37 P.S.
Over the River and Through the Woods....
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By: bsmart
Why the hell am I writing this? Nobody reads them and they have no legal
weight. It’s a complete waste of time and bandwidth and yet I’m still typing.
If you’re under the legal age where ever you are don’t read this, but since
you’re going to anyways at least don’t let your mommy catch you. This fic is
very much NC-17. Copyright? Ha! Just don’t be a dick. If you got this anywhere
besides mediaminer.org, the official Pokegirls Yahoo group, or
adult-fanfiction.org then you likely haven’t seen all of it as those are the
only places where this story is officially distributed.
might be an Orange League fic it might not. To be honest I don’t know a damn
thing about pokemon and I want to keep it that way. If I make a dumb mistake
feel free to point it out. I’ve done as much research as I can into this to
keep it consistent with what seems to be the accepted canon of the pokegirl
world. Also no one that I know of has done anything with the Orange League so
I’m making it up as I go along.
Chapter 3: Over the River and Through
the Woods….
"This
was a bad idea," Jeremy said as he flicked another fern frond out of his
face.
"I
don't remember anyone ever saying it was a good one," Misha said. "Do
you Alan?"
"Nope."
"Oh
great, so this was a shit idea right from the beginning," Jeremy
complained.
"Yeah
basically," Alan said as Misha swatted the latest bug to try and suck her
blood out of the air. "What did you do, take a bath in bug bait or
something?"
"I
can't help it if I'm sweet," Misha shot back.
"Heh, yeah.
said just loud enough for Misha to hear.
"I'm
just surprised that you're not covered in flies yourself," Misha said back
happily, "With you being so full of shit and all." The innocent tone
of her voice did little to mask the sarcasm in her words.
Alan
grinned at Misha's favorite type of teasing, playing
the sweet little blonde while being as vicious as she could be. "Hold up a
minute." He adjusted the carbine's strap on his shoulder and took a moment
to wipe the sweat off his brow before reaching into the map case at his side
and withdrawing the set of maps they'd been given as well as a compass. The map
of
reference, very little of what was shown on that map still bore any semblance
with how the archipelago looked today. The second was a laminated copy of a
satellite photo taken nearly thirty years ago, when the Rangers still had the
ability to communicate with the orbiting network. coa coastline of the
peninsula had been reformed by the rising seas and turned it into an island.
The city
they were heading was once called Kualla
according to the satellite photo a portion of the cities southeastern district
was underwater. The final map in the bundle was crude and hand drawn but it was
the most useful. The map was made from the reports of patrols that had scouted
the area around where the Rangers would eventually build their village. It only
showed the area within about ten kilometers of the village but it gave enough
details and landmarks to make navigating the area easy.
The map
hadn't been updated in decades, the Rangers activity had eventually drawn the
attention of every pokegirl within what seemed like a hundred kilometers made
making forays just to the forest edge chancy and journeys into it suicidal.
Over the years the pokegirl sighting diminished and the area became safer but
even the most adventurous people didn't stray out of eye sight of the clearing
surrounding the village and those feats of daring were almost always done in
the company of several tame pokegirls.
Even
after thirty years without an update many of the landmarks remained and Alan
was having no trouble keeping them on course and making good time.
'Unfortunately we'll be off the map in a another hour
or two.' Alan was especially nervous about the map's western boundary a river.
"So
where are we," Jeremy asked as he peered over Alan's shoulder.
"Well
I'm pretty sure that rock out cropping is this one," he said pointing
towards a twenty foot high dislocation in the earths surface which formed a
picturesque overhang and then to the map. "Which means
we're here."
"So
another two clicks and we're off the map?" Misha asked.
"Yep,
which is what I wanted to talk to you guys about. This
river here marks the western edge of the map."
"What
you can't swim?" Jeremy asked.
"No,
I can swim. The problem is that that river's the only source of water on this
map," Alan declared.
"
"
back and forth between Misha and Alan.
"Pokegirl's
don't eat as much as humans right?" Alan led.
"Yeah,
so," Jeremy replied.
"But
they drink just as much as we do," Misha explained.
"Do
either of you have a point?"
"Yes,
aside from the wells in and around the village this river is the only place
around here that there's any water for the pokegirls to drink. There could be
whole lakes that are just off the map but there might not be so we have to
assume that this is it," Alan explained.
"So
all the pokegirls around here are probably going to have to go there to
drink," Jeremy said.
Misha's shoulders drooped a little. "Exactly."
"So
what do we do?" Jeremy asked nervously.
"Well
I would say that we'd cross at night but it's been two weeks since the full
moon, it's going to be pitch black and we'll get in
more trouble stumbling around out here in the dark."
"So
we're going to cross during the day?" Jeremy asked.
"I
don't see that we have a choice, this river runs from as far north and south as
the map shows so we aren't going around it."
"This
idea just keeps getting worse," Misha mumbled to herself.
"Look,
we'll head to the river and get close enough to see it, then we hole up until
sundown and then we cross," Alan said with all the surety he could muster
in his voice.
"Why sundown?"
"Well
hopefully all the pokegirls who are out ng tng the day will be bedding down for
the night and the nocturnal ones won't be up and about yet. It should also give
us enough time to get away from the river before it gets to dark and we have to
settle down for the night."
"So
we run for it and pray, great," Jeremy deadpanned.
"If
you've got a better idea I'd love to hear it." Alan looked back and forth
between his companions. "No? Then let's go, and stay quiet." Alan
found his idea about as thrilling as Misha and Jeremy did but it was the best
he could come up with. He quickly put the maps and compass back in their case
and they headed out.
The
forest wasn't nearly as oppressive as Misha had expected it to be. From the
village it was a rich green blanket that smothered the landscape for as far as
the eye could see. The edge of it was a thick tangle of vines and underbrush
that formed a virtual wall separating itself from the clearing the village sat
it. But out here, in it, it wasn't nearly as foreboding. The trees were tall
and had most of their limbs and branches high overhead where they meshed with
the limbs of other trees forming a canopy overhead. Misha wondered if they'd
even get wet if it rained. The underbrush was thick but short and it consisted
mostly of different types of ferns so it offered no resistance to their
passing. Aside from the occasional vine hanging down from above there wasn't
much to impede the view through the forest. 'It's actually really pretty in
here,' she thought as she watched the few sun beams that had managed to fight
their way though the canopy cast golden shafts of light down onto the fern bed.
'Might be nice to stay out here if you didn't have to worry
about being eaten.'
Jeremy
wasn't nearly as happy about their condition. Even though the forest kept the
sun directly off them it also kept all the humidity in, turning the area
beneath the canopy into a steam bath of the first order. He'd initially scoffed
at Alan's choice of a simple olive drab t-shirt and Misha's
cut off affair but now as he trudged through the thirty five degree ninety nine
percent humidity air under the leaves he realized that his own choice of a
standard issue jacket and t-shirt was the poor one. He'd given up on going
without a hat after the first hour of constantly wiping the sweat out of his
eyes and he'd pulled out a cap similar to Misha's and
had crammed it down onto his head. As he tripped over yet another root hidden
by the ferns he cursed the forest, the ferns, and everyone on the village
counsel by name. 'I hate this fucking place.'
Alan
wasn't paying the scenery much mind at all, he was too
busy scanning the area for pokegirls. His eyes scanned back and forth snapping
from one moving object to the next. The fact that they'd been on the move now
for over three hours and had yet to see a single pokegirl had him on edge,
something that was not lost on his friends.
"Alan,"
Misha asked quietly as she hurried forward to walk at his side, "what's
wrong, you see something?"
"Nothing,"
was his terse reply.
"So
what's wrong?"
"Exactly
, wh, where the hell are the pokegirls?"
"I
thought we came this way to avoid them," she replied. In fact she was
right. Most of the pokegirls around the village had been sighted to the
southeast, where the livestock was allowed to graze and where over three
kilometers of open terrain separated the forest from the village. To the west
there was only a kilometer between the village and the forest and the area was
used exclusively for farming. Alan figured that most of the dangerous
carnivorous pokegirls would stick to the southeast leaving their
pokegirls would bother trying to sneak food from the fields when there was
obviously plenty in the forest. Also the vegetarians seemed to scare easier and
tried to avoid humans when they could.
"I'd
feel a lot better if we had seen a couple of pokegirls, even if they were just
running away. I just get this fng lng like we're about to get
bushwhacked."
"So
you're nervous about your plan working?" Jeremy asked.
"Of
course I am, plans never work," Alan snapped back.
"Chill
man, luck's on our side at the moment so don't go
jinxing it."
"Fine,"
Alan whispered, "but I'd still feel better if we'd seen one or two."
"Yeah,"
Je sai said before pausing and cocking his head to once side. "Hey, you
guys here that?"
Alan and
Misha both stopped walking and concentrated for a moment. "Yeah, sounds
like we're getting close to the river," Misha answered first.
It took
Alan a moment longer but he too was able to catch the faint sound of rushing
water. "Alright, let's keep quiet, watch where you step, and keep a look
out for someplahat hat we can hole up until sundown."
When
Alan unslung his rifle and cradled it in his arms
Jeremy and Misha did as well, as best they could the group moved through the forest
trying to stay as quiet as possible. After several hundred meters the group
approached a rise in the sound of the river was loud enough to mask the sounds
of their approach. Before starting up the rise Alan paused at the bottom of it
and kneeled down concealing all of himself but his head in the ferns, Misha and
Jeremy soon followed.
"So
what's the plan chief?" Jeremy asked.
"Just
stay low in the ferns up to thp, wp, we'll take a quick look around and then we
come back down. Either of you seen some place we can hide out?"
Misha
pointed off to their left, towards the south and said, "I saw something
back there, looked like one of those overhangs that are all over the place
around here."
"What
the hell is up with that?" Jeremy asked.
"My
Dad wrote something about a couple of massive earthquakes in his journal, maybe
they're what did all this," Alan said.
"That
woulda done it," Misha agreed.
"I
wonder what this place was like before all that happened." Jeremy said.
"Who
the hell knows, let's get moving," Alan said.
The rise
wasn't very high, maybe fifteen meters but it was slow going. The thick blanket
of ferns continued right up the sides of the long hill hiding the ground, and
their footing, from the three travelers. Just before he got to the crest Alan
flopped down on his belly and crawled forward until his head was just over the
top. Unlike the side they had come up the side of the rise facing the river was
a steep, nearly shear drop to the ground twenty meters below and devoid of
vegetation. The ground on the far side wasn't covered in the carpet of ferns
that the rest of the forest was, only a few of the feathery shrubs covered the
ground, in most areas the leaf covered forest floor was visible. The ferns
weren't the only plants that started to thin out, the closer you got to the
river the fewer treherehere were and the rockier the ground got. The bank of
the river itself was a few meter wide swath of polished river stones, with only
the occasional boulder to break it's black and rust
colored monotony.
The
river itself was a good eighty meters away and by Alan's best estimate a good
twenty meters wide. The thick blue line on the map he held in his hand bore no
resemblance to the churning mass of white water before him. As far as he could
see the river was a mass of boiling froth, the only areas of smooth water were
along the banks or behind some of the large rocks that managed to push their
way up out of the swirling waters.
"
beside Alan.
"How
are we supposed to get across that?" Jeremy asked.
"Well,
if it's that turbulent then it can't be that deep," Alan said.
"You sure about that?"
ext>
"
river for a calm place to cross.
"Wonderful."
Alan's
eyes paused in their wondering as he spied movement a hundretersters up the
river on the far bank. "Shhh," he hissed
and flattened himself even more against the ground.
"What
is it?" Misha whispered.
Alan
pointed up river towards what he'd seen. Misha didn't see what the fuss was
about until she spotted a molted green hand emerging from the brush near the
river bank. The girl that soon followed the hand would never have been mistaken
for a human, if her splotchy green and brown skin wouldn't have given her away
the small red flowers growing out of the tangle of thick green hairs on her
head or the leaves emerging from her back would have.
As they
watched her the pokegirl made her way cautiously across the river bank, her
head in constant motion, always searching for any sign of danger. When she
neared the edge of the river she dropped down onto all fours and crawled
forward with as much ease as when she walked. She crawled out onto a large rock
that projected out over the river and cautiously bent down to drink from the
still water in itsdow,dow, her eyes scanning her surroundings even as she
drank, occasionally stopping to bring her head up and scan the area behind her.
"Feel
better?" Jeremy asked quietly.
"Not
really," Alan replied. There were several girl
like this in the village, girls that looked like living plants. They seemed
harmless enough, lazing about in the fields soaking up the sun, tending the
crops with nothing but their hands, but Alan had seen them in action. Two years
ago a small pack of reptilian pokegirls attacked some people farming in the
north fields, out there with the farmers had been a pair of these
the intruders and to Alan's amazement the leaves hadn't bounced off the
attacking pokegirls, they'd actually embedded into
them. With a tormented howl the reptilian girls had retreated and a few hours
later everyone returned to work after they were sure the pokegirls were gone,
the plantgirls had returned to wallowing on the
ground around the crops humming happily to themselves as they fertilized the
ground around them in a way nobody could explain. Out of curiosity Alan had
gone to where the attack had occurred and scoured the ground for a few minutes
before finding what he was looking for.
The
blood covered leaf wasn't remarkable as vegetation went, only a half dozen
centimeters long, maybe two wide, the plantgirl's
backs were covered in hundreds of leaves just like this one. The only thing
remarkable about it was that it was hard as steel and had an edge on it that
looked sharper then any knife Alan had ever seen, not to mention that it had
done what one of their rifles cout, it, it had stopped a charging pokegirl in
her tracks. It was a short leap of imagination to realize how bad it would have
been for a human to have been caught in a hail storm of these like those girls
had unleashed.
And now
a girl just like the ones at the village was no more then a few hundred meter
away.
"Down
there," Misha whispered as she pointed off in the opposite direction.
Farther down the river in the opposite direction, and on their shore, was
another pokegirl. Small and covered in fur in several areas the girl didn't
look like she had a taste for meat or was she particularly intimidating. 'But
neither did Newt's new Boobcat,' Alan thought, at
least until you remembered that one of her pack mates had killed a full grown
heifer with a single swipe of her claws and two of the girls who couldn't have
weighed more then eighty five kilos, combined, had dragged the seven hundred
kilo still struggling body back into the woods by themselves.
"Alright,
let's get out of here before any more of the wildlife shows up," Alan
whispered. "Lead the way Misha."
*********************************
The overhang
that Misha had spotted had turned out to be perfect, a
shear drop of ten meters had exposed a rock wall with a small cave at the
bottom. The cave wasn't deep, only a few meters, but its entrance was hidden
behind several large rocks and bushes. They had to stoop over to get inside and
sitting down was the only option but Alan doubted that they'd find a more
suitable place to wait for nightfall.
It had
been Jeremy's idea to take shifts on watch so that only one of them had to be
up and on look out and the other two could sleep or eat or whatever. Though
they hadn't made anything approaching good time, covering only ten kilometers
in a little over hour hours, they were still going to have to kill more then
seven hours before the sun started to set.
Alan had
taken the first shift and the two hours he on lon lookout passed quietly. Once
or twice he thought he saw a group of figures moving through the trees but they
were far enough not to hear and to barely be seen so aside from staying a tad
more vigilant than normal he let it pass without warning his companions.
Misha relieved him Alan scooted back farther into the cave and ate lunch, now
with the empty plastic and foil wrappers stuffed away in the back of their
hideout with the remains of Jeremy and Misha's meals
Alan settled back with his father's journal and started to read it again, from
the beginning, hoping that maybe it would offer some insights into their
current situation.
******************************
Losing
blows.
I doubt
that'll go down in history as the most astute observation made by man but it's
the truth. Losing a football game or a hand of cards or a video game sucks, but
in the end it's only your pride and maybe a little money. Losing a war is a
whole different matter.
You
spend three years of your life fighting constantly terrified of being blown up,
incinerated, frozen, ripped apart or eaten. You spend three years in the mud,
in the rain, in the snow in the heat, fighting in a place that you can't even
pronounce the name of, for people you don't even know, against an enemy that's
everywhere but can't be seen, and then you find out it was all for naught.
That
blows.
We all
expected that any day we'd hear the news over the radio that a way to fight
back had been found, a weapon, a drug, anything that
would give us an edge. After all this wasn't the way it was supposed to go. The
good guys didn't lose, even if th loo looked bleak
somebody always came through with a miracle cure. It never came, and we fought
on with weapons that are practically useless. I never thought I'd see the day
where some little girl could take ten rounds out of 240 and still keep coming
but I have. Hell, the only weapons we ever had that even seemed to
armored vehicles. The only reason we're probably still alive is because we're
here on the ass end of the planet. Here the attacks are random, small scale,
rarely more then a hundred or two of those monsters at a time, according to the
reports on the radio in some places they're organized into armies. Suddenly I'm
glad I'm here.
The call
came in this morning, on every damn freq, civil and military, what time that
would be where ever the President is I don't know since
think I've ever heard anyone more beat then he was when he told us it was over.
Told us that coordinated resistance against the threat hadn't succeeded,
billions dead, the planet completely reformed. He told us to stop trying to fight
them off, just try to find all the survivors you could and try to start over.
We had a way to fight back now of course, turn the girls against each other,
turn them to our side, but it didn't matter anymore he said. There's no point
in anyone else dying for a country, a nation, a people, a way of life that no
longer existed. He told us to try and start over, save ourselves, make sure
that the human race survived.
I don't
suppose it was really a time for a 'win one for the gipper'
kind of speech but fuck that was depressing. Still, it's nothing we didn't see
coming. How couldn't we, even out here in boonies against a disorganized bunch
of 'em we couldn't win, Rangers the best in the army
and we couldn't win.
So why
am I bothering to write this? To kill time I suppose. I could claim to bayinaying down a record for the benefit of future generations but
in the way of future generations and even if there are I doubt they'll care
to eat and avoid being eaten. Mostly I'm just looking for something to do to
pass the time.
I
suppose there might be some cause for hope, we're fairly well supplied, the
last freighter to make port carried enough supplies to keep a brigade in the
field for a month and there's less then a battalion of us now. We've found
survivors, lots of them, mostly women since every man that could walk and hold
a gun was forced into the army and summarily slaughtered. The language barrier
is a bitch but we've got some translators and some of them speak passable
English. The major has a plan, in our roving all over this god forsaken spit a
land we ran across a clearing, well clearing is a bad word since it's about
five clicks by three clicks but that'll have to do, that has a hill in the
middle of it. The major says that it looks good and defensible and that it'll
be a good place to try and start over.
A
hundred clicks of jungle to get there though, I suppose that there was a time
in my life that this might have bothered me, I still want to go home, to curl
up in my bed and forget all about this, but I don't have a home anymore, or a
bed, everything I grew up with is now under fifty meters of water. So to hell
with it, this is my life now, I've got nothing left and nothing better to do.
This
fucking blows.
***************************
Alan
sighed as he closed the journal for a moment. He'd read that particular entry,
the first in the journal, a dozen times and it never ceased to amaze him just
how tired his father sounded. A quick check of his watch showed that he still
had plenty of time until it was time to leave so he decided to read one or two
more entries and then he'd try to get some sleep.
***************************
The most
god awful earthquake anyone in the battalion has ever heard of hit last night,
and a bunch of these guys are from
could stand up for a good five minutes. All we could do was just hug the
ground. I swear it felt like god himself had picked me up and was trying to
rattle my brains right out of my skull.
This
morning when we woke up half the towers in the city to the southwest,
is....was, were gone just gone most of the rest were leaning over a
people left in the city before last night, now I know there aren't.
Well
maybe life doesn't suck quite so hard after all.
Last
night a group of refugees wandered into our lines. They came from what was left
of Kualla Lumpar
and that they decided to take their chances with the pokegirls rather then with
the gangs.
Pokeg,
i,
it's a weird ass name for the monsters, doesn't seem nearly threatening enough
but it seems to have already caught on with the guys.
Since
our platoon has one of the last free translators the Major assigned us to watch
after them. The lieutenant wasn't nearly as bent out of shape about playing
nursemaid as I thought he'd be, everything seems to piss off Simms these days.
Personally I'm loving it, the only women I've seen in
the last three years have been wearing olive drab and caked in dirt, not to
mention already spoken for, the chance to escort around a bunch of women who
don't smell like us is a relief. I'm sure that to any civilized person they
probably stunk something horrible but to somebody whose
been out in the back country for months on end, who hasn't had a bath in weeks
or washed his clothes in days they smelled better then any rose. Not to mention
it means we're in the middle of the column with the supplies. I've done the
point man thing before and I'm happy to let somebody else do it now.
These
fifty or so girls bring the total number of refugees we've found up to nearly
two hundred.
Right
now one of them is in my sleeping bag. Pretty little thing, damn young too,
maybe eighteen but that might be stretching it. Sheeit!
Young? I'm barely twenty four,
maybe war does make you old. She doesn't speak a word of English and aside from
being able to ask where the crapper is I don't speak a word of Malay. Best I
can figure her name is Ami, course Ami could be slang for dress since that's
what she was pointing to when she said it so who the hell knows. I'll ask Jamal
in the morning how the hell you ask what somebody's name is.
The
sleeping bag, here I thought I was being all chivalrous by offering it to her,
wasn't until the poor girl scrunched up her nose that I put two and two together,
I stink, I sleep in or on that thing every night, it gets left out in the rain
all the time, I hadn't washed it in a month or two. Probably smells like she's
sleeping in a pile of dead cats. I'll have to wash the damn thing next chance I
get.
***************************
Ami, his mother. Alan smiled as he thought of how his father had met his
apparently it had worked. He reverently put the journal back into water tight
plastic bag he kept it in and put it back in his pack. After a quick check with
Misha who confirmed that she hadn't seen anything Alan pulled his hat down over
his eyes and did his best to take a nap.
A few
hours later Misha's hard elbow in his side woke him.
"Come on, get up you lazy bastard."
"I'm
up, I'm up," he groaned. He wasn't too sure he'd actually fallen asleep
but the sharp pain in his back confirmed that he'd been laying on something for
a while. Still, waking up with Misha's red clad chest
in his face made it seem not that bad.
"It's
seven, time to get going."
The
blonde was telling the truth, the light coming into the cave was certainly
dimmer and it had taken on a much redder tone. "Ok, grab your gear, let's
get moving," he said as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
When
everyone was up and outside the cave Alan led them back up the rise and to the
spot where they'd surveyed the river from before. As he made the climb a second
time he noted that just like him, Misha and Jeremy both had their rifles in
their hands and while he was asleep Jeremy had decided to get rid of the heavy
jacket he'd been wearing and just get by with the black t-shirt he'd had on
underneath it.
The view
from the top of the ridge was much the same as it was before, only the shadows
were longer and deeper. For several minutes everyone scanned the tree lines in
both directions, searching for more thirsty pokegirls.
"So
where we gonna cross?" Jeremy asked.
"How
about there, just down stream of that big line of rocks," Misha offered
pointing a dirt smeared arm towards her suggestion.
Alan
looked at the suggested crossing for a moment before saying, "
them and they'll give us cover on at least one side. That's where we'll do
it."
"How
much longer before we go?" Misha asked.
"Not
to much longer, the sun's pretty close to set, give it
another half hour and we go."
The wait
wasn't easy, sitting there doing nothing aside from looking for pokegirls that
may or may not be there made it seem like every second took a minute and every
minute was an hour. Every twitching branch, every moderately loud noise brought
them to full attention and sent another surge of adrenaline through their veins
only to be let down again. The constant surging and receding was more tiring
then any part of the hike so far. Finally Alan glanced at his watch and decided
that twenty five minutes was close enough to thirty and he gave the order to
move out. The sharp cliff down to the river basin was tough to negotiate and involved
more slipping, sliding, and falling then it did actual climbing but they were
able to descend it with out getting killed though ever clink of metal on stone
or every pained grunt sounded like a gunshot in their ears.
They
hurried across the relatively open ground between the base of the rise and the
river as quickly as possible, trading silence for speed since there were
precious few places to hide out on the leaf covered ground. They finally
skidded to stop behind a large boulder on the river bank and made one last
check of the area to make sure they weren't exposing themselves to a pack of
hungry pokegirls coming down for a drink. Too late to do anything about it Alan
realized that by waiting so late to cross the light was so dim that anything more
then a hundred meters in either direction was hidden in shadows.
With
a quick prayer that their luck would hold Alan nodded to his friends and
stepped out into the river.
Author’s
Notes
1) The
journal will be making a regular appearance from now on.
Lighthawk – My designated
pre-reader, who subjected himself to this way too often.
Warpwizard
my writing.
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general bitching: http://www.livejournal.com/~bsmart
You don’t need to tell me I
suck, I’m well aware of that.