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One Spark Chapter 5 (Pokeumans)

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 The remainder of the week was uneventful. I still went to my classes everyday and talked with Nathan, Leah, and Jack. I tried my best to talk to Ace whenever I could, but he was almost always busy with PRT missions or training.  I was still anxious to try and uncover more information about the secrets Ace seemed to be keeping from me, but I had never thought about asking him whenever I saw him.  We all visited Maya in the hospital every day after we finished our last classes, but we didn’t get to stay with her long because of the nurse’s insistence that Maya be left alone to rest.

 My classes were still the same. Just like Amy had said, Ms. Fantas rearranged the seats in her class every day. Ms. Pardus still seemed to dislike me above everyone else, although I really couldn’t figure out why. I thought that just because I had a rough first day in her class didn’t mean that I deserved as much trouble as she gave me.

 Nathan and I visited Mr. Quilarum’s shop a few times, but I couldn’t buy anything because of my lack of money. Mr. Quilarum kept on insisting that I have a few more free items, but I knew that he would never stop if I accepted them. When Mr. Quilarum heard about Maya’s injuries, he requested that I bring her a few books from his shop for her to read while she was in the hospital.

 Each day I was becoming more like a vulpix. I was shrinking and becoming more fox-like. My internal heat was also getting higher each day, but at the same time it felt normal. It was weird, but I knew that I would have to get used to it. Today was the day that I would finally be fully transformed, so I was excited to try out battling for the first time.

*************************************************************************************
 I groaned as I stumbled out of bed, falling to the floor because of how short I had become. I looked at my new form, carefully examining all the differences from what I had before. I was much shorter and stood on four legs. Soft, warm fur covered my entire body, but I had gotten used to that quite some time ago. I had six curled tails following me wherever I went. Luckily, I’d managed to stop sitting on them as often.

 I could see Nathan still in a deep slumber in his bed, but I l knew that was typical for him, so I didn’t disturb him.

 I stood up on my hind legs to reach the top of my bedside table and pulled down the collar I had bought from Mr. Quilarum. I slipped it over my head, and just as Mr. Quilarum said, it fit perfectly. Of course, I couldn’t see very far without my glasses, so I attempted to put them on as well. I pulled them over my newly-formed muzzle, but right after they were in place, they slipped off my face and fell on the floor. I tried to put them on again, but they still wouldn’t fit. They were too big for my new face!

 I tried not to worry, but I could barely see anything without my glasses, so I was helpless. Although I knew he wouldn’t like it, I rushed to Nathan’s bed and shook him awake.

 “Nathan,” I said. “NATHAN!”

 Nathan sprang up from his bed and extended his claws. “Get away! I’ve got claws and I’m not afraid to use- Oh, good morning, Laura.”

 “Nathan!” I said, trying to keep clam. “My glasses won’t fit me anymore. I need to get them fixed!”

 “Calm down,” Nathan said, yawning. “We’ll get ‘em fixed after breakfast.”

 “But I can’t see! I’ll be stumbling around all day.”

 Nathan sighed. “Okay, we’ll go see if Mr. Quilarum can help us. But it’d better be quick. I don’t want to miss breakfast!”

 After Nathan got ready to leave, we started walking down the hallways. At first, I tried holding my glasses to my face in an attempt to see, but their size made everything look distorted and only made it more confusing. I almost ran into the walls a few times, but luckily Nathan volunteered to be my eyes until I could see again, so he guided me way from hazards. I was sure that we passed a few other pokeumans in the hallway who laughed at me, but I could care less about that. I just wanted to be able to see again. I felt defenseless without my glasses.

 Finally, Nathan steered me through a door and I was greeted with a familiar booming voice.

 “Ah, Laura and Nathan!” Mr. Quilarum said. “How can I help you today?”

 I remained silent for a second, waiting for Nathan to push me closer to the counter where Mr. Quilarum stood. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy task for Nathan to guide me through all of the closely-packed shelves in the shop.

 After Nathan stopped, I finally spoke. “My glasses won’t fit me,” I said, handing Mr. Quilarum my glasses. “Could you fix them somehow?”

 “Hmm,” Mr. Quilarum said, thinking. “Well, I’m no eyewear expert, but I could get you a new pair based on the prescription in these glasses.”

 “Oh thank you,” I said. “That would work fine.”

 “Yeah, yeah,” Nathan said impatiently. “Breakfast starts in thirty minutes, so don’t take too long!”

   “Alright,” Mr. Quilarum said. “Just let me get back into storage and prepare your new glasses. You’re free to look around while you’re here!”

 After saying that, I could faintly see Mr. Quilarum moving through a door behind his counter. I guessed that’s how he was able to get in and out of his shop, since it would be nearly impossible with all of the shelves blocking his path.

 We waited for about ten minutes for Mr. Quilarum to come back out, but I stayed glued to my spot out of fear that I might accidently knock over one of the shelves. Nathan found a golden statue that he wanted to buy for his collection, but I couldn’t make out what it was depicting. He said it was a statue of a golden steelix, but what I saw looked more like a ditto.

After a while, Mr. Quilarum came back with my new glasses.

“Here you go,” He said, handing the glasses to me. “Not only have these been specially fitted to keep your eyesight improved, but they will also automatically change when your prescription does.”

“Thank you,” I said, as I put on the glasses. It was a relief when I saw everything come back into focus at last.

 “The frame I used came from a special item called wise glasses,” Mr. Quilarum said. “Those glasses may help to improve your vision, but they also help you in battle. They will increase the power of your special-based moves!”

 “That’s…amazing!” I said, thoroughly impressed. “How much do these cost?”

 “For these?!” Mr. Quilarum said in shock. “These are free, of course! After all, you are still one of my first customers.”

I was willing to take this for free this one time, since I was just glad to be able to see again. Nathan and I left the shop and went back to our room to spend a bit of time relaxing before breakfast. Nathan watched a reality show on the television while I sat in bed getting used to my new glasses. I got bored after a while and decided to join Nathan on the couch. Before I could sit down, I heard a voice coming from the other side of the room.

 “Hello…?” the voice said uncertainly.

 I turned to see who was speaking and nearly fell off the couch when I saw what was speaking. A purple ghost suspended in midair was floating through the wall of our room!

 “N-Nathan,” I whispered to Nathan. “There’s a ghost in our room!”

 “What?” Nathan asked, turning around. “I don’t see a-OH ARCEUS!”

 Nathan hurried off the couch and jumped under his bed. I jumped off the couch and cowered in front of it.

 “Is anyone here…?” the ghost said. “I have a message for Laura the Vulpix. Am I in the right room?”

 I cautiously peeked out from behind the sofa. The ghost was all the way through the wall now, floating around and scanning the room. I recognized the figure without much difficulty after that; it was a haunter!

 “I’m, uh, right here,” I managed to say.

 “Oh, you’re Laura?” the haunter responded.

 “Yes,” I said. “You said you have a message for me?” I came out from behind the couch to get a better look at the haunter. A green ribbon was tied around one of her spikes and she was carrying a cream messenger bag.

 “Wait a second,” I heard Nathan say from under his bed. “I know that voice!”

 Nathan crawled out from under his bed. “Oh, it’s just you Glenda. Nothing frightening about that.” He faked a yawn and went back to watching TV.

 “Nathan, could you at least pretend to be glad to see me?” Glenda the haunter said, agitated.

 “You’re just here to deliver more mail, right?” Nathan said, barely paying any attention to Glenda. “That’s your job. You aren’t here to socialize with me.”

 “Now look here…!” Glenda started to protest.

 “Um, what about the message…?” I said, trying to break up the fight.

 “Oh, right,” Glenda said. “It’s a letter from Maya the kirlia. You know her, right?”

 “Of course,” I said. “She’s been in the hospital for almost a week now.”

 “Yeah, it’s a real shame,” Glenda said sadly. “She wanted to send you this letter since visiting hours don’t start until this afternoon. She said this message was urgent.” Glenda reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a letter addressed to me from Maya.

 “Here you go,” Glenda said, handing me the letter.

 I anxiously opened the letter and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The writing on looked like it had been written hastily. I could barely understand what it said.

 The letter said:

 Dear Laura,

 Something’s wrong with some of the students in the base. Last night, I heard a few students who were in hospital beds near mine. One of them was muttering to himself about pokextinctionists. Another was talking to himself about headaches and lost memories. I couldn’t see them because Dr. Dela said I couldn’t leave my hospital bed. I got worried and asked one of the nurses about it this morning, but she said that she wasn’t allowed to give out the medical condition of other students. I’m worried about the students, though. They didn’t sound normal at all. They sounded like they were barely breathing. I told the nurse that she should find out what was wrong, but she said that unless I knew exactly which students had been talking, she wouldn’t be able to anything about it. I need your help to help out these poor students. I can’t just leave them like this! They sounded like they were in so much pain!

                                                                                                                                   Your friend, Maya

 “Well?” Nathan asked after I finished reading the letter. “What did Maya have to say that was so urgent?”

 “Something isn’t right about the students in the hospital wing,” I told Nathan. “Maya wants our help with finding out why and figuring out how to stop it.”

 “We’ll worry about that later,” Nathan said, walking to the door. “It’s time for breakfast anyways.”

 We said good bye to Glenda and left our room. We walked through the almost endless hallways until we came to the cafeteria. It was the same as it always was; bustling with students trying to get good seats.

 Nathan and I got our breakfast from Ms. Dipem (who felt the need to comment on how short I was) and found seats with Leah and Jack.

 After participating in a short conversation, I decided to ask Leah and Jack about battling.

 “Battling?” Jack asked, trying to hide how surprised he was. “But you haven’t even had one battle lesson yet.”

 “I know,” I said. “Maybe you could help me learn some of the basics so I can get a head start.”

 “I’d be willing to help you out a bit,” Leah said slyly. “But only if you battle me afterwards.”

 “Challenge accepted,” I said, trying to sound intimidating, but probably failing miserably.

 “We’ll meet up in one of the battle arenas after breakfast, okay?” Leah said.

 “Which one?” I asked.

 “I’ll take you to it,” Jack volunteered. “I want to see your first battle!”

 We talked for a while longer before breakfast was over. I went with Nathan back to our room to hang out for a while before my battle training.

 After a half hour, we heard knocking at the door. I opened the door and found Jack standing in the doorway, carrying a bag of what looked like red jelly beans.

 “Leah’s ready for you,” Jack said.

 “Okay,” I responded. “Let’s go!”

 Nathan decided to tag along with us as we walked to the arena where Leah was waiting for us. After walking for a while, we went down a hallway with a few doors spaced far apart from each other. We entered the one at the end of the hallway, which also happened to have the smallest door.

 The inside of the room looked huge, even bigger than the cafeteria. In the middle of the room, a rectangular battle field was carved into the metal floor. On both sides of the room, a set of tall metal bleachers were set up for spectators to watch battles.

 My lack of comments must have caught Jack’s attention. “This also happens to be the smallest official battle arena in the base.”

 “Amazing,” I said, awed by the sheer size of the room.

 “Hey!” Leah called from the other side of the battle field. “You ready to learn how to battle?”

 Jack and Nathan walked towards the bleachers to take a seat while I charged towards Leah as fast as I could, anxious to get started.

 “What do we do first?” I asked Leah once I had reached her.

 “First we need to find out what your move set is,” Leah said. “You should probably have four moves, but maybe less than that. We won’t know until we find out.”

 “That’s great, but I have one question,” I said.

 “What?” Leah asked.

 “How do I attack?” I asked, feeling brainless.

 Leah laughed, but not at me. It sounded more like she was laughing to herself. “It’s simple,” she said. “Your pokemon instincts already know how to attack. You just have to think about it a little bit. Your mind already knows what moves you have.”

 Leah pushed me out onto the battle field. “Try it!” she said.

 I closed my eyes focusing on an attack. Suddenly, my brain received a message that seemed to come from nowhere. “EMBER!” it shouted at me.

 I opened my eyes, took a deep breath, and blew it out in a small and uneven stream of flames. What really amazed me was that this all happened in less than three seconds.

 Nathan and Jack clapped from the bleachers to show me encouragement.

 “Was that…ember?” I asked.

 “I guess so,” Leah responded. “Try another move!”

 I focused again, closing my eyes. This time the message shouted, “CONFUSE RAY!”

 After opening my eyes, I focused once more until a small, eerie yellow orb materialized in front of me. It began to drift away, but I regained control over it and threw it to the left side of the arena. It flew towards the bleachers, hitting Nathan. At first nothing happened to him, but a after a second, he started stumbling around the bleachers in danger of falling. Jack grabbed Nathan to stop him from hurting himself and gave me a thumps up signal with his claws.

 I nodded to him and tried focusing on another move. The message shouted, “DARK PULSE!”

 After opening my eyes, I opened my mouth to shoot a dark and ominous beam towards the end of the arena.

 “A dark type move?” I asked myself. “That’s awesome!”

 “Try one more move,” Leah called to me.

 The message shouted, “FLAMETHROWER!” and I opened my mouth to release a steady stream of fire that shot across the arena.

 “Good,” Leah said, walking next to me. “Now that we know what your moves are, how about I help you learn how to aim?

 “Sounds good,” I said, thoroughly tired after using only four moves.

 Leah spent the next hour showing me some different ways to battle. She helped me practice controlling my moves, dodging, and staying alert. By the time we were finished, I was visibly exhausted.

 “I think that’s enough practice,” Leah said. “How about you get a drink from Jack? He brought some along in case we got tired.”

 “Okay,” I said, panting. I walked to the bleachers and climbed up to where Nathan and Jack were sitting. As soon as I reached them, Nathan scrambled up to me, looking angry.

 “What was with that confuse ray?” he said angrily. “Why’d you throw it at me?”

 “Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t aiming for you. It’s difficult to aim a confuse ray attack.”

 “Whatever,” Nathan said, walking back to his spot on the bleacher.

 I walked to where Jack was sitting and noticed that he was eating the “jelly beans” that I saw him carrying around earlier.

 “What are those?” I asked him.

 “These?” Jack asked, handing the bag out to me. “These are red gummies. Try one, they’re delicious!”

 I tentatively reached inside the bag and pulled out a red gummi. I ate it, and instantly I knew that they were going to become my new favorite snack food.

 “Aren’t they good?” Jack asked.

 “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted!” I said enthusiastically.

 “Anyways,” Jack said. “What are you here for?”

 “I’m here for a drink. Leah told me you brought some?”

 “I brought some water and lemonade,” Jack said, opening a cooler next to him.

 “I’ll just have some lemonade,” I said.

 Jack handed me a yellow can filled with lemonade. “Be sure to heat it up before you drink it,” he said.

 “Oh, right,” I said as I opened the can. I breathed a small stream of flames into the can until the lemonade was boiling and steaming. I drank most of the can and was surprised at how good it tasted. Despite it being hot, it was also still refreshing when it was compared to my body temperature.

 “Hey!” Leah called to me. “You ready to battle yet?”

 I nodded my head and jumped down the bottom of the bleachers, where Leah was standing.

 “Jack!” Leah called. “Could you oversee the battle for us?”

 “Okay!” Jack responded.

 “Okay Laura,” Leah said. “You take your place on the right side of the field and I’ll take my place.”

Leah ran to the left side of the field and I ran to my side. I was very nervous about battling for the first time. After all, Leah had much more practice then me. I had a type advantage, but I wasn’t even sure if that would matter much. Leah had many professional battle lessons with a battle teacher whereas I had only been given one lesson from her!

 After I got to my side of the field, Jack got ready to start the battle.

 “Are you ready?” Jack called.

 Leah and I both nodded our heads.

 “Alright,” he said, pausing for a dramatic effect. “Then…let the battle BEGIN!”

 Leah was the first one to make a move. She shot an ice beam directly at me with enough speed and precision that I couldn’t jump out of the way before it struck me. Even with my inner heat, the ice beam was still very cold. I tried my best to shake it off, but as soon as I recovered, Leah sent another ice beam my way. I barely managed to jump out of the way of the beam.  I knew that I was going to have to attack fast if I had any hope for winning this battle. I shot an ember attack at Leah, but she easily bounced out of its path as though it were harmless.

 She shot another ice beam at me, but I was prepared. I countered by shooting a flamethrower directly into the ice beam’s path. To my surprise, my flamethrower broke through the ice and flew straight towards Leah. Even though it all happened in a few seconds, Leah was still able to jump out of the way of my attack. Then she sent a different attack my way; signal beam. It was too fast for me and struck me hard, leaving me dazed. I recovered quickly and tried using dark pulse. Yet again, Leah was able to jump out of the beam’s path as though it were nothing.

 If Leah kept on dodging my attacks, I would never be able to beat her! I had to stop her somehow, but my mind was drawing a blank. Leah continued to fire signal beams and ice beams at me. I tried to dodge them, but with each one that was fired I became more tired. I desperately tried to think of a solution, when I remembered one of my moves; confuse ray!

 If confuse ray didn’t hit Leah, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I tried to run as fast as I could towards her, focusing on confuse ray the whole time. Leah continued to fire beams at me, but I dodged them with all my energy. As soon as I was close enough, I fired the confuse ray towards Leah. Before she had time to react, the ray hit her. Soon she was stumbling about, trying to attack me. Instead, she ended up attacking herself. I saw my opportunity and attacked Leah with as many flamethrowers as I could muster.

 After Leah recovered, she stood motionless. All of my flamethrowers, being super-effective, had taken a serious toll on her. She had a few visible burn marks on her fur from the heat. I also noticed that she was breathing heavily.

 “Good job,” Leah said in between a couple of deep breaths.

 I was startled by her suddenly talking in the middle of a battle. Guessing that it was a trick, I took a few steps backwards and remained silent.

“But,” Leah said slyly. “I still have a few tricks left.”

 She closed her eyes, focusing. I was about to hit her with another flamethrower, when I felt a few heavy objects hit me in the back of my head.

 “Ow!” I protested, rubbing the back of my head with my paw. More heavy objects continued to pelt me, and turned around to see what they were. They were hailstones. The top of the room was filled with grey clouds dropping hail. Leah had made it hail in the arena!

 Leah snickered when I realized what she had done. I tried to ignore the hail as best as I could and shot another flamethrower at Leah. Before I was even finished firing it, Leah had moved to the other side of the field in a blur. It was almost like she had teleported!

 I tried several more times to hit her with a flamethrower, but she effortlessly dodged each one in a blur. After one of my attacks, Leah popped up right behind me.

 “Having some trouble?” she teased me.

 “Arrgh!” I shouted in frustration. I turned to face her and threw another flamethrower directly where she was standing. But she wasn’t there anymore; she had moved behind me again!

 “The hail helps me dodge,” Leah said before scampering out of the path of another one of my flamethrowers. “It’s my special ability.”

 Of course! How could I have been so ignorant? Leah had activated glaceon’s ability, snow cloak, and was using it to dodge my attacks thanks to the hail.

 One thing was for certain: if I didn’t stop this hail somehow, I would never be able to win this battle. But I didn’t have any way to stop the hail. I could try using ember to keep them from hitting me, but that would leave me open to Leah’s attacks and still wouldn’t solve the issue I was having with Leah’s evasion boost.

 I hopelessly continued to try attacking Leah with flamethrower, but I couldn’t land a single hit on her. Finally, she decided to attack. She threw an ice beam at me, which hit me squarely in the forehead and sent me flying back a few feet. I was barely able to stand after that. One more attack from Leah and it would be over. I was guaranteed to lose. I could hear Leah charging up one last ice beam to finish me off. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the final blow.

 A blinding light forced my eyes open. I looked around for the source of the light and was surprised to see the hail clouds had dissolved. In their place, a bright light had appeared.

 Whatever that light was it gave me strength. I felt more powerful than I ever had before in my life. The heat emanating from the light had boosted my powers.

 This was it. I was going to win. I could feel it.

 I sent a flamethrower towards Leah, who was so shocked at the sudden disappearance of her power source that she had stopped charging her attack. She noticed the flamethrower I was sending at her, but she didn’t even make an effort to dodge. Instead, she smirked at me as she covered entire body in a mirror-like coating. It only took me a second to catch on to what she was doing. But by then, it was too late. She had used mirror coat.

 The fire bounced harmlessly off of Leah’s mirror coating and reversed its course, heading straight towards me.

 What irony, I thought to myself just before my attack hit. Losing my first battle because of my own attack.

 I closed my eyes as the attack hit. I could feel its ferocity as it danced over my fur. Its power had been doubled thanks to Leah’s mirror coat.

 The last of flamethrower dissolved after it had hit. Only, one thing was wrong. I was still standing, unscathed. It took a few seconds for me to realize what had happened. My ability, flash fire, had absorbed the flamethrower to make my inner fire even fiercer and more powerful. That paired with the light shining from above and the fact that Leah’s mirror coat had doubled the power of the flamethrower made me feel unstoppable. I could feel pure energy rushing all over my body as I prepared to take advantage of my new power.

 Leah was still standing on the other side of the field, staring at me in disbelief.

 I shot one last flamethrower at Leah. Unlike the past ones I had attacked with, this one had an unimaginable size. It took up half of the battlefield.

 Leah tried throwing one last ice beam at the fire, but it melted before it even reached the massive inferno. With one final blast, I was blown backwards by the sheer force of the fire. When the flamethrower had finally diminished, I could see Leah on the ground, fainted and covered in burns.

 I began to feel dizzy and started having trouble keeping my balance. I saw Jack running towards Leah to retrieve her from the battlefield and Nathan running towards me.

 “Laura!” Nathan called. “That was amazing how you did-“

 I fell on the ground, exhausted by my battle. I closed my eyes, and spiraled into unconsciousness.

************************************************************************************  
 When I woke up, I could hear some pokeumans talking. I identified them as Nathan and Jack. I opened my eyes and sat up. I was on one of the bleachers, sitting next to a collapsed Leah. Nathan was feeding her fresh water and doing his best to tend to Leah’s burns.

 When Jack, who was sitting on the other side of Leah, noticed that I had woken up, he rushed over to me.

 “Are you okay?” he asked.

 “I’m fine,” I replied. “That battle was fun.”

 “That last attack of yours was pretty cool, er, hot I suppose since it was a flamethrower.”

   “I have no idea how I was able to pull that off. If it hadn’t been for that light that stopped the hail, I wouldn’t have won.”

 Jack fidgeted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. I could see him sweating slightly, and his eyes were darting around the room trying to focus on anything but me.

 “What’s the matter?” I asked.

 “What?” Jack asked nervously. “N-nothing. Everything is just fine.”

 “Are you sure?”

 “Yep. I’m sure.”

 “…Jack, what’s your move set?”

 “Who, me? Well…I have flame burst, dragon pulse, iron tail and…” He seemed to stop after that.

 “What’s the last one?”

 “Um…sunny day.”

 It didn’t take a detective to figure out what had happened.

 “Jack,” I said accusingly. “You used sunny day to cancel out Leah’s hail and give me enough power to win. Right?”

 “Okay, fine…I did. I just couldn’t stand to see you lose because Leah had an unfair advantage. I had to help you. You couldn’t lose your first battle!”

 “It wasn’t an unfair advantage, though. Leah should have beaten me fair and square.”

 “But she’d had so much more experience than you!”

 “Oh well, however the battle went, I had fun. That’s what matters. Just don’t interfere in my battles again okay? I don’t want either of us to earn a reputation as cheaters.”

 “Yeah, you’re right… c’mon, how about we go help Leah?”

 “Okay. I hope she wakes up soon.”

 I followed Jack over to where Leah, who was still unconscious, was resting. Even if that battle had been fun, it was also difficult. I would have lost if it hadn’t been for Jack helping me out. Right then, I made myself a promise. I promised myself that I would become strong enough so that if I came back and did this battle again, I would win without the help of an outside source.

 I would just have to find someone who would be willing to help me get to that point.
At long last, I have FINALLY decided to quit being lazy and write this! Rejoice!

Leah~ :iconpokemonskycatty:
Pokeumans belongs to :iconpokemonmanic3595:
© 2013 - 2024 Pippicat
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Pokemonskycatty's avatar
Well, I saw that coming... But the only hole in it is that I know Vupix has Flash fire and That jack would help you out....And I would've let you win anyway... But Im not going to make a big deal