Misty\'s Nightmare

Chapter 2. A Hard Choice

The dawn finally broke about an hour after misty had started walking. The beautiful morning contrasted sharply with her Bleak situation. There was no sign of the ominous fog that had become common after the change. Thank goodness for small favors. She feared the fog for good reason. There was one time she was unfortunate enough to be caught out in it in Cerulean
City, when it released her she found herself clear on the other side of the city. Almost five miles from where she should have been. And Misty had only been in it a few minutes. Some people that were swept up in it were never seen again. And of course everybody remembers the day three years ago when the fog first showed up and swept over everything. That was the day
of the change. She was also fortunate that she was walking though a wooded area. This gave her both shelter from the sun and prying eyes from above. Flying Pokemon are among the most aggressive. By this time, Misty had noticed that her progress today was a lot slower than yesterday. At first she tried to tell herself that she was enjoying the day but deep down
she knew that she had not recovered from feeding Polywrath earlier. Blood pokemon were very economical in their need for sustenance. Back in Cerulean city, she only needed to feed them about every other week or so. But now with them fighting to save her life almost daily, their hunger had increased dramatically. She now had to feed Polywrath and Starime almost daily and it was starting to really get to her. Not only that, but those feedings were much larger than then the small sips that they usually needed. So even though she had plenty of food (one of the benefits of almost no travelers was that there was plenty of fruits and nuts along the way for her to eat and she had been all packed up in hopes of convincing her sister to flee) and the fact that she was taking more blood boosters (A/N. a Blood booster is a drug developed in the pokemon world to help people recover blood volume after an accident or surgery. Using them the way Misty and her sisters did was technically illegal, but the authorities in Cerulean City turned a blind eye because they figured that this kept them from trying other ways to feed their pokemon) than she probably should, her body couldn't handle the stress much longer. But she didn't know what else to do. The alternative was unthinkable.

Around noontime, Misty came upon a small pond. She was thankful for this because water was the one thing that she had been having trouble finding during her journey. "Polywrath, I `m going the get a drink and fill my canteen." She noticed the fear in her pokemon's eyes. "you can stay here in the road, I`ll be okay" she said. One of the cruel Ironies of the change was that Water was now deadly to the same pokemon that depended on it before. This was the main reason that blood pokemon were a lot less common now then when they were water Pokemon. The water pokemon that were totally aquatic like Magicarp and her dear Horsee did not survive the change. This is why Polywrath wanted to keep his distance. Misty on the other hand relished the chance to quench her thirst and knelt down to drink her fill and replenish her canteen. Feeling refreshed she jumped up to get going again. Then her world went black.

Polywrath's frantic calls brought her around. At first she was disorientated but once she looked around she saw that she was lying on the ground at the bank of the pond. Misty then realized that she must have passed out. "I'm OK... I think," she finally said to Polywrath. But upon trying to get up she felt her legs give out and she had to sit down again. Finally the stress of providing for her charges had caught up to her. She slowly crawled over to Polywrath to calm the panicking pokemon. "Shhh... its alright, I just passed out that's all." In response to his questioning look she said "I think the heat got to me". the questioning look became a skeptical look. "So you aren't buying that are you." Misty then made a heart-wrenching decision. The only way that they stood a chance of surviving the journey to Pallet town was for her to ask her pokemon to do something she swore she to them that they would never have to do. That was the unthinkable. Polywrath saw Misty take a look at her arm and followed her gaze. With a horrible clarity he realized in how bad of shape she actually was. In the rush to get started this morning she had neglected to bind the cut she had made to feed him like she always did. This time there was no need too. Misty was so anemic that the wound had hardly bled at all. After staring at her arm for a while she said "let me rest for a while and then I need to talk to you and Starime about something important". Polywrath had a good Idea what this talk was going to
be about and that chilled him to the bone.

"Starime, I choose you" Misty said as the star shaped Pokemon was released from its Pokeball. For a second he tensed up looking for an attack before he realized that there was not going to be any. When he looked at Misty, he was appalled at how much she had deteriorated since he had seen her two days ago. Polywrath said that it was from having to feed them so much in response to his unasked question. Starime asked back "Why did she call me out if there is no attack? that uses energy." "She wants to talk to us about something." Polywrath replied. Misty heard them chatting back and forth and while she couldn't understand what they were saying she had a good Idea what the conversation was about. While she was trying to decide how best to put what she was going to ask them, she looked at her last two pokemon. From the outside the changes that had occurred during their transformation to Blood pokemon were not that drastic. The most noticeable one was that that their color had changed to the same bright arterial red that marked all blood Pokemon. Also, they now had feeding apparatuses appropriate for their new diet. On Polywrath that consisted of a sucker like mouth in the center of his swirled belly and razor sharp retractable claws that he thankfully never had to use; "Well at least until now" misty thought in despair. Starime has a similar sucker like mouth on every other arm and Talons on the ones in between. Again never used. Misty knew that what she was about to ask them to do would horrify them. Like most pokemon since the change, they were appalled at what they had become. While all pokemon now had to consume to survive, only blood pokemon had to feed while their prey was still alive. Most wild pokemon responded to this change by either Going insane or giving in to the dark impulses fully. Either one made them a menace to the human population of the Pokemon world. The only reason that her pokemon did not do the same was because of her love and support of them. That and the vow she made with them that as long as they were with her, they would never have to do what their new nature demanded of them. This was a vow that she was about to break.

While she was thinking, both of her pokemon had grown silent and were looking at her expectantly. Misty finally decided that the best way to broach the topic was to be blunt. There was no way to sugarcoat this and to try would be insulting to them. So she just came right out and told them. "The next time we are attacked, I want you to feed on any pokemon that you bring down." The result was as anticipated. They both got wide eyed with fear and shook their head in an empathic NO (At least that was Polywrath's reaction, Starime was harder to read). But she had to be firm. "There's no choice. The way we're going now, we're not going to make it to pallet town". They continued to refuse. So she said. " Listen to me, with all the fighting that you have been doing, I can't feed you enough. Some of your friends might have been killed because they didn't have enough energy to fight effectively and I don't want this to happen to you." Still they refused. Misty sighed, there was one other thing that she could try, so as much as she detested doing it, she played on their guilt. "You have to do this. If you won't do this for yourselves, then PLEASE do it for me. If you can't protect me, I`m going to die out here." This hit home and both pokemon Looked up at their trainer and best friend. This was the person that stuck with them after the change when a lot of trainers abandoned their charges, horrified at what they had become. This was the person that was there supporting them when they were trying to come to terms with their new nature. This was the person that promised them they would never
have to submit to that nature fully and had sacrificed her body and place in polite society to keep that promise. And this was the person that had been slowly Killing herself for them over the last few days. She had done all of this for them without hesitation or complaint. Now she was asking them to do something for her. To refuse would show a selfishness towards Misty that she had NEVER shown to them. They looked at each other and then slowly bowed their heads (at least Polywrath did) and came over to hug her. She hugged them fighting back tears. "Thank you so much. I will find a way to make this up some how, I promise." Then she unsteadily got to her feet. "Let's go. We need to make some time before it gets dark." With that they started back down the road to Pallet town.

And so ends another chapter of Misty's Nightmare. What do you all think? Please tell me how you like the story so far. My main concern was to keep Misty in character. I hope that I have done a good job. I could see her doing this if faced with this situation. This is only my second Fan Fiction so I really care about how you think. I have one more chapter to go (this one will have more action in it so it will be more difficult to write) (~well actually there is at least four more chapters~), and then I will have to read up more on Pokemon and Ravenloft to continue. Where do you all want this to go? While this is mostly Pokemon at this point, some aspects of Ravenloft are creeping in now. To those that know about Ravenloft, The fog should be familiar. Also a small clue as to what actually happened to all the Pokemon. Think "Ravenloft Elementals".

~May 28 2008. Going back and editing this to repost is defiantly a trip down memory lane. this was only the third chapter of fan fiction I ever wrote so it is still very rough. hopefully you will notice a real big improvement in the later chapters.~