HO-LEY. VeRy LoNg ChApPy
Wow...after less than a week of prepping, I finally have Chapter III complete, along with a complete plotline for me to work with on Exsisto. Note: THIS CHAPTER IS TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY LONG. So long, the other 2,000 words in it must be posted in a second post :S Read at your own risk, or you may have to continue it in intervals :S It's beyond editable now to divide into a separate chapters, so I'm afraid we'llz has to deal with it much so... There is also partial nudity in this, though nothing is mentioned (meh, 'tis a PG shower scene). Yus. j00 have been warned!
Chapter III: Fuga Verto
Profanity: Mild
Adult Language: None
Violence: Yes
Blood/Gore: Little
Satoshi stared at the small dinosaur in disbelief. It just laid there, the bulb on its back soaking in the rain, and all at once, as though it had been suspended the entire time the creature was trying to pull him into the pond, the lightning blared and the thunder rumbled over the city. As the storm continued to thrash, Satoshi leaned closer to the little creature. He realized that it was not trying to kill him; it was merely trying to save itself from drowning. It had launched the vines from its body, he had guessed, and latched onto anything to pull it from the water. The boy rubbed his wet chest against the mud and wet soil, closer examining the creature’s body. He looked at its sides, but alas, there was no sign that the vines had come from its body. But then…how could vines sprout from it?
The boy pushed his self against the earth, more thundering coming from the heavens as the hole continued to fire streams of blackened fire across the country. He managed to rise to his knees, and still, there was no reaction from the little green creature as its eyelids remained closed in solitude. Satoshi looked at it for a moment…then he looked to the sky. Something ominous about it made him shiver, and he returned to staring at the beast. Slowly, shaking, the boy reached his hand to the creature. It had something about it…as his fingers drew nearer to its skin, he could feel a sort of presence floating about it. Was it perhaps its life force? Of course, he did not know the answer to this question. In just a few seconds, something unbelievable had happened. In this short period of time, he had realized something more about his life, and that was…to find the answer to why he belonged here.
It was so enigmatic, yet so familiar as the creature pulsated faint, struggled breaths on his hand as it approached closely to its skin. Then, Satoshi reached out at once, and touched the damp hide of the creature. The beast flinched slightly, sending a small jolt of fear into Satoshi’s mind. He was about to pull away, when he watched the beast. It was not going to harm him…it…was afraid of him. Its eyes flit weakly, as though it were frightened itself. Still, even at the blurred sight of the human touching its body, it did not reject him, nor try to attack him. Satoshi was completely amazed and bewitched by it, eyeing its plant-like appearance, and sucking in the cold air that flowed from the weather. Hypothermia, a cold, or any sort of illness due to his low body temperature no longer mattered to him.
The boy lifted both of his arms, and with a very large amount of hesitance, wrapped them around the stout lizard’s body. It grunted in response, as Satoshi heaved it out of the water, lifting it into the air, and pulling it toward his own body. Its skin was wet, but as smooth as porcelain as the boy cradled it. Its face looked up into his brown eyes, weak and strained irises of the brightest red looking upon something new to it, and the boy stared at it in the same way. They both knew that the other would not try to hurt them, and that they could trust each other. For the smallest moment, Satoshi watched the creature as it opened its mouth slightly, then collapsed limply into his arms, its eyes shutting quickly. Satoshi became scared for it for a second, but when he placed his hand under the creature’s body, he felt a tiny heartbeat deep within its ribcage.
There was no doubt on his mind. Satoshi took a final glance over Machida on the hill where the pond lied and the trees in Samukai had been torn from the ground. He looked to the swirling hole slinging the web-like shots across the sky, and began to watch buildings, houses, and streets being evacuated onto by thousands of people, screaming, crying out in fright and horror. A thought occurred to him: the shots had launched this creature into the pond, from that great fissure in the sky. The hole must have been a wormhole of sorts…that led to another world? But then…what caused the hole to appear suddenly? These inquiries ran through his mind, but then, he looked back down upon the city, and saw the countless numbers of citizens fleeing to escape, when it hit him. He had to get home.
In an instant, the boy flipped his knees back onto his legs, and running with bewildering speed, flew through the forest, flinging dirt and soil into the air. Pounding his feet without stopping, he clutched the creature tightly in his arms, looming his eyes down to his heaving and panting chest, making sure it was still all right. After five minutes, he started to see less and less of the mangled trees, many torn up from the ground already, and only the ancient plants surviving with their heavily anchored roots. He kept running without stop, his jogging figure slipping between the scraps and debris of what was left of the forest, his legs aching and groaning with pain. He did not stop. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as it enabled his heart to beat faster, and breathe swiftly. The creature bobbed up and down in his arms, heaving from side to side as the pelting rain was beginning to die down a bit.
Suddenly, Satoshi felt something smack against his right foot, and without the power to stop it, soared into the air as he tripped, and landed, skidding across the wet ground furiously, though it was not so bad as a sidewalk. He did grind his bruised eye into the mud, and the creature in his arms remained still, but he did not have time to waft about on the forest floor. He began to rise to his feet, when something behind him released a strange growl. The boy whipped around, not thinking to start running again, and turned to face another beast.
It was about to his shoulder’s height, its fur smoothed in a pale goldenrod color. It had three toes on each of its limbs, though it stood on its hind legs, its forelegs serving more purposefully as hands; a mane of white hair grizzled around its invisible neck. Its head was something of that the boy had never seen: a round, sharp face with dull, but foreboding eyes that slipped on top of a beak-like nose. Satoshi could not see its mouth, for it must have been shadowed by the creature’s nose, but the boy soon realized that he had tripped on this beast. It was rising to its feet, small embers of black flame dripping from its elbows onto the ground, hissing with each drop. The creature just stood there for a moment as Satoshi and the grass-like dinosaur stared in check at it, the cold air grooming their hair in all sorts of directions. Then, it began walking slowly toward Satoshi, as its left hand reached from behind its back, pulling out a pendant of some sort…hanging by a small thread that wound around the creature’s finger, as it swayed back and forth.
“Heep…no…” the creature whispered, speaking at each time the pendulum swayed. “Heep…no…heep…no…heep…no…”
Satoshi gazed at the pendant, and was locked in a magical trance. The creature began walking closer to the human boy, and Satoshi remained frozen, staring at its hypnotic yo-yo as it flew back…and forth…and back…and forth. The boy’s mind was emptied completely of what was happening, and why he was standing there. He held the small lizard in his hands almost subconsciously now, as the creature was nearly three feet away from him, scraping its feet against the leafy floor, its medium-pointed ears moving in the breeze. But before the creature could get any closer to Satoshi, the trance shattered as his eyes drifted to a sudden movement behind the yellow monster. The boy nearly fell backwards as he came out of the daze, frightened and unaware of his surroundings for a moment. He stared at the other creature with shock, his mouth agape as it growled under its breath. Then, he saw other shapes moving behind it.
One, he noticed right away, was the fiercest thing the boy had ever seen. It looked like a sort of insect, but a hundred times its original size as it walked on its hind legs as well, short and hoof-like as they extruded from its sienna body encasing. The shell of the creature run all the way up to the figure’s chest, rippled with strong armor points in the abdomen area, but it was not this Satoshi’s focus was pressed on. Its head, most likely the dominant part, was oval-shaped, with raging eyes that poured on top of a crooked mouth flipped sideways so the razor-sharp teeth of the insect clamped together stridently. Upon its temples were two nail-tinted horns with natural barbs jutting out of each, and it carried its thin arms and claws forward behind the first creature, snapping its horns together like a deadly clamp, and clicking its joints.
Satoshi’s first instinct was to run, so in a flash, the boy invested all of his strength into his legs, and jumped forward toward the entrance of the forest, and ran…ran for his life. He knew it would be difficult for the creatures to follow him so quickly. He had seen the stubby legs of the insect, and surely, the yellow creature could not catch him due to its shortness. However, the boy did not have time to debate on any subject, and plowed through the woods with the bulb monster in his arms, darting out onto the paved street he had been on once before and where he was once again bathed in the moonlight. Satoshi even ran past the flashlight and briefcase kit he had had earlier, but now, nothing mattered to him, except finding his family.
As he rushed onto the street, he noticed that the moon was not alone this time. Windows, doors, and every foyer in every home on the block was wrenched open, spilling out lights from inside rooms, and shadows of discouraged and shouting people basked in the radiance. Dozens of families came screaming and shouting out of their homes, flying into their vehicles, or running down the street to a different destination. Satoshi flipped his head skyward, and spotted the great rift in the sky, still showering the country with strands of black. The boy ran through the mass crowds of people panicking, searching for his own home. Quickly, he ran down the sidewalk, and even cutting into beautifully trimmed lawns just to get past the lines of people running from the scene. Finally, he came to the drive way that ended at the garage on the side of his home.
Without haste, careful not to reveal the creature to the people, Satoshi heaved the small body and himself up the drive way, and onto the front steps, where he burst through the door and ran inside. Upon coming inside, the boy was met by the smells of smoldering smoke. He turned into the kitchen, and saw that the oven had burst into flames, the fire’s reflection dancing in the wet skin of the creature in his arms. Tattered pictures, flowers, and house plants were scattered all across the floors, including several pairs of socks, clothing, and plastic bags.
“Mom! Dad…! Shang?” Satoshi cried out into the halls. “IS ANYONE HERE?”
A sudden feeling of depression swept over Satoshi, and he was about to scream out in agony when he heard the creature stirring in his arms. The boy looked down at his small discovery, but instead, was met with its unconscious face. Satoshi wondered to himself, until his thoughts were broken by noticing the pale, white light of the television in the living room casting its faint glare in the house. Satoshi sped into the room, and was met immediately by the news channel, Tokyo5. A reporter with broad shoulders and a flat nose stared back at him, beads of sweat rolling down his cheek. Apparently, he was continuing a commentary he had been reading before Satoshi entered the room.
“…report from the council, Prime Minister Koizumi has proposed dramatic action. Emperor Akihito has been seized and flown away from the country, to a safer location, possibly the United Nations headquarters, where a meeting between the nations is occurring. We go live to Lorel Kawasaki in the heart of Tokyo.”
A woman appeared on the screen, her black hair pressed about her head in a professional style, though some were out of place due to stress or fear. Her eyes were wide open, and it looked as though she were about to burst into tears at any second, though she continued to report for the network. In the background, the wails and screams of thousands of people echoed in the camera microphone, nearly drowning out all of the words that she spoke, wearing her tight velvet business suit. The people ran and shouted, straggling through the overwhelming traffic among the skyscrapers, towers, bill boards, and announcement screens.
“Here I have the Tokyo5 camera crew with me, isolated in a protected location by a small security force personally provided to bring you the latest on this earth-shattering story. According to countless eyewitnesses and our own proof of record, a portal of some sort, though going under research and speculated to be otherwise, was released earlier this evening with oncoming rage of the tropical storm from the Philippines in the sky, and is said to be ‘raining’ extraterrestrial creatures.”
The woman turned nervously to an old man with shriveled eyes and a white beard standing next to her, who was draped in rugged cloths of filth. She shoved a microphone under his chin, and he grabbed it furiously, as she said, “We have eyewitness accountant Junichi Leung, a homeless and unemployed—”
“WHO GIVES A DAMN RIGHT NOW?” the old man barked at her, startling her a bit. “It does not matter what ethnicity, religion, marital status, or wealth level you are. This is affecting us all.”
The man beckoned for the crew to turn the camera toward his own face, shoving reporter Lorel Kawasaki out of view. Satoshi stared in disbelief at the screen, seeing the hundreds of people flooding the streets in chaos behind Junichi Leung, the small creature in his arms beginning to breathe more adequately than it had been in the woods. The elderly man swooned back and forth with nausea, but he returned to the screen, clutching the microphone and speaking directly to the camera.
“The hole in the sky is sending these creatures down to our ground,” he said, licking his lips bitterly. “I have the right, in my opinion, to believe that the hole is a gateway that is releasing them from another realm, in different sizes, shapes, colors, and likenesses. One flew down from the sky into the alley where I was staying for the night, and landed on the top of a dumpster. It was terrifying to see the dog-like silhouette of it in the moonlight, and I ran with all my might from it, not daring to go near it.
“I did not escape it before it cornered me into an alley, but I was willing to put up a fight. So with all that these bag of bones still had, I had a massive brawl with it, and—”
“—Mr. Leung! We do not have time to hear your egotistical rants!”
“Excuse me,” the old man corrected at the annoyed tone of the female reporter. “I did finally knock it out with a metal pipe lying in another alley, but not before it…released a roar of fury, and blew fire at my arm.”
The man lifted his arm in front of the camera, and Satoshi winced at the sight of the blackened and red tissue in the old man’s gangly arm, but not before a moment when the old man tossed it to his side, getting ready to blubber.
“They’re all different…” he muttered, his voice trembling. “They can’t be aliens…they’re not the same…they have…unique advantages…unbelievable pow—”
“—Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to bring you the rest of this report,” Lorel cut through. “What we can tell you as far as this creature mess goes, they are completely unpredictable, and as mentioned are all different, though they resemble some of our own earthly animals. It is being debated of the source of these creatures, but for now, the controversy lies on as millions of people scurry to find ferries, ships, and planes for a ticket out of this hectic disaster. The beasts are scouring the city of Tokyo and all across the country, though China recently informed us that they spotted similar creatures lying on their coastal waters. We will broadcast emergency procedures from the official government in a few minutes, but for now, we go back to Takato Shisu in the Tokyo5 studios.”
By this time, Satoshi’s eyes were welled up, but unable to spill tears he so desperately wished to cry. The creature in his arms breathed softly with an inaudible wheeze, and the flames in the kitchen began to engulf further into the house. He was not sure if this creature would harm him the way one had harmed the old man, but he did know one thing was certain: his family was gone. Slinking past the roaring and spitting flames, he flung himself out of the door, moaning in terror with the weight of the beast beginning to come down on him. Several people began trailing through his own yard, but at this point, the boy did not care. He took his shirt, although wet, and blanketed the stomach of it over the creature, so to veil it slightly from the public’s view, though he knew not one person would look at him because they were so desperate on leaving.
Just as desperate as his family had been.
Satoshi strutted over to the garage door, and upon opening it without the lock preventing him passage, he walked in to see an empty space where their sports utility vehicle had been, gone. The vehicle was gone…his family was gone…they had left without him to God only knows where. Satoshi twisted back outside of the garage, slamming the door with fury. He looked down to the lump in his shirt beginning to squirm slightly. He needed to find a place…he needed to go somewhere away from all these people…but where? Suddenly, Ken Sugimori’s face appeared in his mind, and without doubt, Satoshi stabbed the inevitable truth of his family’s absence, and rushed into the bustling crowds of people.
Right now, the amount of suffering in his emptied heart began to swell mightily as he wandered through the thicket of people, but the boy knew he could do nothing. They had left without him…they had not cared for him to the extent of leaving him behind in a living Hell without even telling him where they were going. He was that unimportant to them. As he squished by people and slipped between gaps where no one was standing to the end of the streets, he swallowed his heart bitterly, coming to the fact that if no one wanted him at all, he should not mourn their leave. If they did not care about him, he would not shed a tear for them.
It seemed nearly a half hour as Satoshi wound his way through large clusters of people trying to get away all at the same time. He noticed some people merely standing in the middle of the flood, others forced to move past them slowly, as they talked. As he passed one of the groups, he overheard bits of their conversation:
“…and what about the child?” a woman asked another man, who was wearing a bath robe.
“Nothing…I don’t know what happened…it just jumped and attacked, and I saw it happen…”
Satoshi was very displeased by all the terrible conversations going on, and hiding the creature under his shirt became quite difficult as the lines of people began to thicken. He could not risk letting them see it, for nobody knows what would happen if anything did. Later, the boy found himself walking along Pojo Street, which was precisely where his friend Ken Sugimori lived. Quickly darting his eyes for a shortcut, he spotted several empty yards that led across to the Sugimori home. However, he caught a terrible feeling that they may not be sticking around the home to watch this calamity go on, and they too were swarmed helplessly in the mass herds of people. The boy set foot on the grass, and running with the large lump in the stomach of his shirt, trotted across properties and sidewalks across to Ken’s house.
His father had retired early as he was once Japan’s national soccer team coach, and his mother worked as a surgical scrub with an RN degree at the Tokyo Hospital, setting them for a life fit for one desiring the greatest riches. Ken, however, was not affected by the wealth his parents had, and did not boast it in front of anyone, for he was a true and modest friend that did not go preppy like most rich, snobby kids did. In fact, sometimes he despised having all the power because it went to his parents’ heads. Satoshi found his way to the white house with the blue trim, two stories tall and particularly wide. He walked up onto the solid, oak porch that was vastly set in front of a door with an iron knocker and distorted glass ornament. Using one hand to keep the mass under his shirt and the other to grasp the knocker, Satoshi pounded the handle against the metal four times with loud bangs. Satoshi stood there for a while, grasping the creature under his shirt with difficulty, unaware of what it should do, in the middle of the night at his best friend’s door. A minute or so passed by, and by this time, the boy had given up, and he began to walk to the streets once again, when the door swung open.
“Satoshi-san?”
Ken was standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of polka-dotted pajamas and a night cap, looking rather tired and sleepy. Satoshi turned to him, looking solemn and scared, but relieved to see someone who knew. Drenched in the wetness of the storm and the woods, smelling very much of bark and dirt, he shook his head slightly, and smiled at Ken weakly.
“Ken, may I come in?” he asked.
“Of course!” Ken exclaimed. “My parents are gone, but you can come in; I’m sure they wouldn’t mind… Hey, what happened to you? You look like you got in a fight with some trees…and what’s wrong with your stomach?”
“I’ll explain in just a second,” Satoshi said, walking into the house carefully, as Ken shut the door.
As Satoshi walked into the spacious living room that lifted far up to the ceiling, he threw his shoes off onto a mat by the door, though he was afraid to walk on the clean, white carpet.
“Where are your parents?” Satoshi asked him, struggling to keep the lizard against his chest.
“They’re gone,” Ken replied. “Right when news came of the hole, they told me to stay here and try to get some sleep, and that our security would keep me safe from those…things… They went off to the Church, to consult with other members about all this, though I’m not sure what they’re accomplishing by doing that. But look at you!”
Ken strode to his friend’s side, sizing him up, “You look like you got hurled in a lake and it spat you back up. I’ll have to let you get cleaned up, but what happened?” It was at this point Satoshi decided to reside his faith in his friend, so he recounted the events that had happened to him that led up to the arrival of the lizard creature from the sky. When he came to this part, Ken was already staring blankly at his large chest that moved. Satoshi knew now was the time, and so he reached his own arms up into his shirt, and pulled out the creature with the bulb on its back.
Ken jumped backward at the sight of it and screamed as its scarlet eyes were wide open, staring at the two boys from Satoshi’s arms. It released a small grunting noise as it wriggled and wraggled in the boy’s grip, struggling to get free. Satoshi held on tighter as Ken walked away from him. The little dinosaur-like creature gave a final cry of “Bulba!” and leapt out of Satoshi’s arms, landing on the carpet on all fours. Its green spots looked glazed in the dimmed lights above them, and it blinked several times, looking about the place as Ken had sat on the couch in the fetal position, watching it helplessly as it began sniffing the air with its slit nostrils.
“Wha-wha-what is that THING?” Ken cried out, speechless. Satoshi shook his head, but did not seem to be so worried about the creature than his friend, as it had displayed its docile nature before. “I don’t know…it was what that hole was shooting from the sky, but apparently, there’s more than just this type of little guy…”
The creature stood a moment, as though suspended in thought, then it turned its head to Ken, and it pounced up onto the couch beside the boy. Ken screamed rather girlishly as the creature merely smiled slightly, causing Satoshi to laugh. The creature crawled closer to Ken, giving him great grief and discomfort. Satoshi slipped off his wet socks and placed them on his shoes, and began walking toward the hallway to the washroom. He turned to Ken and said, “I’ll take a shower while you watch the…er…thing.” Ken opened his mouth in protest, but Satoshi had already gone off into the bathroom. Ken gulped, and stared down at the small, plant-like creature.
“Bulba!” it cried, smiling broadly at the boy. Ken stumbled backwards in his seat, screaming moronically, holding his chest as though his heart were going to burst from his ribcage. The creature moved closer to Ken, nearly touching him with its feet.
“What are you?” Ken shouted, trying to make himself intimidating, though he just made a fool of himself.
“Bulba-saur,” the creature said rather simply, its smile turning into a vacant expression. Suddenly, Ken had the feeling that the creature was being serious with him. It looked upon him in understanding, and watched the boy for a reaction. “Bu-bulbasaur?” Ken replied, stuttering. The creature nodded is wide head, when instantly, a voice…similar to that of a child’s with a hoarse throat came through to his mind.
<Yes. My name is Bulbasaur.>
Ken whipped his head in one direction, his eyes meeting a vase, and then twisted them in another direction, searching for the voice. Then, he heard it again:
<I was
talking to you. I expect you should look at me if you want to speak to me.>
Ken then turned his face toward the little creature, and stared in bewilderment as it the lizard, Bulbasaur, had a rather annoyed expression on its face. Ken stared in disbelief, but began talking to it, vocally.
“Bulbasaur,” is addressed the creature, “h-how are you t-talking to me?”
<It is a power all of Us possess,> it said, the voice pounding in Ken’s mind.
<It is the ability to talk to one another through the mind…for We do not all speak the same language. Are you one of Us?>
“I…you mean, like telekinesis?” Ken suggested. “And I don’t quite…know what you mean by ‘one of Us.’”
For a moment, Bulbasaur stared at the human, blinking several times, as though interpreting the boy’s language in its own mind. It shifted its body slightly, then said,
<Telepathy, more like, but it is not psychic abilities we possess. You are hearing what I am telling you in your language, though I can hear myself speaking in the mind tongue of my native land. And by ‘Us,’ I mean We, the sentient creatures of the lands of forests, seas, mountains, deserts, volcanoes, and skies. Are you not one of us?>
For a moment, Ken seemed completely confused once more at the mysterious response from the creature, and scratched his chin. This was most spectacular, though a little scary to him, but talking to such an amazing creature with intelligence and thinking was so fascinating. Then, Ken remembered a news broadcast he had watched before he had gone to bed, about the great black hole in the sky sending strings of black fire that eventually ended in a creature. The creatures were being flown out of the sky, and surely, this is where Satoshi found Bulbasaur…but when did he find this Bulbasaur?
“But didn’t you…creatures come from the tear in the sky?” Ken asked. “What was that thing?”
Suddenly, Bulbasaur’s ruby eyes lit up like lamps, and it bobbed its head worriedly.
<I…can remember…> it said quietly, looking down at the weird sofa cushion beneath it.
<I was…somewhere else…and something snatched me up like an arm…the others were snatched too, though I don’t remember them all…and I was burning. Burning…passing time and space…burning with the heat of combustion…and it spat me out, just like it must have with the others. And…the burning went away, and I couldn’t breathe…I tried to save myself…but I grabbed onto another creature. One that looked like you, but it was taller and paler than you. The one that moved away from our view…>
“You mean…Satoshi, the other boy that was just here a moment ago?” Ken asked it, motioning toward the bathroom.
<Boy…is that what all of You are called?>
“Oh no, my little green friend…You do know what a male and a female are, right?”
<I do…>
“Boy is just another name for young males of our species, and girls are names for young females in our species. Our older selves are known as men and women, respectively belonging to each gender.”
<Did you say, ‘man?’ I have heard such tales from the others, but never have I believed…you are what they call, a ‘human?’ A child? You can evolve just like us?>
“Whoa, slow down there, Bulbasaur. You’ve heard of us?”
<Yes, but it was said only to be a myth, for…we live in a different world. Still, I do not know why we are here together, but it is the hole that brought us here, and here we are now, in front of each other, seeing what the other believed to be not real.>
“Are you…aliens, then?”
<This name, I recognize. No, we are not beings from another solar system. We are creatures from another dimension
.>
“How do you know all of this? Do you know what made that hole appear in our skies?”
<I think I would be telling you right now if I knew such a thing,> the Bulbasaur replied to the harshly interrogating questions.
<I know, for I have only lived for a month, brought up by the Ancient Ones in our realm for a short period of time, with…my two brothers. The wise ones told us everything we would need to know, for we are the last of Our kind…>
“But you and your brothers can’t be the only ones left,” Ken said. “There are dozens of you all raining from the sky!”
<But my two brothers are not like the rest. I am not like the others that ‘rain’ from your sky. The three of us are a different breed of the Others, and that sets apart from the Others, for we are the only ones left that do not look like them and have a stronger potential. This is all the Elders told me, and nothing else.>
The Bulbasaur sank into the cushion with its body, tossing the bulb on its back forward onto its upper neck. Ken felt he had tired the poor creature by asking it torturing questions, and it apparently did not want to answer them. It closed its eyes blissfully, not falling asleep, but resting its eyelids and body from the hurt it had endured. Ken, certainly aware that Bulbasaur was perfectly safe, began petting the little creature’s glossy skin, stroking it greatly like a pet lizard.
Satoshi was still in the shower, just getting to washing after several minutes of struggling with the tight, wet clothes that stuck to his body from all the rain and sweat, tearing them off of his body. He laid the clothes at the foot of the toilet, and stepped into the shower with his wet, dirty skin tossing sediments onto the non-slip floor. The boy shut the curtains quickly, and turned the hot water on. Strange, a shower or a bath can be…rendering stressful thoughts and worries invisible with the steaming water running from the shower head, dripping him from head to toe with warmth that he had missed for quite a few hours. With a large sponge sitting in the corner of the tub, he rubbed soap against, and used the sponge to scrub every inch of his legs, arms, back, and chest from the filth that had magnetized to his pores. Brown water spilled into the drain at his feet as he became clean once again, and a few times Satoshi winced in sharp pain as he scrubbed small cuts and scrapes from all the rough-tough moments he had all in one day.
Satoshi then poured a tiny handful of shampoo into his hair, not even bothering with conditioner as the fragrant substance oozed into his scalp and onto his forehead, rolling down his fine cheeks only to be wiped away by the water. He closed his eyes tightly against the soap, and sprayed his entire head in the hot stream. He was feeling much better than he had been several minutes ago, completely dirty, lost, angry, and saddened to the point of being suicidal. But now, everything was all right with the shower, and his threats escaped into the steam that rose from above the curtains…
Abruptly, a knock came from the bathroom door, and Ken’s voice rang out, “Satoshi! We’ve got clothes for you.” The other boy immediately turned the faucet off, and the water stopped, only dripping the rest that remained in the pipes. He stepped out of the tub, seeing his own skin releasing a steam from his slightly red skin. Satoshi grabbed a towel hanging on the hanger on the door and wrapped it around his waist tenderly, when he thought to himself, “What does he mean by ‘we?’”
Satoshi turned the knob, and standing there in the hall was Ken smirking slightly as he looked downwards at Bulbasaur, who was squatting on the carpet, two whip-like vines shooting out of the bud of the bulb on its back, holding a pair of loose casual pants and a casual shirt all folded neatly in the vines’ reach. The creature was smiling brightly with its two tiny, sharp incisors, and Satoshi was utterly amazed by all of it. He looked to Ken.
“It can do that?” he asked. Ken did not answer him, and instead, the creature below responded with,
<I can do many
things.>
~*~
For two hours, the boys and Bulbasaur sat on the couch in the living room, ignoring the great riots of people stampeding outside, and talked. Satoshi was rather embarrassed because he had not been provided any underwear for his clothes, but he knew it would just be even more embarrassing and stupid to ask for some. Bulbasaur began to explain to them, or rather relay what it had said to Ken earlier to Satoshi, and they began swapping in discussions about what was going on.
<You were the human who saved me!> Bulbasaur cried out like a child in its mind, jumping into Satoshi’s arms for the boy to hold him warmly. Satoshi began to take a liking for the little creature, and they began telling each other what had happened. Ken just listened and watched them exchanging bit after bit of what had happened, from the running away from the creatures known as “Hypno” and “Pinsir,” to Satoshi shoving Bulbasaur under his shirt, to the point where Satoshi had found out that his parents had left him all alone in Machida. Ken was surprised at this revelation, and he gasped when he heard such horrid news.
“So that’s why you’re here then, Satoshi?” Ken asked, “Because your family actually left you?”
“That’s pretty much it…”
<You were lucky enough,> Bulbasaur thought out loud.
<I never even knew my parents…I don’t even know if I was conceived by another creature at all…>
The boys found that Bulbasaur’s lack of knowledge of its own origin was upsetting and heart-breaking, for this creature had showed them in such little time what it was capable of, and how worth living it really was. But Satoshi was glad he had something to care about now. Ever since he had saved Bulbasaur from the pond, it just seemed he now had a responsibility to watch over the creature, though with all of the threats of these creatures being violently killed, he did not know how he would manage it without being murdered himself. At this point, he did not even know what was going to happen; his parents were gone, and he no longer had a home to go back to. Certainly, he could not go live with the Sugimori family, for they would never allow such a lower piece of meat such as himself into their fancy home.
For a moment, they all just sat there quietly, not uttering or thinking of one word. The next, they heard a pounding against their door. Ken got up swiftly, slightly ecstatic to see if it was his parents coming home at last. Satoshi with Bulbasaur in his arms watched Ken stride over to the door, peering through the seeing-hole, and open the door to a man standing in the doorway. He wore a thick, black coat that draped all the way to his ankles, with broad shoulders, whether from the coat no one could tell, and wore a bowler’s cap over his forehead, sunglasses gleaming in the light of the house as he frowned solemnly.
“Hello, child. Are your parents home?” he asked politely, looking into Ken’s eyes.
“No, sir, they went downtown for an urgent meeting,” Ken replied, stepping away from man as his personal space was violated slightly. The man peered past the doorway into the living room, and immediately spotted Satoshi sitting with Bulbasaur in his arms. They now just realized it was completely foolish to leave the creature sitting out like that, but the man did not seem afraid of it. The man uttered an, “oh dear,” before turning to Ken once again.
“If you two would come with me, please, I’ll take you wherever your parents are at, because I’m quite sure that in the current state of events, they would not want you to stay here. I also have some questions to ask you on the way, as I see you yourselves”—he turned to Satoshi—“are in custody of one of the said creatures. I’ve been going around alerting the others. Another onslaught of these violent beasts is coming just down the lane, and we need to make haste.”
The man flew out of the doorway and into a black Mercedes-Benz parked on the curb, slamming the door shut as he turned the ignition and waited patiently for the boys. Satoshi and Ken did not even get the chance to have their word in anything at all, and Bulbasaur was completely befuddled. However, they did know that they did not want to face such frightening creatures face-to-face, just as Satoshi had. Satoshi lifted Bulbasaur from the couch and into his arms, pushing the bulb against his chest as he and Ken shut off all the lights in the home, grabbing a spare set of keys, and walking out into the frosty night-morning. The man snapped his fingers at them unnervingly and nervously as they walked closer to the car. Satoshi and Ken opened up the door closest to the sidewalk, and hopped into the seats of the car, strapping their seat belts on as the driver pushed the gas pedal to the speed limit.
“Who are you sir?” Satoshi asked the driver, who was driving in the seat in front of the boy.
“I am a special task force manager for the city of Tokyo, trained to handle situations of this magnitude, though I’m concerned that I’ll need more training for this…”
“Do you need the address of the church, sir?” Ken asked politely. “I don’t think you’ve been there before…”
“Enough of what you want,” the driver suddenly growled, turning in his seat to look at the two boys in the backseat with the creature. “GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!”
In a jerking movement, the driver slashed the steering wheel to one side, spinning the tires of the car in the direction of a series of homes. The boys screamed as the man chuckled malevolently and violently swerved back onto the road again.
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Satoshi yelled, Bulbasaur becoming rather tense in his arms.
“Give me the CRETIN!” the driver cried out, churning the car into another absurd direction, smashing the kids against the window, nearly cracking their skulls open on impact. Bulbasaur growled angrily under its breath, but was being flung from side to side as the man began twisting in turning in every direction, nearly killing himself and all the passengers in the car just to get what he wanted. The boys shouted in cries of pain, struggling to find a way out of their situation. With quick thinking Satoshi attempted to glance out of the windows every time he smacked against either one, when he peered out through the glass and saw a long yard of grass outside an institution building. It was risky, but he yelled to Ken, “When…HE! Hits the curb…on three! One…”
BAM. “Two…”
SMACK. “THREE!”
At the moment the driver swerved to the right of the lane close enough to the curb, Satoshi smashed his arms against the door as he shouldered it, gripping the handle of it tightly as it swung open to the rushing air of the chase. Without waiting to see what happened, Satoshi grabbed Bulbasaur in one hand and Ken in the other and leapt from the car, flying just above the curb onto the grass. They smacked their feet against the ground, causing their knees to buckle in anguish onto the grass. They lifted their heads to the Mercedes as it sped out of control into traffic, and slammed into another vehicle, rear-ending it and sounding off an alarm. No matter what pain they had in the legs, the boys lifted themselves up with Bulbasaur and ran away from their landing zone and out of sight in case the driver had survived and was going to chase them.
The boys ran past many trees along the rows of grass that led to the institution building, when they realized it was their school. They ran toward it without thinking, not daring to see the aftermath of the car accident that had just happened. Suddenly, a moth the size of a gargantuan dog soared across their heads, making them shriek in fright at the sight of such a large insect. It began swooping up and down quickly, and they could not catch a glimpse of it until its feelers scraped across the top of their heads, which made them run even faster. They kept going until their feet could take it no longer, coming to a corner of the building that led into a concrete parking lot. Satoshi and Ken panted and groaned with ache and throb, unable to move any further. They were just about to walk out from the side of the building when a blood-curdling scream of a woman screeched behind them.
They turned sharply around just in time to spot one of the creatures dart behind a small pick-up truck, attempting to corner the woman who was sidling around the vehicle with it: Mrs. Matsura. She screamed every time it got closer, and she continued in this torturous game of cat and mouse. When she passed to the other side of the car, she yelled out to them at the sight of the whites in their eyes, “Boys! Help me, oh, oh, h-help me! This thing is going to KILL me! HELP, OH HELP, PLEASE!”
“HOLD ON, MRS. MATSURA!” they both yelled, hurtling toward the truck.
The next time the old woman flew from the side of the vehicle, they caught glimpse of the creature causing her misery and grief. It was an insect-like beast with slender body parts jointed underneath a sleek, green skin that covered its entire body; its head was fierce and jagged, its teeth razor-sharp with the ability to bite through steel. Its eyes furrowed and it cackled at the mischievous task at torturing Mrs. Matsura as it chased her around the vehicle, slicing through the air with what should have been arms, but instead, were bony, cartilage blades that jutted from its skeletal structure. The boys now were more afraid than ever to do anything to save her, but it was not they that were to think. Bulbasaur jumped from Satoshi’s arms and landed on the ground of the cold pavement, shifting its feet into a combat stance. The other creature with the blades for arms saw the opposition it made, and smiled with a rattling breath as it swung thin wings from behind its back and began whirring them madly.
Bulbasaur lowered its body carefully as the deadly creature scampered toward it, its eyes narrowing in utter disgust and hatred for this other beast. It was as though it could sense the demonic evil within the other creature, and a sudden will to stop it overpowered Bulbasaur to become enraged. The squat little lizard strained the muscles in its hind legs, and with a great push, hurled itself into the air at its foe. As it flew through the air, the sharp-precise caution of the other creature was clearly present in its appearance and strength, and at the moment Bulbasaur had jumped, it tossed its blade behind it to gain momentum, and sheared it through the air directly at Bulbasaur. The scythe slashed fiercely at the squat dinosaur’s face, and with a striking pierce, flung the smaller creature backwards onto its side, having sliced the skin on its forehead, leaving behind a scissor-like strip of blood where the wound became prickly. Bulbasaur closed its eyes with ebb, seeming to have given up.
Satoshi and Ken moaned quietly as the small creature just lied there, moaning to themselves quietly as the merciless creature stomped its clawed feet toward them. Much to their surprise, the beast was instantly caught by astonishment when two vines slipped from the other creature’s bulb, and fastened onto its foe tightly around its neck, constricting it deeply. The boys and Mrs. Matsura watched as the Bulbasaur twitched and fidgeted as it poured every drop of vigor it had left into the brawl in its vines, snapping harshly into the insect’s throat. The creature croaked and screeched wildly, writhing in grip of Bulbasaur’s vine. With one last tug, Bulbasaur sent a quick slap against the two vines, and the wave carried to the end of its tentacles, whipping at the creature. With a deafening cry, it fell awkwardly to its knees, and fell flat on its face. Bulbasaur’s vines dropped faintly as well, and receded back into the deposits of its bulb, where they remained until another serious occasion would arise.
Satoshi ran to the small creature’s side, picking it up in his arms, and wiping the bleeding cut onto the shirt Ken had lent him. They tossed a quick glance at the other beast as it lied there on the ground, motionless with reddened marks of suffocation bruised on its arteries. They knew it was still alive, but they did not want to wait to find out if it woke up. Mrs. Matsura began heaving gasps of relief to herself, as though she had not breathed in many years. She came over to the boys, wearing her nightgown and a pair of boots. She was not wearing her glasses this time, but she still looked so calmed from the recent occurrence. The teacher swung her arms around the two boys and the creature, hugging them tightly, groaning a tad, and whimpering, “thank you, thank you, thank you…”
Suddenly, her eyes fell to Bulbasaur, and she instantly jumped backwards, eyeing them oddly. Satoshi went up to her, and reassured her that it would not harm her, and that it had saved her very life from being in danger. After all, it had been her Godsend, not them. She nodded, shivering slightly as she coiled her arms around her body.
“Mrs. Matsura, did you see my parents?” Ken asked her as they moved over to her pick-up, getting in without even bothering to ask. Mrs. Matsura nodded her head sadly.
“Yes…they were on their way to church when they stopped by to see me for a moment here at the school, to tell me about their meeting. However, before they got to finish what they were telling me, a swarm of the creatures came and scared them off,” she said, her voice crackly and rusted.
“They’re…still alive, aren’t they?” Ken asked.
“Of course, child, of course they are. Certainly, those things gave them quite a run, but I know they made it to the church. That was when the”—she looked out of the window at the lifeless body of the insect hybrid—“attacked me. It wouldn’t stop teasing me, as though my death were its game…and how did you come to make friends with this other monstrosity, Satoshi-san?” she growled, looking at the unconscious Bulbasaur in his lap. “Where did you—?”
“Er, no time to panic guys, but,” Ken interrupted, pointing in the rear view mirror, “the swarm you were talking about is coming back.”
And indeed, with these ugly words of warning, they had the courage to look behind them in the mirror to see a gargantuan stream of hornet-like bees that had been enormously-enlarged with stingers and arms feelers tipped on the ends with drill-like spikes. Their eyes were patched in a red haze, as was the unison buzzing noise they emitted. Mrs. Matsura flung her hand to the key in the ignition. She pressed the gas and punched in the clutch, fired the key into the slot, and revved up a storm right before the tires beneath the truck squealed with burning rubber and peeled out of the parking lot in the opposite direction of which the insects came.
[continue in next post]
This is brilliant, Cheshire! 