~~~ Chapter 7 - Kennel ~~~

Unmoored, and missing the visions and dreams of the future, humanity has become lost in this brine. Only the Great Rai or Great Cress can help you navigate it, these are the dreams I have had. The Great Rai has gifted us with these warnings, that we are lost in this brine. Cresselia calls us to a future of greater unity and love towards pokemon, showing us the good in the future, our diving partner pointing us at where we should go in this great confusion.

~~~

I couldn’t breathe. The chansey had begun to talk. I was going to die. I made to stand up. Melodic tone, "Eeyy eeeyy eeyyyY." A simple refrain, the chansey sung without even getting up. I made to stand up. Head spinning, my vision wobbled to the healing pokemon's tune. My mangled arm, fluid dripping out on the floor. The nurse in the door had a blanket.

"Yyyaaa Seeeeyaaaa."

I tried to take a step towards the nurse, standing in the door. Everything in my vision wobbled, shifting gray. I tried to move my leg. I managed to shuffle a single step forward. I gasped for air. I tripped, and fell, bouncing into the cotton embrace, my vision went dark.

Beep. The sounds of medical monitors accompanied my dreams. "Beep-beep. Beep-beep." Through the night, I woke once. The leaves in the ceiling were an eerie shade of white. Senses blunted, I felt a pressure on my thorax, high-pitched humming from what was assuredly the chansey. The shapes in the leaves shifted, like noise on an analog television. A pressure on my thorax was holding me down. The forest of shifting leaves rolling haphazardly filled my senses, muted whirring vibrations filled from the inside. A warbling thrum of air flowing through roots in the caves in the ceiling, bringing with them motionless, cold leaves that slid over my abdomen, chilling me. I wasn’t dead yet, at least. Maybe they didn’t know I had also attacked those kids just that morning.

They sure as hell knew about the razor leaf I'd flung and hit the police officer-lady with. Maybe Lanky had rescued me and taken me out to a new part of the forest. The sun and sky are a silver sheen of leaves shifting around in dots of white. I tried to turn, but the will in my muscles, the energy, just wasn’t there. I tried to move my left arm. It—It wasn’t responding, either. Vision faded back to black, accented by the shifting noise of the leaves. I drifted back asleep, thinking of the forest I had left behind.

When I finally woke up, it was with a great headache, I was being stared at. Not by a human. A grump. Swadloon. Why now? No way. There is no way.

They were so short, so stubby. If they had—they’d all have been eaten by bir—my stomach in my abdomen curled. How many of them followed me from the nest? No, this one has to be different. I didn’t even know. How would I have known? Sewaddle. Swadloon. Me. Leafinny. No. Lea—Leav—. The grump continued to stare, snuggled up in its leaf, enjoying the sunlight from the window.

Sewaddle. Swadloon. Leavanny.

I stood up. And staggered. The world spun. The vibrations of the world were mute. I was. I fell into the chain-link barrier separating me from the swadloon’s kennel. I inspected my body, shoving my left arm into the links, facing a window that was recessed into the concrete, cinder block walls. A beep. A click. A lamp above flipped on, immediately flooding my chamber with warm light, accented with a deep purple, reminiscent of the midday sun.

Flinching, I fell back on my abdomen. A door opened. I turned towards the sound, muffled as it was. In came the nurse. She had long, dark blue hair, a short-sleeve smock, and her left arm was covered in tattoos. Emanating a bowl from her left hand, I could taste the smell of the berries in the air. Extra-sweet. Chansey had followed behind her.

"Eaavv," I tried to say. The nurse and the chansey just looked at me, before continuing closer to my chain-link kennel. I continued to sit. I wasn’t going to die. Not here, anyway. And not to this wonderful nurse. She rolled a berry through the cage. It wasn’t a huge cell, but I was a good four feet away from the entrance, regardless.

I reached out with my right arm, poked the berry with the very end, testing for pain. Then, I speared the berry and put it in my mouth. It hit my tongue, sweet, sugary, saccharine melting in my mouth like eating a piece of cotton candy. Without teeth, the berries were mashed where the jawline met. I pushed it around with my tongue, to the semi-flat ridges, I mashed pressing it until it was pulped, then swallowed. Ready for another, I looked at the girl, more saliva already building up.

Slowly, and with a sigh, she opens the door, Chansey following her in. She sits down on the ground across from me. I scoot a foot closer. This close, I could see. Her eyes were green. She had a small tattoo beside her ear. A star of a kind. Wait. Not just any star. Was that a Jirachi tattoo?

Her face tightened, raising her hand, she pulled her hair over her ear, covering the tattoo with her streaks of dark, yet reflective blue. She looked to her right, muttering. Chansey sat down, taking a spot to my left. The nurse lady then looked at me. She said a word. Chansey stood up. She looked at me. She repeated the word. "Up." I clicked my tongue in dissatisfaction, realizing what she wanted me to do.

I just wanted the food. I was not a pet. And I was not about to let myself be one. I'm a pokemon. Not a dog. She was looking at me, her mouth shifted into a frown. I looked down. I was rubbing my left forearm raw with the edges of the sheared leaf from yesterday night’s disastrous decombobulations. Her face changed. She scooted closer, her eyes wet. What? One by one, she talked to me, feeding me berry after berry by hand, as Chansey watched.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Eventually, after giving me the last of the berries in the bowl, she stood up, leaving swadloon and I with our thoughts, some bowls of water, the sunlamp in the ceiling soothing my fears. At one point, the nurse returned, Chansey in tow, with a delivery of some large, fresh leaves, and left them in a pile at the entrance of the chain-link cell.

They weren’t the best leaves, but they were fresh, so they would have to do. Without any other interruptions than the smell and vibrations of people coming and going, I got started. Slicing along the hard tile was actually harder than I’d expected. Rolling my left blade along the leaves, it was closer to a knife chop than a slice, but it would work. My right arm didn’t even throb, wasn’t even sore, and I could move it. What kind of technology did they have?

It was hard to imagine a real treatment that could so thoroughly repair a busted arm. It had been waving around like a wet noodle at the end of a stick, as if I’d pressed out all the contents inside like a bottle of tooth—nope. Not continuing that line of thought. The rhythm of the fan, the friendly little swadloon just watching as I worked, sipping on a water drip that hung off its kennel.

The sun lamp above, its constant warmth bearing down, the sun had entered and left the window by the time I’d finished patching up the missing half of my arm-blade. As I wrapped up, I took my seat in the back corner, closest to the swadloon. Completing the handiwork, I hummed in satisfaction.

There were some extra leaves, they’d brought way too many. I looked at the swadloon. I looked back down at the leaves. My antennae, even pulled close to my head, were pulled off way too easily by the rufflet. I’m a bug. And I would probably wind up against more birds. It wouldn’t be enough leaves to make a whole set of armor, but… A helmet would probably suffice, at least enough to let me retreat.

Pulling the leaves behind my head down, I took the newly sewn-together leaves, and, using the silk as glue, attached the leaves, in three strips, one down the center, and one down each side. It took some adjustments of the leaves, but eventually, with practice, a pull of the muscles on my head, a quick thwap and my antennae were under the leaves.

This is going to be a pain to take on and off.

I let the three attachments fling out, following the headleaf’s preferred shape.

Clicking my tongue in satisfaction, I turned to the remaining leaves and began to refill on the missing razors. With that done, it would be time to plan our escape.

--- Interlude --

"You can do it, Avery," the nurse said to herself, drips of eyeliner streaking in the pokecenter mirror. Pulling up a wet paper towel out of the sink, she dabbed the streaking lines, cleaning the worst of the mess. Avery had already put off wearing most makeup since beginning her nurse rotations at Anville. The eyeliner was the one thing she’d been holding out on, and seeing the Leavanny, still anxious, even away from any birds, and with a swadloon keeping it company? Tears were flowing again, threatening to smear more.

Time to ditch the liner, Arceus, I’m a mess, she thought.

Getting the last of the new streaks off her face, she looked at her hair. Pulling her head close, it looked… fine. Dyed blue, her more natural dirty blonde was beginning to poke from the roots again. Another week or two, and she’d need to get it redone. Or get the gene mod. Then her hair wouldn’t need to be done again. That shit costs.

A nurse at a pokecenter wouldn't make nearly enough to afford it. At least not until after she received her independent nursing certificate. Then she could open her own pokecenter. Castelia seemed like a nice place. It would get her out of the Anville burghs, at least. Returning to Nuvema and living at home as she got her own center off the ground was another option, but her mom didn’t have time for anyone but Juniper and the crazy professor’s endless projects and helping the smiling old man's daughter prepare to take over the family research facilities.

Taking a deep breath, "Just a few more months and this is all over," she told herself, standing up and throwing the towel into the trash. Some kids went on adventures. Avery chose pokemon care. She walked out of the, back into the lobby of the one-nurse center, stepping around the floor, wet from mopping up the ichor the Leavanny had dripped in the hallway in her panic. She glanced at the clock—seven P.M. Just two more hours left in the shift. An old man on a bike was pulling in.

"Aah-shoo, aaahh-shooo." Chansey had taken her spot on her little bed, belly going up and down as she breathed. Avery smiled, pulling her hair back and wrapping it into a ponytail with a stretch band. She couldn’t wait to close up shop and have the next day off. Even for a town with few trainers in it, the nursing programme still required rigorous schedules from their nurses. The kid had said he’d be back for the Leavanny. She smirked, he was in for a treat if he really was serious about adopting it.

Brown hair, probably two meters in height, an old man, in his sixties walked in. "Hey nurse," he said.

"Hello, how can I help you? Do your pokemon need any healing?" Avery asked, using her high-pitched nurse-voice, giving the engraved nurse-smile.

He shook his head, an air of confidence about the man. "No thanks, ma’am," he said, taking a quick pause, as if to consider his next words.

"I just got back with quat the haul, and was waunderin’ if ya could point me in the right direcshun o’ what ta do with ‘em."

"If you need to store pokemon, then I can certainly help you navigate the PC storage interface and get your pokemon sent to the right caretakers," nurse Avery said.

He smiled again, taking off his brown backpack. Avery raised her eyebrow. "Naw, I heard a Leavarnny was cousin’ a ruckus in town from the rangers-poleece cawmms yesterday, and while I dunno what possessed the bugs ta’ leave the farrest far the city, I have sumthin’ y’all ar gunna be interested in."

He opened his bag, and Avery pulled out a tray for holding Pokeballs. Setting the tray on the lobby countertop, the man lifted his pack up and gently let the balls roll out, as Avery guided them into their slots.

Avery gasped. Nine! "This is quite the haul, do you have license to ca—" Nine poke balls had come out.

He shook his head. "This was a rescue," he said.

"What?" she asked, losing her nurse-voice, nurse-smile and nurse-posture.

"I caught ‘em just outside the trainyard, right be-farr gettin’ eaten by sum trubbish."

"I mean—we do have a leavanny that went through quite the scare the other day, but-" she paused, taking a deep breath.

"You mean?" she asked. The man nodded, his wrinkly face turning thoughtful. The guy was quite tan and fit for someone who seemed to be in their sixties.

"Yup. This here’s nine swadloon. I reckon’ they were followin’ her." He said, his face thoughtful.

Nurse Avery groaned internally, her next day off seeming quite a bit further away than she'd expected. They had followed the leavanny all the way from the forest.

I wasn’t trained for this.