Journey to Another World 4
Ch. 11

It didn't take much for me to convince Saturn to release Rena afterwards. (Having a sword placed to your throat, usually makes people very cooperative of what you want from them) After the electric bars were recalled, I quickly went in and check on Rena. She was beaten up pretty bad and looked very weak, so for the next several minutes I attended to my girls wounds. Unfortunately this proved to be long and arduous, plus once I had polished off the last of my potions, I saw that Saturn had made his escape.

Though he'd made his escape, I still had other things to worry about. Though Jenavee had been cured of her Poison, the damage had been done and she was as weak as a newborn kitten. Undine I couldn't really do anything about seeing as she was totally passed out and the potions would have any effect on her. Rena, though I'd used some of the potions on her, I used the majority of them on Kit. After all, she was the one that was the least hurt and would have to do until we got ourselves down to the Pokemon center so that all the girls could get healed up.

So recalling the girls I slowly made my way towards the exit. Though for some reason something was nagging at the back of my mind. I stopped and tried to think of what it was until I caught a glimpse of something in the unconscious scientist's name badge. When I turned I saw that their were still the three strange looking Pokemon sitting all wired up to the their respective mechanical pedestals. 'I guess that the remote for Rena's cell didn't free those three.' So making my way back to the room I started looking over the pedestals. Their seemed to be no switches on them so I turned my attention to the large computer that was against the wall behind the pedestals.

I knew only one thing at that point. 'One of these buttons has got to free those three Pokemon.' I thought as I glanced over the numerous flashing buttons and controls. 'The only problem is finding which one's and probably which sequence they need to be pressed to free them.' It was like watching one of those bomb squad guys trying to defuse a complex bomb. 'If I hit the wrong sequence, their's no telling what the consequences might be to those Pokemon.'

So I did what any brute man with a sword does when he's blocked by glass. I started smacking the blunt end of the blade against the glass. I found that though the glass looked thick, it wasn't sword proof as cracks started to appear after the first few tries. 'And once again the sword rules in this world.' I thought as I took a slow step back and gauged the distance. With a quick upward diagonal swing, the back upper half on one of the domes quickly slid off and shattered on the ground. The Pokemon within slowly opened it's yellow eyes and turned to face me. The one I'd just freed had what looked to be pink hair with four dreadlocks that attached to the top of it's head with the color seeping down the front of it's head to it's mouth, a deep red ruby set in it's forehead, and two tails that had what looked to be maple leaves at the end that too had the same deep red rubies embedded in each.

Once freed the Pokemon didn't stay, as it quickly vanished. "Well, that's gratitude for you." I said as I moved to the next. The other too looked fairly similar to the first only their hair styles were different. The next was like a dome and had yellow hair, then the last was blue with it's hair in a triangle shape with it's upper two sides pulled in a bit. Though once freed those two followed the first and disappeared. I thought about repeating myself but didn't see the point. So as quickly as I could, I started making my way out of the building.

About an hour later I emerged from the building and sat down on a bench near the entrance to the city. "I can't believe that my plan actually worked." I placed both my hands on either side of the top of the bench and let my head hang down the back. I must have sat there for a while until I decided to thank the real Pokemon that saved us all. So pulling off Kit's ball I released her in front of me.

Once she'd materialized, she looked up to me and gave a happy bark. I slid off the bench, knelt in front of her, and was about to pull her into a big hug when she tackled me against the bench and started licking my face. "Holy Milktank, Kit. What's gotten into you?" I said as I tried to fend off her rather eager/ticklish tongue as it attacked my face. Finally she let up on the tongue bath and stepped away from me.

It took me a moment for me to stop laughing, but when I did I smiled to her with one of my biggest smiles and pulled her into a big hug. She let out a soft 'yip' of surprise but didn't fight me. "Thank you Kit." I said to her. "If it wasn't for you, we'd all be in a lot of trouble by now." I told her as I gently held her away. "And to show you my thanks, tonight we get to do whatever you want to do." Kit just tilted her head to the side in thought. "Though, whatever you decide will have to wait until we get the rest of our family to the Center so that Nurse Joy can help them."

Kit nodded to me, but before I was able to get up again she slowly walked over and gave me a slow lick on the cheek. I couldn't help but pull her into another hug, but this time she seemed to get into it as she lay her head down on my shoulder and nuzzled my neck. Yet again, I must have lost track of time as someone interrupted us with the sound of a cough. Kit slid out of my embrace and turned to growl at the person, only to stop in mid growl and stare up at the man.

"It would seem that you and your Ninetails are very close." Says the man. I look up to him and see him with the sun shinning behind him. He is a tall man, standing around six something with short brown hair that seems to catch the sun through a few stray strands, blue eyes that look about as deep as the sea, finally he wore some pretty tight fitting swimmers dark wetsuit.

I was taken out of my observation of the person standing over me with his obvious superior pose as Kit started to growl even louder at him over her shoulder. I didn't know what was up with her, but saw her slowly face the man and take up a fighting stance right in front of me. When she did this the man slowly backed off and started to laugh. "Ha, your Ninetails seems to think very little of me." He said in a superior tone.

"Kit do you know this person?" I asked her thinking she could answer me, or Jenavee or Rena would translate what she would say. She only answered with a deeper growl and flames that started licking up her muzzle. "I guess I don't need a translator to understand that." 'I guess this boy must be part of Kit's unknown past. And due to Kit's reaction on seeing him again...This isn't going to end well.'

"Well seeing as you're a Pokemon trainer..."

"Wait a minute...your challeng...wait just another minute, who are you?" I asked, interrupting him.

"Who me? I'm Kushy Mctaoosen. But everybody just calls me Steven, since my names so long." He said with a superior tone as if his name meant something.

'I guess with a real name like that, it would seem that he would probably does come from a prestigious family.' "So what were you going to say?"

"Well, before I was so rudely interrupted. I was saying that I want to challenge you to a Pokemon battle. I need someone to help me warm up my Pokemon before I head to the Gym here and challenge Maylene for a Cobble Badge."

'Badges? Gym leaders? Wait a minute, I can't believe I've forgotten all about the Pokemon league.' I thought about that for a moment until the real reason why I was going where I was going.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" He said as he slowly walked backwards and pulled out an Ultra Ball, then pointed it at me.

"Wait a minute!" I told him as I pushed myself up and stared down at him. Though people like us look short when we sit, we're giants when we stand up and that's what I was to the other guy. It was quite comical as he slowly watched me stand with his mouth falling open, then his eyes bulging. "We can't battle here. We're right in the middle of the town."

This finally seemed to snap him out of his stupor, as his jaw snapped shut and he looked around. "What are you talking about? Of course we can. Their's no real concern about buildings..." He went on for quite a while until I finally relented since Kit seemed real adamant about battling him.

So he backed off a little more and Kit took the field. 'What's got her so worked up? Does she know this person? Got to worry about that later, I've got a battle to coach.' Steven tossed out a ball, but Kit didn't even give the Pokemon a chance to materialized as she launched a surprise Flame Thrower. "KIT!!! WHAT THE HECK?" I yelled as the Pokemon was enveloped in flames.

The flames didn't cover the Pokemon long as the Pokemon quickly shot some bubbles strait up which eventually fell back on itself, then burst all around it, effectively extinguishing the flames and then began to spin around. "That's right Marill. Use Rollout on that over eager Ninetails." Steven said.

I could hardly see the details of his Marill as it was spinning so fast, and just like a shot, it took off at a high rate of speed towards Kit. "Kit, jump to the side to avoid." I said, but Kit just ignored me as she continued to raise her head then shoot out the flames at the quickly approaching blue ball. The ball hit Kit and she was smacked a good five feet away, to where she skid to a halt near me. "Kit! You need to listen to me!" I yelled at her again, but she was lost to her rage as she jumped into the fight again.

By this time, Steven's Marill had returned to his side. "Nice hit Marill. Keep on using Rollout to flatten that Ninetails." He said as Marill quickly started spinning faster and then took off towards Kit again. Kit seemed to just have a death wish as she continued to use, Flamethrower after Flamethrower at the spinning ball.

'This is nuts. I've got to get Kit out of this kamikaze battle and start listening to me.' So when she was hit back to me again from the Rollout, I quickly reached out and grabbed on of her tails. This seemed to just send her off the edge as she quickly turned around and snapped. I winced as Kit bit down hard on my hand, and I knew that she had drawn blood. Kit kept her hackles up for a while, until the rage finally passed from her eyes, and she slowly looked up my arm.

We both looked at each other for quite some time as she slowly stopped growling at me. Me wincing down to her as her face slowly dropped it's rage and then took on a whimpering one. (Ears back, eyebrows up, and a frown slowly spreading across her face) Finally she released me from her bite, and whimpered at me as she licked my hand. I slowly knelt down and looked deep into her eyes. "Thank goodness Kit that you've finally calmed down." I said to her as I slowly reached out to her.

At first she backed away from me, but then allowed me to reach out to her. I slowly ran my hand through her fur of her muzzle. She seemed to shake for a little while until she finally got into the petting, closed her eyes and leaned into it. "I don't know what kind of history the two of you have, but your with me now, and I promised that I would take great care of you." She finally looked up at me and nodded to me.

She slowly turned to the man and deeply growled at the two that were tapping their feet, impatiently. "Are the two of you done bonding yet?" To which I nodded and pointed at him.

"Kit is now ready to take you on." I told him back.

He didn't say anything as he began to scratch his chin. "You know, now that I think about it. I remember a Ninetails that I used to have that fired off it's Flamethrower the same way." Just then he started to laugh. "What stupid irony if you ended up with that pathetic fire type.

Kit's growl started to deepen and began to come deeper in her body. "KKKKKKKKKKIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTT." I drew it out to get her attention. She slowly looked over her shoulder at me, showing off her sharp k-nines. "He's trying to goat you into fighting him blindly. Don't let him do that to us. You need to be smart." She slowly nodded to me then turned back to him.

"It's time to end this." He said. "Marill, use Bubblebeam, maximum power." Marill sucked in a big gulp of air to make it look like a giant blue balloon, then spewed out a high speed bubble attack. The sheer number of bubbles would prove nearly impossible to try and avoid, "Kit, quick, use Flamethrower to counter and move out of the way at the same time."

She didn't hesitate as she launched the attack and slowly began to sidestep out of the way. The two attacks hit and started a pretty big explosion. Fortunately, Kit's Flamethrower seemed to do it's trick and she was able to avoid the majority of he Bubblebeam attack. A few bubbles did hit at first, but as she finally got out of the fired path, she relaxed on the flame.

"Marill, get in there and use Rollout to finish this." Steven said.

I could hear the sound of gravel starting to fly and I smiled. 'He's sending in his water mouse into the smoke. Bad move.' "Kit." She turned and looked at me. "Iron tail to ramp that mouse." If you could imagine a smile on a fox, you'd smile too as that's one look that would scare a lot of people.

She quickly turned while her tails began to solidify into one solid silver mass. Once she'd turned all the way around, she plunged the tip of the tail into the ground and lowered her back to the ground. Almost on queue, the mouse came rolling out of the smoke and hit Kit's Iron Tailed ramp. The mouse rolled up and flew into the air where it continued to spin. "Nice job Kit. Now use Dark Pulse."

"MARILL, USE DEFENSE CURL TO PROTECT YOURSELF!" Steven yelled. "THEN USE BUBBLEBEAM!"

I watched as Kit shot the black ball up at the curled up blue mouse. The shot hit a little off, making the mouse spin in the air, but it quickly righted itself as it shot out it's arms spread eagle. It quickly sucked in air and began to get ready for the bubbles. I looked down at Kit and could see that she was fading fast, and probably wouldn't be able to survive the attack.

Just then I heard the mouse called out it's name, then shoot it's attack strait down at the awaiting Kit. "Kit, use Dig to avoid the attack." Kit didn't look back at me as she quickly fled underground, using her front paws to dig and hind to push the dirt out of the way. Once the attack finally got to the ground, Kit was safely underground, but I could have sworn that some of the attacks had gone down the hole and hit Kit.

I only waited a minute for Steven's Marill finally landed on the ground, and when it landed it landed a little ways away from Kit's hole. "NOW, KIT!" Kit burst from the ground and hit the mouse in it's large white stomach. When Kit hit the Marill, it all seemed to slow down into slow-motion as the attack ran it's course. Finally Kit landed on my side of the field and Marill on Steven's.

This battle most have proved to much for Kit as she slowly swayed on her unsteady four pads and then fell to her side, unconscious. I quickly run out to her and check her over, she looks pretty beaten up but seems to just have passed out due to exhaustion. "Thank goodness." I say with a sigh as a slow smile spreads across my face. "You did wonderfully Kit." I tell her as I run my hand over her exposed side, from her fore shoulder to her back. Pulling out her ball, I recall her to it and look up at Steven who has seemed to have come over to do something.

"I knew that I saw that Ninetails before." He said as he recalls his Marill, then clips the ball onto his belt.

"What are you talking about?" I ask him, but don't get a response as he begins to laugh.

"That Ninetails used to belong to me. It was way back when I didn't know what kind of Pokemon Trainer I wanted to be." He said with a smile. "Though Marill had been my starter, I'd soon caught her as a Vulpix on my first day out." From that point on he told me about how he trained with the two, but for some reason, he couldn't get into the training with the small fire type. He seemed more at home with Marill and it's fluid like movements, to Vulpix's aggressive tactics. Hoping to squelch Vulpix's aggressive behavior, he used a fire stone on her, but that only seemed to make things worse.

From a small problem with a Vulpix, he got a big aggressive Ninetails that seemed to enjoy picking fights with his Marill and other water types he'd caught along his journey. It got so bad that he eventually gave her over to a breeder that just happened to be in the right place, at the right time. He traded the Ninetails to him for a Totodile and left. "And that's the last time I saw that aggressive Ninetails. Slowly fading away as I walked away with my Marill and new Totodile by my side."

'Now wonder she's so angry with him. She thinks he abandoned her their to that breeder. Then that anger grew when she found out that that breeder just wanted her to bare offspring that would hopefully carry on her fiery temper.' I thought. 'Now her past is finally come to light.' "Your just lucky that she wasn't at full strength."

"What?" He asked in a disbelieving tone.

"We just defeated one of the higher ups, in that Galactic building." I told him as his eyes went wide. "Plus, you've only seen a portion of what she's truly capable of." I told him as I got to my feet and brushed off my pants knees. "If I'd have to guess, I'd say that she was only at half strength, and considering that she was wild there for a moment..." I smirked at him. "She'd have probably kicked...your...ass."

Steven's eyes went wide as he took a few more steps back. "That's not possible. You mean to say that she's even stronger and not only that, you've actually tamed her?"

I turned and looked down the road towards the Pokemon center. "It's a shame that your going to go to the Gym to get your next badge."

"What do you mean?"

"Simple. By the time you get out of there, we'll be all healed up and long gone." I slowly walked past him, towards the Pokemon center. "So you'll never get the chance to see just how strong she's become after leaving you." I raised up my arm and threw a card of a few Poke-Dollars over my shoulder at him. "Consider your victory a gift."

"A gift?"

"A gift of farewell. A farewell to the strong trainer you could have been if you'd spent a little more time with her and not so much time fawning over your blue mouse." With that said I slowly walked off towards the center, leaving him to his thoughts their on the side of the road.Chapter End Notes:Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended