FSE

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Chapter Eight.

I woke up groggily, moaning softly as I stirred. I opened my eyes when I found my arms were pinned down. Well, not pinned down, just binded down at the wrist. I was laying on a different bed than the one I had woken up in the last two times I had blacked out.

"You're awake!" A voice shouted next to me and I looked with wide eyes to a large, pink pokemon who was carrying an egg in a pouch on her belly.

"That was quite a battle!" She danced a bit in place around me, "You've been knocked out for a good five hours."

"What happened...?" I shook my head groaned lowly.

"Well, you won the battle! Zane was given his badge before he and the gym leader came here to the Pokemon Center. I've been making sure you're healing properly. Your body seems fine, but your arms need a few more days to mend fully, broken bones aren't easily healed as cuts and scrapes are."

"Do I have to stay here for that?" I asked, dreading the thought of being stuck here on this bed for two whole days.

"No." She shook her head and chuckled, releasing my wrists. "You can move, just don't overdo it if it feels like it's going to hurt."

I nodded and sat up slowly, my arms felt just a little stiff, but it didn't seem like I would feel any pain until I tried to raise them up above my head and I scowled and winced.

"Ahhhh..." I whined and sighed lightly, keeping my arms low instead now.

"Cheer up! You did amazing!" The happy pokemon sang to me and I smiled a bit.

"Are all battles so damaging though...?" I looked at her with a hint of worry in my eyes.

"No no. I think Mav was trying to purposely overpower you. He bent the rules for you, and if the League ever found out, he'd be removed as Gym Leader, but if you lost, it wouldn't have mattered then." She danced around the bed to the other side of it, helping me down onto the floor. "You'll grow into this, you're still young, once you get stronger and evolve, you'll find battles come much easier for you."

"Evolve..." I whispered softly and thought back to the battle when the gem had yelled at me.

As the pokemon led me outside the room into the reception area, I thought about what the gem was again. It seemed to have power over Aura that even Lucario didn't have, enough to give me the ability to use it for the moment without doing so myself. What could it teach me?

"Ruli! You're okay!" Zane called out to me and snapped me out of my thoughts a moment, and I saw my trainer sitting in the lobby, getting up as I walked out with the big pink pokemon.

"We won right?" I asked as I ran up to him, careful with my arms still.

"Yeah we did, check it out." He grinned and opened his bag, taking out a carrying case and showing me a the silver colored round badge inside. "The Boulder Badge."

"Awesome!" I grinned and did a small little dance on the floor there, spinning around in a circle on one foot.

Zane grinned and rubbed my head with his hand, making me murr and wag my tail. "Hehe, we got seven other badges to go, and lots of places to go see to get them."

"That's right." Mav chortled close by, he was sitting in a chair in the booth area, where he and Fredrick were still eating a light meal, I hadn't seen him when Zane had been sitting earlier.

"The nearest gym from here is about two hundred miles down the road, or rather, the trail, since I doubt you'll be driving. Driving would defeat the purpose of it being a journey." He grinned at me and Zane. "Apec Town is its name."

"Zane!" I tugged on his arm and whispered up to him as he looked at me again, "remember what Midnight said? He said he could feel his brother Jolteon a few hundred miles away, do you think he could be in Apec?"

"He didn't specify any direction..." Zane hummed, "But it's the likely place in that radius, we'll look for him there."

"We don't have the time to be looking for worthless pokemon!" I jumped a bit as I heard the voice from the gem, and Zane scowled as we both felt our connection snap apart like a twig as it continued yelling at me, "We need to head to Mount Vazuvious, now!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I growled back at it with my mind, staring at Zane's pocket where it rested.

"Fool youngling! Do you seriously know nothing?! Mountains are your natural habitat. How else do you expect to evolve unless in in a trying environment that tests your skills and abilities."

"I'm not going anywhere without Zane!"

The gem scoffed, "You realize my opinion of all this yes? This is ridiculous! Pokemon with humans, in my time, humans were just another form of pokemon! No better and no greater than us! Now, I see you battling a fellow pokemon for the amusement of these pink fleshy fools! And even worse is you...letting yourself become mentally linked to one through the acts of mating...disgusting." I growled at the tone it used, "I can understand it from a youngling like you I suppose though, you know no better, and there's still time for you to break it and find a good female." It started mostly thinking to itself it seemed, and I interrupted him.

"And just what's wrong with humans?" I asked, and I instantly felt our connection break, and the link reformed as the gem fixed it and yelled out.

"Don't talk to me in such tone! To think I gave up my physical form for the likes of you!"

"Just who are you?" I asked it instead.

The gem growled, "I was one of the most powerful Pokemon in existence! But than came the Calamity. I and the other pokemon at my level made the stupid choice to save the rest of this world by sacrificing ourselves to its destructive force. We fought it at Mount Vazuvious, the battle was the most epic I'd ever fought. I suffered so much damage that my body was destroyed and my spirit coalesced into the form of a small gem...I spent eons buried in the ground, until at last, you," I could almost feel the gem's inner eyes turned toward me, "Dug me up. In my eagerness I thought for sure I could bond and merge with you, but you're too young."

"What is this merge you keep wanting me to do? Why should I try to evolve just for you to take over my body or something?"

"Not take over your body." It corrected in a more calmer tone, "I can't control you, I don't have enough power for that. I can merely give you my power, and transform you into an even stronger form than your evolved form! But I can't do that until you evolve first yourself! Your body is too young, it won't be able to withstand all of my power as you are. I don't have the time to find another suitable match, stuck as I am, and unable to communicate with this human who carries me around." It growled again, clearly annoyed that it even had to be carried by a human. "The Calamity can happen again and I must make sure it stays where I left it buried! You must take me there!"

I nodded slowly, "How am I supposed to let Zane know about this when you won't let me speak about anything you say directly to him?" I looked at Zane as I said that, who was calmly watching me speak in my own language, simply waiting, and he gave me a bright smile as I looked up.

"This doesn't involve the humans! Humans can do nothing to stop this, it has to be a pokemon. Take me and leave this fool human! We are naturally more powerful, you don't need them anyway. Clearly, the centuries I earned for this world were not worth the sacrifice I made, it turned out to become one where my own species is enslaved to humans!"

"I am not a slave!"

"Oh? What is your name?"

"Ruli!"

"NO! Your name is Riolu! That is the name I gave to your kind! The fact that you allow the humans to rename you only tells me that the entire pokemon world has forsaken me and the others that saved you!"

"I never knew about you till just now! Zane gave me this name out of love, and I'm proud to hold it!" I shook my fist at Zane's pocket, who blinked and moved a bit, "Let me speak to Zane." I growled and the gem growled back, but I felt it leave my mind as my connection to Zane reconnected.

"What's up?" Zane asked worriedly as he felt the connection come back to us.

"He's being really mean..." I sighed and shook my head, "and of course, I can't even tell you about any of it, he still refuses. It's like he hates humans..."

"Hates humans?" Zane whispered lowly so Fredrick and Mav could not here nearby, "Why?"

"He thinks pokemon have become slaves."

Zane frowned. "Pokemon have been friends with humans since recorded history."

"Lies..." I heard the gem whisper faintly and I growled at it, staring at Zane's pocket again.

I shook my head and sighed again, "It's no matter what it wants for now, whatever it is, it wants me to evolve first, so we can't do anything more about it, so let's go to Apec Town."

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The three, or four of us I guess if I included the gem, started down the pathway leading away from Chrom City and Zane's hometown once again. My arms still ached if I lifted them above my neck, but I was fine for now, and I was sure I'd be fully healed once I needed to battle again at all.

We set up camp as the sun was starting to set, Fredrick left me and Zane to set up our tent; he had his own thankfully, to gather firewood. We got the tent set up easily, and Fredrick returned sometime after, without any firewood.

"Hey man, where's the firewood?" Zane asked, confused.

"Got something esle for ya." He chuckled and handed out a pokeball, "Just caught him off guard as he was eating."

"A pokemon?" Zane questioned and he took it, "I thought you said pokemon aren't meant to be traded between trainers like this?"

"This is different, I just caught it, and it doesn't know me at all, so giving him to you won't harm him as much as it would giving one of my older ones to you. That, and I think it'd be a good start for you, I didn't even have to battle him for the ball to catch him, so he must be pretty weak."

"Aw, way to make me feel confident in my ability..." Zane grimaced.

"Ha ha. It's up to you to train him, though I think it might be prudent if you take it to the nearby stream and give him a bath. He kind of smells...most wild pokemon do."

Zane nodded and I reached out to the ball and rubbed it with my paw, wondering what pokemon was inside it.

I rode on Zane's shoulder as he walked to the river nearby, and he held up the ball and clicked the button, the ball opening and the usual flash of bright light escaping and forming into a pokemon.

What stood in front of me was just about my size, minus a few inches I suppose. He was clearly a canine species, as he stood on all fours, with huge puffy brown and dusty looking fur.

As he formed, he opened his eyes and blinked a few times, before he noticed me and Zane and he practically flipped out.

"AHH!!! No no no no!" He jumped away from me and Zane and I chased after him and tackled him to the ground before he started running.

"Hey take it easy now!" I winced as my arms twinged in pain as I tackled him, forgetting a moment about them. "We're your friends!"

"No no no no no, I shouldn't have...I mean, why me..." He sobbed and he buried his head in the ground as I got off him, his paws covering his ears and head. I thought I could see his paws rub off in a cloud of dust as he did this, and tilted my head.

Zane came over now, he could understand me, but he couldn't understand this pokemon, "It's an Eevee..." He whispered, "Just like the ones my dad had..."

The Eevee jumped up again at this, looking at Zane with wide black eyes, tears dripping down his cheeks as he sniffled.

"H-human...Uhhhhhh..." He got up and backed away slowly, looking away into the forest, and I prepared myself to tackle him again if I had to.

"Relax Eevee. I'm the one who caught you." I looked back at him and he shook his head, and I rolled my eyes at his lie. "I brought you here to this river to take a little bath."

"B...bath?" The Eevee shook his head at that rapidly, "N-no no no, no bath please."

Zane understood the shaking of his head, "What? but you have to, come on." He started reaching out with his arms.

"No!" The Eevee shouted and I saw him slash out with a paw, and Zane gasped as deep cuts appeared in the sleeves of his shirt. I jumped in front of the Eevee and growled, bringing back my paw to use a Force Palm fueled by the anger.

"No Ruli don't hurt him! He's just nervous." I stopped myself short of my attack, but anger still seethed in me at the thought that he had just tried to harm Zane.

"No bath!" The Eevee said again and he resumed cowering on the ground, mumbling. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

I had enough of this myself at this point, seeing him attack my trainer like that, and I stomped over to the water and dipped my paw into the stream, and then splashed the water at him.

It splashed him dead on the neck and head, and he yelled out and jumped, shaking himself. I gasped as I saw the brown color of his fur wash off where the water had hit, leaving him white instead and he flipped again, starting to roll around in the dirt.

"No no no no no no no." He continued to roll in the dirt as I walked back over to Zane, as we both watched as the pokemon frantically tried to cover himself in dirt.

He finally seemed to stop, the spot of his fur now a dark brown, but it was clear now that the rest of his body was also covered up in dirt and dust, as now his head and neck just seemed darker than the rest.

"He's shiny." Zane smiled and chuckled, and the Eevee blushed and he cried again.

"There's nothing wrong with being Shiny." Zane said as the Eevee cried.

The Eevee only continued to cry, and eventually, Zane tried again. "Now come on, let's get you cleaned up, you can cover yourself again if you want, but you smell badly hehe." He chuckled again and reached out, the Eevee looked at the outstretched hands, but this time he didnt' do anything as Zane picked him up and brought him over to the river.

He grimaced with his eyes closed as Zane placed him the water, the dirt and mud washing off of him into the stream as he whimpered and Zane started to scrub him clean. I washed myself close to them, watching as the Eevee went from brown to this shiny white and silver sheen and wondered why he would possibly want to keep himself dirty for.

______________________

When Zane finished washing the Eevee, he indeed proceeded to dirty himself again, rolling in the ground to make his fur brown once more. Zane did nothing to stop him.

"At least he smells better now." He shrugged at me as I shook my head.

The Eevee followed us back to camp readily, though he kept his distance, and now, all three of us were huddled together in Zane's tent trying to sleep. Zane was curled up tightly in his sleeping bag, while I was staring up at the ceiling of the tent, just thinking about so many things. The gem, the battle I was in, this new pokemon partner I had.

I looked over at the Eevee in question, who was curled up in that classic canine sleeping position, his fluffy tail curled up over his nose. I growled and sat up, reached over, and poked him awake.

"Wha-what?" He blinked awake and jumped as he saw me, instantly wide awake, "What do you want?" He whimpered. Clearly, he was still really nervous towards me and Zane.

"We're going back to that river, and you're going to take another bath, and you're going to stay in your original color." I grabbed onto his paws with mine and started to drag him out of the tent.

"What?! No!" He struggled against me, but my training and experience already had me much stronger than him, as I dragged him through the dirt around the campsite and into the forest.

"What's wrong with being shiny?" I asked him, grunting as I dragged him through the forest.

"It's just so wrong! The rest of my litter were all normal, I'm just so different!" He cried out and I stopped, blinking a bit as I looked at him, holding onto his forepaws as he stared at me with tears in his eyes.

"Your litter? Where are you from?" I sat him down, letting go of his paws and he stood up, whimpering as he told me.

"I'm from Apec Town...my parents live there, both of them work for the city powering the generator, both are Jolteons." I made a mental note about how we believed Steve's Jolteon was in Apec Town from what Midnight had told us that he could sense him that far away. "When me and my brothers and sisters were born, I turned out to be like this...I was treated so differently, like I was just so special...my brothers and sisters teased me and called me names because of all the attention I got."

"So, what, you ran away?"

He nodded and I shook my head, "That's crazy, your parents must be worried sick."

He sniffled and looked at the ground, "If that was true, then they would've sent someone and found me already..."

"How? They're pokemon, humans don't understand us." I laughed at him.

"Yours does..." He looked up at me.

I blinked and blushed brightly. "That's...different, my species can speak to humans...anyways, there's nothing wrong with your fur color, just because you're different from others doesn't mean you should hate it."

"Really? It hasn't done anything for me but make me hate myself."

"Even as Zane gave you a bath?"

"I...I admit..." He blushed visibly and shuffled in place, "He's the first human who gave attention for a reason other than my fur color...but if I let myself go around without the cover, I'll just draw more attention to myself."

"You're a trainer's pokemon now. You'll get attention either way in a few battles." I chuckled.

He stayed silent a moment and I tapped his shoulder, "Come on...trust me, it's better of you don't hide it anymore."

He jumped away from my touch and he shook his head, "No...No...I'm sorry Ruli...I know you mean well...but it's just better like this..." He turned and started to walk back to the tent, and I sighed and followed him, feeling oddly defeated for some reason.