4 - Breathless - Chapter Four
Breathless Tale of the Breathless One CHAPTER FOUR Near Adam... A Minccino shakes a stone in disgust. "I knew that there was something fishy about that Weavile, but selling me a dud Shiny Stone? Bah! And then the bastard refused to give me a refund! The nerve!" Throwing the stone to the ground, it is seen that the stone looks almost on fire. What the conceited Minccino did not know, however, was that it was not a Shiny Stone, but a Fire Stone. Leaving the stone on the grass, he walks away from it, swearing all the while. #***# My eyes open as I detect the sun moving up the sky. I had been keeping watch the whole night, waiting for either an attack or sunrise. No being showed it's face near me, except for minor rustling in the grass. Moving toward the Zoroark, I stop dead in my tracks. She was turned in on herself, her upper body slightly turned outward, her - paws? Hands? - lightly batting at the air. What was the word humans used to describe a scene like this.. ? Ah, yes, 'cute.' It was very cute. I hesitated to wake her up. Making up my mind, I moved my hand down to shake her shoulder gently. "Good morning."
Her eyes open slowly. She blinks a few times, then her eyes open all the way. "Oh! Good morning, Adam." She stretches, almost catlike, before getting up. If I had had the means to blush, I would have. "Where're we going today?" She gets up, stretching a bit more. "I suppose through the forest. But first, remember what I told you the officer said?" She replies a little hesitantly. "That somebody could capture me if I wasn't registered to you." I nod. "Yes, that's right. I'm giving you a choice. You can come with me, and get registered to my team, or you can go free. It's up to you." She jumps into me, knocking me over with an audible clunk as I hit a rock with my shoulder. "I want to stay with you!" she almost yells. "Whoa! Relax. If you want to come..." I pull one of the capture devices the nurse gave me off my new belt made to carry them. She called this a 'Pokéball'? I press the button in the center to expand it. "Just press the center of this. You'll be registered as part of my team, and you will be unable to be caught by anybody else."
She hastily presses the button, disappearing to my astonishment in a flash of red light. The ball shudders for a second, before letting out a beep,which I could assume meant a successful capture. I look at the ball for a moment, wondering how it could even work. Then I turn the ball in my hand, pressing the button with my thumb. A red light shoots out of it, having an almost-collision with my face, before I back my head up quickly. The light solidifies into a very distraught Zoroark, who immediately hugs my back to the ground. "Was it really that bad?" I ask. "No, a lot better than I expected. But I still don't want to be in there often," she replies happily. The device I was given, the Pokédex, beeps, then speaks in an automated tone from my pocket. "New Pokémon found. Beginning registry of Pokémon 'Zoroark'.........Registry complete. Give name,Y/N?" Pulling it out of my pocket was hard, since there was over a hundred fifty extra pounds of weight sitting on me, but I managed to get it out without too much trouble. There way a confirmation screen, as well as two blinking points on it, a green button with the word 'Yes' on it, and a red one with a 'No' on it.
This had been something I had been thinking about overnight. Should I name her..? I knew that names were of a way of identifying one another, and I also figured she'd want to be called more than 'the creature' or 'the Zoroark' etcetera, so..should I? I smile. "Welcome to the team...Alexis." I could feel the Zoroark...no, I could feel Alexis hug me tighter. "Thank you, Adam. I hope this is the start of a great partnership." We walked for a while, me carrying the bag over my shoulder and my gun on my back, and Alexis cheerfully humming a tune. I stumble over something in the grass. "Wha-oomph!" I exclaim, almost getting a face full of dirt before I tucked into an impromptu dodge-roll, my feet gaining solid ground once again. "What was that?" I ask, looking down to the medium-sized reddish-orange stone I had tripped over. Alexis looks down to it in surprise. "Oh, that's a Fire Stone!" I pick it up, examining it. "I can see why it's called that." She nods, running over to me. "Mm-hm. It's said that it's fire energy is used to evolve certain types of Pokémon."
"Evolve?" I ask. These Pokémon creatures change,too? I really need to catch up on this stuff. "Uh-huh! You should keep it. Maybe it'll help sometime." I nod, placing the orange stone in my pocket. "Perhaps." Continuing for some way, I just barely hear a small, pained whimper. Turning my head, I scan the surrounding forest for the source. "What is it?" Alexis asks. "I heard something..." I reply, more focused on finding it than her. I hear it once again, then dash off in a south-eastern direction. I could hear Alexis following me. The sound grew closer, until I heard a sharp yelp coming from a bit more south. Changing direction almost instantly, I finally hit the corner of the bend of a small stream. Following it up to the immediate source of the noise, I stop, drop, and duck into the cover of a bush, motioning for silence from Alexis. She ducks under the bush along with me. Another yelp can be heard. "-you don't deserve to live. I should just kill you now." I hear another whimper. Looking through the bush, I see what appears to be an otter huddling in a ball, with what appears to be a dog or something growling at it.
"Now would be as good a time as any to adapt to my Pokédex." I think. A moment passes, then I see new information flash in my mind. An automated voice echoes in my mind. "Mightyena, the Bite Pokémon. It chases down prey in a pack. It will never disobey the commands of a skilled trainer. Buizel, the Sea Weasel Pokémon. It stores air in the sacs on it's neck and uses them as floatation devices, and swims by spinning it's two tails like a propeller." "Insufficient data. Moving in," I mutter under my breath. Alexis must have heard me, for as I started to dash into the midst of them, I heard her say, "Wait!" Too late, I noticed several sets of red eyes staring at me from the trees. I swear under my breath, but they had already seen me. Pulling my gun from it's holster on my back, I move in with speed only a machine could use. Leaping at the Mightyena, the base of my gun hits it right on the nose, sending it yelping back a meter. "You-!" it exclaims. "You'll pay for that!" It comes toward me at a sprint, snarling. It buries it's teeth into my skin. At least, it tries to. After it comes into contact with my skin in earnest, it hardens on the spot, letting it's teeth scrape off my skin harmlessly. I aim my gun at the ground in front of it's face, letting a standard copper bullet loose. It jumps back. I get the strange sensation of something behind me, then find out what it is as I meet the ground with a thump. Dodge-rolling, leaving me gun there, I back-flip once my feet hit the ground, righting me so that I face my opponent once more. I could see one of the Mightyenas with my gun in it's mouth, holding it away from me. I make an acknowledging gesture toward them. "While that was a smart idea...it wasn't good enough." The skin on my fists harden, and I send a punch into it's nose, throwing it over the trees. The rest of the pack growl at me. All of a sudden, I sense a growing cluster of energy behind me once again. I turn, to see one of the Mightyenas in the pack charging what appeared to be a beam of energy, firing almost as soon as I turn my head.
"Oh, no! Adam!" Alexis calls. "Attack-state-name Hyper Beam. High attack power. Insufficient defense. Adapting..." I feel an extreme heat coursing through me, but I didn't know where it was coming from. "Calculation complete. Ability 'Firewall' gained." One split second before the attack hits me, I form a wall of fire to cover me. While it didn't completely protect me from it, it did prevent my skin from being melted. Sending several swift punches at the remaining pack-members, I stop attacking once all of them are down, then I pick up my gun. Holstering it, I vaguely seem to notice a red stone embedded in my forearm, before I collapse."ADAM!!"