[Imaginative]:[Clockwork]
X-treme trainer
Whew! It's been a long time, for Chromatic and for me writing fanfiction in general! After graduating college and working two jobs for a while, I'm happy to say that both of things have combined to get me a sort of stepping stone job to my dream career. I finally have a normal work-week job, so I'll hopefully have more free time to write and review ^^;
So I've had this written for a while, but for whatever reason I was incredibly unsatisfied with it. I've revised it multiple times over the course of probably a year, and when I opened it again yesterday, rereading it and changing it as usual, I finally found that I was actually satisfied. It's a little short for such a long wait, and I'm sorry about that, but if anyone here remembers this story I hope you enjoy it! Thank you!
The wild growlithe ran happily down the Vermilion City street. The concrete was hard under the wild growlithe’s little paws, but he didn’t mind a bit. There was far too much good to worry about the bad. The smells! The people! The ocean! It was a blast of sensations he was powerless to resist. The temptation alone had led him out of the wilderness and into the unique wilds of Vermilion City. Now he found that time was moving too fast, that he could never see everything before it was time to go home. He had to be fast, and fast he was.
He sprinted energetically through a crowd of tourists. With a mixture of laughter and gasps, they dodged to the side as the orange ball of fluff zoomed by. He had places to be, anyone could see that. Where those places were, though, remained to be seen, or rather smelled.
His first destination was the scrumptious smell coming from the marketplace. With a tongue-flapping gallop, he charged across the cement and into the maze of tents and tables filled with fresh fruit, handmade crafts, and exotic smells of unidentified but fascinating origin.
It was certainly a manic scene. Scents attacked him from every angle. The dozens of hands reaching town to scratch him behind the ears only added to the sublime chaos. After a minute of obliging the adoring fans, he shook them off and trotted purposefully forward. He trusted his nose to lead him to the smell.
When he finally found it, it was quite literally the best thing he had seen in his short life. A meat stand, a smoking table of carnal decadence, a simmering lesson in humanity’s expertise in indulgence. The growlithe was transfixed, but his body shook anxiously. It had to be his.
A trained growlithe may have whined a little. Wide-eyed pleading had been an effective method used by house-trained pups worldwide. Unfortunately, this growlithe was fresh from the wild and only knew the laws of the untamed.
With a fierce bark, he jumped onto the table and shocked the poor man manning the tabletop grill. While he stumbled backward, the growlithe scooped a hot steak into his jaws and leaped away. Not daring to savor the meal in the market, he sprinted away, ignoring the angry shouts with oblivious glee. He arrived in a small alleyway and chowed down.
Within seconds, he had forgotten about even the concept of hunting. With the smallest of effort, he had what could possibly be the absolute best meal of his entire life, past and future. Whatever pokémon was in his mouth, whatever the human had done to it, it was better than anything he could chase down in the wild.
Eager to see more of the city and satisfied that he had licked every ounce of flavor off of his paws and chest, he took off again. He sprinted down the docks, bumping a sailor standing on guard into the ocean. He rolled in the magnificent dirt surrounding the piles of bricks at a construction site. He even visited the gym, where he knocked several trashcans over before being chased away. And just when he thought his day, the city, and life couldn’t get any better, he met another pokémon.
It was a sparking, yellow, spiky thing, about his size but much skinnier. As a girl yelled things, the growlithe and his new friend tussled in the streets, just like he had done with the rest of his litter in the past. People even gathered to watch! It was a blast, an absolutely rousing good time. Until it wasn’t.
At a certain point, the growlithe began hurting too much. Electricity surged through his body, causing involuntary yelps to slip out of his mouth. Despite his best efforts, his bites seemed to do nothing, while those of his opponent were almost unbearable. He clawed and barked and spat fire, but he was always overpowered.
Before he knew it, he was panting on the ground. A hard object knocked sharply against his head, and everything went dark.
His pain, which until that moment had been great and inescapable, became a dull throbbing, one that seemed spread over his entire being instead of at specific points of injury. He couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t need to, and although he could still hear everything, it was too distant to feel immediate. There was no trying to run, because there was no trying anything; he merely existed, floating shapelessly. The blue skies were dark. The laughing people were dark. The food was dark. The girl and her pokémon were dark. Darkness was his entire existence, and it bound him. Then, slowly, he felt his energy begin to drop until he was inert.
The next time he was released, it was in a cold building with smooth floors and several people sitting around. The girl scratched behind his ears and said something in a cooing tone, but the growlithe shook her off.
His whole body felt refreshed, as if he had been born brand new. Gone was trembling energy of survival, as well as the thrill and fear of the wild. Even his scent, a healthy mix of dirt, sweat, and prey, was sanitized into something unpleasantly human. There was a disturbing absence of background noise, and he sensed no hostility in the people around him, which only made him suspicious. With a nervous growl, he turned toward the glass doors and ran, but blanched when they slid open with a frightening swish, giving the girl just enough time to return him into the blackness, where he stayed for some time.
When he once again saw the light of day, he was outside, in a field, and with several other pokémon gathered around the girl. The pokémon all looked at the growlithe with dull eyes that communicated no hostility and only the faintest sense of friendliness. The girl spoke to him, again softly and without aggression, but it was false somehow. Her pokémon meant no harm, mostly because any ability to think for themselves seemed to have been drained from them a long time ago. Wild pokémon he had encountered in the forest had absolutely meant him harm, but it was an honest intention, and one that he was able to reciprocate without guilt.
The girl, though, was different: she had trapped the growlithe but spoke kindly; she had attacked the growlithe but seemed to want friendship; she had taken the growlithe away from everything he knew, but she never gave the final blow and ended it. Nothing about the girl made sense, and the fear made the growlithe take off once again, across the grass, through a patch of wildflowers and toward the trees. This was it, his perfect opportunity. He didn’t recognize the place, but he knew its parts. The twittering in the branches. The smell of everything combined into a mass of familiarity. His soft pads skipped across the dirt deftly, his normal clumsiness restrained just long to enough to get out of sight. He was almost to the tree line. Almost home.
He was once again sucked back into the darkness.
The next time he was released from the darkness, he was standing in front of a little pokémon, a dark pod with blades of grass sticking out of the top of her head. Immediately something felt different, and the growlithe realized that this pokémon was wild. This pokémon was him, but no longer. The balance had been shifted, placing him on top of the hierarchy, and as the girl shouted commands at him, he felt compelled to obey, to match the girl’s energy even if he couldn’t understand her words. The enemy seemed to mean him no harm, even after he had attacked her, and within minutes, she was on the ground, burned and unconscious. It was victory. It was betrayal. It was his life now. With a jolt of fear, he took off once again, and without surprise was called back, the world fading away.
Things continued this way for many months, and eventually the growlithe stopped running. When he was called out, it was usually to fight another pokémon, and he liked to think he performed admirably. Soon enough, the bitter taste of a fight without friendship or the intent to kill left his mouth, and he learned to enjoy battling. Sometimes he lost, usually he won, but the girl was always proud. She would scratch the pokémon behind his stiff ears, and despite the fact that he still missed his home, achingly, he eventually began to enjoy the girl’s presence, and even crave it.
Life moved along. He no longer had to fear for his life, or anything really, and relied on the girl’s commands to control him. Most of the time, he just rested, expending no energy and wanting for nothing. He never loved any place because he would get only peeks before being returned to his ball, and it made the fact that they were always moving easier. No familiar scents, no familiar sights. Everything he had known was gone, and when he accepted that, he was able to find a distant enjoyment in the places they went. At a certain point, the girl and the other pokémon were his only constants, and he gripped them tightly.
One day, after a particularly intense battle against a dark-clad man and his purple, smoke-spewing pokémon, they made their way to a seaside path to the east. It was a sunny day, and the girl released all of the pokémon to enjoy it. She approached the growlithe smiling widely and pulled a glittering orange stone out of her bag.
He could feel the energy coming from it. His whole body shook with anticipation. His fur stood up on end. When she pressed it against him, he felt as if he had exploded.
His body grew. His mind warped. The power inside him flared from an ember to a bonfire. He could see farther and more clearly. He could hear everything. He was stronger and faster than he had ever been.
After a tight hug, the girl lay on the grass, followed by the rest of the pokémon. But the arcanine couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop moving, not now. The restrictions of the last several months felt meaningless to him now. He wasn’t trapped anymore. He felt like he could do anything.
Bigger paws, longer legs, a stronger jaw. His energy was peaking, far beyond what he knew would eventually be neutral. With a burning in this throat, he remembered the last time he felt this way. The hot concrete. The cooked meat. The girl.
Smoke seeped out from between his jaws as he looked at her lying innocently on the grass. She had ruined him. She had taken him away from his home and brought him far, far away, where he could never return. He was big now, and strong, and all of them would be asleep in a few minutes. He could do it. He could ruin her. The pokémon would attack, but he might live long enough to finish it.
If his instinctual brain was capable of hate, he was feeling it now. It was wrecking his mind, burning away logic. He shook, almost violently, and dug his paws into the dirt. He glared at her, feeling his new strength coursing through him. As fire began swirling inside his mouth, he felt the familiar and comforting rush of blind instinct.
But he stopped. The ocean. The ocean was the same. He could smell it, and he remembered. He knew his home was in the north, and he knew it was by the ocean. He had to be close. She had taken everything away. He could take it back. He could have everything back. The hunting. The family. The forest. The skies. The freedom. He shuddered.
He looked at his teammates, anger replaced by fear. They were all asleep, sunning themselves peacefully. They knew. They had to know. They always knew. They always caught him. Every single time.
But he was stronger now. Smarter. Faster.
He looked north. It was up there, somewhere. He could almost smell it. His breathing was shallow.
This time was different. It had to be. He was desperate for it to be different. With one last look at the girl, he turned away and braced himself for one last attempt. He lowered his front legs. He cocked his back legs. He inhaled deeply.
He ran.
So I've had this written for a while, but for whatever reason I was incredibly unsatisfied with it. I've revised it multiple times over the course of probably a year, and when I opened it again yesterday, rereading it and changing it as usual, I finally found that I was actually satisfied. It's a little short for such a long wait, and I'm sorry about that, but if anyone here remembers this story I hope you enjoy it! Thank you!
ORANGE
The wild growlithe ran happily down the Vermilion City street. The concrete was hard under the wild growlithe’s little paws, but he didn’t mind a bit. There was far too much good to worry about the bad. The smells! The people! The ocean! It was a blast of sensations he was powerless to resist. The temptation alone had led him out of the wilderness and into the unique wilds of Vermilion City. Now he found that time was moving too fast, that he could never see everything before it was time to go home. He had to be fast, and fast he was.
He sprinted energetically through a crowd of tourists. With a mixture of laughter and gasps, they dodged to the side as the orange ball of fluff zoomed by. He had places to be, anyone could see that. Where those places were, though, remained to be seen, or rather smelled.
His first destination was the scrumptious smell coming from the marketplace. With a tongue-flapping gallop, he charged across the cement and into the maze of tents and tables filled with fresh fruit, handmade crafts, and exotic smells of unidentified but fascinating origin.
It was certainly a manic scene. Scents attacked him from every angle. The dozens of hands reaching town to scratch him behind the ears only added to the sublime chaos. After a minute of obliging the adoring fans, he shook them off and trotted purposefully forward. He trusted his nose to lead him to the smell.
When he finally found it, it was quite literally the best thing he had seen in his short life. A meat stand, a smoking table of carnal decadence, a simmering lesson in humanity’s expertise in indulgence. The growlithe was transfixed, but his body shook anxiously. It had to be his.
A trained growlithe may have whined a little. Wide-eyed pleading had been an effective method used by house-trained pups worldwide. Unfortunately, this growlithe was fresh from the wild and only knew the laws of the untamed.
With a fierce bark, he jumped onto the table and shocked the poor man manning the tabletop grill. While he stumbled backward, the growlithe scooped a hot steak into his jaws and leaped away. Not daring to savor the meal in the market, he sprinted away, ignoring the angry shouts with oblivious glee. He arrived in a small alleyway and chowed down.
Within seconds, he had forgotten about even the concept of hunting. With the smallest of effort, he had what could possibly be the absolute best meal of his entire life, past and future. Whatever pokémon was in his mouth, whatever the human had done to it, it was better than anything he could chase down in the wild.
Eager to see more of the city and satisfied that he had licked every ounce of flavor off of his paws and chest, he took off again. He sprinted down the docks, bumping a sailor standing on guard into the ocean. He rolled in the magnificent dirt surrounding the piles of bricks at a construction site. He even visited the gym, where he knocked several trashcans over before being chased away. And just when he thought his day, the city, and life couldn’t get any better, he met another pokémon.
It was a sparking, yellow, spiky thing, about his size but much skinnier. As a girl yelled things, the growlithe and his new friend tussled in the streets, just like he had done with the rest of his litter in the past. People even gathered to watch! It was a blast, an absolutely rousing good time. Until it wasn’t.
At a certain point, the growlithe began hurting too much. Electricity surged through his body, causing involuntary yelps to slip out of his mouth. Despite his best efforts, his bites seemed to do nothing, while those of his opponent were almost unbearable. He clawed and barked and spat fire, but he was always overpowered.
Before he knew it, he was panting on the ground. A hard object knocked sharply against his head, and everything went dark.
His pain, which until that moment had been great and inescapable, became a dull throbbing, one that seemed spread over his entire being instead of at specific points of injury. He couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t need to, and although he could still hear everything, it was too distant to feel immediate. There was no trying to run, because there was no trying anything; he merely existed, floating shapelessly. The blue skies were dark. The laughing people were dark. The food was dark. The girl and her pokémon were dark. Darkness was his entire existence, and it bound him. Then, slowly, he felt his energy begin to drop until he was inert.
The next time he was released, it was in a cold building with smooth floors and several people sitting around. The girl scratched behind his ears and said something in a cooing tone, but the growlithe shook her off.
His whole body felt refreshed, as if he had been born brand new. Gone was trembling energy of survival, as well as the thrill and fear of the wild. Even his scent, a healthy mix of dirt, sweat, and prey, was sanitized into something unpleasantly human. There was a disturbing absence of background noise, and he sensed no hostility in the people around him, which only made him suspicious. With a nervous growl, he turned toward the glass doors and ran, but blanched when they slid open with a frightening swish, giving the girl just enough time to return him into the blackness, where he stayed for some time.
When he once again saw the light of day, he was outside, in a field, and with several other pokémon gathered around the girl. The pokémon all looked at the growlithe with dull eyes that communicated no hostility and only the faintest sense of friendliness. The girl spoke to him, again softly and without aggression, but it was false somehow. Her pokémon meant no harm, mostly because any ability to think for themselves seemed to have been drained from them a long time ago. Wild pokémon he had encountered in the forest had absolutely meant him harm, but it was an honest intention, and one that he was able to reciprocate without guilt.
The girl, though, was different: she had trapped the growlithe but spoke kindly; she had attacked the growlithe but seemed to want friendship; she had taken the growlithe away from everything he knew, but she never gave the final blow and ended it. Nothing about the girl made sense, and the fear made the growlithe take off once again, across the grass, through a patch of wildflowers and toward the trees. This was it, his perfect opportunity. He didn’t recognize the place, but he knew its parts. The twittering in the branches. The smell of everything combined into a mass of familiarity. His soft pads skipped across the dirt deftly, his normal clumsiness restrained just long to enough to get out of sight. He was almost to the tree line. Almost home.
He was once again sucked back into the darkness.
The next time he was released from the darkness, he was standing in front of a little pokémon, a dark pod with blades of grass sticking out of the top of her head. Immediately something felt different, and the growlithe realized that this pokémon was wild. This pokémon was him, but no longer. The balance had been shifted, placing him on top of the hierarchy, and as the girl shouted commands at him, he felt compelled to obey, to match the girl’s energy even if he couldn’t understand her words. The enemy seemed to mean him no harm, even after he had attacked her, and within minutes, she was on the ground, burned and unconscious. It was victory. It was betrayal. It was his life now. With a jolt of fear, he took off once again, and without surprise was called back, the world fading away.
Things continued this way for many months, and eventually the growlithe stopped running. When he was called out, it was usually to fight another pokémon, and he liked to think he performed admirably. Soon enough, the bitter taste of a fight without friendship or the intent to kill left his mouth, and he learned to enjoy battling. Sometimes he lost, usually he won, but the girl was always proud. She would scratch the pokémon behind his stiff ears, and despite the fact that he still missed his home, achingly, he eventually began to enjoy the girl’s presence, and even crave it.
Life moved along. He no longer had to fear for his life, or anything really, and relied on the girl’s commands to control him. Most of the time, he just rested, expending no energy and wanting for nothing. He never loved any place because he would get only peeks before being returned to his ball, and it made the fact that they were always moving easier. No familiar scents, no familiar sights. Everything he had known was gone, and when he accepted that, he was able to find a distant enjoyment in the places they went. At a certain point, the girl and the other pokémon were his only constants, and he gripped them tightly.
One day, after a particularly intense battle against a dark-clad man and his purple, smoke-spewing pokémon, they made their way to a seaside path to the east. It was a sunny day, and the girl released all of the pokémon to enjoy it. She approached the growlithe smiling widely and pulled a glittering orange stone out of her bag.
He could feel the energy coming from it. His whole body shook with anticipation. His fur stood up on end. When she pressed it against him, he felt as if he had exploded.
His body grew. His mind warped. The power inside him flared from an ember to a bonfire. He could see farther and more clearly. He could hear everything. He was stronger and faster than he had ever been.
After a tight hug, the girl lay on the grass, followed by the rest of the pokémon. But the arcanine couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop moving, not now. The restrictions of the last several months felt meaningless to him now. He wasn’t trapped anymore. He felt like he could do anything.
Bigger paws, longer legs, a stronger jaw. His energy was peaking, far beyond what he knew would eventually be neutral. With a burning in this throat, he remembered the last time he felt this way. The hot concrete. The cooked meat. The girl.
Smoke seeped out from between his jaws as he looked at her lying innocently on the grass. She had ruined him. She had taken him away from his home and brought him far, far away, where he could never return. He was big now, and strong, and all of them would be asleep in a few minutes. He could do it. He could ruin her. The pokémon would attack, but he might live long enough to finish it.
If his instinctual brain was capable of hate, he was feeling it now. It was wrecking his mind, burning away logic. He shook, almost violently, and dug his paws into the dirt. He glared at her, feeling his new strength coursing through him. As fire began swirling inside his mouth, he felt the familiar and comforting rush of blind instinct.
But he stopped. The ocean. The ocean was the same. He could smell it, and he remembered. He knew his home was in the north, and he knew it was by the ocean. He had to be close. She had taken everything away. He could take it back. He could have everything back. The hunting. The family. The forest. The skies. The freedom. He shuddered.
He looked at his teammates, anger replaced by fear. They were all asleep, sunning themselves peacefully. They knew. They had to know. They always knew. They always caught him. Every single time.
But he was stronger now. Smarter. Faster.
He looked north. It was up there, somewhere. He could almost smell it. His breathing was shallow.
This time was different. It had to be. He was desperate for it to be different. With one last look at the girl, he turned away and braced himself for one last attempt. He lowered his front legs. He cocked his back legs. He inhaled deeply.
He ran.