would be carefully held a couple of inches above the blue carpet.

"Wake up, Charmander!" Mark said, grinning. After a second without a response, he prodded the lizard lightly.

"Mmmh?" Charmander mumbled sleepily, opening an eye. "What?"

Mark laughed. "Come on, stop being lazy! We're going out to train!"

Charmander shook his head with a subtle smile. "Kids," he sighed jokingly as Mark quickly pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt.

After a quick breakfast at the hotel, the two headed out into the bright sunshine.

"So…" Charmander began, "where are we going now?"

"Lake of Purity!" Mark replied excitedly. "They say Suicune appears there every evening and cleans the water! It's the purest water in the world! And that Suicune banished the…"

"Yes, I know," Charmander interrupted. "I live in this region too, you know."

Mark fell silent. He loved to talk about legendary Pokémon, although he had long since realized that his parents' vacant expressions and not-so-subtle attempts to change the subject whenever he began meant they weren't the right victims for his speeches. He was a little disappointed that Charmander wasn't interested either. But then again, he figured, this legend was kind of common knowledge. Among the inhabitants of Ouen, at least.

They exited the city on the Lake Road which headed in a fairly straight line southwest through a field of tall grass.

"Where are the Pokémon?" Mark asked in frustration after some two minutes' walk. "There are supposed to be Pokémon all over around the Lake of Purity!"

Charmander shrugged. "Well, we are pretty close to the area of the Effect…"

Mark stared over the beautiful landscape of endless flowery hills stretching all the way towards the mountains in the west, and only one thing sprang with annoyance into his mind: there were supposed to be wild Pokémon in tall grass.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get off this road. The Pokémon probably all stay away from it."

"But if they're in this area," Charmander tried to point out as Mark pulled the grass blades aside and began to wade his way through the grass, "then they've already made the choice to be where humans can challenge them, so they hardly – oh, forget it," he finished grumpily and ran after his trainer.

Mark looked through the bits of grass that were tallest and noticed a localized movement, as if there were something moving under the grass. He peered at that spot; the movement came closer to him.

"Look, I found something!" Mark called. "It's a… a… Rattata," he finished with visible disappointment in his voice as a purple-colored rat Pokémon with a curled tail jumped out and confronted him in a slightly shorter section of grass and bared its powerful fangs. The tone of his voice did not escape the Pokémon, who growled in annoyance as if to dare him to take that back.

"Oh, for crying out loud…" Mark moaned as he noticed that Charmander was still making his way towards him through the thick grass.

He sighed to himself as Charmander came up to his side while the Rattata waited and glared at both of them. Being passionately interested in legendary Pokémon only made common Pokémon like Rattata seem all the more annoyingly normal and dull. He decided confidently that this was just his first battle and there was no reason to assume he wouldn't be attracting rare Pokémon by the dozen by the time he got to the Lake.

"Okay, I don't want to catch it," Mark said. "Charmander, Ember!"

The lizard looked at him and folded his arms. "Oh, come on! Don't tell me you don't even know that Charmander can't use Ember until…"

But the Rattata had gotten tired of waiting and used the opportunity to let out a piercing shriek and ram Charmander with a full-body tackle. The lizard, taken by surprise, was knocked over and had to quickly pull his tail up to avoid setting the grass on fire.

"That's your fault," Charmander insisted with annoyance as he quickly got back up, charged at the Rattata and raked his sharp claws across its white cheek, leaving tiny scratch marks in the rat's fur.

"My fault?" Mark asked incredulously. "How is it my fault you can't even like just hit it with your tail flame or something?"

Charmander looked blankly at him as if in sudden realization. "Tail… flame?"

He looked at his fiery tail and then at the Rattata that was already charging at him again.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," he said and grinned before spinning powerfully on the spot so that his tail smacked right into the side of the rat Pokémon's face.

The Rattata was knocked a couple of feet backwards in the grass as it cried out in pain. One of its thick whiskers now scorched, it glared murderously at Charmander with intense red eyes before changing its strategy. Instead of going for another Tackle, the rat instead crouched down, lifted its tail and began to wag it back and forth. Charmander's eyes followed the tip left, right, left…

"Don't let it distract you!" Mark blurted out, but it was too late: the Rattata was already charging, and with yet another Tackle attack, it knocked Charmander off his feet again.

The lizard got up and shook his head.

"Okay, use…" – Charmander looked quickly up at him as the Rattata ran towards him again – "Uh…"

He found himself staring stupidly at his Pokémon with every single attack name he had ever remembered having disappeared from his memory without a trace.

Charmander shook his head and managed just barely to leap out of Rattata's way before finally sending his tail flame flying into its head again, knocking it down into the ground and apparently knocking it unconscious.

"Phew," Mark just said. "Nice one, Charmander."

Nice one indeed. Mark couldn't help thinking he had gotten more in the way during his first ever Pokémon battle than he had helped.

It was all Mrs. Grodski's fault.

He sighed resentfully, glancing at Charmander, but the lizard was already walking firmly back towards the road. Mark shamefully followed.

When they finally came to the Lake of Purity itself, they found it packed with trainers of all ages, some battling it out near the banks, some searching for wild Pokémon in the grass off to the sides, some standing by the lake with fishing rods attempting to fish for Pokémon. And a girl with striking blue hair tied in two thick, sticking-out ponytails in the back of her head, around his age or perhaps a little older, was standing by a huge tourist information sign.

Mark looked around and figured he might as well start by seeing what that sign was about, so he walked up to it with Charmander on his heels.

When he came closer, he saw that the sign was split into two halves. The left side, the one the girl was standing by, was about Suicune and its connection with the lake, which Mark already knew everything about and therefore felt no need to read. The other side was all the more interesting, because it had a large red headline that read 'WARNING: THE DANGERS OF LEGENDARY POKÉMON'.

Mark looked at it in puzzlement and, with interest, began to read.

As Mark had previously been vaguely aware, the lake was off-bounds at and after sunset, and this was supposedly because at least eleven trainers were known to have mysteriously vanished without a trace after staying at the lake to see Suicune appear in the evening.

In fact, those were the only people known to have attempted it for decades, because official restrictions had been put in place after the first three had vanished, and the rest had been those people who had dared to break those restrictions.

It was almost certain, the sign went on, that Suicune had killed those people, and that clearly it did not wish to be watched as it performed its daily purification of the Lake. Therefore, travellers were warned to leave the Lake of Purity well before sunset.

To add to the effect, the sign finished with black-and-white portraits of those eleven trainers. Mark shuddered; the first two were two girls that looked like they had just begun their short Pokémon journey.

Interestingly, none of the Suicune-kills-people stuff had appeared in any of the books he had read, no matter how many pages they had dedicated to Suicune. They had stated that it was not possible to watch Suicune's appearances, but it had always been unclear why. Perhaps this was what he got for reading books primarily intended for children. He couldn't help it; those were the ones with rich, beautiful full-color illustrations, and he was too fond of pictures to want to read a book that was pure text or something with rough sketches.

It was a shame. He had been planning to perhaps try to bypass the restrictions and see Suicune anyway, but he was not all too keen on having his picture – probably that awful school photo, too – added to that sign.

"Uh…" the girl standing beside him said hesitantly. "Are you from around here or what? Or well, do you know anything about this… legend-thing?" She pointed at her end of the sign. "I was reading this, but I don't get it. I'm from Johto so I'm not really into all these Ouenian legends and…"

"You don't know about it?" Mark asked in astonishment, grinning widely at the opportunity to show off his knowledge. "Wow, I have to tell you about it! See, Suicune comes to this lake every evening around sunset and dips a paw into the water – it's an ability of sorts it has, being able to purify water with a touch – and then runs off again. And they say it originally did this to banish the Gyarados that was terrorizing the Pokémon of the lake, because the Gyarados could no longer hide in the murky water to hunt, and then one day after Suicune started doing the purification thing it just disappeared from the lake, and nobody knows how because there are no rivers in or out of the lake that it could have gone through, and well, it just disappeared one night, and they say it purifies the lake every to keep the Gyarados away so it will never return, and…"

"Right," the girl just said, raising her eyebrow slightly before eying Charmander. "Hey, uh, were you just starting out too? Want a battle?"

Mark shut up, a little disappointed that even this girl didn't seem to appreciate his knowledge, but forcibly wiped the offended expression from his face before it got too visible. "Um, sure. I only have one Pokémon, though." He gestured towards Charmander.

The girl shrugged. "Well, I've got two, but no matter. We'll make it a one-on-one, okay?"

Mark nodded in agreement. They stepped away from the sign.

Charmander poked Mark's leg. "Um… are you sure this is a good idea? I was just battling that Rattata, and…"

"Oh, come on," Mark replied lightly. "This can't be too difficult."

Charmander did not look entirely convinced, but took his place in front of Mark anyway. The girl smirked confidently as she reached for the weird necklace she was wearing, and suddenly Mark realized that what he had taken to be pearls of some sort were in fact minimized Pokéballs.

"Skarmory, I choose you!" she shouted as she plucked one of the balls off the necklace, maximized it and threw it forcefully forward.

Mark stared at her calm, focused expression as the ball she had thrown burst open in mid-air and released a white shape that quickly formed into a large vulture-like bird. It gave off a metallic cry as it flapped its wings slowly in the air, bizarrely staying aloft despite the relatively small surface area of its wings.

"Are you going to stand there staring at Skarmory all day?" the girl remarked impatiently.

"Eh…" Mark wasn't sure how to word this. "Didn't you say you just started out?"

"I did," she insisted. "I was in Alumine before here. You know that city has the largest Skarmory nesting grounds in the world just outside of it, right? The reason I came to Ouen in the first place was to catch a young one, actually. It's my favourite Pokémon."

Mark blinked. Sexist as it was, the first thing that crossed his mind was that girls were supposed to like cute Pokémon like Pikachu or Skitty, not large, ugly, powerful Steel Pokémon like Skarmory. He quickly shook that out of his head.

"All right, Charmander, you have the type advantage! Now, uh…"

He remembered that Charmander couldn't use Ember yet.

"…uh? Well, do something?" he said stupidly and Charmander sighed. The girl attempted with little success to suppress a giggle.

"Okay, Skarmory, just take it easy with a Peck. No need to be too hard on it."

The steel vulture gave another metallic cry to confirm the command and swooped downwards with surprising agility considering its body was made of steel. Charmander quickly pulled his tail back and swung it just when Skarmory's sharp beak was inches away from him, hitting the steel bird in the side of its head and knocking it slightly sideways so that its beak missed, instead letting it knock Charmander down with the edge of its wing.

Skarmory crawled back to its feet with a caw and clumsily took off into the air again. The girl frowned.

"Unconventional, are we?" she said coldly. "Skarmory, Swift!"

"Ska-a-a!" the bird screeched as it flapped its wings harshly just above Charmander as he was getting up. Hundreds of sharp, glowing, metallic feathers rained down at him; he tried to duck out of the way, but the feathers smoothly turned after him like tiny heat-seeking missiles. The lizard threw himself face-down on the ground, shielding his head with his paws as the razor-sharp feathers sliced into his scaly skin one after another.

"Why don't we just assume I won?" the girl said impatiently as the last steel feathers dropped into the grass around Charmander. "I can tell Skarmory to use Swift as often as you like. There is no need for him to come any closer than this to the ground, and from the looks of it your Charmander can't hurt him from down there yet."

Much to Mark's surprise, Charmander rose up and gritted his teeth before he could answer. He swung his tail upwards so that hot embers flew from the flame into the air. The steel vulture yelped in pain as some embers scorched a few spots on his wing, but he simply flew a little higher up where Charmander's Ember couldn't reach him.

The lizard sighed. "I guess she's right," he said grudgingly.

"All right, I forfeit," Mark said dully, his pride a little hurt. The girl smiled triumphantly and recalled her Pokémon back into its ball.

"Thanks for the battle. I've got to run now. See ya."

And without as much as a glance back at him, she hurried down the Lake Road.

"Wait!" Mark shouted. "What level is that Skarmory of yours, anyway?"

"Seven," the girl called without turning around before disappearing over a hill.

Mark felt more than ever that he was really, really bad at battling.

"She's been using TMs," he muttered, guessing more than knowing that Skarmory would not be likely to have learned Swift naturally by level seven. "Cheap…"

Charmander shrugged and winced as he looked at his back. "Don't think about her; she's just some random girl you're never going to see again. Got a Potion to put on these cuts?"

"Oh… right." Mark quickly looked at Charmander's scratched hide, swung his backpack off his shoulder and dug around in it for the right little box. The downside to the easily stackable minimized items was that one couldn't just feel them and know what it was from the shape.

Finally he found what he was looking for, pressed a button to maximize it into a bottle of healing potion and quickly sprayed some over his Pokémon's back. He watched in astonishment as the cuts practically closed before his very eyes. The regenerative abilities of Pokémon truly were every bit as amazing as they said.

"Ahh… that's better," Charmander sighed in relief. "Now… what next?"

Mark looked around. "I say we get to that side of the lake where there aren't fifteen tourists standing in every square foot."

Charmander nodded, and they walked together out of the crowd along the edge of the beautiful lake into the more grassy areas on its east side. The water was downright impossibly clear. Had it not been for the sunlight reflecting off the soft waves, he would have thought the fish Pokémon drifting by were swimming in thin air.

He painfully remembered he wouldn't even be able to see Suicune perform its nightly purification act, forced his eyes off the water and looked around for Pokémon in the grass.

And then he bumped into a tree.

"Ow," he groaned, rubbing his face as a brown bird with a crest of red feathers on its head flew up from its nest in the top of the tree, swooping down with an angry chirp to annihilate this disturbance.

"A Pidgeotto!" Mark gasped as he saw it. "Charmander, Ember! I'm catching this thing!"

The lizard span around, releasing a flurry of embers from his tail flame as the bird approached. Pelleted by hot soot, the Pidgeotto let out a cry of disdain before turning to Charmander, diving and, to Mark's horror, grabbing Charmander in its talons.

"Hey!" Mark shouted. "Let him go!"

The Pidgeotto flapped its wings a few times, heaving the struggling Charmander off the ground with some difficulty and then flying out over the lake.

"Let go?" it chirped nastily and released a couple of claws off Charmander's scaly hide. The lizard was frozen in fear at the sight of the fatal water straight below him.

"No!" Mark squeaked, wide-eyed. "Get over here and then let him go! Please?"

The bird Pokémon threw its head in disdain. Mark watched in terror as Charmander seemed to be slipping out of the bird's grip.

"I'll leave and never bump into your tree again, I promise!" Mark pleaded. "You know the Agreements, right?"

Finally satisfied, the Pidgeotto flew back over the bank just as the lizard slipped out of its talons, fell down on the ground and took a few harsh tumbles in the grass before coming to a halt.

"Charmander!" Mark shouted, picking his Pokémon up. "Are you all right?"

The lizard shivered. "I think," he mumbled.

Mark hugged the lizard, almost subconsciously. He could feel the rapid but calming heartbeat of both of them against his chest. It seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong was going wrong. Part of him wanted to just go home and forget about being a trainer. The other part was stubbornly determined that he could manage to enjoy himself at this, no matter how badly things were going now.

"Do you want to continue?" Mark finally muttered. "Or should we just… go home?"

Charmander looked at him. "Go home? Now? And make this crap be officially for nothing? Are you mad?"

He gritted his teeth and forced himself out of Mark's arms, jumping down to the ground as Mark watched in astonishment. "Come on," the Pokémon said. "Let's see if there are any Pok…"

He stopped, and Mark looked quickly in the direction he was looking in.

What appeared to be a ball made of yellow scales lay motionless on the grass a few feet away. It definitely hadn't been there earlier. It only took Mark a second to realize that it was not just a funny yellow ball – it was a Sandshrew, and he was going to catch it.

"Ember!" he shouted, but Charmander had had the same idea and was already shaking a flurry of small embers at the curled-up Pokémon. The Sandshrew twitched at the feel of the glowing ash's touch, but remained steadfastly in its tight defensive ball.

For a few seconds, anyway.

Then curiosity got the better of it and it uncurled slightly for a look, which Charmander was quick to exploit, slamming his tail flame mercilessly into the little armadillo Pokémon's face. It squealed in pain and Mark couldn't help feeling a little sorry for it.

He forcefully pushed the feeling away, figuring he'd have to get used to it if he was going to be a trainer. He saw the Sandshrew uncurl and prepare to run away, its face still scorched. Mark wondered if Charmander had blinded it, perhaps permanently. He had another twinge of guilt as he watched Charmander leap at the little armadillo with a growl, attempting to scratch at its vulnerable underbelly with his sharp claws.

"That's enough, Charmander!" he called, plucking a Pokéball from his belt and nervously preparing to throw it as the lizard looked at him and stepped quickly aside. He tossed the ball awkwardly, nonetheless managing by miraculous chance to hit the Pokémon. He watched wide-eyed as the Sandshrew dissolved into a mere shape of translucent, glowing red which was then neatly sucked into the Pokéball as the device closed tightly around it.

Mark watched the white button on the middle of the ball, now glowing with a faint red color as the Pokéball wobbled in the grass. It was amazing how much more intense the wobbling seemed to make the Pokémon capture process. He clenched his fist, muttering some words of hope under his breath.

And the ball burst open at the last moment, allowing the Sandshrew to rematerialize as a glowing shape of white light.

"Stop it from running!" Mark blurted out to Charmander as he plucked another Pokéball from his belt. The lizard quickly moved into the armadillo's way and smacked his tail into its face again.

Mark threw the second ball, and just as the Sandshrew recoiled in pain, the Pokéball struck it and sucked it inside.

The ball wobbled once, twice, thrice.

"Do it!" Mark hissed at the ball just before it stilled on the ground, the red glow of the button fading as a little ping sound confirmed the successful capture.

He stared at it.

He blinked.

"I caught a Pokémon," he said stupidly as the fact seeped into his head.

"Duh," Charmander replied. "Aren't you going to take it?"

Mark picked up the ball and realized dimly that he had an extremely dumb grin plastered over his face.

"Oh, yeah. Nice work, Charmander," he added quickly as he motioned to put the ball back on his belt, but then hesitated.

"Go, Sandshrew!" he said, dropping the ball to the ground where it popped open and released the armadillo again. It blinked a few times and glanced fearfully at Charmander before looking up at Mark.

"You… caught me?" it asked, and Mark identified the voice as masculine. He just nodded.

"Oh," Sandshrew just said. "Okay."

Mark noticed the scorch marks on his face. "Here, let me see that."

He knelt down and touched the Pokémon carefully. Sandshrew twitched at the touch of his hand, but allowed him to stroke his scales briefly as he dug into his backpack with his other hand and found a Potion.

"Just stay still," he said nervously. As he sprayed the soothing healing agent onto Sandshrew's wounds, he couldn't help having another stroke of guilt.

"You definitely… you don't mind being caught, do you? Because I can release you and all, if you…"

"It's fine," Sandshrew insisted dully.

Mark looked sceptically at him for a few seconds, but then sighed. "Okay, I hope you don't mind if I recall you now…"

Sandshrew just shook his head, but then hesitated as Mark took out the Pokéball.

"Are you good?" the Pokémon asked nervously, looking up at his new trainer.

Mark stared at him, thinking of the Pidgeotto, the Rattata and the girl with the Skarmory, and was too honest to give any other answer than a hopeless mutter of, "No, not really."

The Sandshrew sighed, and Mark was quick to add, "Well, I just started out. I'm sure I'll get better."

"Doesn't matter," the Pokémon said dully. "Just recall me and send me out if you need me."

Mark was going to say something, but abandoned the notion midway through opening his mouth to speak. He closed it again, took out Sandshrew's Pokéball, maximized it with a press of the white button in the middle of it and pointed it at the Pokémon. A beam of red light shot out of the button, hit the little armadillo and dissolved him into an intangible shape of red that was then absorbed into the ball.

"Well, nice," Charmander finally said. "Let's go on, shall we?"

Mark had nearly placed Sandshrew's Pokéball back on his belt when he remembered he still had not registered Sandshrew as caught in his Pokédex. He picked it up with a strange thrill, turned it on and pointed it at the Pokéball. The blue light on the top of it lit up, and silently, data was displayed on the screen – he had turned the voice function off.

SANDSHREW: Mouse Pokémon
This Pokémon is known to be timid and curl up into a ball that is almost invulnerable to physical attacks when assaulted rather than fight. They live in colonies of twenty to thirty individuals, both evolved and unevolved together.

He looked at the stats; Sandshrew was apparently level six and would be expected to be able to use Scratch and Defense Curl. He took a quick look at Charmander, but then remembered that the lizard Pokémon wouldn't be able to be registered as caught to his Pokédex until after he got a new Pokéball of his own.

"Well," Mark just said. "Let's train some, all right?"

Charmander nodded in agreement, and they walked towards the forest.

-------

Mark came to his senses when he realized suddenly that the chatter that they had heard faintly throughout the day from the other end of the lake was no longer there. Charmander was just chasing a Pidgey away. Mark hadn't felt like catching any more Pokémon that day; Sandshrew's dull acceptance had been a sort of mood-killer for it.

He looked quickly at the northeastern bank of the lake, where the Lake Road headed back to Cleanwater, and saw that the tourists were all gone. The sky there had turned a dark purplish blue. He turned slowly around and saw in horror that the western sky was glowing with the pinkish red of the sunset.

Sunset.

Suicune.

I shouldn't be here, Mark realized in panic, the information sign flashing across his head with the uncomfortable addition of his face at the end of the row of trainers killed by Suicune.

He could have run for it right there and then, but something stopped him – perhaps the same something that had made him forget about the time. This was terrifying and exciting at the same time. Since he was there anyway, some voice in his head pointed out, why not just stay and see Suicune after all…?

Charmander looked up at him. "What are you…"

He stopped dead when he noticed what Mark had.

On the opposite bank, a large, four-legged shape dashed out of the forest and stopped at the edge of the lake. The large crystal formation on its head glistened in the fading sunlight; the purple cape extending back from its neck and the white ribbons levitating magically by its sides rippled in rhythmic waves on their own accord.

It was Suicune, and it was the most amazing thing Mark had seen in his life.

"It looks so much cooler in real life than on pictures…" he breathed.

Then Suicune looked up.

He saw two eyes look at him from underneath the crystal head crest, and felt his heart beating wildly in his chest. For a couple of seconds, he was frozen in fear, certain that Suicune would run over the surface of the lake and kill him.

But the legendary Pokémon ignored him, looked down at the lake and carefully dipped its right front paw into the water. It was only a momentary touch, but immediately ripples of purification began to spread over the surface of the lake, impossibly cleaning what was already mind-bogglingly clear.

He only had a fraction of a second to realize this, because just at that moment he got a much better thing to think about. The giant head of a blue, dragon-like sea monster burst out of the water with a terrifying roar on Suicune's end of the lake just as the legendary Pokémon sprinted back into the forest it had come from.

A Gyarados.

The lake was impossibly clear. Any seeing person could convince himself by just a quick glance at it that there was no Gyarados in it. Which was the reason it had always been clear that if there ever had been a Gyarados in the lake as legends told of, it certainly had somehow disappeared, whether it was Suicune's doing or not.

And yet he was now looking at one – a Magikarp that had just evolved, somehow? But why would a Magikarp evolve now when there was not a single case of a wild Magikarp in that lake evolving in documented history?

Mark suddenly realized that the Gyarados had noticed him and was quickly swimming towards him.

While foolish adventurousness and legendary-obsession had driven him to stay there while Suicune purified the lake, he was not foolish enough to stay on the bank with a Gyarados rapidly approaching. He found himself screaming at the top of his lungs without even knowing why he was doing it, turning rapidly around and running towards the northeastern end of the lake with the welcoming road to Cleanwater City as fast as he could with Charmander on his heels.

"No! Don't leave!"

Mark was so startled by hearing those words that he stopped. It would not for a moment have fooled him to hear the Gyarados try to utter something in order to get him to stay there so it could eat him, but what got him was that the words were not a roar of Pokémon speech. It was a roar of perfectly understandable human English.

He turned around, an increasingly convincing voice in his head telling him this was just a crazy dream. "You… you can speak human?" he croaked stupidly.

"I don't know how," the Gyarados replied quickly, again in English. It was just by the bank now; he could see its lips move as it talked. "Please don't leave. I need you to…"

Mark found himself walking slowly back towards the lake in spite of Charmander's tugs on his trousers and hisses of, "What are you doing? Have you gone insane?"

The Gyarados looked at him but then stared down and shook its head. "Don't come so close," it said.

"What?" Mark asked, his legs taking another doubtful step.

The Gyarados looked at him again with frantic despair in its bloodshot red eyes. "Do not come any nearer to me," it repeated in a low growl, "or I will be tempted to eat you like the others."

Mark stopped. "Oh," he squeaked, by now scared out of his wits but somehow unable to get it out of his head that he'd be even worse off trying to run than not. "What others?"

"The ones on that sign," the Gyarados just said before taking a few quick breaths. "Listen, you have to get me out of here. Anywhere. Away from Suicune. Please."

"Sui…Suicune?" Mark asked in puzzlement, trying to rip his legs off the ground so that he could run away already.

"Just catch me in a ball and take me away!" the Pokémon hissed. "I'll serve you for the rest of my life! Please!"

Mark managed to take a struggling step backwards and saw that the Gyarados didn't attack him.

"Don't leave me like this," the Gyarados said with broken despair in its voice. "Please…"

Mark stopped to think; Charmander was still pulling on his pants.

He took a deep breath.

"O… okay," he finally said and grabbed a Pokéball off his belt. Later he would never know just what it had been that had made him make the decision to believe that the Gyarados was not just trying to con him into something. All he could come up with was that he had simply reasoned that if the Gyarados had wanted to kill him, it wouldn't have stopped him from coming close enough for it to strike.

In any case, what he did was throw the Pokéball.

The Gyarados didn't even struggle.











Damn, that chapter had a lot of italics. o_O

 

[nylanalily]

nice story! this is the second fic i got to read here at pokecomm and this is really good!

anyway, do u have other stories or do you know some good ones? I am itching to read great stories and recommendations are truly appreciated..:D thanks!