FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 7

I stay quiet for a minute or two while considering something. The last few times that we've encountered a pokemon battle Allen was the only one of us that could fight. I had to take control over that little device thing and when we fought Sanaline Caleb was too injured to fight all that well. I get the mental picture of three of us against a lone pokemon but that wouldn't seem the least bit fair.

"So how are we doing this when there are three of us that can fight?" I ask after a moment longer, noticing that for some reason Allen doesn't seem to be walking in a straight line back to the other town.

"Shouldn't it be obvious? You will fight first and after your fight I'll rotate the three of you around and then have that one fight. If one of you three gets too tired to fight I'll just skip your turn."

Apparently my speaking up must have attracted the attention of someone nearby because in like only a minute after I had gotten my response the little device starts beeping and I feel a shiver run through the back of my head. Out of the grasses to where we can see is another small ratatta. Sanaline seems almost smug when she sees him but is still rather reserved. Not knowing what else to do I start moving towards him, trying to get a feel for what he's going to do. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Allen start to push on the device, alerting me that it is apparently my turn to attack. What is strange is that once he's pushed the button the second time I find a burst of my flame coming out of my mouth. It is a very strange sensation, to feel something like that come out of me so involuntarily. If that device is what caused me to do this then I am very afraid of what else it might be able to do. I can now understand Allen's insistence to not have some human control him. Letting someone I can talk to take over my body and make me act by merely pressing a single button is disturbing enough. It would likely be almost infinitely more disturbing the first little while when someone you cannot speak with or communicate on almost any level do what they want with your body.

I'm literally knocked out of my thoughts as the ratatta slams into me, knocking me over. I shake my head to try and get myself to focus as I stand up and begin moving again, taking stock of the situation available to us. I'm not sure what all attacks that thing can have me do at this time since he hadn't shown me them. I know I can shoot fire out of my body and I would imagine that doing the pushing game shouldn't be too difficult to do. From their earlier match with Sanaline I can guess the most that my opponent can do is the pushing game. So my best bet is to stick to my fire and keep my distance. If I can keep away from him I should be able to pound away at him without taking too many more of those hits.

I feel another surge within me and another ball of fire comes out of my mouth without my desiring it to. It hits the ratatta and he starts to charge at me. I'm not sure yet on how far away I can get in such a fight before it is considered to be running away but I do my best. I see him come at me and I can take a very good guess as to where he's going to move next and adjust my course to run past him in such a way that the way he's going to move would make it very difficult to hit me. I manage to catch him completely off guard and his charge misses me completely. I continue trying to keep my distance when I feel my head compulsively turning around and throwing a ball of flame at the ratatta again. The force of my head so suddenly shifting to one side to attack makes me lose my balance and I trip over myself. So confident that I am going to get hit again I brace myself to get slammed again but after a few seconds of not hearing anything I open up my eyes to take a look at the scene. The ratatta also seems to be on the ground though he seems more unconscious than just lying on the ground. I take this as a good enough indication that I must have won the fight, however short and strange it may have been. Coming out of the rush of having to fight I am able to get a better feel for just how much that put my body through. Though I never really took all too many hard hits my chest hurts slightly as does my throat from having to so frequently belt out those fire attacks without letting it build up naturally. Even still as I walk back to the group, I walk with a limp; favoring one of my legs. It doesn't really hurt but I don't think it'll benefit me any to act like I suffered nothing from it all.

"So what happens now?" I ask since this is the first time I've seen a battle where a pokemon has passed out rather then get caught in one of those ball things.

"Well right now I'm rotating the three of you so that Caleb will be the next to fight. Once I've done that we're going to continue on our way towards the next town."

"You mean we don't do anything to help the little guy after we beat him up?" I prod.

"That's not how the humans do things like that. If they want you then they capture you. If they don't they knock you out and you spend a month trying to recover from that one battle," Sanaline responds, with a tint of scorn in her voice.

"So when Caleb fights am I going to have to do the box thing again?" I ask after Allen puts away the box thing and we begin walking again.

"No. Right now you are one of the active pokemon on this thing. As long as you are one of the ones that can potentially be fighting at any point you are not allowed to have access to the pokedex."

"Why not?" I ask, wondering why not fighting would matter either way.

"Because if Caleb gets knocked out then we have to swap him out with one that isn't unconscious. And it's illegal to change trainers in the middle of a battle. Wait a minute. Why am I even bothering to try to explain it all to you? It's not like you'd understand anyway. Look, just take my word on the fact that it isn't something that we can do, okay?"

I don't press the matter any further, feeling somewhat dejected that the answer is being hidden from me because he feels me stupid. It's getting somewhat frustrating that all three of them seem to think me the idiot. Granted they would like me less if they knew that I am fairly intelligent for my age. But it is still a bit disheartening that none of them seem to have any faith in my ability to understand such simple concepts. In fact the only one that doesn't seem to make fun of me is Caleb and I think he is making fun of me in a different way. I'm not sure about that though. Even still we manage to move quietly for a good while before the device begins to beep again, this time another pidgey coming up to us. Caleb stands out in front of them and they begin the standard game of pushing against each other. I'm starting to find it odd how my eyes seem to track not only where they are but where they will likely go next. Particularly I'm wondering if this is something that is normal for all pokemon or is just another way in which I'm a freak. Not being in the battle itself I am able to pay attention to more of what is going on around me, particularly Sanaline's expression. Even though she is paying attention to every move in the battle she seems more than slightly distracted by something.

"Is there something wrong?" I ask her while we watch the pushing contest, half hoping Caleb ends up winning.

"Why should there be? Such a display is all we are to humans," she retorts dryly.

"So it doesn't bother you that they keep attacking each other like that?" I prod.

"You're young and naïve. Given enough time your heart will harden just like all of the other humans. Pokemon battles are nothing new. You'll get used to it all eventually."

"And if I don't want to get used to it?"

"Not exactly an option. Of course knowing you, you'd likely get used to it and forget that you did or just keep forgetting it bothers you the slightest bit."

"You don't have to be mean about it," I whine.

"If you don't want me to treat you like an idiot, don't ask stupid questions."

I decide it's best if I just leave her alone, though from her tone of voice it almost sounded like it was something she was half trying to convince to herself or hoped wasn't true. The battle ends eventually with Caleb coming out the victor, though he doesn't exactly look like he came out of it all unscathed. A few somewhat shallow gauges seem to scour along his body with a trickle of blood coming from them. He hobbles back over to us, not so much looking like he couldn't fly than it would hurt too much to do so.

"Figured you could have handled two battles before getting into such a state," Allen sighs as he puts the box thing back into the bag. "Guess I'll have to rethink our route and go the more direct way in case one of the other two go out as well." He pulls out one of the small red and white balls. "I think you might find it much more comfortable to spend the rest of the trip in your ball."

Caleb nods as he heads towards the ball Allen's holding out which must be his, "I promise to do better the next time."

"I'll make sure to free you from that once you're all better," I comment quickly, trying to sound encouraging though not really understanding why he has to go in his ball in the first place since he doesn't look badly wounded or in a state much different than the last time he came out of a battle.

Caleb touches the button of his ball without a single word exchanged and is sucked into his ball. Allen puts it back in the bag and we begin walking again. I allow myself to fall behind the rest slightly so that I'm in the back of the pack so that with Allen in the front I am not in any position where he can attack me again. My eyes look upwards again though this time I would rather there not be anything in the sky. Being in control over pushing the button was one thing, all I was doing was obeying orders and didn't really have much time to think about what I'm doing. And when I was actually fighting that ratatta I did not really have much of any control over whether or not I attacked. If I really needed to I could simply let go of control over my body and let it do the fighting for me. I didn't technically have to be there. As I watch a cloud pass us by to somewhere else I am reminded of what Sanaline said, of getting used to it all. Perhaps she meant that most pokemon simply go somewhere else when they're fighting. But if so then what horrid a life to live. If humans never let their pokemon out but to fight then such pokemon are left with a life of either being in a state where they can experience nothing or in a state where their minds must be some place other than where they are. Is this what Allen was running from? My feet stop moving completely as I come to this question, my brain refusing to let me ignore it.

"Why are we doing this?" I ask quietly to myself, trying to probe some answer as to why we are perpetuating the very thing we should rather be trying to avoid.

Allen apparently must have heard me because he drops the bag and walks right up to me and punches me in the face.

"Because I said so. Now either get moving or you'll have to spend the rest of the trip in your ball as well," Allen threatens.

"I'll behave," I whine as I start trying to walk around him.

"You're walking in front of me until we get to town. This way if you try to pull something like that again I'm just going to start kicking you till we get there, understand?"

I obey Allen for the time being though I make sure to walk far enough ahead of him to still be out of his reach, at least out of the range he could try to attack me without me hearing him coming with that big bag he's carrying around all over the place. I glance upward and see that sun is getting close to the horizon. Guessing at the distance left I can guess that the sun will set before we get to the town. The trip remains quiet until we are about a mile away from town when the device goes off again.

"Sanaline, you're up," Allen comments as he goes to fish out the device from the bag.

Sanaline seems to grin for a moment before stepping up in front of us. I half debate whether or not to try and ditch the group but some part of me seems to say that if I did so bad things could happen to me. Since the sun is beginning to set my vision is starting to not be nearly as great as it had been with better light so it takes me a while to find where Sanaline's opponent is. Hovering a few feet in the air in front of us is a pidgey. My head cocks to the side looking at the pidgey while I try to figure out how Sanaline who can only fight on the ground would be able to stand a chance against something that has the option of staying in the air and swooping down in the dying light to attack. But apparently she doesn't seem to be having too much trouble. For whatever reason as I watch Sanaline and that pidgey fight I notice that the pidgey never really goes high enough that Sanaline can't just jump at him. Though for that matter shouldn't Allen have had a similar problem when he was fighting Caleb? And I don't think Allen can jump very well. I raise a hind leg and scratch at an itchy spot behind one of my ears to try and get my mind off so complicated subjects and teach myself for the time being to just accept that such things work in such a strange manner. Since I can't really see the fight all that well I let my other senses take control over my attention. I can already start to smell the presence of humans which says we're getting close to the town. I can also smell the scent of Allen from the last time he went this way. I can hear the sounds of the two fighting as well as Allen's surprisingly calm demeanor. From the sounds of things Sanaline seems to be winning though something in the manner of her breath seems to denote that there is more to this fight for her than just the battle of pushing.

As the sun fully goes over the horizon I hear the sound of the pidgey's body hitting the ground and from his labored breathing I can tell that though he could potentially still fight, it would be very difficult for him and that he's accepted his defeat. Sanaline's footsteps come closer to us and figuring it's time for us to continue moving again I start walking, keeping my nose to the ground and following Allen's previous trek through this part of the grasses. Sanaline seems to be walking with a noticeable limp again, far worse than the one I almost forgot about which leads me to conclude she won't last another such fight tonight. As we walk I start to become very anxious as to what might end up being the result if I have to fight again. Admittedly my night vision isn't at all good and with Caleb and Sanaline not likely to do too well should I be unable to defeat my next opponent almost completely blind. Thankfully, though, before I have too much time to dwell on the fact the grasses open up revealing the human civilization yet again.