fanfic Manifest Destiny - Into the Abyss - Page 10

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Under Rachel’s instruction, we made our way up several rickety staircases. It was a very old apartment building. Almost every step squeaked or creaked, and some were cracked. There was no elevator, even though the building was about five stories tall. The lights overhead didn’t give a constant light; they kept flickering and buzzing. We clambered up four flights of stairs and across a hallway or two. She leaned on me for a few seconds, fumbling for her key in her pocket, and let us into the room.
Her apartment was a little one-room room. There was a camp cot and an air mattress pushed up against the wall. Light blankets were lying over both. A large box in one of the corners held all of Lena’s and Rachel’s clothes. The walls were dingy, a little discolored from sun and water, and bare, except for the grimy window. The room smelled a little musty, like the carpet had gotten soaked, and had never really dried. After I helped Rachel over to her cot, the door creaked open, and Lena entered the room. She had her hair up in a towel, and a black bathrobe wrapped around her. She had dark, very tanned skin, dark eyes, and high, prominent cheekbones.
“You made it.” She seemed a little embarrassed that I was here when she was in her robe. “I heard there was a fire. What’s wrong with Rach?”
“Just some thugs on the street from Moran, I’ll be fine in the morning.” Rachel said, easing herself down onto the cot.
“Are you insane?! You can’t even walk! Sleeping overnight isn’t going to fix that.” Lena exclaimed. “Come on, we’re going down to the Pokémon Center.”
She sighed, having just lowered herself down onto the cot. Rachel raised her arms up to Lena. Lena pulled her up, and they began to hobble towards the door. I ran over to help, and as a three-some, we made it down the hallway. One step at a time, we made it back down the stairs. It had to be at least two in the morning by the time we’d made it to the lobby of the building. The Pokémon Center was two blocks away, but now that we were outside the building, Rachel could ride her Zebraika. Within minutes, we were outside the Pokémon Center, helping Rachel off Zebraika and through the doors. A nurse greeted us at the doors, and then ran to get a wheelchair for Rachel. The rest of the Pokémon Center Staff (three more nurses and a handful of Chansey) came out, and started up a machine. Of course they had to do an X-Ray to check if she really had something broken. A few of the Chansey gathered around Zebraika, and started healing it from its fall from earlier that night.
Lena left the nurses to their work, and took at seat in the lobby. She still had her black bathrobe wrapped around her, and her towel over her hair. Her body shook as she stared at the floor. I sat down next to her, and started at conversation.
“What have you been up to?” I asked.
“Not much, contests wherever I can find them, then crashing at night with Rachel in the apartment.”
Still exceptionally quiet, like she had been back in the Valley, she didn’t say anything else and continued staring at the floor. Lena was used to fading into the background, but she never really liked it. She has four other siblings, two of which were disabled. They took most of the attention from her parents, and they’d get angry with her when she tried to get attention, so she learned to keep quiet when she was at home. To make things worse for her, when she was about five years old, her family had moved from Salia City, from this city, to the Valley. So with a learned tendency to be quiet, she had moved to a new city where she knew nobody. Rachel had been her next door neighbor when they had moved to the Valley, so it was Rachel that Lena bonded with. Rachel introduced her to the rest of our group, but she never really grew close to anyone like she did with Rachel. So it was obvious why she was nervous now.
The doors of the back room opened, and Rachel came out on a pair of crutches. As it turned out, nothing had really broken, but she’s dislocated her ankle, which in a way was worse. Apparently she would have to have a certain kind of surgery to fix everything. Lena almost started crying, and I had to admit that my heart had also skipped a beat. Surgery seemed really scary. The only problem was that, even with all three of us combined, we couldn’t afford it. The two of them barely had enough money to pay for their apartment. They would also have to travel up to Portage to get to Kataya’s only Hospital. We thanked the nurses for everything, and went back to the apartment. There was nothing more we could do tonight, after already proving how dangerous it was to travel at night, there was no question that we should stay in town.
Back in the dingy little room again, I’d spread my sleeping bag on the musty floor, and we began to talk. I’d never heard Lena talk so much in my life. She was reliving her last contest for Rachel.
“-and then Rosie started spinning around, both bunches of flowers high in the air. We’d practiced this awesome combo of Petal Dance and Magical Leaf; I wish you had been there! So there were pink and blue petals flying everywhere, and the glowing leaves spinning all around. Oh the crowd loved it; then we used Sunny Day, and had the sun reflecting off of everything. As soon as the petals started landing on the stage, we finished off with Sweet Scent, just to leave the audience with something nice, ya know? So yeah, I made it through to the second round, and … holy crap is that really the time? I’ll tell you about it when we wake up, I’ve gotta go to bed. Night you two!”

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Walking alone through the city, part of me was really worried for Rachel. It wasn’t just her ankle, which was worrying enough on its own; it was really how much she resented her parents. True, I had never gotten along well with my Mother, but I didn’t run away from the house, and I would have gone home if something this bad had happened. She had no real home to go back to, and no family, other than Lena, to support her.
The only real way to make any money here was to win Pokémon Battles. I had been in a battle only a handful of times before, and the prospect was slightly terrifying. I loved my Abby so much, and my stomach would all but implode when she was in battle. My bonds with Purrloin and Sandshrew weren’t quite as close, but I still wasn’t all together comfortable seeing them get hurt. The only place however to engage in these heart wrenching affairs was in the south-east park, which was solely dedicated to Pokémon Trainers and their battles. It was a large, mostly flat, grassy field. Gravel had long been worn out of the walkways by the constant trampling of Pokémon over top of them. Most of the grass too had been worn down. There were obvious scratch and burn marks on several of the trees. Some battles were already in progress. Over by a fountain that looked like it was in immediate danger of being obliterated by a Flygon’s flailing tail were two girls screaming commands to their Pokémon. Closer to the fence on the south side was a pair of young boys, trying to urge their Bidoof and Rattata to actually get up and attack each other, to absolutely no avail.
Continuing to look around the park, someone laid their hand on my shoulder. My heart must have skipped a beat as I spun around fast enough to make anyone dizzy. It was a boy I didn’t recognize. He looked about the same age I was, with very short blonde hair, and dark eyes. He looked like someone who hadn’t had to rough-it at all, with his nice clean clothes and city shoes.
“I’m challenging you, come on!” He said, with much more urgency than I had expected.
This wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted to start this. I had wanted to find someone where my Pokémon would be safe. I didn’t know anything about this boy, and now my Pokémon were on the front lines.
He chucked one of his PokeBalls into the space that seemed to have quickly expanded between us. This was how it had to be though; everyone knew the horror stories when trainers got caught in the middle of their battles. His ball exploded open on impact, and out came a small, bird-like Pokémon that reminded me of the sea. Its wings were incredibly flat, with a blue stripe about halfway down, and its beak was long, and a mix of orange and black. It was an exotic Pokémon, I’d never seen one in Kataya before, or seen its picture in any of my local reference books. Its blue marks probably meant that it was a water-type, or at least part water, since it was also clearly a flying type. Sandshrew would be in danger if I sent it out, and Abby wouldn’t have much of an advantage, being a water-type herself. My only real choice was Purrloin.
With a bright display of colors, he appeared on the somewhat grassy ground. Almost instantaneously, the bird, what’s-its-name, began to beat it wings furiously. It looked like a Gust attack, a low-powered Flying attack. My heart soared; low leveled attacks meant low leveled Pokémon. We had a shot of making it though.
“Purrloin, Faint Attack!” I called loudly and clearly to my little purple cat set against green.
He obeyed immediately, nearly vanishing from sight, and leaping at his prey from the right.
“Wingull!” He shouted, obviously afraid for his own Pokémon.
So that was its name. This boy hadn’t been battling for very long, and continued to show it throughout the duration of the battle. He became jumpy whenever Purrloin made a move, he was slow to react to tell his Wingull to dodge or attack, and the Wingull itself didn’t appear to be very strong.
“Good fight.” I said once Purrloin had made quick work of his Wingull and his Zigzagoon.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, looking sheepishly at the ground. “I wouldn’t have challenged you if I knew you were strong, here.” He was holding out a few bills for me.
In the heat of the battle, I’d almost forgotten why I was fighting. There was a certain exhilaration once the battle actually started something I couldn’t explain that drove everything else from my mind. After several more battles, most of which I was able to retain my mind, and not fidget around like an idiot when my Pokémon had to take a defensive strategy, the sun had begun to set, and I headed back to the apartment.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight I walked in on in their dingy little room. Rachel was sitting on the bed, shoulders hunched over, and tears falling from her face. Lena was standing in the corner, tears streaming from her face. No amount of water however, could hide how much she was blushing. Finally, at the forefront of this incredible awkward scene was Rachel’s Mother, looking a combination of angry and sad that her only daughter had run away and gotten into such a mess. All three turned to look at me when I pushed their squeaky door open. Rachel’s eyes were red and puffy, and she kept trying to wipe her face every time her Mother’s eyes flitted off her for even a second. Lena blushed even harder, if it were possible, and kept trying to blend into the wall, completely unsuccessfully.