PokeWild

It was dark. Navigating by the moon dark. Fuchsia wasn’t awake yet, and only the occasional shadowed figure slipping through the streets gave any impression of the city being alive at all.

David wanted to be like Fuchsia. He’d been living odd hours since Venonat had joined the team, but this was a whole new who-needs-sleep level. The worst thing was that he didn’t even feel that tired. It felt normal, in a large part thanks to the events of the day before. He wasn’t exhausted because as soon as he got back from the pokecenter, he’d crawled into his tent and passed out like a light. It hadn’t even been lunchtime. When the body needed sleep it tended not to care what the clocks said. Not that he owned a clock. Or knew what time he woke up this morning.

An obnoxiously loud neighbor must have woken up half the campsite when they’d stumbled back to their tent, drunk to the nines. It was the first time anything like this had happened - he usually slept well even arriving back hours after night had fallen - but it was annoying enough to make him consider moving.

The idea of being late to Koga’s ‘training’ had kept him up, which was a good thing, as when he’d asked the campsite manager, who was awake and caught up into some book about Shellder, what the time was there had just been enough left for him to get to the gym without having to run. Briskly walk, but not run.

As he crossed the city, the idea of leaving the campsite felt more foolish and more the angry reaction to being woken from a deep sleep. He wouldn’t leave for that. But, leaving itself, he didn’t take off the table. Koga had his hooks in him. David was well and truly caught up in whatever web the gym leader was making. There was no escape.

He had six days to earn a second badge, or they’d try to take away Pidgey.

It didn’t escape his notice that he needed to earn that second badge from Koga, or that Koga was ‘training’ him for all the time he had left. Koga was the Silver League in Fuchsia, or as good as the same thing being the city’s gym leader. That wasn’t even getting into the whole ‘junta’ thing. He was trapped, dependent on a stranger’s control and mercy. Something he was doubting after considering that gym battle.

Two evolved Pokemon for a second gym badge? The Bug type, he could understand, but a Golbat? Either David and everyone he’d battled in this world was well below par, or something smelled funky.

There was no escape. No sensible escape anyway.

If this training was shit - some scheme to keep him here until time ran out, and they had an excuse to take Cloudburst - he was going to run. He wouldn’t let them take Cloudburst.

He couldn’t.

David was honest enough with himself to recognize that running wouldn’t go well. The time he’d spent with Louis made it clear how out matched he was in the wild. There was so much he didn’t know. There were only two ways off the peninsula. He would be easy to find.

But he didn’t care. Giving up Cloudburst wasn’t an option. They’d run and go down fighting.

It was a dark thought for the morning, and he saw the irony as he searched the gloom of night from small luminescent pink hearts to lead his way. Whoever’d designed the Fuchsia gym logo had a sense of humor and a firm grasp of symbolism.

A curious quiver at his belt focused his thoughts, drawing some of the murk away.

David took a deep breath.

Right. It was one thing to plan for the worst, but nothing had happened yet. There was still time.

A small nondescript door stood out from the night ahead. The pink at its center was brighter than all the others. He had arrived.

The gym reception was startlingly normal for this time of day. The receptionist wore a creaseless dark gray-purple tracksuit. It was similar to the one Taketa, the gym trainer, had worn but with some small adjustments to make it more formal. Inside the gym there were few signs that it was night; there was one receptionist instead of four, and the room was lit with candles instead of bright electrical lights.

“Hello, I was told to come here for-”

“Just a moment please.” The receptionist interrupted, giving a well practiced smile to lessen the sting of the interruption. They indicated to a screen door off to the left of the reception. “You can wait in there if you wish.”

“Right.” David gave them a nod before doing just that. When considered, it wasn’t much of a surprise that the receptionist knew he was coming. It was the gym leader that organized this after all.

There was only a minute to take in the adjacent room, a worn waiting room full of gray-white furniture made from the same wood as the floors, before another screen door opened at the back. A woman walked in, wearing the gym uniform but the more sporting kind.

“Good morning, I will be teaching you today.” She was quite short, giving David an angled top-down view of her banana yellow hair. It was cut short at the front which made it spiky, while the back was bundled up under a half bandana, half shawl thing. Her cheekbones stood out from her face, deeply inset especially in the candlelight. The faint forming wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the dark bags underneath them aged her face. They made her face look slightly odd, especially as the rest was on the cute, girl next door side.

David guessed she was between three and four years older than him and was instantly on guard. He hadn’t expected the gym leader to be training him, but he had half expected to meet Koga again. Now that the man wasn’t here, David was unsure if he should be disappointed or not.

“I’m David.”

“My name is Jenny,” his ‘teacher’ replied. She gestured at the open sliding door behind her. “Shall we?”

David went through first, and she closed the door behind him.

“How is this going to work?”

“You will be training here in the morning till midday and again at night. The evening will be yours to do as you wish,” Jenny announced as she passed David and led the way to a screen door to the left. “Your meals will be provided while you’re here. Everything is to be on gym grounds.”

David followed after her, and his shoes squelched on the wet floor. “What will I be doing?”

His steps were leaving tracks behind on the freshly cleaned floors. Instantly he felt guilty. Some unfortunate person must have cleaned in the middle of the night, the only time the gym was closed. He had made a mess of it already. He moved to his tip toes.

“We will discuss it as we work. What-” Jenny paused, turning back to him. “What are you doing?”

He looked down at the wet floors and then back at his tracks. “The floor has just been cleaned.”

Jenny raised an eyebrow. Mirth made her cheeks pop out. “They will be cleaned again. Come on.”

David continued to tip toe. Jenny didn’t bring it up again.

After about six rooms he’d lost track of where they were. Each was recently washed, if not still wet. Jenny didn’t lead him on a straight path, and given all the rooms were different sizes, directions became meaningless. The reception was just as likely to be behind him as in front of him by this point.

“How do you find your way around here?” He grumbled. It surprised him, how quickly he was letting his guard down around the gym trainer. She was approachable and her face expressive and almost naive.

“Practice,” Jenny stated dryly. “You don’t need to worry about it. You will have an escort at all times when in the gym. We are nearly there.”

Eight more rooms passed, which David was sure included a loop Jenny used to mess with him, before they arrived in a room with a large sandbox arena like the one his gym challenge had been in. This room had larger water channels splitting the room in quarters, and a deep pool sat in the center. Unlike the rest of the gym which was lit by candles at this hour, the arena’s bright overhead lights were on.

“Won’t this room be in use?” David asked as Jenny slid the panel closed behind him.

Jenny shook her head. “It has been reserved for the day.”

David blinked. The gym was big, but this was a huge room. It had the floor space of around 6 Fuchsia houses. “Is that normal?”

“You don’t think it is?” Jenny asked, brows furrowing. Her cheekbones didn’t seem so deep in the light.

“I... I don’t know.” He scanned the arena once more. “What will we be doing here?”

Jenny’s hand fell to her belt. It was a deep purple, and about as wide as a hand. “You have a Venonat, correct?”

“Yes?”

“Release them.”

David pulled Venonat’s shiny ball from his belt. It felt alive under his fingers. “Why?”

Jenny shifted some of the cloth on her belt, revealing woven rope behind it. A pokeball was plucked out. “You’ll need them.”

“Venonat is still healing.” He didn’t move his finger to the button. “He isn’t ready to fight.”

“We won’t be fighting,” Jenny said, a sly smile dancing on her lips.

He didn’t move.

She raised an eyebrow and began to count.

“5.”

David clenched his teeth as it brought the memory of the alley back.

“3.”

“2.”

He released Venonat, all humor gone. Venonat flashed into existence, crouching forward and twitching as he examined the room.

“Now what?” He asked icily.

“Now you run.”

David scrunched his brow. “What?”

Jenny just clicked the button on her pokeball. A spotlight shone, and David closed his eyes. He heard the clicking before he opened them again. He felt the wind.

A creature beat its wings, hovering in the place in the air before him. Its entire body was pale, faint gray and purple patches blending together in an irregular pattern. A tri-stalked crest rose into the air and on either side, two massive eyes stared at him and Venonat. The eyes weren’t inset into its body, but bulged out of it, two drops of ink suspended in bubbles. More clicking sounds came from its mandibles, and the small limbs held tight around its body. The Pokemon was taller than Venonat, but barely. What it lacked in height, it more than made up for in wingspan. Each of its wings were longer than it was tall, easily a meter and a half each. They continued to beat as the Pokemon sank in the air until it was staring orb to orb into Venonat’s red eyes.

“Venomoth.”

Venonat chirped, and the Pokemon, Venonat’s future evolution chirped back.

“Wow.” David breathed out.

The Pokemon were still for a moment, sizing each other up and communicating. Then Jenny spoke.

“I thought I told you to run.”

The peace was broken. Venomoth’s wings beat faster, and it rose into the air. Sand was thrown up, and then exploded by David’s feet.

“Fuck.” He started to move. Adrenaline ruling. "Cloud in the sky!"

Venonat took off, jerking back and forth without a destination. His Pokemon was likely as confused as he was.

Behind them, Jenny laughed.

David scowled. Innocent and approachable his ass.

Thirty minutes later he collapsed, legs crumbling underneath him.

It became clear quickly enough that Venomoth wasn’t out to hurt them, the fact he was alive and not cut in half by blades of air being proof enough. It just wanted them to run. The Pokemon was not against using force to keep them moving however, creating gusts that sent him tumbling if he slowed beneath a flee for life pace. Venomoth alternated between himself and Venonat, obeying orders from Jenny to focus on one of them in particular when she thought they were slipping.

David jumped the channels of water. He skidded through the sand, which was painful to run on now that his calves burned. He hugged the walls. Nothing worked. He kept running. He didn’t stop until his legs gave out.

A shadow fell on him.

“Five minutes. Then we do it again, but properly.”

“Hngh?” David tried to speak as his lungs screamed.

“You need to order Venonat. Where was the response? The retaliation?”

David glared at her. Venonat was still healing. He couldn’t fight.

“Nothing would hit, but Venonat can practice,” She scoffed. ”If you play too defensive when we start again, we’ll increase the pressure.”

David pushed himself up, stomach turning. “Why?”

Jenny’s eyes glinted. “Teaching. You have four minutes.”

His stomach turned again. It lurched. There wasn’t time. He made it to his knees before puking.

“About time,” Jenny muttered behind him. She stepped forward and jabbed something into his shoulder.

David pushed up and away from both the vomit and her, body aching. “What the hell was that?”

Jenny slipped a needle into a pocket. “Training.”

David opened his mouth to protest, only to stop as his stomach wrenched, and his shoulder jerked.

“Three minutes.”

He was going to kill her. He was going to survive this and kill her.