Pokémon Don't say goodbye yet

[DragonD]

Prologue
You are not alone​

We were always together, ever since I found her unconscious on that fateful day. The most important person in my life. The reason why I always kept trying, why I never gave up, that pushed me to keep going. The one that today had fought with me the greatest evil we could ever have imagined and was now walking by my side.

My heart was pounding in my chest, and, for the first time in the past hours, it wasn’t from fear. For the first time in days, I wasn’t scared of what could happen to me. For the first time since forever, I felt that no matter what the world would throw at me I could take it, we could take it, and we would laugh at it right after. Her making her silly jokes, and me pretending to wince when hearing them, we both knowing that I actually loved each and every single one, not that I would ever admit it, not that I actually needed to. She knew, I knew, and that was enough.

I felt a surge of emotion; was it expectancy? I couldn’t wait to see what the next day had for us, all the things that we could do, that we were going to do.

Was it anticipation? I knew that everyone would be waiting for us back home, from our guild partners to the people in the city. I giggled a little imagining all of them biting their nails waiting for our return.

Or was it… fulfillness? I sure felt complete. I was the luckiest riolu in the world. Glaring at my side, I saw Amber’s fluffy form next to me. The little Eevee walked taking small hops with each step, swaying sideways in her strides, only touching the ground with two legs each time; front right and hind left first, then front left and hind right, changing smoothly between steps. She managed to look both goofy and graceful at the same time, a feat that beat my comprehension.

While looking at her, I saw a glimpse of green under her fur collar, and smiled. She was still wearing her scarf, even after all that had happened. Immediately after that, I felt a stab of fear and reached out to mine. I let out a sigh of relief as I checked that it was still there. It was originally the same pastel green as hers, but now (despite having washed it this very morning) it had at least four different shades of green all over it, along with some brown colored dots of dirt. Like always, I had gotten the worst part after our fight, and my now polychromatic scarf was proof of that.

I looked back at Amber. Of course, she had noted my little lapse and was now giving me a funny look. Noticing she now had my undivided attention, she took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at me, widening her eyes for more impact. All while still walking in that particular way of hers, somehow keeping balance despite the tricky route we were taking. I put my hand on my heart with an exaggerated gesture, faking shock and hurt. She chuckled a bit and turned her head back at the road in front of us. As I watched her, for whatever reason, I felt the urge of trying to walk like she did; I began to bounce a little, doing my best to match her movements. She looked at me through the corner of her eye, trying not to laugh at my efforts to copy her. As if to taunt me, she began to go faster, but not changing her tempo, only covering more ground between steps. She had mastered her art, her feet almost never touching the ground, and even so, I accepted her challenge.

I shouldn’t have, I really shouldn’t have, I had never tried to walk in that unique way of hers, I always found it so… Different, aside from the fact that she moved in four legs and I did in two, I couldn’t even imagine myself trying to mimic Amber´s movements. And yet, here I was, trying to keep up with her in a so-called race. I wish I could say I actually did, but I didn’t even manage to maintain her pace for more than three seconds before tripping with my own feet and almost falling. She threw her head back and laughed, unable to keep it at bay longer. I gave up on trying to follow her and focused on regaining my composure, my face was bright red, and Amber began laughing even harder.

I wouldn’t describe her laugh as melodical, not in a million years, that would be an unfathomable offense to all kinds of musical harmony. But there was no denying there was something charming about it, but I could never put my finger at what it was.

But now, looking at her, I could finally tell what was so special about her absolutely-not-harmonic laugher. It screamed joy, joy at everything; Joy for being alive, joy for being with me, joy for what we had done together as it was the reason we were like this, joy at what we could do, as the possibilities were endless. While looking at her, I began to giggle a little myself, her happiness was contagious, and despite being exposed to it for so long, I had not developed a resistance yet. I wish I never would.

Amber always laughed nonstop, until she was out of breath. But she would still laugh, between strangled breaths she would laugh until that inevitable cough attack arrived, without exception, to finally let her take a breath.

And in the end, it came, I think I noticed before she did. How her chest tightened, how she rushed to take air while at the same time her body wasn’t going to admit it anymore, as if it had some sort of grudge against its owner for putting it through that over and over again.

She slowed down until finally pausing, and I stopped beside her. The noises coming out from her were something halfway between a cough and a sneeze, I stood next to her until she recovered.

I didn’t want to break the silence, if it could be called silence, with all the noise we were making, but not a single word had been spoken until now, talking would be… awkward. I had to choose carefully what I was about to say, or else I would ruin the atmosphere.

“Well, you literally asked for it,” I finally said.

Smooth, Michael, real smooth.

Amber looked up to my face, narrowing her eyes. She managed to remain serious for a full five seconds before bursting into laughter again, followed by cough almost immediately after.

She just didn’t learn.

Amber lowered her head as if to focus. This time it took longer for her to recover, I felt a knot forming on my stomach. I didn’t like to see her like this, as funny as the afterthought of this moment would be, as silly as Amber could be, she was the toughest mon I knew. It didn’t feel right to see her looking so…

…Fragile.

Still hearing her efforts to regain control of her breath, I looked away. I turned to the sky, looking anywhere near the sun was always a bad idea, but it was cloudy this day. They weren’t rain clouds; I could see the pure white that composed them. It would not rain today, but these clouds were going to give us a soft shade to escape the inclement sun, that was always nice.

I felt a little bump on my arm, it was rather soft, but, lost in thought as I was, it made me jump. I looked down only to see Amber resting her head on my arm, the little vee couldn’t reach much higher if we were standing beside each other like we were. I reached out my paw to touch her fluff, hoping she didn’t notice. She hit my ribs with her own paw in response, not with all her might, but it was enough to make me wince. I was still hurt from our recent encounter, although she also took her toll, it wasn’t nearly as bad as mine. Even so, I didn’t move, so she didn’t notice, her head still resting on me. After a few seconds, she pulled away looking at me expectantly.

“So?” She finally asked.

“Err… so what?”

She rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t believe she had to explain something so simple, “Our race you absolute bread, shall we continue?”

I felt a smile tugging the corners of my mouth. Just a moment ago, when she started to hasten, and so did I, Not a single word was spoken, yet we both had silently agreed that we were competing, I smirked at her, beat up as I was, I could even win this one.

…wait… now that we agreed we were racing, were we going to keep walking? should I start running? I went blank, staring at her, hoping she would say something without me having to make the question.

“What’s up with that face? You look like you just dropped your last berry in a lake,” She gave me a toothy grin, unintentionally showing her small and ridiculously sharp teeth. Then she blinked, and suddenly went serious. Wait, you didn’t, did you? Dear Arceus Michael, I swear you would lose your head if…”

I cut her off. “You ate all our berries, apples, and anything barely edible remember?” I said as I poked her chest with my finger, or I tried. My hand sank almost completely in her fluff. Even so, I kept trying for a bit, but my efforts were in vain. I was completely unable to touch the eevee. Her fur was deceptively thick. On first look, most people would think it was the normal eevee turf anyone would usually see (and ask to touch), but each day I was more and more convinced that, if I accidentally bumped into her, I would literally get lost in there with no going back.

Amber watched as I got my arm out of her fur, defeated, and chuckled a bit, she never said it, not even to me, but I had seen how much time she spent cleaning both her collar and her tail. Always making sure to drip it off without wringing anything as to not tighten it, the Eevee was proud of her fluffiness.

And I was damn jealous of it.

“Ready?” She asked. Not giving me time to answer, she took a step away before crouching slightly, as if preparing to bolt at any moment.

Not wanting to stay behind, I began to get ready, but then I saw Amber swaying to the side almost imperceptibly, and stopped, “Are you okay?” I asked, my voice sounded a little too worried, even to myself. After all this time I couldn’t get rid of the irrational desire of protecting her, even after being shown a million times that she was the one protecting me.

Amber rolled her eyes, she did love to do that, didn’t she? “I’m fine Michael,” she said standing up again, after a moment, she continued; “you know? I’m so fine I'll even give you a head start, how does that sound, you slowpoke?”

I narrowed my eyes, staring daggers at her, and she gave me an innocent smile “So you take it or not?”

“… yes”

“Uh,” She said, blinking repeatedly, “you were supposed to say, ‘No, not ever, you will regret making fun of me’ or something like that you know”

Now it was my turn to give her my best smile “you made an offer, I accepted it”

I heard something between a snort and a laugh coming out of her, but after a moment she said; "Alright, you start three steps farther than me, deal?”

…That actually sounded pretty fine to me, I didn’t want to win because I got an unfair advantage. Actually, I only took her offer to annoy her. I smiled again, this time it was genuine “So, do we run until we drop or…” I stopped talking. There it was again, that little swaying, that almost imperceptible wobble.

Swallowing hard, I asked; “Amber, is anything wrong?” I didn’t want to pressure her, I knew it was probable she would just brush me away. But if she was injured, and I had not realized, I swear I would hang myself.

She gave me a little bump on the nose “Don’t count me out so quickly Mr. three steps,” as worried as I was, I smiled. I don’t know why, maybe I wanted to make Amber happy, maybe my sense of humor was decaying.

Maybe I needed it myself.

I couldn’t read her aura, I could only, sometimes, feel the same way she was feeling, as her energy affected me, usually, that would mean that it would be impossible for me to be sad, angry, or even frustrated around her, as her positive energy ended up canceling whatever grumpiness I had that day. Not this time- I still felt the same intense worry, that could only mean that she wasn't feeling any strong emotions. Anyways, not strong enough for me to pick up.

…Either that, or she was feeling the very same as me, and that’s why I couldn’t make a difference between my feelings and hers. But that was impossible, right? What would she be possibly worried about?

Swallowing again, I gave her a quick nod and turned around.

One, two, three steps. I made them as short as possible. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t want that much advantage, or because I just wanted to stay close to amber. Either way, I began to get ready, if she wanted to keep going, I would go with it, even if it meant having to keep out an eye on her.

While waiting for her order to start, I realized that my ears were strongly pinned to my skull, refusing to relax no matter how hard I tried. The sheer worry forcing them to stay like that. I didn’t want amber to see them, so I lowered my head in a way she wouldn’t see my ears before crouched down as if I was preparing to spring up so she wouldn’t suspect anything; lowering one knee until it almost touched the ground and the other leg forming almost a right angle with the first one while resting both hands on the ground. It felt... weird. As if I was paying respect to some unknown deity. Soon after, my wounds started to bother me. That was expected, but the rest of my body also began to complain about the unnatural position I was subjecting it to. My legs were not made to be stretched out like this, neither was my spine. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it wasn’t comfortable either. Yet I kept waiting, it was the only thing I could do.

Just to be sure, I focused on my aura again. It felt the same, worry, and only worry. So nothing new had happened to Amber, she was fine. She just enjoyed teasing me, or I said so to myself.

I waited a little more, I was about to stand up and check on Amber when something distracted me.

I caught a glimpse of gold through the corner of my eye. I looked at my side, but there was nothing to look at. Just as I turned back, I saw a small orb floating right on top of my nose. It was barely the size of my paw and made of the same pale gold energy that I had just seen a glimpse of just a moment ago. My first reaction was to get away from it. I had had some experience with brilliant, or not so brilliant orbs of energy, and they usually ended up in a blast of raw power impacting my body.

But something stopped me. This little bubble in front of me was not menacing. I stared at it a little longer, it radiated light… no, that was not accurate. I felt as if the light I was seeing came from somewhere else, not from inside it But I could only see it because of this small glowing sphere that was in front of me, if that makes any sense.

But the light itself, regardless of its origin, was beautiful. The orb lowered a bit, until touching my nose. It was warm, not hot, just… warm. But at the same time, I felt some sort of cold inside of me, even if the orb itself wasn't cold, I blew softly on it, and felt silly, trying to blow it light. But surprisingly, the little bubble seemed to react to my efforts, getting away from my snout, just a little. The warm feeling of where it had touched me parted with it, but the cold persisted.

I tried to grab it with my hand, but I couldn’t get a hold of it. It wasn’t like it was dodging me, but, somehow, it was always a little away from my paws. I eventually gave up, and decided to just wait for it to come down again. But it didn’t, it continued to rise, slowly, always so slowly. But, at the same time, as it was getting away from me, its light began to fade. It happened quickly, it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but it was gone.

“Michael…” I heard Amber calling me. Her voice sounded soft, almost a whisper, but I didn’t pay attention to that.

“Did you see that amber?” I beamed at her, still looking at the place the orb had disappeared, “It was beautiful wasn’t it?”

“Michael…” I heard her again. This time, there was some urgency behind her voice, and that woke me up completely.

I turned around, and I had to take a moment to understand what was in front of me.

It was Amber, yes, it was amber, but her body was surrounded by that golden light, the same as that of the orb I had cherished just a moment ago. Except that there was no orb this time, her whole form was completely engulfed by a shapeless shade of gold. I had the same feeling as when I was watching the tiny ball of light, as if Amber's body was irradiating it, but at the same time, it didn’t come from he.It came from that light itself, and behind that light… was something else.

“Wow” I finally said, yet, I didn’t feel surprised, but I knew that I should, then why?... I closed my eyes and focused on my aura again.

Yes, there it was. I felt two emotions, and this time, I could make a clear distinction between them. Two emotions, first stupefaction, that could be any of us, amber was surrounded by that light, she would surely be surprised, and I was surprised by that too.
…

But then… there was also the sadness. I was not sad, if anything I was worried just a moment ago, worried for my friend’s health, but I had no reason to be sad.

Which meant that sadness was all hers.

I opened my eyes and looked at amber, now that I was focusing on her, I saw something that I did not see before.

There were tears in her eyes.

“Michael,” she said again as if my name was the only thing that mattered, but I could not understand yet, why was she so sad? Was it an effect of that light? I felt cold when it touched me, but, I didn’t feel sad, then… why?

I focused on her again, trying to understand, looking deep into her eyes.

And through them.

I could see through amber, the realization hit me like a bucket of cold water as I began to breathe erratically. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing, but looking into her eyes, feeling her sadness, I knew I was not imagining it, that I could not imagine something like this.

Because I could not do something so horrible to myself.

“Michael, you know, that… I…” she looked at me as if trying to find the words, “I cannot stay with you.” I cannot stay with you, not staying in this place, not staying in the guild, staying with you.

“Don’t say that” I began to say. Once again, I felt a knot on my stomach, this time it was even bigger, even tighter. “Please, please don’t say that”.

She looked at me again, despite now being able to see through her whole body, I could still see her eyes clearly. I held onto them.

“You have grown Michael,” she said, giving me a sad smile.

You have grown, these words that sounded like a trap, like ‘You have to keep going’, like ‘you will know what to do’, like ‘Don’t cry, or we will both break’, Don’t cry.

But I wanted to cry, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know if I could keep going, I didn’t even know if I wanted to keep going.

But Amber was looking at me, I couldn’t let her down, I wanted to reassure her, to tell her that everything would be fine, that I would be fine.

But instead, what came out of my mouth was; “Don’t go… please, please don’t go” I began to see Amber blurrier and my heart skipped a beat, but then when tears finally began to come out of my eyes, and I began to see her more clearly. I felt a small swell of relief in my heart. I never thought I would ever be happy that I was crying, but that meant that I still had time. I still had time.

I rushed to amber, only three steps separated us, but they felt eternal. I wanted to touch her, to convince myself that she was still there. I wanted to pull her closer to me, and hug her, and never let go.

But, as I finally reached her side, as I tried to do exactly that, my hands went through her, blurring her image, like I was only seeing a reflection. And then, when I couldn’t touch my friend, when I was truly sure that she would go, was when I broke.

I felt as if my heart was falling down a pit, leaving only a shell behind. A shell that now dropped to its knees, its hands falling useless at both sides as it watched in despair how the only thing they cared about faded in front of them.

I saw her blurring again, and this time, it wasn’t because of the tears. I
couldn’t get over how, when I tried to reach her, I couldn’t touch her, how when my hands went through her, I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t feel anything…

I didn’t feel anything, but when I had touched that small orb, that orb made of the same light that was now taking Amber away, I felt something, I thought it was warm, I thought it was cold, and only the cold had stayed with me. But I was sure these weren’t just hot or warm, I didn’t feel them with my body, they didn’t come from that little ball, the same way its light also didn’t come from it. They had come from inside of me, and that little orb and its dazzling light were only the trigger.

I had felt the cold embrace of emptiness, of not knowing anything, of losing everything, just what I was feeling now.

But, even if it was just for a minute, I had felt something else too. It had been small, and it got away before I could put a name to it. Ephemeral, yet its touch lasted even after the sensation itself had left. And now, watching how the only person I cared for disappeared in front of me, I held onto it. I stood up and reached for her again in a last, desperate attempt while holding that small shard of emotion within me, as it was the only thing I had.

And it was hope.

___________________________________________________________________________________

“Michael, you know, that… I… I cannot stay with you”.

I am inside of the light.

…

“Don’t say that,” The boy's voice was a whisper, yet I heard it as clear as if he was screaming it loud “please don’t say that.”

And the light is inside of me.

…

“You have grown Michael” He was trembling at this point, tears rolling out of his eyes, but there was some resolve in him. I hoped that he could soothe my heart, the same way I was trying to soothe his.

But is it truly in me?

…

“Don’t go…Please, please don’t go” His words were the last thing it took, I felt the cry in my heart, I felt it in my eyes, yet the tears would not come out, even if I wanted them to.

I am made of light.

…

Michael, poor Michael, being what he was, he had not only to deal with his own pain, but he also had to carry mine, I felt him crumbling under such weight, and I wanted to take it for him, to help him through it. But I couldn’t move towards him, and when I tried, I couldn’t make a sound, not anymore.

And I will go where the light would take me.

…

He rushed to me, for a second, I thought he could hang onto me, to keep me in here, but when the moment came, he could not. His hands went through my body. He fell to the ground, like a puppet whose strings were cut.

Where I should be.

…

Michael was still on the ground, not moving, not talking, just crying, as if he had finally given up.

Where I belong to.

…

He raised his head, his eyes gleaming with a ferocity I had never seen before. The world was fading around me, everything started to dissolve except for one thing; Two eyes, fixed in mine, looking at me with an intensity that almost burned.

… that is not true.

I saw him come to me again, knowing all would be in vain, yet, that didn’t stop him.

Where I belong to

My place is not there.

He rushed at me, trying to reach me like he had tried before, desperate, almost agonizing…

I don’t want to go…

His hands went through my body again, not touching me. But this time it was different. Because this time I felt it.

I don’t want to go… alone…

Michael pulled himself with me, not truly touching me, but I could feel his embrace. The world around me had now shattered to the point of being unrecognizable, but he was still there.

…Thank god I won’t have to.

Only the two of us.

 

[Negrek]

Hello, and welcome again! I thought I'd check out at least one of your stories, and this is the one I decided to start with. (Took me a few days due to connection issues, but nevertheless!)

This is a cute little prologue, and one that I think does a good job of selling the relationship between the main characters. Often in romantic stories, especially, writers can have trouble really selling the relationship between the characters, perhaps because they already believe it and don't remember that they need to sell readers on it, too. But I thought you did a good job of showing why Michael likes Amber. Their little "race" was both cute and a wonderfully concrete way to show the dynamic between the two of them. Scenes like that make the characters feel much more like distinct individuals than if you'd left it at a more generic "Michael likes Amber's cheer and spontaneity" without actually showing how they interact. Which also makes the ending more affecting--we've gotten a glimpse of why these two like to stick together, so we get a sense of how hard it is for them to be pulled apart. That's not something that's easy to do in a small amount of space.

On the other hand I wish we'd gotten a little more detail on what exactly happened to the two of them. There are some vague references to "everything they've been through" and "what just happened," and so on, and the two of them are ambiguously injured, but it's unclear where they are, what actually happened to them, and how bad they're actually feeling. I can infer that they just came off a big legendary battle of one kind or another, of course, but some concrete detail would make the situation feel more real and impactful. Bits like Michael's dirty scarf are a good beginning, but a little more specificity about what they'd been through would help ground the scene and help us get in Michael's head. (Perhaps a bit more detail on the environment, too--where exactly are they?) What hurts (or doesn't)? How is how tired he feels reflected in what he's actually doing? It felt a little odd to me that the story kept talking around what the characters had just gone through, even though it's clearly important.

I don't think I have too great a grasp on Michael as a character yet; he's a bit shell-shocked here and probably not at his best. Although he's the POV character, this prologue is much more about Amber. And Amber I certainly feel like I know a little better, at least the way Michael sees her! She seems like someone who probably has a naturally cheerful disposition and also works hard to keep up a brave face even when she isn't feeling so great. The kind of person who may be prone to giving too much of herself, always putting others first... Or that's the impression I get so far, anyhow! It's not totally clear whether we'll be following these two long-term, but I feel like the introduction we get to them here is solid enough for a standalone chapter, but with plenty of room for expansion if they are going to play major roles in the following story.

In that vein, I'm curious where the story's going to go from here... If you hadn't labeled this a prologue, I'd accept this as a standalone retelling of the partner's departure from on of the PMD games! The ending kind of suggests that we might be seeing Michael accompany Amber back to (presumably) the human world--that would be a really interesting premise, a pokémon from the PMD world ending up among humans! There are a lot of different ways you could go from here, though, any of which could be fun. We might pick up with pokémon trying to find out where the two of them went, for example, or maybe their adventure together won't involve anything like the human world at all!

One thing that did cause a bit of a problem for me while reading was the mechanics of the story. There are a lot of grammar and punctuation issues throughout, which at times made it hard to follow what was going on. More about those under the cut if you're interested.

Spoiler: Mechanics Stuff

I think the first thing I'd look into, if you wanted to revise, would be comma splices. These are cases where you have two complete sentences joined with a comma, where they'd usually be split up by a period. These can be tough to read because they often result in long sentences that don't conform to the expected rhythm while reading--generally a sentence is something you'd expect to be able to say in a single breath. When you have a lot together, someone would really have to rush through to say them all in one go, which makes the sentence read jumbled and hurried. In some cases you have whole paragraphs, what would ordinarily be four+ sentences long, all stuck together as a single sentence. Definitely too much to read in one breath, and that makes it hard for my eyes to scan, too.

Here's an example:

I sure felt complete, I was the luckiest riolu in the world, glaring at my side, I saw Amber’s fluffy form next to me.

Here, "I sure felt complete," "I was the luckiest riolu in the world," and "Glaring at my side, I saw Amber's fluffy form next to me" are all standalone sentences. You'd generally want to write this as, "I sure felt complete. I was the luckiest riolu in the world. Glaring at my side, I saw Amber's fluffy form next to me."

Same deal here:

I knew that everyone would be waiting for us back home, from our guild partners to the people in the city, I giggled a little imagining all of them biting their nails waiting for our return.

"I knew that everyone would be waiting for us back home, from our guild partners to people in the city" is one sentence, and "I giggled a little imagining all of them biting their nails waiting for our return" is another. You want a period rather than a comma after the word "city."

Another thing to watch out for is dialogue punctuation. It's quite tricky, but there are a number of guides out there on the internet, like this one. I'll give a couple examples of dialogue punctuation here, though.

“What’s up with that face? you look like you just dropped your last berry in a lake” She gave me a toothy grin, unintentionally showing her small, and ridiculously sharp teeth. She blinked, and suddenly went serious “wait, you didn’t, did you? Dear Arceus Michael, I swear you would lose your head if…”

Capitalization works normally within dialogue--you still start each sentence with a capital letter. Dialogue will end with some kind of punctuation; if there's text following the dialogue that describes how it was said, like "he said" or "she yelled," it's a comma. Otherwise it's a period. Likewise, sentences surrounding dialogue follow normal punctuation rules unless they describe how the dialogue's being said, and there's always some kind of mark between the narration and the quotation marks. So taking a look at the above excerpt, I'd change it to look like this:

“What’s up with that face? You look like you just dropped your last berry in a lake.” She gave me a toothy grin, unintentionally showing her small, and ridiculously sharp teeth. She blinked, and suddenly went serious. “Wait, you didn’t, did you? Dear Arceus Michael, I swear you would lose your head if…”

Combining the above two concepts, here's a paragraph that's all one comma-spliced sentence, with some dialogue that wants to be repunctuated:

I cut her “You ate all our berries, apples and anything barely edible remember?”, I said as I poked her chest with my finger, or I tried, my hand sank almost completely in her fluff, even so, I kept trying for a bit, but my efforts were in vain, I was completely unable to touch the eevee, her fur was deceptively thick, on first look most people would think it was the normal eevee turf anyone would usually see (and ask to touch), but each day I was more and more convinced that, if I accidentally bumped into her, I would literally get lost in there with no going back.

That's a lot of words to get out without pausing! The paragraph feels quite rushed, and the punctuation makes what's going on confusing at times. Here's how I'd clean it up:

I cut her off. “You ate all our berries, apples and anything barely edible remember?” I said as I poked her chest with my finger, or I tried. My hand sank almost completely in her fluff. Even so, I kept trying for a bit, but my efforts were in vain. I was completely unable to touch the eevee. Her fur was deceptively thick. On first look most people would think it was the normal eevee turf anyone would usually see (and ask to touch), but each day I was more and more convinced that, if I accidentally bumped into her, I would literally get lost in there with no going back.

Whew! That's a lot, and it can be overwhelming at first. You might want to find a beta reader to work through some of this stuff with you until you get confident with the rules yourself.

Another quick note: you use "into" where you want to use "onto" pretty frequently. The phrase is "hang onto [thing]," for example, not "hang into [thing]":

He rushed to me, for a second, I thought he could hang into me, to keep me in here, but when the moment came, he could not.

Here you want, "he could hang onto me."

And now, watching how the only person I cared for disappeared in front of me, I held into it, I stood up, and reached for her again in a last, desperate attempt, while holding that small shard of emotion within me, as it was the only thing I had.

Here, it's "held onto," not into.

She looked at me again, despite now being able to see through her whole body, I could still see her eyes clearly, I held into them.

Here again you want "onto" rather than "into." However, "held onto" someone's eyes still sounds a bit odd--maybe something like "held her gaze?"

Some other minor notes:

My heart was pounding in my chest, and, for the first time in the past hours, it wasn’t from fear. For the first time in days, I wasn’t scared of what could happen to me.

I like the parallel structure you were going for here, and I think the next sentence works well as a closer. Both of these sentences essentially say "it's been a while since I was scared," though--I think it would work better to contrast two things more different than "heart pounding in my chest due to fear" and "scared of what could happen to me."

Amber always laughed nonstop, until she was out of breath, but she would still laugh, between strangled breathes she would laugh, until that inevitable cough attack arrived, without exception, to finally let her take a breath.

strangled *breaths. "Breathes" is a verb.

Smooth Michael, real smooth.

You want a comma before "Michael" here. Anytime a character is addressed directly by their name (e.g. "Nice work, Amber!" or "Watch out, Michael, there's a zubat!"), that name is set off by commas.

- Just as a note, you often forget to capitalize Amber's name; something to watch out for.

I felt a smile tugging the corners of my mouth, just a moment ago, when she started to hasten, and so did I.

I think I get what you're going for here, but it's come out a little funky. Michael's smiling at Amber referring to their little "race" a moment ago as a competition, right? In that case, I'd say "I felt a smile tugging the corners of my mouth" wants to be its own sentence, and then you might want to add something like, "She meant just a moment ago..." to indicate what he's actually smiling at. The way the sentence is constructed now, it's taking place in two different times (now, when he's smiling, and before, when they were racing) and the construction makes it look like he had been smiling in the past.

Always making sure to drip it off without tightening it, the eevee was proud of her fluffiness.

I'm not sure what "making sure to drip it off without tightening it" means here. I'm guessing she lets her fur air-dry rather than wringing it out? If so I would suggest wording more along those lines to make it clear what she is (or isn't) doing.

While for her order to start, I realized that my ears refused to detach from my skull...

You're missing a word here--probably "waiting" after "while." It's a little weird to me for Michael to say that his ears "refused to detach from his skull" because, well, detaching his ears from his skull would be a pretty bloody affair! I assume you mean his ears are pinned back and he can't get them to relax again, in which case I'd look for a different word than "detach." The sentence this bit is a part of is also pretty massive--I'd definitely look for some way to break it up.

But at the same time, I felt some sort of cold inside of me, even if the orb itself wasn't cold, I blew softly on it, and felt silly, trying to blow it light, but surprisingly, the little bubble seemed to react to my effort, getting away from mi snoot, just a little, the warm feeling of where it had touched me parted with it, but the cold persisted.

You want "my snout" rather than "mi snoot." Also, this sentence is actually ~three sentences glued together with commas. I'd throw a period after "inside of me" and "just a little."

In any case, I think this is a nice little prologue that could be setting up a very interesting twist on the PMD genre. A bit more work on the grammar/punctuation side of things will help your readers enjoy the story a bit more, I think, but there's lots of promise here. Thanks for posting this, and good luck with your writing!

 

[DragonD]

Hello, and welcome again! I thought I'd check out at least one of your stories, and this is the one I decided to start with. (Took me a few days due to connection issues, but nevertheless!)

Hello again and thank you for your time!

This is a cute little prologue, and one that I think does a good job of selling the relationship between the main characters. Often in romantic stories, especially, writers can have trouble really selling the relationship between the characters, perhaps because they already believe it and don't remember that they need to sell readers on it, too. But I thought you did a good job of showing why Michael likes Amber. Their little "race" was both cute and a wonderfully concrete way to show the dynamic between the two of them. Scenes like that make the characters feel much more like distinct individuals than if you'd left it at a more generic "Michael likes Amber's cheer and spontaneity" without actually showing how they interact. Which also makes the ending more affecting--we've gotten a glimpse of why these two like to stick together, so we get a sense of how hard it is for them to be pulled apart. That's not something that's easy to do in a small amount of space.

Thanks a lot for saying that. I was afraid that part of the story may have gotten tiring, but I couldn't let out any details about their relationship. Glad you liked it!

On the other hand I wish we'd gotten a little more detail on what exactly happened to the two of them. There are some vague references to "everything they've been through" and "what just happened," and so on, and the two of them are ambiguously injured, but it's unclear where they are, what actually happened to them, and how bad they're actually feeling. I can infer that they just came off a big legendary battle of one kind or another, of course, but some concrete detail would make the situation feel more real and impactful. Bits like Michael's dirty scarf are a good beginning, but a little more specificity about what they'd been through would help ground the scene and help us get in Michael's head. (Perhaps a bit more detail on the environment, too--where exactly are they?) What hurts (or doesn't)? How is how tired he feels reflected in what he's actually doing? It felt a little odd to me that the story kept talking around what the characters had just gone through, even though it's clearly important.

I cut out a note I had left on my original post, as I felt it was out of place here, sorry for the confusion. There are no details about exactly what happened because I wanted the reader to identify with them regardless of the game they had played, hence why I left most information about the foe to be rather ambiguous, and the environment is not described at all, because in each game the goodbye scene changes. However, I must admit that I was thinking about explorers of the sky since it's my favorite.

Oh! and the details about Michael's wounds, in particular, will come in chapter one.

I don't think I have too great a grasp on Michael as a character yet; he's a bit shell-shocked here and probably not at his best. Although he's the POV character, this prologue is much more about Amber. And Amber I certainly feel like I know a little better, at least the way Michael sees her! She seems like someone who probably has a naturally cheerful disposition and also works hard to keep up a brave face even when she isn't feeling so great. The kind of person who may be prone to giving too much of herself, always putting others first... Or that's the impression I get so far, anyhow! It's not totally clear whether we'll be following these two long-term, but I feel like the introduction we get to them here is solid enough for a standalone chapter, but with plenty of room for expansion if they are going to play major roles in the following story.

I am happy you got a good idea about Amber's personality with the prologue. Yeah, This chapter in particular was centered on their relationship rather than Michael as himself, despite him being the one in the POV. My explanation for this is that, as you can see, he cares much more for Amber than he does for himself, and this happens the other way around as well.

Thank you for pointing out that Michael has not been as developed yet, its true, I'll have to make a few adjustments on the next chapter to fix that.

In that vein, I'm curious where the story's going to go from here... If you hadn't labeled this a prologue, I'd accept this as a standalone retelling of the partner's departure from on of the PMD games! The ending kind of suggests that we might be seeing Michael accompany Amber back to (presumably) the human world--that would be a really interesting premise, a pokémon from the PMD world ending up among humans! There are a lot of different ways you could go from here, though, any of which could be fun. We might pick up with pokémon trying to find out where the two of them went, for example, or maybe their adventure together won't involve anything like the human world at all!

Why not all of the above?

One thing that did cause a bit of a problem for me while reading was the mechanics of the story. There are a lot of grammar and punctuation issues throughout, which at times made it hard to follow what was going on. More about those under the cut if you're interested.

Oh Arceus, don't remind me about those grammatical errors horrors. I wrote this back when punctuation was still the bane of my existence (only about two weeks ago, its surprising how much can people improve if they want to!). I am already going over this and my other story to fix these issues since I currently don't have a beta that can help me with those. Thank you a lot for the list, it will be helpful!

In any case, I think this is a nice little prologue that could be setting up a very interesting twist on the PMD genre. A bit more work on the grammar/punctuation side of things will help your readers enjoy the story a bit more, I think, but there's lots of promise here. Thanks for posting this, and good luck with your writing!

 

[DragonD]

Chapter one

Stranded​

My mind came back to life with a flash, dissipating the fog that had been littering in my head, and as it did, the first thing that came to me was a sting between my eyes. A little shard of painful discomfort that had rooted itself deep inside my head. Not letting me rest in peace, but not enough to wake me up either.

But before I could get used to the feel, it shot up. Not slowly, not gradually, it was like it had first been the flame of a single candle, before suddenly turning into a massive forest fire. A torment so intense I thought my skull was literally about to split. My nerves set on fire as a wave of agony coursed through my entire system. I could feel how my back arched as all my muscles tensed in a single motion, my tail puffed in response and my eyes shut tighter in a vain attempt to mitigate the suffering.

And then it was over, as suddenly as the feeling had surged, it was now completely gone. My body went limp and my lungs finally took a breath of fresh air, not having been able to do so before because of being constricted in my chest.

My other senses began to slowly come back to life. I heard the sound of leaves being brushed by the wind, I felt the very same wind grazing my skin. Surprisingly, I could also taste something, a horrible metallic flavor that refused to leave my mouth. But I set all of that aside and focused on opening my eyes. They did, but only for a second before being forced to close again by the intensity of the daylight that shone over my head.

After taking a moment to recover, I tried one more time, leaving my eyelids half closed to not get blinded again. The only thing I could see was a deep blue sky framed by the green of leaves, a rather pretty sight, but I was too unfocused to appreciate it. I rose a paw to my head, it no longer hurt, but I could feel it throbbing, and it didn’t feel good. And there was also that metallic flavor in my mouth, it was still there. I probably had bitten my tongue while having that attack earlier.

Now that the initial shock was gone, my mind instinctively began to go over the rest of my body without bothering to ask my opinion on the matter. I felt numb. Really numb, but… I wasn’t in pain; My bruises didn’t hurt. Neither did my tired muscles despite feeling especially numb.

The hand that until then had been lingering over my head then moved to my chest. Gently groping my body to check my injuries. There were none. I was sure I had at least one rib broken but… not anymore. How long had I been out for my wounds to be healed?

I sat up, finally taking a look at the world around me. I had woken up in a forest of sorts, that was not weird, we went exploring in this kind of place all the time. I didn’t recognize the area, but that wasn’t worrying either, mystery dungeons were never the same after all.

But something was missing… no, someone…

Amber.

The goodbye, the tears, the pain. All of it came back to me like a bucket of cold water, washing away the little peace I had. Amber was gone, she was no longer in our world and I knew it. I knew it too well. I felt myself beginning to hyperventilate, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

But then a last memory shone over the many others, the last moments we had spent together, and for whatever reason, they were enough to calm my heart. I wasn’t going to let Amber down.

Just as I came to this resolution, I heard the sound of something cutting the air, my mind was still foggy, but I instinctively turned in that direction in time to see a tiny red and white blur coming towards me, before slamming itself right between my eyes, the impact clearing my head better than my futile attempts of before. The little projectile then bounced off me, and a bright red light shone from the middle of it, just for a second, before the object fell to the ground.

I scrambled to my feet, not wanting to be caught off guard again. But I couldn’t see where that thing had come from, lost in thought as I had been. After taking a cursory look around the glade, I found myself unable to figure anything, I threw the object a glare. It was a little ball colored in halves, red and white, with a thin black ring in the middle of both. It reminded me of the logo on an explorer badge, but without the wings.

An almost imperceptible brushing sound came from inside one of the bushes nearby. My ears perked up as my head turned in that direction, only to see another ball flying at me, but this time I was ready. My paw shot up and caught it, before hurling it back in the direction I thought it had come from. I heard a thud and a curse, before a creature came out of the fronds.

How to even describe it? It was tall, pale, and skinny, and it walked in two legs. A long dusk mane sprouting from the back of its head and spiraling around its back. I couldn’t find in my memory the name for that strange pokémon… And if that thing it was wearing was a scarf, it was the most disproportionate scarf I had ever seen, covering almost half of its body. But what scared me the most is that I couldn’t feel its aura. Not only that, I couldn’t pick up a single read around me, it was like my own energy was not attuned to the world anymore. No… I could sense something, only a faint glimpse of what I normally could, but it was still there.

The being moved, and my attention returned to them, but I didn’t do anything to attack yet. Instead, I let out a low growl to see if I could scare them away without having to get into a fight.

Their hand went to a belt around their waist and took off another ball like those it had thrown at me before so I prepared to dodge it, but instead of hurling it at me, they held the orb up in the air. A thin separation appeared in the middle of the sphere before it opened by it. But before I could see its interior the same light shone off it and came out of the ball, an amorphous shape that seemed to be made of that energy itself, before landing on the ground right under, where it quickly took form. A head, a tail, four legs…

I was now staring at a fully formed growlithe that had come out of nowhere. And it returned the stare before baring its fangs and growling at me. But it didn’t do anything else, perhaps it also just wanted me to get out of there, I hoped it did. My thoughts were once again interrupted by the larger creature, as it yelled an order, looking at me;

“Attack with fire fang!!”

Wait, what?

To my surprise, the growlithe answered, and ran towards me in a straight line. Its teeth ignited in a fiery orange and yellow inferno before the canine pokémon jumped. My body was moving before I knew it, deftly stepping out of the way, I let the pup fly by my side. I could still feel the heat coming off its flames despite them touching me.

After landing, the growlithe turned to me, and I got on guard, but it didn’t come at me again and the fire on its mouth died out. Just when I was wondering if I should go on the offensive myself, I heard another order;

“Continue with a Bite!”

The pup once again reacted to the command and pounced at me right away since we were now close. I raised my arm to block its attack, and the growlithe’s fangs hit the metallic plate on my forepaw, causing the dog to let out a squeal of pain.

I pulled my arm back, dragging the canine pokémon out of balance before it could let go. Following the movement, I spun in my own centre and threw a kick over my shoulder, my leg marked a clean semicircle before crashing at the side of the growlithe’s head. The noise was astounding, and I saw the pup's eyes go white before it fell limp to my side. Seeing it drop, I instantly got worried about having seriously injured the little mon.

As I got close to check its vitals, however, the same light shone off its body as it became shining energy once again, before flying back at the ball the still unknown creature was holding, before it put it back in the belt.

I had momentarily forgotten about the strange pokémon, and questions once again began to form in my head, but before I could ask any of them, they took another ball off and repeated the same process. Before long, I had a newly formed Nidorino standing in front of me.

Without wasting a second, the taller pokémon let out an “Attack with your horn! Now!”

This had to be a deceptive tactic, they wouldn’t just keep giving away their strategy like that. My mind raced trying to understand what kind of code they could be using; what kind of trick were they going to play at me.

As if to prove me wrong, the poison type proceeded to lower its head, before following the order right away. I once again tried to counter the attack by blocking it with my metal plating, mistake, Unlike the growlithe, this enemy couldn’t care less about the impact. Sparks flew out the point our bodies made contact, and the horn was deflected to my side, but not before leaving a painful red trail across my skin. I had gotten lucky the Nidorino’s horn didn’t inject any poison on the wound, otherwise that small scratch would have been something to worry about.

Before I could respond, I heard the creature’s voice again “Cover the ground with toxic spikes!” They could still be faking it, but I decided to take my chances.

I jumped out of reach just a second before the floor where I had been standing got bathed in small needles. They were so tiny and fell so silently that I wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for my foes giving me a heads up. After landing, I glared back at where I had been, the tips of the spikes poked out of the ground, toxins oozing in them, yet they were almost indistinguishable in the middle of the pasture. I gulped, stepping on those would have been nasty.

The other pokémon stood there, its eyes flared with anger when looking at me as if it held some sort of grudge against my person just for existing. It was one of those that lost their minds upon seeing another male. Great, just great. No wonder why it had hit so hard with that charge of earlier.

I half expected to hear the voice of the larger creature, but for once, it didn’t say anything. I felt as If they were both waiting for me to run in and through the poisonous trap, a few seconds of brief respite I used to recover my breath. My body ached, and my mind was getting foggy once again. Never in my life had I gotten tired so quickly, I couldn’t help but ask myself what was wrong with me.

Apparently tired of waiting, the creature yelled its next order; “Horn drill again!”

The Nidorino didn’t stutter, charging straight through the poisonous spikes it had sent out before, the quills creaking under its feet as they broke. My senses tingled, reminding me that I couldn’t block the horn directly because of how straight and narrow it was, but in return, an idea appeared in my head.

When the nidorino got close enough, both my paws shot down in an X shape, catching the horn in between my platting. But instead of stopping there, I kept going until my hands dug themselves in the ground, followed by the poison’s type horn. Unable to stop its own impulse, the nidorino overturned over the point its horn had shoved itself, giving me a perfect chance. I quickly freed my paws before meeting the creature's body with my palms. I channeled the little energy I had left through them, and then out. I didn’t see much of the force blast, but I sure felt it as it went directly through the nidorino’s core.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the poison type fell in the direction I had fired the blast to. Stirring up a small dust cloud as it hit the ground. It was still conscious; I saw it looking at me with narrowed eyes before slowly starting to get up. I took a step back, getting on my guard again, but then its legs gave in and it fell flat on the ground.

I heard the larger creature whining, and I turned to them, half shocked to see them looking at me with little less than hate in their eyes…. And a bit of shame. As if they were outraged I had been able to take down these two, but at the same time, they were blaming themselves rather than me.

Before seeing what would it do, I once again heard rustling in the bushes, taking my focus off them. My ears swiveled, trying to locate the source, before realizing it was right behind the creature, at the very same spot it had come from. And they must have heard it too, before they turned around almost immediately, in time to see another being similar to them come out the fronds. The only difference between them was that the newly arrived had a much, much shorter mane, and was slightly taller.

They stood beside the other, their eyes went to the nidorino, then to me, and they frowned for a second. After that, they let out a slight smile and turned back to the other. “So, you just got beaten?” They asked with a slight smile on their face, and my confusion just grew bigger.

The other creature’s pale skin suddenly became of a bright red, and I wondered if, by any chance, they were related to a kecleon. “J-just shut up! That thing is tougher than it looks!” The difference in their voices became evident now that they had spoken one right after the other, a male and a female. The girl pointed at me, before continuing to refer at me as if I wasn’t there; “Plus I wasn’t expecting to find a riolu in here! I saw your expression; you know they aren’t native to these woods. Hell, you can’t even find them in a few miles around!” Her tone was becoming more and more fast-paced as if she was getting excited.

The other turned to look at me. “Did you try to catch it without weakening it first?” He said, looking at something besides me, and I threw a quick glare to the side, only to find the ball of earlier, the one I hadn’t blocked. It had somehow survived both fights unharmed and now peeked out the middle of the tall grass, as if it was mocking me.

“I thought it was distracted! You know how this works I had to try!” Her voice made me focus back on them. And I saw her turning even redder.

“Are you sure it doesn’t belong to someone?” The guy asked, glaring at me while his fingers began to move in a rather unsettling way.

“My pokeball didn’t beep when it hit earlier, so no, it doesn’t belong to anyone.” She glared at me again, “But I wonder where does this thing come from to be so strong”

“Bah, it’s just that your team is weak,” He said, pulling a ball out of his belt just like she had done earlier.

Her eyes widened when she saw it “Wait! It’s mine!”

“You can’t handle it, you can’t keep it” He laughed. Sensing that he wasn’t going to stop, the other quickly rose her own ball, recalling the Nidorino back on it.

The guy narrowed his eyes at me, before throwing the ball in the air. Same as hers, it opened by the middle, letting out a stream of light that soon shaped into…

A Scyther.

I gulped, this was a horrible foe for me to be against, and I knew it all too well. I was tired and fuzzy, and even if I wasn’t, I could barely hurt the thing, how could I even hope to…

A laugh, a true, happy laugh made my heart stop for a second. My head was suddenly clear again as I heard Amber’s healthy guffaw that seemed to never end, “You just took on a literal god!” It felt like her voice came from everywhere, but I knew that only I could hear it. My memories of her so deeply ingrained into my head that I could clearly hear it despite her never having pronounced these words. “And you are worried about getting owned by that brat?!” Tears of laugher would be rolling down the Eevee’s eyes at this point. She would now begin to cough, like she always did, without stopping her antics not even for a second. The thought made me smile, I wouldn’t lose this fight, if only to not give her the pleasure.

The Scyther shook its wings open, before starting to hover over the ground with them, it then began to circle around the field while pointing its blades at me, I followed its movement instinctively, not wanting to let it get behind my back. It wasn’t attacking, probably waiting for its orders, just like the others. But unlike them, the bug wasn’t going to stand still and become an easier target.

Yet it was waiting, and so was I, waiting to see what strategy they would take. Despite my mind being now clear, my body still ached, but there was something that could keep me going, it had been a mistake to not think about doing this earlier, but then I had just hoped to end the fights as quickly as possible. Now I only had one chance to keep fighting, I knew it, and it depended entirely on what they would do next.

The command finally came, but it was not what I had hoped for, “Use agility to become faster!”

Just like always, their underling followed through. I could almost see the energy spreading through the Scyther’s body as it began to fly faster, my possibilities were becoming smaller and smaller and I was growing more nervous. The annoying sound of the bug’s wings wasn’t helping either, as it acquired a high-pitched tone when they started to flap faster, creating a small circle of squashed grass under its body.

I grit my teeth, my chance could still be there, and if so, it better happen soon, before my body gave up on me.

Out of my view, the other creature yelled; “Use air slash!” A sense of dread came over me, my only chance was now gone.

Still circling me, the Scyther but its arms together, and I felt the air in the clearing flowing towards them. Two parallel wind blades formed around each of its already sharp scythes, surrounding them before condensing into a single firm trail on its right claw. The bug then took ground, lining up to launch itself at me.

It was going to use the technique up close! when I realized I almost let out a yelp of victory, if only I could move in time…

No. The being was much faster than me, that was all too clear, there was only one option if I was going to secure my own hit. I gulped hard, knowing that I was about to do something really stupid.

Raising my arms to protect my face, I shifted my weight, stretching one leg behind to grant me balance while bending the other to lower my posture, and waited.

The Scyther came at me flying at ridiculous speed, little more than a green and silver blur that closed the distance in less than a second, if I had blinked I would have lost it, but it didn’t matter, because I didn’t mean to dodge it.

The wind blade sank deep in my shoulder, spraying a crimson rain from the corners of the wound, and I couldn’t help but let out a scream. The air slash would have naturally hurt me a lot, even if I didn’t let it impact me directly, but I had to because it was the only way I could keep the Scyther in range. I sharply moved my arm to the side, causing it to sting even more, but it also left an opening in the bug’s defense. My other paw shot towards it hitting in the middle of its chest with all my weight behind it, despite this, the armor didn’t shatter, but that wasn’t my intention. In that split of a second, I focused, doing the opposite of what I had done before with the Nidorino, syphoning energy through my paw instead of channeling it, draining life out of the Scyther through an almost invisible blueish shine from its body to mine.

The bug staggered back, dislodging its blade from my shoulder in a way so painful it made me scream again, but it didn’t matter. The shot of vitality seared through my system, returning the energy necessary for the wound to stop bleeding while giving me a second chance to fight back, just as I had hoped. The uneasiness of my muscles was still there, the Scyther was so resistant to me I couldn’t drain it much despite landing such a clean hit, but it had been enough for now.

The other creature felt silent. As if he hadn’t expected me to be able to get through that, and the Scyther just stood there waiting for orders. It seems that I had hit hard enough to make it forget about circling around me. But I didn’t attack either, moving my shoulder to get the feel of it again, that blade had hurt. Despite the cut not bleeding anymore, it wasn’t comfortable. I probably couldn’t use that arm much from now on, at least not during this fight.

The tall pokémon seemed to regain his composure. “Air slash again!”

The Scyther didn’t need to hear twice, it assumed the same posture as before, doing the same ritual. And at the end, it had the very same blade wrapped around its arm.

I assumed the same posture as before myself, preparing for the inevitable impact.

The Scyther shot at me, prepared for my previous strategy, but not the new one.

I spun in place, giving my back to the bug, before channeling a burst of energy to my feet, intense, sudden, fiery. I rose my foot even faster than the Scyther its blade, my paw catching on flames as I did, before welcoming the bug with a back kick to the core. The heat was so intense I flinched, but it was worth it when I heard the scorching sound of the impact. The Scyther was sent flying away with a darkened mark on its stomach, hitting a tree with such strength a few cones fell to the ground, along with the bug after it slipped down. It didn’t get up.

After making sure it wasn’t coming back from that, I turned back to the two strangers, who stared at me wide-eyed. The guy immediately raised his ball to call the Scyther back in, and I saw the bug disappear through the corner of my eye, before focusing back on them. The guy’s hand moved towards his belt, clinging the ball on it before grabbing another, and I growled. Five of his, four of hers. These were how many balls they still had, and if each one had a pokémon inside of it…

I sighed, I couldn’t get through this like I had been doing until now. They would soon get a lucky shot, or I would run out of energy altogether, and I couldn’t let that happen. Despite my curiosity about them, I knew what I had to do.

I ran towards the two of them, seeking to put an end to this fight. Now.