Altered Bonds Extras
Omake 13 — Sunny the Sunflora
(Best read after Chapter 17)
(Canon? — No)
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Two auras in the distance, both gray, their respective owners shielded by the wretched downpour of rain limiting Lucario’s vision. Lucario had been in the process of straining his eyes, trying to make out who the figures were, when his aura feelers twisted at the feel of another aura.
A violent red aura. Beneath his feet.
He had too little time to react. Lucario yelped as vines ensnared his ankles and twisted up to his legs and torso, chaining both arms to his sides. He thrashed and wriggled, head turning toward the human girl Eira, the shipwrecked survivor he had to protect, and yelled out in tandem with her as vines claimed her too.
The girl kicked even more wildly than he did, only for vines to snap forth at once, converging around both legs and shoving her down into the dirt. “Kid!” said Lucario, before his eye bulged as the dirt burst apart and scattered, a giant flowery head shooting out. “What in—?”
It was a Sunflora. Except not at all. Lacking its actual body, the sunflower only had a long stem extending into the earth, somehow supporting her oversized head. Her eyes were wide open, and her smile radiated with malevolence. And gleeful mania.
“Heya!” she said. “Call me Sunny! Sunny the Sunflora!”
Lucario thrashed harder, both in rage and trembling horror. The vines gripped him harder, evicting his lungs of air and making him gasp. Not even rainwater leaked in between the vines, so tight was the not-Sunflora’s grip.
Not even close to an hour in and already he was failing his newfound protege. His justice squirmed at the thought. What even was this freak of nature? Sunflora looked nothing like this!
“You both new here? Gosh, and here I was, just on a little stroll in a storm! Didn’t think I would find a human of all things!” Sunny pulled Eira close to her face, the girl hyperventilating as she smiled with all her razor sharp teeth. “Hi, human!”
Eira writhed and struggled in place. The vines crushed her.
She went limp. Lucario would’ve roared out, if not for his lack of oxygen making him scramble just to breathe, his head going fuzzy. “You must be so confused, little human, being in a new place and all!” Sunny said. “And you too, mister Lucario! I reckon your human girl doesn’t get a lick of what I’m saying, does she now? Well, I’m sure you can fill her in!”
Her head shook. Glowing Magical Leaves scattered into the air, an ominous barrage of green amidst the endless rain.
“IN HEAVEN!” yelled Sunny, her face impossibly shifting into something far more monstrous. Her eyes were giant, pupil-less, and bloodshot, and her mouth somehow covered the rest of her body. “I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO CLAIM A HUMAN’S SOUL! THEY SAY DEVOURING THEM GIVES ONE THEIR VAST MAGICAL POWERS FOR YOURSELF, AND I WANT IT! MINE, MINE, MINE!”
Scarcely could Lucario hear the Sunflora’s nonsensical words. Too many vines encased him, choking out his life. His face was covered in them, with his eyes barely able to witness Sunny’s countless Magical Leaves converging upon Eira like floating knives, all aimed at her neck. The girl didn’t seem to respond at their pricking, too out of it to notice.
Lucario feebly tried attacking the vines with Metal Claw. No good. He activated Detect, but the vines held him too tight. No space to dodge or move. No air.
He survived a shipwreck for this. A fiend that thought humans were magical and could give her powers by eating them. Hilarious.
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“I CRAVE HER FLESH AND SPIRIT!” Sunny the not-Sunflora unhinged her mouth, her Magical Leaves slowly pressing against Eira’s neck. The human whimpered and shut her eyes, awaiting execution. “YOUR MAGIC, HUMAN! I CLAIM IT FOR MYSELF! GIVE ME YOUR SWEET, SWEET NECTAR—”
Fire branded rain and plant alike. Sunflora screeched, and abruptly Lucario found himself breathing again, the jackal gasping like mad as he swallowed down mouthfuls of air and nearly choked himself on rainwater instead. In the corner of his eyes, he thought he caught his savior, a whirl of motion that sliced and diced Sunny’s vines and Slashed at her face, putting her under intense agony. Her Magical Leaves dropped at once, their energy lost.
“PAIN! IT HURTS, THE PAIN!” Sunflora burrowed back into the ground, spasming vines retreating after her. Checking his aurasense, Lucario found her speeding off, getting as far away as she could from the battle site.
The monster Sunflora was gone.
It was over. They were saved.
Lucario pulled himself to his knees, endless words of gratitude on his tongue as he located the Pokemon who had driven her off — words that died upon finding himself with a scowling Kecleon. His face was half-turned, such that he seemed to simultaneously face him and a fallen Eira, her wet hair splattered all over in a messy heap and her breathing haggard.
The Kecleon’s aura glowered a slight red. “A human,” he spat. “I fight off a murderous Abhorrent, all for the sake of some puny human wizard and her Lucario retainer. Unbelievable.” His brows arched as he gave Lucario a stare that seemed to forcefully part the rain falling between them. “You’re lucky I’m a believer in preserving all lives, even human ones. Care to explain what she’s doing here, jackal?”
Learning Sunny the not-Sunflora wasn’t the only one around here with messed-up beliefs about humans, it made Lucario’s heart drop into his stomach. Possibly deeper still when his fur stood on end, Lucario turning to find a goggle-eyed Ariados that’d been observing the whole affair. Her gaze never left Eira, her aura a fiery crimson with unspeakable fear echoing through her mind.
You’re kidding me.
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“What?”
Aerodactyl staggered at how suddenly he jerked to face Sunny, his shadowy body and skeletal armor protesting in their state of duress. He had been resting beneath a shaded canopy of trees in the middle of the forest, cursing his failure to catch Lugia and then his display of weakness when a Lucario and an Abhorrent brat of an Eevee had driven him off — with Shadow Balls of all things! — and then the Abhorrent Sunflora he had befriended not too long ago had showed up, sporting torn petals and scarring wounds on her enlarged face.
With miraculous news. Aerodactyl stared Sunny dead in the eye, making the Abhorrent cower before his baneful aura. A spasm wracked his body, ruining his imposing presence, but he pushed through the parting gift of pain Lugia’s Electric attacks had left him. “Repeat yourself,” he snapped. “Now. You found a what?”
“A-a human! I swear I did!” Sunny replied. “With a Lucario as her servant! I-I wanted to take her soul and eat it to get her powers—”
Aerodactyl charged Oblivion Wing. A small one, the violet sphere sapping his spent energy. Not that he cared at the moment. “Eat it? EAT IT?” he bellowed, Sunny submerging herself halfway into the earth in terror. “Fool! Imbecile! Idiot friend! You think you get powers from eating human souls? YOU THINK HUMAN SOULS SOMEHOW HAVE A TANGIBLE FORM THAT JUST PERSISTS WHEN YOU KILL THEIR MORTAL BODIES?”
“Y-y-yes?” stammered Sunny. “T-they’re not us, a-after all! They’re w-wizards, a-aren’t they? P-please, master Oblivion, it w-was a mistake—”
Groveling ironically ticked off Oblivion Matter the Aerodactyl. Sunny let out an eek as he flung Oblivion Wing at her, the parasitic power eating at her. One of her petals seemed to grow stiff and stone-like, while Aerodactyl felt his shadowy body regain a shred of its health again, a crack in his skeletal armor mending from the regained energy.
Barely enough to sustain him. But not the point. “You tried to kill a human,” hissed Aerodactyl, slowly advancing on Sunny. “A human! Why would you do that, friend? WHEN DID I ASK YOU TO KILL ANYTHING, NEVER MIND A HUMAN? WHEN DID I ASK FOR CORPSES?”
His face came inches within Sunny’s. “Corpses are worthless, useless, pointless to our goals! A hindrance, even! Corpses cannot be friends! For a human to show up, a fabled human of all things, only for you to NEARLY KILL HER, when she could help assist us with perfecting our gift—!”
Sunny gulped and put her face down. Aerodactyl’s gaze burrowed through the back of her head, before everything finally settled into his skull. A human.
An actual human.
Oh.
Aerodactyl’s red glowing eyes dilated. The silent trickle of rain from a dying storm filled the holes where his ears would’ve been if not for his undead nature.
A human right under my nose. With the very Lucario I just met several minutes prior.
Her protector. Something stirred in Aerodactyl’s undead heart, deep within his body of shadow.
The Mistress, she’d—
He had to get both to her. Immediately. “Track the girl and her Lucario guardian,” he commanded Sunny. “Report to me each night until I say otherwise! Or do I need to coerce you?”
Knowing what coercion meant from the mind-tampering lich himself, Sunny shook her head without question. She made herself scarce at once.
Leaving Aerodactyl alone. With too many thoughts in mind. And none he could really focus on. His claw idly grabbed dirt, sculpting it into something resembling a heart. If he tried really hard to ignore the fact that it obviously wasn’t.
She will love them. A perfect gift.
Anything for the Mistress.