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Awakening	By : Demonic_Host Category: Pokemon > General Views: 19514 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, owned anything related to rights to Pokemon nor do I make money off of my fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Heartfelt Interference
Chapter Twenty-nine

Your body felt heavy as you moved towards the side, a flame passing the spot where you had been. You were able to throw up a small shield just in time to block the heat. Even if you'd missed the initial blast there was still the heat that radiated from the fire to worry about. The heat was enough to give any human burns if they weren't carefully. There wasn't much time to recover as you saw Ember rush forwards. As he moved hot waves rolled off of him, more and more as he got closer until finally it was like a falling meteorite coming at you.

Watching his fire blitz from the sidelines was awe inspiring; being in front of it was enough to put fear into your heart. You knew from experience that he didn't play around. If you couldn't figure out how to fight for yourself then he wouldn't pull the entire punch - just enough to make sure he didn't do some serious damage. Quickly trying to summon the energy from your center so that it could form in your hands, you tried to form it into a sphere. There had been barely enough time to do that. As soon as you could you flung it at him hoping that would hit. You partially got your wish. The green energy sphere impacted with the ground as much as it had with Ember, sending dust up all around him.

You covered your mouth and nose quickly with your sleeve as the dust quickly came towards you as well. You had to close your eyes as the cloud finally hit you. You could hear Ember coughing and hacking up the sand particles in the distance which let you know that now was your perfect chance. Unfortunately when you went to stand up your body decided that it was done and you were barely able to move forward let alone run. Blindly you staggered about with barely opened eyes, trying to keep the settling sand out of any place it wasn't supposed to be.

As you tried to take another step forward you felt fur brush up against your legs at a very rapid, very dynamic pace. You heard a growl as the furry object that you desperately tried to make out in that split second rushed forward towards Ember. The sound of the impact they made was more obvious than the site. With no small amount of worry you opened your eyes as wide as you dared to try and make sense of what was going on. Thankfully the dust had a little time to settle in all of this which let you see that Nox had rammed right into Ember. His muzzle was inches away from Ember's throat, paws and body pinning Ember on his belly to the ground.

"Woah, Nox!" you called out as you tried to move forward despite the level of exhaustion you felt. "We were just training."

Ember didn't even bother trying to struggle as Nox pinned him down. He understood the futility of it - it wasn't like he wanted to fight the other eeveelution for real. The typing advantages might be neutral between them but he knew that Nox would have a lot more passion put into the fight than he would. Besides he didn't enjoy the idea of having his throat bit into even if his internal temperature would cause Nox to let go pretty quickly.

"Get off of him," you ordered the dark type pokemon.

You heard Nox growl before you heard anything he said, "He was hurting you."

"I told you, we were training," you tried to explain to him.

"Training? Why?"

See, that was a very good question. You couldn't actually remember what had started this whole training thing between you and Ember. You had a feeling that it had been his idea. More than likely he'd brought it up and then implemented an attack half a second once the topic had been closed. That sounded like him. But for the actual reason as to why it happened to begin with or why you went along with it you were actually at a loss. The whole notion of training revolved around the idea that you needed to get stronger. But for what? It wasn't like there was any massive wars going on around you - there hadn't been wars in the world (as far as you knew) for ages. Nor were you the kind of person to go into the middle of a strange forest in the middle of the night.

"...I don't know," you answered honestly. "It's just a thing we do."

"Together?" Nox asked with a tone you didn't quite recognize as he got off of Ember.

You nodded and made a sound of affirmation as Ember stood up and shook himself off. The fire type pokemon looked quite disturbed as he glared at Nox. He huffed a little as he tried in vain to shake off some of the sand that had settled onto his fur from your attack on the beach. Nox on the other hand didn't worry about the sand that had been kicked into his fur from his run on the shoreline as he stayed fairly quiet. His lack of response to your confirmation kind of worried you. Especially as he backed up a few steps with accusing eyes still locked onto the flareon before him before he spun completely around and headed back towards you backpack to let himself back into his pokeball. Your pokemon might have gotten more comfortable sitting in their pokeballs as the days rolled on but you wouldn't have thought that would have been the first place that Nox would have picked to go. Especially considering the fact that for the majority of his life so far he hadn't had one, nor had you ever planned on him being put into one. It had just kind of happened.

"We're done," you announced quietly as you turned worried eyes over to the pokeball that Nox had just climbed into.

"You're done you mean."

"Yes, Ember, I'm done," you said with a roll of your eyes. "Go ahead and get inside your pokeball. I'll try to see if I can find some conditioner to help get the sand out."

Ember nodded as he resisted the urge to start self cleaning - that was so below him. Though for you it was amusing to watch the tenseness in his body as he kept resisting the urge to sit down and take his tongue to his fur. He moved through the sand as gracefully as any other stiff legged pokemon before willingly activating the recall light from his pokeball. You could only hope that the pokemon center a little bit back in the forest had some conditioner on hand to help get the sand out of your flareon's fur. Otherwise you were pretty sure that a revolt was going to happen. As calm as Ember generally was he was a bit of a diva when it came to his overall physical maintenance.

______________________________________

You soaked in the small tub that this particular Nurse Joy had let you use. After two weeks of traveling from Mauville city to the west side coast of Hoenn, not to mention the training earlier with Ember, you were understandably sore. On top of that you'd spent the last thirty minutes making sure that Ember was as clean as clean could be. Afterwards you'd taken about ten minutes each to wash down the other three pokemon. And after an hour of dealing with soap and water your hands were pruny for sure. Which was why you kept the tired, cramping appendages out of the water as you relaxed.

The herbal bath salt that the pink haired medical practitioner had advised you to put into the steaming water worked wonders. You could practically feel all the toxins and stress leaving your body as you soaked. Not to mention the smell was rather pleasant. You couldn't exactly put your finger too it; it wasn't bitter like a lot of herbs, nor was it foral. It just kind of reminded you of a mix of a dream and of childhood all at once and that was enough to lower all your guards. In fact, you fell asleep in the water. The only reason you woke up was because of the fact that Rorsh wasn't the best at slipping the sleeves from the terry-cloth robe around your arms as he held you in the air. Tiredly you helped, disregarding the fact that he was technically invading your privacy again, before relaxing back into his psychic hold. Like he'd done many times in the past, Rorsh kept you afloat in the air as he took you back to bed.

Vaguely you noticed that Max seemed completely embarrassed and at a loss for what to do as Nox turned down your covers for you. And with how tired you were you didn't even realize that you probably should have put pajamas on instead of going to sleep in your robe. However it wasn't like you were going to expose anything to the world as you slept. Eon, your lovely shiny sylveon, wrapped you in his ribbons in all the right spots so that the robe couldn't even contemplate opening up as you slept under the covers.

It wasn't until morning came around that you had the right state of mind to be flustered. You could barely believe the fact that not only had you let your pokemon put you to bed like you were a child, but that you'd actually been so groggy that you'd kind of gone with the clothing optional option. Granted the robe was something that helped to save your modesty and the covers along with Eon's ribbons did help, but it didn't exactly feel like you were appropriate when your senses came back to you. Thankfully it was only you and Max in the room (along with the eeveelutions) seeing as this pokecenter was located in the middle of a forest away from all the big cities. Even though this place seemed massive and that there was a small port less than a day's walk away, it didn't seem to receive an abundance of pokemon trainers at any given time. Or so that had been explained to you when you and Max decided to take a good night's rest at it.

"Sorry," you apologized towards the only other teenager in the room. "I...guess I fell asleep in the tub."

Judging by the way that Rorsh was glaring at him and the level of a blush on Max's face you figured that probably wasn't the best thing to remind people of. Though the reasoning had come so quickly to your lips you figured that you needed to work on a bit of editing rather than giving more imagery for someone to imagine. The fact that he'd gotten so embarrassed only fueled your embarrassment actually, which kind of made it seem like the never ending circle.

"I--I'm going to be at breakfast if you need me," Max made a quick excuse and even a quicker exist.

He grabbed his backpack on the way to the door despite the amount of times he had almost tripped trying to getting out. You sat up and grabbed a few of your own items as the rest of your pokemon sleeping companions rose at their own pace. You had a daily routine to get to before you felt ready enough to face the world. With any luck today you'd get to the port and be on your way towards Sootopolis City.

Once you were ready you grabbed the incubator with your egg inside and released your pokemon. Then you led Ember, Rorsh, Eon, and Nox down to the first floor of the pokemon center with your backpack thrown over your shoulder. You let them out one of the side doors that led to some of the property outside, propping it open with a chair incase they wanted back in. You filled up the collapsible fabric bowls with pokefood and water for them to munch on as they relaxed or played in the sun, whatever it was they wanted to do. Then it was on to getting some breakfast. The pokecenter never had a menu - it was kind of a grab what was there situation. After looking over the choices on the table you found some pickled vegetables, eggs, and toast.

You sat down across from Max and put the incubator with the yellow egg inside on the table so you could start eating your breakfast. The first thing you noticed was that he seemed to be in a completely different world. The food he'd gotten himself seemed neglected as he stared out a window. There was an air about him that spoke to you of nostalgia and anxiety all at the same time. The fact that he hadn't looked away from his own reflection when you sat down was a bit worrying as well. Whatever it was that he was thinking about apparently was very distracting.

Knowing that whatever he was thinking about was probably important, you didn't try to pull him away from it. Instead you just went about eating your breakfast in the least distracting way possible. Every once in awhile you would follow his line of sight to see if there was anything out there that he was focusing on. You doubted it of course by it was always a possibility. Who was to say there wasn't a wild Hypno or something outside that decided it wanted to lure near adults into the forest instead of children?

"Do you think I waited too long?" Max asked with dazed tone.

You looked up from you nearly finished breakfast. Despite all of your skills that you'd accumulated so far, deciphering people's cryptic messages wasn't one of them. At least not ones like this. You could kind of get a sense of a person and how they were feeling to help you understand. Or with pokemon such as the ones you lived with you understood them well enough and had most likely been a part of a previous conversation that they were referring back to in order to get what they were meaning. But with a situation like this one with Max you were at a bit of a loss.

"For what?" You asked quizzically.

"To start my pokemon journey. A lot of people start it when they're ten."

You made a sound of understanding as you stared at his wistful yet pained expression. You knew that this was something he'd been debating in his head for a very long time and that it was an important topic for him. He was right when he said that most people start off their journeys when they were young simply because that was the first time that any child could legally get a pokemon much less one that has been bred to be at the League standards. Those who were lucky enough to be born around a research lab generally got theirs from a professor but you also knew that children who wanted to register could also use a pokemon center as the middleman. All the Nurse Joys were licensed to request the starter pokemon and distribute them to newly registered trainers at their discretion. Yet despite all of these avenues Max had yet to do any of that because he'd been holding out for an ideal time.

"There are a lot of people who don't start when they're ten. And I think it's probably smarter to wait until you feel ready to take on the challenges, when you feel that it's right. Because this is a very personal endeavor and it's best to start when you feel like you can give it your all instead of just your maybe," you put your two cents in. "In this it has to be all or nothing because it won't be just you who you are responsible for. And if you can't go at it all the way then you need to wait till you can."

That was kind of a modified, longer version of the speech that your father had given you when he'd handed over your first eevee egg - the one that would hatch and become Rorsh. Now that you were older you understood where he was coming from. Especially after how much you had grown to love and respect the pokemon that you'd worked with. Sure there had been moments like with the Ghost pokemon where they'd made you feel a bit off but that was just their nature; it wasn't up to you to dictate how another sentient being should be just because it made you uncomfortable. If your pokemon had taught you anything over this strange time it was that fact. The only thing that you or anyone else for that matter could control was your own behavior and responses. If they didn't match up with the types of behavior that would be needed to care for other living beings then it was best if someone made a realistic choice versus an idealized one.

"But what if Ralts decided to move on? What if they thought that I'd broken my promise?"

You sipped on your water as you watched his eyes snap back towards the outside. You had a feeling that it was something about this view that made Max feel so lost and panicked about his childhood promise.

"Was this about where you found them?" You asked quietly, setting your cup down.

Max nodded once, then twice before he let out a great sigh. His hand touched the windowpane with his fingers stretched out wide. There was a certain look to him that made you want to hug him. He looked so young and lost that it was hard to believe this was the same guy who'd lectured you a week ago about getting formal training for your special abilities.

"Sort of. I brought Ralts to this pokecenter after I found them in the woods."

"Were they hurt?" You prompted.

There was a look on conflict and uncertainty to Max's face right before he answered. "They were sick with the flu and then it turned into pneumonia. If I hadn't run the whole way...they might not have made it."

That was interesting. You had never really heard of pokemon catching and suffering from a human disease as common as the flu, or for it to turn into something as serious as pneumonia. There was a lot that you had learned about the eighteen different types of pokemon but that was still new for you. You had never really had to deal with pokemon being sick because of a disease during all of your training. You'd dealt with electronic overload and various poisons, things like that, but the only instance you'd dealt with the flu was when you'd caught it yourself. None of your pokemon at the time had even got a sniffle despite being around you the entire time.

"Have you tried going out into the forest to see if it will find you?" You knew from experience that trying to find a psychic pokemon who didn't want to be found was pretty much impossible.

The nineteen year old was quiet as you stared at him. His silence was kind of like an admission all on it's own when you saw the guilty look on his face. It was obvious that he hadn't, otherwise there would be even more of an abject depression mixed in there. If he had tried and failed he wouldn't look so wistful.

"Will you come with me?"

"Are you sure you want me there?"

Max nodded fervently as he turned all of his attention towards you. "Uh-huh!"

How could you refuse such an honest request? You shifted slightly in your seat as you stared at his hopeful expression. You didn't see what good it would do but if your friend (maybe secretly boyfriend shhh don't tell your pokemon) wanted you there then you would try to be there.

Unfortunately neither you nor Max had very much time to contemplate what was going on when a panicked "Stop!" filled the air. You and everyone else in the small room got up quickly to see what was the matter. The sounds of a struggle led you and everyone else to a very stricken looking Nurse Joy. She was struggling against what looked to be a bunch of metallic vines. One of the other trainers sent out a machoke and the muscle bound pokemon pulled the metal bindings apart like they were paper.

Nurse joy dropped, her pale pink and white dress brushing up against the ground as she caught her breath. She looked up fearfully with her fists clenched and the most distressed face you had seen in a long time.

"They've taken them! They've taken all of the pokemon!"

"Who?" Max was the first to ask.

You suddenly got a dizzying feeling that this wasn't the first time he'd dealt with pokemon being stolen. And then the moment you thought about that you heart squeezed in your chest. Without warning you ran away from the group that had gathered around Nurse Joy and back to the main trainer room. Your head whipped back and forth as you looked around the tables by the windows.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Your egg was gone.

Fear and fury welled up inside of you as you hurried over to the door that you'd left open. Maybe your pokemon were outside, oblivious to what had happened. More than likely they were probably fighting back - especially knowing Nox's explosive temper. Rorsh would have let them know that something was wrong and then they would have been okay. No matter how much you imagined and rationalized out a scenario in your head, it was all for nothing. They were gone. Your pokefeeders had been cleared of food and some of the water had been eaten but other than that there were no signs to point to the fact that they'd been out there to begin with.

You shook as you looked out towards the small grassy back yard of the pokemon center. Everything was gone. You felt Max run up behind you before you heard him. You could feel him coming to reach for your shoulder before you even felt him touch you arm. The physical reminder that there was someone else there yet everyone else you knew had been taken.

Roughly you pull away from Max as he tried to get you back inside. Despite yourself you couldn't help but call out their names just incase. He tried to pull you back in again. This time it was more forceful and you had a much harder time getting away.

"We'll get them back!" Max finally caught your attention.

"How?" You asked in a whisper.

Max slowly pulled you back into the main room, He closed the door and motioned towards your backpack.

"Seeing as no one heard anything that means that they have to be on foot. Or at least not in a noisy helicopter or airplane. So get your pokeballs. All the trainers in the building have decided to go out and scour the forest. If there's any clue where the crooks went we'll find it. And we'll get back everyone's pokemon."

You nodded your head though all you were thinking about right now was what you wanted to do to the person who'd taken you friends and your egg. Nox's protective actions looked positively gentle in comparison to what you imagined.
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Awakening