- 79
- Posts
- 13
- Years
- Seen May 24, 2013
Heh, most people seemed to find it funny or just weird.
Well, they haven't been in the cold very long (presumably Zinzolin has a heated office attached to the cold storage), so it hadn't affected them as much yet.
Since you've read the next chapter already, I don't think it's much of a spoiler when I remind you he didn't actually abandon him; he just went to get help.
I was thinking more of a small prick with the tip of its tooth than it impaling him on its teeth.
Thanks. It's indeed very long, but the next chapter is even longer! In fact, it was the longest chapter of the story until yesterday, when I finished the seven-and-a-half-thousand words long chapter 50.
Yeah, they really are giving me amazingly nice reviews there. I hope you liked the story. Anyway, now for the end of the flashback:
Chapter Thirty-Three: Full Circle
Boreas struggled in panic against the stomach's tight embrace. He had already tried to open both exits with all his strength, but hadn't stood a chance against the powerful muscles. If he pressed hard on one side, he could feel the ground outside, which the Seviper seemed to be slithering over. His breathing was very fast and ragged as he struggled.
I'm going to die in here! He thought, I'M GOING TO DIE IN HERE!!!
He tried to get himself under control. Calm down.
No, I'm going to be digested alive!
Not if I stop panicking and think my way out of here! He tried to get his rapid shallow breath under control and stopped struggling. He noticed the parts of him that were submerged were getting very itchy, but tried not to scratch because that would probably only make things worse. He realised there was little chance he would manage to get out on his own, so he would have to try and appeal to his enemy's better side, if it had such a thing, for a chance of mercy.
"Hey!" he said loudly, hoping Seviper would be able to hear him, "Seviper, what is your name?!"
"None of your busssinesss," a hissing voice sounded far away.
"Uh... Well, hi anyway, my name is Boreas!" Boreas thought that if he could make her see him as a person, rather than prey, maybe she would spit him out, "meeting you is a... let's call it a unique experience."
"Could you be quiet and ssstart sssquirming around again? That ticklesss very nicccely."
"I just want to tell you a bit about myself, if that's okay with you."
"I don't care," hissed Seviper, "I'd rather you were quiet, becaussse I'm going to take a nap to digessst you."
"Are you sure? I mean, I'm not just any prey, I'm a sentient being like you! I have hopes and dreams like you, and have friends like you, and I really, really like to live, like you. So, um, could you please show how good a person you are and spit me out?"
"No."
"Please? Don't you realise how cruel this is? You're sentencing another sentient being to a very slow, painful death. Won't you please let me out? I surrender, so you might as well let me out."
"No! You are nothing but food, and I eat food!"
"But I'm not food! Can't we solve this like fellow civilised beings?"
"You tassste like food and you fill my belly, ssso you are food."
"Imagine the pain I'm going to go through!"
"Yesss, they alwaysss sssquirm delightfully for hoursss before finally sssettling down."
"They? You mean you've done this to someone before?"
"Oh yesss. Not often, but occasssionally. Live prey tassstesss very good and isss niccce and sssquirmy."
Boreas was horrified by the thought that others had been eaten alive by this Seviper before, in part because it meant his chances of negotiating his way out were very tiny. "Please let me out? I have a mate and sixteen cubs, what will they ever do without their father? I can already imagine poor... Stephen crying for his daddy, and how will little... Marina cope with her father's death? And what about young... uh... Flapdoodle? Can you live with the idea of him growing up without his father? Please don't don't do this, for my kids if not for me."
"That'sss what all prey sssaysss if they get the chanccce."
"Do you want sixteen grown-up Eevees coming after you to avenge their father?"
"If they come after me, if they exssissst at all, I will welcome them. They can go the sssame way as you."
"Spit me out right now! If you don't, my friends will cut you open to rescue me!"
His fleshy prison shook with the snake's laughter. "Your friendsss are either dead or dying. I didn't even bother continuing the battle, becaussse my friendsss were winning ssso overwhelmingly. I've gone outssside, where it'sss warmer."
"Let me out! Don't you see how unbelievably cruel this is?!"
"No. Ssshut up."
Desperation was setting in now as Boreas was beginning to see the snake would never let him out. "Please!" he begged, "I... I will turn to your side! I will help you kill my friends if you let me out!"
"Too late."
"Please!" he begged, "I- I don't want to die!"
"Ssshould have thought of that before fighting Team Plasssma."
The horror of the entire situation threatened to overwhelm Boreas as he realised he would never get out. "O-okay," he said glumly. "You win. I will be your prey. If you spit me out, I will let you kill me without resisting. And then you can eat me."
"Why ssshould I ssspit you out? I like you where you are now."
"Because it will be unbelievably painful for me! If you're going to kill and eat me, at least give me a quick death."
"Too late. You ssshould've thought of that before I ssswallowed you. Now let me sssleep."
A last bolt of desperate fury went through Boreas. "You complete evil monster! I will freeze you from the inside once the paralytic wears off!"
"It won't wear off for hoursss."
Boreas tried to make cold in a single, focused point, and found it was incredibly difficult, but with titanic effort managed to. He aimed right for where the heart was, and shot the Ice Beam from his forehead. The snake shook with laughter. "Hey, that ticklesss, do it again!"
But Boreas couldn't. He had managed to overcome the low dosage of paralytic coursing through his veins through sheer force of will, but it had taken him an effort as if he had run a marathon up mount Everest. He just lay in the stomach panting. His final hope had been blown to smithereens. His skin was horribly itchy, and was beginning to sting with pain in several spots already. He realised that soon he would be in similar pain all over, which would grow worse and worse until he would lay there screaming in agony while his skin dissolved slowly. He wondered if he would die once his skin had dissolved, but realised there was little chance of such a quick way out, as the veins in the skin were tiny and would almost immediately close themselves, so he would lose little blood. Once his skin had been digested, the gastric acid would continue its horrifying job as it began work on the tissue underneath. He was pretty sure the major organs were all deep within the body, so he wouldn't die of damage to them. He realised he would probably die of blood loss after many hours of torment when the acid finally began destroying his major arteries.
As the horrifying realisation filled his mind, he sat there hyperventilating in panic. Then he just burst out struggling and screaming. "NO! Please! Kill me quickly, anything but this! I don't want to die like this!"
He stopped the useless struggling and cried. The tears streamed through his fur as he thought of the terrible fate that was already happening to him. He let out a loud wail for himself.
Then a grim, cold determination set in. Enough self-pity, justified though it is, he thought. I have one final option to save myself from that: I'm in a room mostly filled with liquid; I could drown myself.
Drowning himself in the acid would be quite horrible, especially when he couldn't stop his breathing reflex any more and began breathing the acid, but it sure beat being digested alive.
So this is it, he thought with complete calmth. This is how I die. I drown myself inside a Seviper.
He couldn't help but chuckle with gallows humour at the irony of having escaped being eaten by Zangeese only to be eaten by their arch nemesis eleven months later. At least those eleven months had been fun; with the exception of a few days he wouldn't have wanted to miss them for anything. He took a deep breath and prepared to plunge his head under the horrid liquid, but then realised that was a bad idea, as he was trying to give himself a quick death. He breathed out, collected his courage, closed his eyes, and sunk his head under the surface. He felt himself rapidly running out of breath and shifted positions so it would be harder for him to get his head back above the surface if he lost courage.
Suddenly the entire stomach shook violently, he heard Seviper scream in agony, and a light shone past his eyelids. He almost opened his eyes to see what it was, before realising that would be an enormously bad idea. He resurfaced, wiped the acid away from his closed eyes, and opened them as his meaty and dangerous prison moved violently. He couldn't believe his eyes: light was streaming in through a minuscule hole in the wall.
The entire stomach jerked fiercely along with its owner. "That wasss the lassst missstake you ever made!" Seviper roared furiously. "I'll make you sssuffer for that!"
"No!" A furious voice came from outside, "eating Boreas was the last mistake you ever made, you fiendish creature!"
Boreas put his eye to the hole. Though tiny, it was bleeding massively and hard to see through, but his heart jumped with joy as he saw Octa on its other side, with his Leaf Blade drawn and covered in blood, dodging the Seviper's attacks like a master swordsman. He looked far more furious and impressive than Boreas had ever seen, his eyes ablaze with furious determination and a single-minded purpose in every move. "Octa!" Boreas called, "Octa! You're a sight for sore eyes!" he tried to widen the tiny hole that Octa had cut all the way to the Seviper's stomach, but found the flesh was far too strong to tear.
"Boreas, my dear fellow!" Octa said, his voice soaked with joy, "how joyful I am to hear you are still alive." Boreas was thrown away from the hole as the snakes battled each other.
"If you like your friend ssso muccch," Seviper seethed, "you can join him inssside my ssstomach and ssspend your final hoursss being digesssted together! After I bite your limbsss off for what you did!"
"You, milady, are a cruel monstrosity and a barbarian, and do not deserve to have your name capitalised. Your Mephistophelean maliciousness brings a black mark of shame to all those who have the misfortune of sharing a species with you."
"Do you think you ssstand a chanccce againssst me with that puny leaf?"
"I have already demonstrated it has the required attributes to stab into your stomach. That is all I shall need to deliver this planet from your vileness and rescue my dear friend."
Boreas tried to follow the battle by looking through the hole Octa had carved, but most of the time it wasn't facing Octa, and it was too small and too filled with blood to see much anyway.
"Ssstabbing sssomeone in the gut while they're asssleep... Zssinzssolin warned usss our enemiesss were evil, but thisss isss an unexsspected low."
"Do not speak to me about low actions. Your own actions are so low I'd imagine mining companies would be willing to pay you generously to have them mine metals from the Earth's co- ARGH!"
Octa yelped in pain. Boreas pressed his eye to the bloody hole, and saw his friend was backed against a stone wall, bleeding from a large cut and trapped.
"Hehehe," Seviper laughed, "time to join your friend inssside my tummy!"
As Seviper was about to strike, Boreas decided he had to do something. With another outpouring of titanic effort, he created another Ice Beam and fired it straight at the wound Octa had made. Seviper jerked back in pain, and Boreas pushed himself against the stomach's dorsal wall. Just in time, as a razor-sharp Leaf Blade sliced the stomach open lengthwise. As he was flushed out the opened stomach in a flood of gastric acid and blood, he heard Seviper scream. He landed on grass, panting heavily and exhausted, but happy to be out in the air again.
"To leave you to bleed to death would be a merciful thing to do," Octa said grimly, "compared to what you tried to do to Boreas. But I shall be even more merciful and give you the quick death you never had the decency to grant my friend."
Seviper, lying flat on the ground with a large part of its front side cut open, hissed at Octa and tried to bite him.
"We both know a wound of this extent is impossible to survive. You shall bleed out within minutes."
Seviper paused, then exposed its throat to Octa. "Make it quick."
Boreas looked away and heard a loud slash and gargle. He tried to stand up. "Octa... You saved me!"
He was about to hug the Servine when he got to his feet, but thought better of it because he was still drenched in acid and blood. Then Octa surprised him by hugged him instead. "My dear fellow, I almost lost hope when I came outside and saw the bulge at its stomach had stopped moving."
"Both of us," said Boreas, "I was trying to drown myself to avoid being digested alive."
"I apologise for not being here sooner, the guards gave me a bit of trouble."
They stood there embracing each other, when Boreas really began noticing the burning sensation on his skin again. "Octa? I think I'd like to wash myself right now."
Fortunately the cold storage was right next to the river, so they could jump straight in. Underneath Boreas' fur, his skin was red and sore, but it seemed he had escaped with nothing worse than that. The wound Octa had received didn't seem to be poisoned either.
"Now, my dear fellow," said Octa, "I'm afraid we shall have to go back inside to help the others."
Boreas had completely forgotten about the battle in his joy to be alive. "Of course! But, Octa, Seviper poisoned me with something that is inhibiting my powers. I can make Ice Beams, but it's extremely tiring."
"Then you shall just have to use that quick mind of yours instead," Octa said as they ran inside, "It seems the only way we are likely to defeat the remaining five pokémon in the first place."
"Well, I'm glad you don't put me under any pressure," mumbled Boreas.
In the inner part of the cold storage, Boreas found the guards were all knocked out. "Did you do this on your own?"
"Yes. They attempted to obstruct my way as I came to rescue you."
Their friends had clearly lost the battle. Capella was writhing on the ground in agony, every vein in her body clearly visible under her skin in an obvious and disturbing black. Selene was buried in a mound of sludge, heavily struggling against its pull to keep her beak in the air. Toxica, who was missing one of the leaves on her head, was clutched in Drapion's death grip. Black's still body lay were Seviper had left it, so at least he was out of direct danger for the moment.
"Octa, I've got an idea, but it'll probably result in broken bones and/or necks for both of us," said Boreas.
"Do tell. If it can help us save our comrades, we should execute it."
"Look at that high stack of containers there, it looks very unstable. If I climb to the top, I bet I could make it fall over just by shifting the goods in the top container. You would have to draw all five of them to the spot under it and keep them there for as long as possible. Only, there's a large chance either or both of us would get crushed along with them."
Octa nodded. "I shall give you a few minutes to climb to the top, my dear fellow. Be quick about it, for I shan't be able to hold all five of them off very long. And just in case we shan't see one another again, I want you to know it's been an honour to consider you my friend."
Boreas nodded. "It has."
He ran to the unstable stack of containers and saw just how hard it would be to climb them. Each container was three metres high and made of solid, smooth metal. The only grabbing point on the containers was the heavy handle on the doors, which was about halfway up. Each container's front side was in the same direction, so Boreas decided to climb that side of the stack.
He pulled himself up on the handle of the first container, carefully placed his rear legs on it, and stood up on two legs. He still had almost fifty centimetres to go before the top of the container. He jumped up, and just managed to grab the edge. He pulled himself up and managed to stand on the thin ledge the second container left because it wasn't stacked evenly. Six more to go. He was beginning to wonder if Octa might have the easy half of the plan when he saw that the third and fourth container were stacked evenly, without leaving ledges to stand on between them, and that the sixth container even overhung the fifth. But he would tackle those problems when he got to them, first he had to climb the second container.
When he pulled himself up to the door handle halfway on the third container, he took a look down and saw he was very high already. Falling from this height would probably mean breaking bones, even without the containers falling as well. But he also saw that his impression of the fourth container being evenly stacked on the third had been faulty: it left a tiny ledge of only a few centimetres on this side, actually. It would never be enough to stand on, but he could probably hold it and climb to the side of the container. Since the fourth container was placed too far to the right there was a wider ledge on the container's left side. He jumped to the edge, and held on to it. He tried not to look down at the depth of nine metres gaping under him.
Cautiously, he shifted his left paw further to the left, then followed with his right. Like this, he climbed to the left corner, where he could pull himself up to the ledge. He looked for a way to scale the fourth container, but the only place to grab between the top of the container and the ledge was the door handle, which was on the front side, while he was on the container's right side. He realised he would have to make an almost impossible jump to grab the handle. He prepared himself, then made a jump that just allowed him to clear the corner. For one sickening moment he thought he wouldn't make it and would break all his bones on the ground, but with a grunt of pain his left paw managed to grab the handle. He quickly joined with his right. He was getting exhausted after climbing eleven metres and was in desperate need of a rest. While pulling himself up on the handle, he heard Octa's voice echo through the vast hall:
"A good morning to you, brutal fiends. Take a good look at this blood on my Leaf Blade. I'm afraid I shall have to inform you it's your friend the Seviper's. I killed her myself, and I believe I could dispatch all five of you with similar ease."
Boreas wanted to shout at him that it was too early, that he was only halfway, but that would give away the plan, so he just climbed faster despite his exhaustion as he heard the five poison types run after Octa. By the time he scaled the fourth container, the sounds were beginning to approach him. But there was a big problem: since the sixth container overhung the fifth by a good forty centimetres, there would be absolutely no edge to grab once he scaled the fifth. He tried to see if there was any ledge on the sides, but the containers were evenly stacked there. Of course there would be a ledge on the backside of the fifth, but he had no way of getting there. The sounds of running stopped and he heard Octa fight with all five opponents down below him. He climbed on the fifth container's handle and pulled it as hard as he could. To his fortune he found the container wasn't locked and swung open in a wide arc with him still hanging from the handle.
Octa's voice sounded from far down: "I can handle you all, just you wait, though a little help from above would be very convenient if it hurried up!"
He climbed on top of the open door and then lost his balance as it moved under him. He fell down and for one horrifying moment it seemed he would die fifteen metres down, but he managed to grab the handle. Despite his sore muscles' protests he pulled himself up to the top of the door. This time he was more prepared for the door's shiftiness and managed to keep his balance. As he heard Octa yelp in pain, he jumped up to the sixth container's handle. Completely exhausted, he noticed the stack wobbled with each step he took, so poorly balanced was it. He opened the seventh and highest container's door and found it contained heavy crates. He began shoving them all to the door's side of the container and felt the stack heave more and more with each crate he moved. Finally, when he moved the third crate, the entire stack lost its balance. The effect was incredibly scary, as the entire container began falling with him in it.
In freefall, he opened one of the crates and dived into it, landing in a heap of fish. He wanted to close the crate, but then a massive impact made him lose consciousness.
-
A part of Boreas' consciousness returned to him and he opened his eyes. He saw a white roof.
"You okay, pup?"
"Lucius?" he mumbled, "you filthy traitor."
"Hey, no need to thank me or anything, I only got the help that saved your ass and your boyfriend's from the mess you made."
"Octa?!" Boreas exclaimed, "is he alright?!"
"You nearly killed him with that stunt, but he got lucky and was only lightly crushed."
"Capella? Selene? Toxica? Black?"
"Nurse Hate thinks they'll all recover. Of course, you'd all be dead from either being crushed or poisoned if it wasn't for me and the help I got."
"Lucius, I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you. And I'm sorry for calling you a coward and a traitor. So what happened to Zinzolin and his pokémon?"
"When we arrived, he was trying to rescue his pokémon from that pile of containers you buried them under. He agreed to come with us as long as his pokémon would get to go free once the pokécenter healed them."
"So he's been arrested?!"
"Yeah, he's kept in Clay's Gym because Clay thinks the police aren't strong enough to keep him locked up if Team Plasma comes to save him."
-
On an unseasonally sunny and warm day two weeks later they were on their way to the Gym to make an appointment for a battle with Clay. All of them were fully healed once again. Capella had been the closest to death, she almost hadn't survived the poisoning, and Boreas had broken a number of bones and suffered a bad concussion. But now they were all healthy again, and taking a walk through Driftveil's market on their way to the Gym. All sorts of goods from all over the world were on display.
"Oy, shir," the deep voice of a salesman cried out as they passed his stall, "wanna buy an evolushunary shtone? I've got all kindsh, and they're only 2000 pokémoney! Your pokémon will love them, I'm shure!"
"Sorry," said Black, "but none of my pokémon evolve with a stone."
"But what about your Oddish, shir? When it evolvesh to a Gloom, it can ushe one of my shtonesh to
become a Vileplume or a Bellosshom!"
"Shorry-" Black blushed at his inadvertent imitation of the man's speech impediment, "Sorry, but I don't think she wants to evolve at all."
Boreas suddenly became aware of an awful stench of rotting meat that hung in the air. A Gloom ran past him. "Yes I do!" she piped, "Come on, give me the Leaf Stone!"
"Your Oddish jusht evolved, shir."
"Huh? Oh, so she has!"
"Sho do you want a shtone?"
"Yeah, I do!" said Toxica.
"I guess she does. Toxica, do you want to be a Vileplume or a Bellossom?"
"I want to be a Vileplume!" she said, grabbing the Leaf Stone. A bright white light enveloped her, and her body transformed to a Vileplume's. When the light stopped, the flower on her head had become huge and shadowed her face rakishly.
"Hey, I like this," she said happily, "how do I smell?"
Boreas sniffed the air and noticed the rancid odour of rotting meat had disappeared, and instead there was now a quite lovely smell. "Fine."
"Really? How about now?"
Suddenly Boreas began to cough at the disgusting smell. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever smelt, and that's coming from someone who spent some time inside a Seviper!"
"Hee hee, I can control it now that I'm a Vileplume," Toxica laughed, "and Octa, don't I look lovely now?"
"I... um... can't deny you possess a certain amount of attractiveness."
Suddenly a light tremor shook the ground and flashes of light came from the Gym. Black and his pokémon ran there. When they arrived at the Gym, they saw Clay was standing in the door to his Gym, which was surrounded by Team Plasma, led by Ghetsis, the Sage they had first seen in Accumula.
"Clay," Ghetsis spoke. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Ghetsis of Team Plasma's Seven Sages. I've come to pick up my friend who is in your care."
"Ah don't need no thanks," Clay responded, "yer buddy here stole people's pokémon, kidnapped some young'un, an' then tried to kill him an' his pokémon."
"What's this? There seems to be a misunderstanding... We never steal pokémon, and we only free pokémon from wicked people. And if evil people fight against our noble cause, we will occasionally use extreme measures against them."
"Well, that sounds real nice if it's true. Ah may not talk purdy, but at least Ah'm an honest man. You talk real nice, but what yer sayin' kinda sounds like lyin'. So tell me plain, what are ya tryin' to say?"
"Team Plasma's goal is to liberate all pokémon from humans. This is a noble goal, and to achieve such a noble goal, occasionally it can be necessary to do quite unnoble things. All servants of our king are necessary to achieve our goal. Give your prisoner up, or I shall be forced to do quite unnoble things."
Scowling, Clay shouted some things inside, and then Zinzolin walked out the Gym. "Ghetsis... Merci beaucoup."
"Well, Ah reckon you've won this without a fight. Take 'im and git!" Clay said.
"Not so fast!" Black interrupted, "Clay, the odds aren't as bad as you think! Those grunts are pretty poor fighters and Zinzolin's pokémon aren't here. Ghetsis is the only real threat."
Ghetsis laughed, a very unpleasant laugh that sounded as if he'd learned it from a book. "Well, well, the trainer who's been giving us so much trouble. Get out of our way, boy, or I will do what my friends could not and teach you never to interfere with Team Plasma again."
"Ghetsis," said Zinzolin, "please don't. There 'as been enough death already. Three of my pokémon were killed while doing their duty."
"I see, my friend. Very well, in that case, I expect we will all meet again sometime."
"Hold on!" shouted Black, "I haven't agreed to just let you go!"
Ghetsis nodded, and the grunts threw their smoke bombs. Boreas blew away as much of the smoke as possible, but there was an awful lot of it and most kept hanging around. It seemed Plasma was spreading out: most of the grunts were staying here and throwing their pokéballs to fight, while Ghetsis, Zinzolin, and three of the grunts were running off. Boreas couldn't let them get away and ran after them. He heard Black shout behind him:
"The Sages are escaping! Octa, you and the others stay here and get these guys while Boreas and I go after the Sages!"
Boreas ran faster than Team Plasma, but they had a head start and were quite a bit ahead as they ran through the docks. They reached a pier on the river and jumped into a boat that was waiting for them. Boreas cursed and jumped in the water to swim after them as they speeded off, but found out he could barely even stay afloat, let alone keep up with the boat.
Boreas splattered around in the water, feeling like a total failure, when suddenly he was lifted into a passing boat. Black was steering the motor boat. "It's not over yet, Boreas! I hired this boat to pursue them, we may still get them!"
The other boat was far away by now, but this boat was even faster. They pursued Plasma up the river for many kilometres, very slowly approaching the slightly slower boat. Boreas was full of hope that they might still catch them, when they reached the thinner, meandering parts of the river. Now Black's inexperience with steering a boat became very obvious, and they nearly crashed into the riverbanks or rocks several times. Black was forced to take it very slowly, and pretty soon no sign of Plasma remained. Though they kept going for a while, both eventually had to concede that they'd lost Team Plasma and Black turned the boat around.
-
Boreas yawned as he stared off at the passing riverbanks, bored out of his skull. There was absolutely nothing to do on the small motorboat except to be bored. Now that Team Plasma had escaped all exitement had worn off and Boreas really noticed how long and boring the way back to Driftveil was. He could not even play with Black, as he was too busy steering the boat. Maybe I should just ask him to return me to my pokéball, Boreas thought, at least I'll be out of the direct sunlight in there.
Boreas sighed and stared off at the riverbanks again, but this time something caught his eye. They were passing by a small rock in the river, and on the rock a very cute Vaporeon was sunning. Her shapely body was covered in blue fur that sparkled in the Sun, her finned tail was about as long as her body, and when she looked up as the boat passed her Boreas saw she had a lovely face. She smiled and winked at him, and Boreas felt as if his heart had stopped and his blood was boiling. He tried to greet her back in some way, but only managed an awkward nod and something that was supposed to be a charming smile but probably looked more like two fishermen had caught their hooks in each of the corners of his mouth and were now trying to haul him in. It had been a long time since he had last seen another Eevee, let alone one as pretty as this Vaporeon, so Boreas yearned to go talk to her, but the boat had already passed and they were moving away.
"Black, stop the boat, I want to talk to that Vaporeon," Boreas said to Black, who didn't understand a word of it as usual.
"Not now, Boreas," he said, "Let me just focus on steering, or we'll end up on a rock."
"C'mon, just look over there, and you'll get it!" Boreas said, pointing to the Vaporeon.
Unfortunately, Black's back was turned to him while he steered. "If you're hungry just get some berries from my backpack."
Boreas sighed, looked at the shapely Vaporeon again, and jumped off the boat. The water was cold, but that was quite a relief after sitting in the unseasonably warm Sun for a while. He managed to resurface and began swimming clumsily to the rock. Though his swimming was bad, he managed to keep himself afloat and slowly made progress against the river's calm current. After a few minutes of the clumsy swimming while the Vaporeon watched him amused, he finally arrived at he rock and held on to it with his front paws to keep afloat. He looked up into a pair of gorgeous black eyes looking at him expectantly, and realised he had no idea what to say.
"Uh... Hi," he said.
"Hi there," said the Vaporeon, "my name's Aqua."
"Hi, Aqua," Boreas said awkwardly.
"So... Do you have a name?" She asked.
"Uh... Y-yes, it's Bors. No, Boreas!" He kicked himself underwater for making a complete mess of this. He realised that though he had planned to be really charming and witty, he was currently displaying all the charm and wit of a spoilt carrot.
After a highly awkward pause of a few seconds, she said: "So um... Can I help you, Boreas?"
"Uh, well... Y'see... I just wanted to tell you that though my Blizzard is usually powerful enough to freeze a Heatran, with someone as hot as you nearby I couldn't even manage a cooling breeze."
