Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Fear the Quintet ❯ The Breeder and the Beach ( Chapter 11 )

In which things appear to progress more than was expected.

*

Kitty was sitting up, cross-legged, flexing her hand a little. It had gone a nasty purplish colour. Stupid Golem crushing her stupid hand. She sighed, listening to the sound of the surf hissing across the flat black pebbles. Dakota was shaking violently in Scott's lap. He had given him two potions already, but still Dakota would not stop shaking. Kitty had suggested to him that it was shock, and that the only way to calm him down would be rest. So they both stroked him absently, watching the shimmering horizon.

“We should move on,” Kitty said finally.

“Hold on,” Matt said. He was dressed only in his boxers, having just emerged from the sea. Kitty politely averted her gaze as he pulled on the rest of his clothes. “Weren't we going to have a battle?” he addressed Scott. Scott raised his eyebrows and pointed to Dakota, barely able to walk.

“I don't think that's going to happen right now, Matt,” he said. “I need to get to a centre.”

“Yeah, whatever. You just know you'd lose.”

“What?” Scott cried. “I would own you, even with the type disadvantage.”

“Nahh,” Matt said, grinning. “No way.”

“Ok, how's this? As soon as I get another team member, we can battle, so it's even.” Scott held out his hand. “Ok?”

Matt shook it. “It's a date.”

“Right, let's go,” Kitty said, for what could have been the twentieth time. “Boys!” From across the beach and in the sea, the boys regrouped slowly and pulled their clothes back on. Kitty inspected a particularly interesting flat black rock on the beach until they had finished. “Finished? Good. Ok.” She got up, stretched, and started to walk in the direction of the next town, holding her shoes in one hand, and carefully stepping with her toes in the centre of the stones. Scott held his Cyndaquil tightly in his arms as it shivered and squeaked.

“God, you really were traumatised, weren't you?” Scott asked him worriedly. Dakota buried his tiny snout in Scott's elbow. Kitty wobbled but managed to keep her balance.

“How long is it to the town?” she asked Charlie. He looked at the map for a good long while, then looked back at her and shrugged. She sighed loudly at him.

Suddenly, Dakota's little muzzle was in the air, twitching. His head shot left and right and then he squirmed and wriggled his lithe little body out of Scott's arms and hopped onto the floor, then scampered off as fast as his paws could carry him. Not fast, it turned out; he could barely walk, but still faster than Scott.

“What the hell?” Scott cried, chasing after him. Dakota reached the water's edge and started to scrabble about beside something red and lumpy. The current pulled it in and out ever so slightly, long strands of something red and hair-like drifting about in the bubbles of the surf. Dakota feebly attempted to pull the lump back and out of the water, but collapsed instead, the salty seawater draining what little strength he had left. Kitty gasped as they caught up, and Scott quickly retrieved him and patted him dry with his shirt and jacket, hugging him close.

“What did you do that for?” he whispered. “We need to get you to a centre quickly.”

“Wait,” Kitty said suddenly. The red lump had stirred every so slightly. Kitty tentatively touched it and then pulled it up out of the water. The thing was alive! She gasped loudly. “Guys, it's a Vulpix!” she yelled. They all came back and gaped at the half-dead creature, head lolling. “Give me your jacket, Matt,” she said urgently. Matt pulled it off and handed it to her and she wrapped it carefully inside. Its eyes cracked open a tiny bit and looked blearily up at her.

“Pi-“ it started, but then stopped and blinked a few times, falling back into unconsciousness. Kitty hugged it closer.

“Come on, it doesn't have much time left,” she said, and they carried on, a lot faster than before. Kitty ignored the throbbing in her bruised hand, still clutching the bundle of damp red fur as tightly as she could without hurting it.

“Finally!” someone roared to their left. Whoever the voice belonged to was obscured by trees. Not for long. Two men clad in black clothes stepped out in front of them. They had on jet black hats, long-sleeved shirts, trousers and ankle-high boots, and looked almost exactly the same, but one of them was at least a head taller than the other. They both had the same curly silver `U' emblazoned on the front of their costumes.

“Umbra?” Kitty said quietly, hugging the Vulpix a little tighter. It stirred a little, but didn't wake up.

“Looks like it,” Scott said.

“I wonder what they want,” Charlie said from her other side.

“Well, they're an evil team, so do you think they want to steal our pokemon?”

“Well I hope not,” Kitty said. “Would be irritatingly cliché.” They all nodded in agreement. “Their costumes are strangely turning me on, though.”

“You always did have a thing for uniforms,” Scott sighed. Matthew made a face in disgust and Kitty laughed. The two men politely waited for them to finish, and then spoke up.

“Finally!” the same voice said again. It came from the taller man. “We have found you.”

“Were you looking for us?” Kitty asked, bemused.

“Yes! We have spent-“

“How come?”

“- thousands of dollars in the hopes of-“

“I believe she just asked you a question,” Scott said. “Rude to ignore a lady.”

The man trailed off and looked at them all in confusion. “We are members of notorious Team Umbra!” he cried, raising his arms. “And we aim to-“

“Why the hell should we care, though?” Kitty said. “We're kind of in a hurry.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Matthew agreed. “Can we do this later?”

“No we may not do this later!” the man exclaimed, flinging his arms about a bit more. “Umbra's mission is to capture and tame the dreaded Morbidark, and the only obstacle in our way is all of you!”

“What have we done?” Kitty asked, getting more and more irritated.

“Why, you opened the portal in his path of destruction and he tumbled through it, just as you had planned!”

“We didn't plan nothin',” Matthew said, inspecting his fingernail. “Now, seriously, is there something you want?”

“We want you to come with us!” the shorter man screamed, making everybody - including the taller man - jump and turn to him.

“If you think that you can just take Morbidark and Umbra will not stop you, then you are sorely mistaken, I'm afraid,” he said.

“What you gonna do to us? Get blasted off again?”

“… what?”

“Shut up, Matt,” Kitty hissed.

“What? All teams in this world are the same. They try to beat your pokemon in a battle, but they can't. You hit them with a random attack - usually electric - and they go flying through the sky, and end up somewhere else with not a scratch on them.”

“I think this is real life, though,” Kitty said. “They might actually be dangerous.”

“Nah,” Matthew said. “Fred, shock them silly.” He turned to his friend, who pointed at the two men dramatically.

“Sparky, Thundershock!” he ordered. The Pichu, who had been snoozing merrily on his head, woke up, leapt to attention and a fantastically large amount of electricity discharged from his tiny body and zipped towards the two men.

Their expressions barely changed, though. They lifted their left forearms in unison, and the electricity rushed to them, was absorbed into it, and lost.

“Thank you for charging up our watches,” one of them said happily. “We made them using technology from a Rhyhorn's Lightningrod ability.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Fred said, unfazed, as Sparky resumed his place, sleeping on the top of his head.

“You got any more plans?” Kitty asked Matthew. He shrugged.

“It's ok, it happens. But there's no way they'll actually physically hurt us.”

“Why not?”

“They never do in the anime…” Matthew said feebly.

“Dude,” Scott said. He was the only one still looking at the two Umbra men. “This is not an anime.”

Slowly, each one of them turned back to the grunts, who were now holding two gigantic guns, pointed straight at them, with sadistic little smiles on their faces.

“No, that can't happen!” Matthew cried. “4Kids would've censored it!” Kitty punched him on the arm. “Ow,” he said sadly.

“Don't worry too much,” the tall guy said. “They're only tranquilisers. We want to take you back to HQ and do a little…” his grin widened evilly, “questioning.”

“That sounds rather sinister,” Adam commented. Kitty swallowed. Could she talk her way out of this? She doubted it. Oh well, there was one thing she could try…

“CORDELIA!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “HELP US!” The Vulpix squirmed in her arms.

“Right, the annoying girl is the first one to go,” they agreed, and cocked the huge bazooka-like tranquiliser gun.

Just then, deus ex machina, the tiny Vulpix shot out of Kitty's arms, and ignited dramatically. Kitty screamed. The little Vulpix was on fire! Scott grinned darkly. The tiny ball of flame slammed into the two grunts and their guns, and they shot backwards at least five feet. Vulpix let out a tiny strangled growl and then collapsed on the floor.

“Awesome!” Scott cried. Kitty sprinted forwards, picked up the Vulpix, and then ran back as the men recovered and stood up again.

“What the hell just happened?” one of them muttered.

“Suck on our Flare Blitz, bitches!” Scott wooped. “It melted your stupid guns!”

Sure enough, the tranquiliser guns lay useless and deformed on the grass behind them.

“Vulpix can't learn Flare Blitz!” the short grunt cried.

“Actually,” Scott corrected them, “it's an egg move.” He grinned widely.

“Fine, time for Plan B,” the tall grunt said, and they both unclipped a pokeball and threw them forwards.

Murkrow and Houndour appeared in front of them, ready for combat.

Only… the Murkrow was purple, and the Houndour was blue.

“Why are your pokemon weird?” Kitty asked them.

“They're not weird, they're shiny!”

“How long did it take you to find them?” Kitty asked, wrinkling her nose. “Bit pointless if it's just for show.”

They both made a big show of laughing at her. Kitty waited for them to finish. “Silly girl!” one exclaimed. “Umbra laboratories invented a serum to be injected into pokemon before they hit a week old. This causes their cell pigments to mutate, and they become shiny.”

“Um, why?”

“Because to be a different colour is a genetic mutation possible in the cellular structures of each and every pokemon in existence, but it needs to be…”

“No, silly, I meant, why would you do that?”

“Because shiny pokemon are far more valuable, obviously, and because they are seen as trophies.”

“But if it's so easy to make a pokemon shiny, surely it loses all value in the market?”

“No, because it's so incredibly expensive to create the shiny serum, so we don't do it all that often.”

“So you're actually making a loss, then?”

The grunt thought about that for a moment. “Shut up!” he cried. “And prepare to be defeated!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Kitty said. “Go on, Rocky.” She turned to Scott. Dakota was in no shape to battle. “Matt, team up with me.”

“Awesome,” Matt said. “Come on, Candy. Time to shine.”

The Eevee and Sandshrew stood side-by-side facing the two oddly coloured opponents.

“Tail Whip, Rocky,” Kitty said, painfully reminded of how crap her attacks were.

“Defence Curl.”

“Sand Attack,” Kitty said, while the two men stood around laughing at their small pokemon.

“Sand Attack too,” Matthew said.

The tall grunt wiped a tear from his eye. “Ok, Pursuit, Murkrow, on the Sandshrew.”

The little purple bird bobbed over, eyes streaming from the sand attacks, and managed to land the attack on Candy, but her Defence Curl had strongly lessened its power.

“Ember, Houndour.”

The blue dog snarled and a little pool of flame shot from between his jaws, but hit nothing. The sand had been too much for him.

“Helping Hand, Rocky,” Kitty ordered. “Go for it, Matt.”

“Scratch the living daylights out of that Murkrow,” he said. Candy bounced forwards and slashed at the bird with strong claws. It squeaked and ruffled its feathers, but it didn't go down.

“Astonish, Murkrow.”

The Murkrow attempted to Astonish a shrub.

“Helping Hand again.”

“Scratch again!”

Candy scratched as hard as she possibly could, and the purple bird flopped to the floor.

“What?” the grunt cried. “They gave me the worst pokemon ever!” He returned it. “It's all down to you now.”

“Yeah, don't worry,” the other grunt growled. “Howl.” The Houndour howled loudly.

“Tackle,” Kitty said.

“Scratch.”

The two pokemon raced towards the poor Houndour as fast as they could, and he whimpered as they both clobbered him from either side.

“Ember!”

“Again, Rocky!”

“Keep going, Candy!”

All three pokemon attacked with all their strength at once, and Candy was hit full-on by the Ember and squeaked, but the Houndour fainted.

“Useless,” the grunt muttered, returning it.

Rocky ran back to Kitty's feet and she knelt down to scratch him behind the ears. Vulpix's eyes cracked open in her arms, but then closed again, and Rocky licked her on the ear, as if to tell her to hang on.

“You got a Plan C?” Kitty said icily. The grunts looked behind them at their melted guns, then at their pokeballs, then each other.

“You think that was a tough battle, you should see the pokemon we actually train,” Matthew said threateningly. The tall grunt took out a black ball from his pocket and threw it down on the ground with force. Immediately they were surrounded by a thick cloak of black smog and they coughed and choked until it cleared. When the smoke lifted, the grunts were gone.

“Cowards!” Matt yelled. Kitty clamped her hand over his mouth.

“Idiot! Shut up.”

“What pokemon we actually train?” Charlie asked Matt. Matt shook his head.

“It's called bluffing.”

“What if they had called our bluff?” Fred asked, looking as solemn as one can with a snoring Pichu on their head.

“Then we would've resorted to violence… Earth-style,” Scott said, punching the palm of his hand.

“Man, that was a rush,” Matt said.

“I know, right?” Scott agreed as they continued along the beach.

“How long do you think it'll take us to get to the pokemon centre?” Kitty asked, cradling the Vulpix nervously. “Wait, look.” She pointed in the near distance. “There's a house there. Maybe they'll let us rest our pokemon.”

“Worth a try,” Scott said, looking at Dakota, still unconscious in his arms. “Poor little sausage.”

“And I think Candy's burnt,” Matthew said.

“Why do you think that?” Scott asked, looking amused as Candy bit hard onto Matt's thumb.

“Because she bites me whenever I touch her stomach,” Matthew said through clenched teeth.

“We really should get them healed,” Kitty said, “but I don't want to bother them.”

“Aww, it's just a sweet old lady,” Matthew said as they got closer. Sure enough, there was an elderly woman sitting on a chair in front of a hut, stroking a Ninetales and looking incredibly worried and sad, and occasionally sniffing lightly. The Ninetales looked equally as upset. Kitty couldn't help but speak up.

“Um, are you alright?”

She looked up, jumping a little. “Oh,” she said. “Oh my, your pokemon are badly hurt. Please do come in.”

Kitty paused for a moment, wondering if this was a smart thing to do. She decided that she had no choice. The Vulpix's breathing was becoming loud and irregular. At least she wasn't wet anymore.

“Thank you,” she said. “Really.”

They all stepped inside her house, wiping their feet as they entered. The elderly woman inspected the Vulpix very carefully as they entered. Kitty looked at her and then at the sad looking Ninetales.

“Is she yours?” she asked. “We found her unconscious on the beach.”

“I think she probably is,” the woman said. “I'm a breeder, you see, and I breed pokemon to have the very best moves, natures and Individual Values, so that they are as strong as possible, and then I sell them onto trainers.” She smiled.

“Ah, like in the games. I know about that,” Kitty said, nodding knowledgeably.

“What?”

“No, nothing.” Kitty shifted the Vulpix in her arms. “Yeah, I think she's yours. She knows Flare Blitz.”

“Ah!” the woman said, picking her up very carefully, leaving Kitty with the jacket, and hugging her close. “Thank you, thank you so much! She escaped again, and we were so worried. She had never been gone for so long. Free spirit, this one.” She smiled. “Not very good, seeing as how we live so close to the sea.” She looked at the battered pokemon in the boys' arms. “Here, let me take them all and heal them up in the back, and you can relax and play with the pokemon.”

“Wow, thank you,” Kitty said. “We were worried that we wouldn't get to the town on time.”

“Oh, goodness, no, you wouldn't have.” The lady shook her head. “I'm glad you had sense enough to ask for help.” She smiled widely, and Kitty smiled back as she took all of the pokemon in their balls and took them to the back to plug them into some sort of machine.

“Ooh, look, she has a Riolu!” Matthew cried, bouncing over to it. “Hey.” The little blue thing sniffed him nervously and then started to suck on his thumb. Matt's thumb, not his own. “Uh, ok.”

“She has some really good pokemon,” Kitty commented, looking around.

“Well, yeah, she's a breeder. They usually do,” Fred said. “Wow, it's a whole load of Elekids.” He wandered into her garden, and soon Sparky was playing about with ten or eleven Elekids. Rocky had made friends with a Skitty and a Manectric, and they were playing Tag, while Loki chased a Snubbull gleefully.

“Ok, babies, time for food!” the lady called, banging a saucepan. Immediately every pokemon in the house and garden pricked up their ears, if they had any, and ran back in to their respective bowls. Kitty was alarmed that around half of them changed shape into pink blodges.

“They're Ditto!” she exclaimed.

“That they are,” the lady agreed. “Makes breeding a lot easier. They all have perfect IVs and good natures.” She winked.

“Wow…” Kitty gasped. “That's awesome.” She paused, looking at Rocky, then back at the woman. “Do you think you could… do me a huge favour?”

“You want to breed your Eevee?”

“How did you know?”

“How could you not want to?”

“That's true.”

“You know what? I can do one better, and breed him with a real Eevee with perfect stats.”

“That would be really cool,” Kitty said. “Would you really?”

“It's the least I can do!” she cried. “You saved my little Vulpix's life!”

Kitty smiled. “Anyone would've done it.”

“Oh, you'd be surprised. And, of course, you didn't keep it for yourself when you found out how strong it was. That's honourable.” She disappeared into a back room and came back a few minutes later with a pretty little pale Eevee with a pink bow on her left ear and bell around her neck. “This is my little Sandie,” she said. “She's a fantastic breeder.”

“Vee,” she squeaked, cantering over and sniffing at Rocky, her bushy tail waving about a little. Rocky `vee'd back a bit, then licked her nose and she licked him back.

“Aww, look at that, it's a match,” the lady said. “Follow me, pretties, to the breeding room.”

“What's a breeding room?” Kitty asked the boys when they'd left.

“It has a heart shaped bed with rose petals scattered over it,” Matthew said.

“Barry Manalow is playing in the background,” Scott added.

“Pink sheets are thrown carelessly over the lamps so that the room has a gorgeous rose hue to it,” Charlie said, looking dreamily at the ceiling. The other boys looked at him for a while. “What?”

“I swear an egg just appears,” Kitty said. The boys turned their penetrating stares onto her. “What?” she demanded. “That's what the games say.”

“Damn 4Kids. Is this what they're teaching kids of today?” Matthew said, shaking his head. “Kitty, when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much…”

Kitty glared defiantly. “You moron, it's different for pokemon.”

“What's different for pokemon?” the lady said, reappearing.

“How do pokemon get pregnant?” Matthew asked her bluntly. She blushed.

“Well, um, I don't think that's something I'd like to discuss at the dinner table,” she said. “Speaking of which, please do have a seat and start.”

“Aww!” Kitty cried, when she saw that there were eight places set out for each of them, all filled with food. The cups were shaped like Miltank, and there were a few little Combusken eggcups. In the middle was a big roast chicken.

Wait… were there chickens in this world?

“What's that?” Kitty asked, as politely as she could, gesturing to the nameless poultry in the middle of the table.

“Oh, that? That's fresh Farfetch'd in leek sauce.” She carved some up. “It's a local delicacy. Absolutely divine.”

“Wow,” Kitty said. “Wow.” She realised that she was being offered some. “Oh, why not?” she said, and sat down to eat.

“Oh my God,” Matthew said after taking his first bite. “This is even better than boiled Corphish.”

“I get that a lot,” she said.

“It is actually delicious,” Kitty said, then felt guilty for sounding surprised. “I don't usually eat meat,” she tried to explain. Was partly true.

“Wow,” Scott said. He had already finished his first helping. “That was amazing.”

“My, you're all hungry teenagers, aren't you?”

“That's us,” Matthew said, helping himself to more potatoes.

When they had finished, the woman - Kitty realised she really should ask her her name - went back into the back room to fetch their pokemon. She released them all and piled the pokeballs on the table. Dakota ran back and leapt onto Scott's lap who laughed and hugged him. Candy ran over and Matthew opened his arms to welcome her, but she jumped onto Kitty's lap instead. She giggled a bit like a hyena and he frowned. Then, finally, the Vulpix came out. Kitty sighed. She was so beautiful and elegant. If only she could have her to train. The power she possessed was close to orgasmic.

“You are so naughty,” the lady sighed, scooping her up and setting her on her lap, and proceeding to comb her fur carefully. The Vulpix regarded Kitty with huge amber eyes, and tilted her head a little. Kitty smiled.

“We never asked you your name,” Kitty said.

“Oh, of course! How rude of me. My name is Emily. And you all?”

They all introduced themselves in turn and then sat in silence for a while. Scott was staring at the Vulpix with the same intensity as Kitty. She knew he wanted it as badly as she did. Probably more; he was a fire trainer, after all.

“This is the sixth time she's run away, you know,” Emily said. (It was good to have something to call her, finally.) “If she does it again, she really is going to get hurt.” She took a deep breath. “It's this incessant need to explore and travel that I just don't understand. I've lived here all my life, you see.” She looked at all of them in turn. “I think… I think it would be best if you took her with you.”

Kitty's eyes widened. “With us?”

“Yes. She needs to get out and see the world, or she'll drive herself mad, or get herself killed.” She looked apologetic. “I know it's a lot to ask.”

“I think we could manage having another member of our team,” Scott said, rubbing her muzzle with his forefinger. She leaned into him and her eyelids drooped contentedly. He smiled. “She's really beautiful.”

“She takes after her mother,” Emily said, gesturing to her Ninetales. “My oldest friend.”

“We'll take good care of her,” Scott said. “Thank you for being so amazingly hospitable.”

“Yes,” Kitty said. “Really, thank you.”

“It's fine. Oh, that reminds me. Let me get your Eevees.” She went into the back room for a moment.

“Eevees?” Kitty repeated. “Have they hatched already?”

She returned with Rocky at her feet and Sandie, the other Eevee, in her arms. She had a wide smile on her face. “She's pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Kitty repeated. “Like, she'll lay an egg soon?”

“An egg?” Emily burst out laughing. “Kitty, Eevee give birth to live young.”

“But…”

“She knew that; it's a private joke,” Scott said quickly, not wanting her to seem stupid. Kitty thanked him silently.

“Fair enough.” Rocky jumped up into Kitty's lap and yawned.

“Pokemon get pregnant very easily, and you can tell straight away.”

“Yeah,” Kitty said slowly. “Ok.”

Emily handed Sandie over. “Well, take good care of her. I know you will. Just like you will with her.” She gestured to the Vulpix. “And make sure you bring her back after she's given birth. She's my best breeder, this one.” She stroked her head.

“So we're taking her with us?” Kitty asked.

“If it's not too much to ask. You mustn't use her in battle, though. It releases a hormone that pregnant pokemon shouldn't have too much of. Anyway, she's a house pet. Much too spoilt to battle.” She smiled. “Also, make sure she keeps the bell on. It's made of everstone.”

“Sure, definitely.” Kitty poked the bell and it tinkled. It was shiny and black.

“If you didn't know, that's what those black rocks outside are,” she said.

“The ones on the beach?” Kitty asked. “They're all everstones?”

“Yes, that's why pokemon can't evolve on this beach.”

“Wow,” Kitty said. “That's quite cool.”

“Yes, it is. Sandie helped make her own necklace, you know. She's an amazing little sculptor. I hollowed it out and added the chime, though.”

“What?” Kitty asked. “She made one of those stones into a sphere?”

“Yes, Eevee are natures sculptors. Their front paws can scratch through stone; their back paws can grind things down into dust and buff edges, and their tails can make almost anything shine beautifully.” She stroked Sandie's soft fur for a while. “That's why they can use Sand Attack in any environment. They buff sand up from the floor with their back paws.”

“Wow,” Kitty said. “I'll remember that.”

“Well, good luck,” Emily said, “and take care of my babies for me.”

“Definitely. Thank you so much for everything.”

“No, thank you for saving my little Vulpix. I still feel like I haven't repaid you enough.”

“Believe us, you have more than repaid us,” Scott said, laughing. “We'll see you again soon, I think,” he said. “Bye, and thanks again.”

They all waved goodbye at each other, Scott with a new member of his fire party at his heels, and Kitty with a new responsibility. The life of a little pregnant Eevee who didn't even have a ball to stay inside.

“Make sure you look out for her,” Kitty told Rocky.

“Vee,” he said determinedly.

“Good boy,” she said. She stooped and picked up one of the smoother everstones from the floor. “And can you chip this down so I can give it to you as a necklace?” she asked. Rocky scrabbled at it with his front paws until it was a crude oval, then set it down and scraped at it a few times with his back paws, until it more 2D, and swept his tail over it. It was now a beautifully shiny jet black oval shape. She popped it into her pocket, promising to get a string for it later. “That was awesome,” Scott commented. “There could be money in that.”

“One thing at a time,” Kitty laughed.

“That reminds me,” Matthew said, coming out from nowhere. “You got your second team member. You owe me a battle.”

Scott looked at his two little pokemon, then at Matthew's two unquestionably sturdier-looking pokemon.

“Prepare to lose,” he said with a grin on his face.