Fanfiction Zoroark's Pendant, Chapter 1: The Encounter

Hello, it is SnowLucario. Yes, that rhymes. No, I do not care if that sounds corny.

I decided that I'd work on one chapter of this, one chapter of Four Seasons. I'm hitting a bit of writer's block with that other story, but have no plans to discontinue it. So many of you guys have been depending on me, and I fully intend to finish it. After all, I do know how it will end.

To those of you who are new to my stories, you do not need to read Wing And A Scare, Bounding Through Time, or any of my Hunger Games stories to understand this one. This is completely different, a new take on things. The first chapter is pretty short, but they will get larger.

My goal is 100 reviews, 30 favorites, and 50 follows. I'd like to reach it, but don't favorite it JUST to meet that goal. Make sure you actually like the story first. With that in mind, let's get this show on the road!

Before this story begins, I would like to introduce myself.

My name is Lucas London, and I am seventeen years old. Until recently, I lived a relatively normal, upper middle class life in northern New England. It wasn't perfect, but I was able to deal with it. I never did intend to become a Pokémon trainer, instead preferring to be more of an intellectual. I'm not one of those stereotypical nerds with glasses, but I am nerdy about certain things.

This is a story of friendship, adventure, and angst. It's also a story of hope and loss. It will move you, make you laugh, cry, and shake your fists. It's a powerful story to be sure, and I don't want to waste any time getting into it.

So, when does this story begin? I suppose it begins the day I discovered a Lucario on the street.

"See you later, Lucas!" called my friend from the front steps of my school.

"You too, Zach!" I said.

Normally, my friend and I would hang out together and play video games. Today was the first day of school, however, and both of us were feeling pretty tired. Even though we were in classes with many of the same people as last year, that didn't seem to mean anything in the eyes of the school administrators. They insisted that we do activities intended to help us get to know each other first, which was laughable in my opinion. I already knew all of those other people.

Backpack over my shoulders, I began jogging towards home, passing by lanes of pine trees. The town of Hanover, New Hampshire has a very good reputation for a reason. It's a very nice place to live, so it's really no wonder that it is so expensive. Everyone wants to live here.

Was there something on the back of my backpack, or was it just me? I wasn't quite sure, but it felt like something was running down the backs of my legs...something cold. It wasn't ice, not that cold.

I took my backpack off. Just as I suspected, it was an egg that someone had thrown at me. The yellow yolk in the middle was still on the backpack, and the white part was dripping down the back of my pants. I could hear laughter behind me...no wonder. Johnny and his cronies must have been at it again. And, really, I was used to it. I was bullied quite frequently, called Aspie, or Mr. L. Really, Lucas is enough to call me, thank you very much, but when all three of your initials are the same letter, it's kind of hard not to get made fun of.

Another thing that set me apart? I didn't have any Pokémon partners. While many of my classmates aspired to become trainers, or breeders, I was not one of them. I was just a nobody, a loner, a nerd. This, despite the fact that I've never worn glasses, or braces, or anything else associated with being nerdy. Of course, I'll probably have to start wearing glasses eventually, but that's not relevant to this story.

Anyways...the egg. Because I was wearing black pants, the white of the egg really did stick out. No matter what, if I turned up at home smelling like egg, or tracking it into the house, my mother would not be happy with me. Then again, it seemed that she rarely was.

I had to get the stain off my pants. Opening my backpack, I saw something that would do- a piece of scrap paper from math class. I took it out and wiped the egg off as I went. I was only three blocks from my house, and I knew that my parents were going to get suspicious if I was gone too much longer than normal.

There!

I got the egg white on my towel, and then saw some drip off and mix with something red on the ground...dark red.

Blood sure is a strange color. Particularly when it's mixed with egg yolk.

Wait...was that a Lucario? I supposed that I lived far enough north for them to be common; there was even one of my friends at school who had one. But I didn't expect to see this one, lying on the ground, bleeding.

I'm not an altruistic person; I'm the first to admit that I'm pretty selfish at times. But it would be hard for anyone not to help a Lucario who seemed to be in such a poor state. I didn't know what had happened to it, but I was quick to ask it a question.

"What happened?"

"Stabbed" the Lucario said through aura. "It's...ah, it hurts so bad".

"Hold on. I'll get you help".

I dialed 911, and, after Officer Jenny asked me what my emergency was, I stated, "There's a Lucario on Enfield Street. He got stabbed, he says. He's bleeding a lot, please come and get him!"

While I waited for the ambulance to come, I looked over at the Lucario. It was carrying a Social Security card that identified it as SAMUEL CRANMORE. An odd name for a Lucario, but it wasn't a time to care.

I grabbed some pine cones and tried to stop the bleeding, but it wasn't working. It was still coming out, and I was relieved when the ambulance finally arrived. It seemed like a long time to me, but was probably not more than ten minutes or so.

"Let's get a stretcher!" yelled one of the nurses. Looking down at me, she said, "You! London! Help me get him on!"

I'm not the strongest person, but I managed to get Lucario onto the stretcher. I wasn't surprised that the paramedic knew my last name; she'd gotten the call from me. I helped lift its head in order to get it onto the stretcher. It was heavier than I thought, and taller than I was as well. This is saying something, considering I stand 6 feet, 2 inches tall.

"You can ride with us to the hospital if you want to. Would you like to do that?"

I nodded before climbing in. Whipping out my iPhone, I texted my mother, I'M NOT AVOIDING YOU ON PURPOSE. I'M JUST GOING TO THE HOSPITAL WITH A LUCARIO I SAW THAT GOT STABBED. IT'S OKAY. I'M NOT TRYING TO RUN AWAY FROM HOME OR ANYTHING.

I hit "send" and sighed. Hopefully this would satisfy Mom that I wasn't doing something naughty, I was just trying to help a Lucario I'd seen on the road. Yes, that was what I was doing.

"What's its blood type?"

"I don't know. O negative just in case, that's what we're going to do".

I watched as one of the medics inserted an IV into Lucario's arm and got some blood going into its body. Another medic was hastily trying to bandage its chest, but it clearly wasn't working. I really hoped that this Lucario wasn't going to die. My only consolation was that I had not been responsible.

The necessary electrodes were attached to its chest to record its heart rate, and I was trying to relax. If anything happened to its heart rate, the medics would be onto it right away. Luckily, I didn't hear the heart monitor flatline the whole time I was in the ambulance, so that was a good thing.

Once we did get to the hospital, I walked inside the waiting room as I watched the Lucario get wheeled into surgery. The anesthesia mask had been placed over its face, and I felt a buzz from my phone.

The text read, OKAY. LUCAS LEONARD LONDON, YOU ARE OFF THE HOOK THIS TIME...SO LONG AS YOU CAN PROVE IT.

I stiffened up. How was I going to prove that the Lucario had gotten stabbed? Surely they'd have heard the sirens; they were hell on my autistic ears, but maybe their normal ears would not have been quite as sensitive to them. I wasn't really sure.

I took a picture of the emergency department and waiting room that included doctors in scrubs, several patients in wheelchairs, carrying IVs, or both, and several signs. This would be enough for pretty much anybody except an ultra-skeptic to accept as proof, I should think.

Sitting in a chair in the waiting room, I started browsing the Internet, looking for a pair of pants that looked good. I didn't know if the egg stain was ever going to completely disappear, but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to order anything off of Amazon without my parents' permission.

After about an hour, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Turning around, I saw that it was my little sister, Michelle. She's three years younger than me, and she's nice enough, especially today. She was a real champ that day, coming to visit the Lucario at the hospital.

"I heard that a Lucario got stabbed, and you came here to visit. Is that true?"

"Michelle, you know how OCD I am. I'd never set foot inside of a hospital willingly, except for something like this" I said, rolling my eyes.

After about another hour, a doctor came back out. "Lucas London?"

"At your service" I said, taking a bow.

"No need for that" Michelle said. Sometimes, she acts like she's older than me, which can be quite infuriating. I know that she's only doing that so that I appear more normal in public, but sometimes I feel that it's just not justified.

"In any case", said the doctor, clearing his throat, "the Lucario, identified as Samuel Cranmore, is stable. We have cleaned his wound, although we did have to give him three bags of blood. You may come upstairs and see him in the ICU now".

"Let's go follow him" Michelle said. I nodded, and we began walking along the hallways of the hospital. At a certain point, they all blended together, with the same white tiles for flooring, and the same white walls with holes to the ceiling. Really, you've seen it all before.

"Do you know who stabbed him?" the doctor asked me.

"I wish I did" I said. "Trust me when I say that I know absolutely nothing more than you guys do".

We reached the Intensive Care Unit, and we saw Samuel on the bed. One thing was for sure, he looked worse for wear.

The Lucario was wrapped in so many bandages that they could have been used as a rock climbing harness. He looked like some kind of alien with all of the IVs he was connected to. I felt a spark of rage at whoever had the audacity to do this. Who would stab an innocent Lucario like that?

I heard something about needing to give the Lucario antibiotics because of the pine cones being rubbed into its wound, and I started to feel guilty. Had I not done that, one or more of those tubes might have been unnecessary. As it was, Samuel was fast asleep at the moment. Probably they were sedating him until he became a little more stable, but I wasn't concerned about that.

Suddenly, the door opened behind us, and the doctor came in. It was a different doctor than the one that had given my sister and I the update about Samuel's surgery, but he had a serious expression on his face all the same.

"We found this on Samuel Cranmore. We have no idea what this is, but do you?"

I looked at it.

It seemed to be some sort of necklace. It looked kind of like the Immunity Necklace from Survivor, except that, where the centerpiece would be, there was a gargoyle of Zoroark's head.

"No" I said. "I didn't notice it. Michelle?"

"I have no idea what's going on" she said. "All I know is that my idiot brother just found a Lucario and, being the altruistic idiot that he is, decided to ride with it to the hospital. That's it".

Looking over at the necklace once again, I saw that there was a red gleam in its eye. I knew that Zoroarks were masters of illusions, but this was something different. At least, it seemed to be.

I started to feel light-headed and hot all of a sudden. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I felt like I was going to pass out all of a sudden. This wasn't good...

Before I could say anything, my knees buckled.

I've only stayed in hospital once since I was a newborn (feel free to ask me, I'm an open book), but I did walk through one just yesterday, so I hope I described the scene accurately. If not, please let me know!

I also don't want to make you guys think I own the cover picture, because I don't.

Question: Where are you reading this from? This is just my standard first question for my stories, so yeah.

 

This story is also on Fanfiction.net.

 

All right! We are now going to raise the bar with Chapter 2 of Zoroark's Pendant! In this chapter, I will start distinguishing between whose POV it is, just to make things more clear.

Answer: I meant this to be along the lines of "where do you live?", but people always said what device they were using. I suppose that I read fanfiction from my iPad, write it from the laptop that I got for Christmas. (Yes, I'm an atheist. Yes, we can still celebrate Christmas).

Question: Where do you live? Just country or region, not city.

I'm also going to respond to reviewers! They will be listed alphabetically by username.

hollowman96: You'll have to find out. Glad you're enjoying it!

HoppsHungerfan: This is not the Lucas from the Pokémon games. This is an OC.

Thank you guys for 100 views! That's a good milestone to start with.

LUCAS'S POV

Looking back on it, it wasn't logical for what happened to happen. Normally, people don't collapse when they see a necklace with a Zoroark head on it. That's just not usual, but more on that later.

I opened my eyes to find myself looking up at a white ceiling, with bright lights. Trying to remember where I was, my brain was working overtime.

"Lucas? Can you hear me?" asked a male voice.

I looked around me. I was lying in a hospital room, on a bunch of pillows. Someone must have placed them underneath me after I had passed out, which explained why my body didn't hurt like hell. I seemed to be on the floor, or right above it, not on a bed.

"What...happened?" I managed to croak. My mouth felt surprisingly dry for having only been out for...however long it had been.

"You just passed out" Michelle said.

"I could ask you what happened" said the doctor standing next to me. "Do you have to be admitted as well? Because there's plenty more beds in this hospital".

"I'm good, thank you very much" I said, sitting up. "Could I just have some water?"

"That request will be granted" said the doctor. A nurse went over and filled a cup from a bubbler, handing it to me.

I drank the water greedily. "So, what did happen?" I asked the doctor.

"Pretty much just what your sister said. You seemed to go crazy, and just fainted. We caught you, though. You've only been out for about a minute".

"Wonderful" I said. "Just wonderful".

"What's going to happen?" Michelle asked. "Are you going to admit him or something?"

"That depends" said the doctor. "Does he have a history of fainting episodes?"

"I think it was just a fluke thing" I said. "Really, it's not a problem".

The doctor went over to a computer and began sifting through what I assumed was my medical records. Really, I wasn't quite sure.

"I think we can let him go" the doctor said. "He doesn't have a history of this, just like he said. Just make sure he eats a nice dinner and drinks plenty of fluids".

"Trust me", Michelle said, "Lucas eats like a horse. I swear, he must still be growing two inches a year. He's going to be crazy tall".

"In any case, your mother has been notified. She is going to come pick you guys up, will be there within the next few minutes. Are you sure you can go home, Lucas?"

"It's cool" I said, pointing at the unconscious Lucario on the bed. "I'm not in nearly as bad shape as he is".

"True, true" said the doctor.

After that, my sister and I walked down to the lobby of the hospital. We looked at all of the other patients, many of whom didn't seem to be in nearly as bad shape as the Lucario I had saved earlier. Really, it was kind of depressing that it had been injured so badly, but it was getting the help that it needed to recover. At this point, I shouldn't really be worried about Samuel Cranmore.

Finally, my mother came. She looked over at me and Michelle, and said, "All right, guys. Let's go home, your father is not going to be happy".

Based on what she had texted me back after I had texted her about going with the Lucario to the hospital, I had thought that my mother was fine with it. Evidently, I was wrong. What price would there be to pay when we got home?

"I mean, really, we were terrified when we found out that you were going to be late getting home, Lucas. You didn't need to help that Lucario, you could just have left it to die. That would have been the best thing to do. Why worry your own parents?"

"Mom, I'm not a child anymore. I'm seventeen, and you know that".

"Of course, I know your birth date. What I'm wondering is, what possessed you to travel to the hospital with the Lucario?" she said sternly.

I didn't see the point of arguing with her anymore. I wasn't going to win, after all. Besides, I hoped that she would eventually come around and see my side of things. There was a certain degree of uncertainty about that, but the hope was still there.

MICHELLE'S POV

Up until that point, I had had a fairly uneventful day. Really, not much of interest was happening.

Of course, there was the certain intrigue that came with it being the first day of eighth grade for me. The middle school was right next to the high school, so Lucas had sometimes walked home with me. Neither of us could drive yet, myself because I was too young, Lucas because he had never bothered to go to driver's ed.

Today, we weren't doing that. I was hanging out at the house of my friend Olivia, during which we were watching reruns of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Olivia had even brought her Eevee into the room with us, and I was taking the opportunity to pet her. We were having a very good time with getting over our first day of school.

"Is this the part where she kisses him?" I asked Olivia. I wasn't at all familiar with the show, but I could only assume that was going to happen.

"Yes, it is" my best friend said.

Olivia also had an older brother, but he played on the varsity league in lacrosse, so he wasn't at home right now. By contrast, my own brother was at home, while I wasn't.

As we continued to enjoy the show, drinking root beer, my phone rumbled in my pocket.

"I think I just got a text" I said. Looking at the screen of the phone, I saw that it was from Lucas. What had my brother gotten into this time?

The text read, I FOUND A STABBED LUCARIO ON THE ROAD NEAR OUR HOUSE. I'M RIDING WITH IT TO THE HOSPITAL, SO I'LL BE HOME A LITTLE LATE TODAY.

"What?"

"Let me take a look" Olivia said. She looked at the screen, and she instantly knew what it was that was going on. "Wow, that's not good. Are you going to go home now?"

The thought of leaving my friend's house wasn't even on my mind until then. At that point, however, I knew that this was what I was going to do. As much as I was enjoying watching Friendship Is Magic with Olivia, a show that it could be argued we were both too old for, I wanted to help out my brother, if he really did need help.

"I'm going" I said. "I have to".

Olivia nodded. I could see that she understood, and knew that I was going to come over tomorrow if I could.

I got on my bike, a light purple seven-speeder with a basket on it, and began pedaling for home, which was only about half a mile away. As soon as I had made the quick detour to get home, I was going to tell my parents what was going on, and then I was going to meet Lucas at the hospital.

Half an hour later, I was standing at the entrance to the hospital. Knowing that it might be difficult to find Lucas, I decided to go to the front desk and ask where the Lucario was.

"Excuse me? Where is the Lucario that got stabbed?" There was a high Lucario population in the White Mountains, so it was very possible that there might indeed be another one in the hospital. But I was deciding to assume that was probably not true.

"He's in the ICU, which is room 54C. Just go up there, and you'll find him".

I started to head up the stairs to the room, which was on the third floor. When I was there, I noticed that there was someone I recognized back in the waiting. That fluffy, light brown hair, the tall stature...yes, it was my brother.

I tapped him on the shoulder, but he was completely engrossed in whatever he was looking at online. Really, Lucas can be like that a lot of the time, so it was no big surprise. Sometimes completely engrossed, sometimes not interested at all.

Eventually, he turned to face me.

"I heard that a Lucario got stabbed, and you came here to visit. Is that true?" I said.

"Michelle, you know how OCD I am. I'd never step foot inside a hospital willingly, except for something like this" he said, rolling his eyes at me.

Eventually, the doctor came back out, telling us that the Lucario, whose real name turned out to be Samuel Cranmore, was stable, although he had needed three blood transfusions. Right now, we were just glad to hear that it was still alive.

"Let's go up there and see him" I said.

We followed the doctor up to the room that the Lucario was in, and we saw just how bad it was. He was absolutely covered in bandages, and you could still see some blood underneath them. There were several IVs running into Samuel the Lucario, and it was such a pitiful scene. It should be noted that I hate hospitals almost as much as my brother does, but for a different reason.

Lucas is primarily a selfish person, and he makes no bones about it. Whenever he is at a hospital, whether as a patient getting a check-up or as a visitor, he's always worried about catching something from one of the patients who actually has a problem. Whenever I am at a hospital, my heart always goes out to everyone there. It's kind of depressing, and this was what turned me into an atheist. Dan Barker said it best, "All you have to do is walk into any children's hospital, and you know there is no god".

I was pretty surprised, based on what I knew about my brother, that he would do that, that he would call for help for the poor Lucario. I supposed, however, that this was the way it went. He could be selfless when he wanted to be, and I supposed that this was one of those times.

As soon as we were in the room, the doctor came over and showed us a beautiful necklace with a bust of a Zoroark's head on it. Apparently the Lucario had been wearing it when he had been stabbed. It looked pretty ordinary, other than the fact that it was so ornate. I didn't know what it had been doing on this Lucario's neck.

Out of nowhere, a little bit of red light came out of its eyes. I noticed Lucas, who seemed to start sweating as soon as he had seen it. He fell backwards, but I managed to catch him just in time. It was pretty shocking to see him pass out like that!

For a moment, I'd thought that he'd have to be admitted as well. However, he had quickly turned out to be fine, and so we'd gone on home.

Dinner was pretty awkward that night. It was clear that my parents were still not very happy about my brother, just because of what he had done. He might have texted my mother, but it didn't seem to matter.

Even though he was always reminded about table manners, he reached for the chicken without asking for it to be passed to him. This wasn't something he usually forgot, but I suppose he was just under a lot of stress today. Of course, both of us were. It's not every day you see a Lucario get stabbed.

There wasn't much conversation going on, either. Really, both of us were just waiting until we could go up to our rooms and not think about this for a while. It was just far too upsetting to think about the possible implications. Was there a murderer in Hanover? Would they target humans as well? There was just no way to know.

LUCAS'S POV

It was a relief when dinner was over. As soon as my sister and I were dismissed, we both went up to our rooms and didn't look back. As much as I loved Michelle, she could be irritating sometimes. I just wanted some time to think to myself.

What had happened to the Lucario earlier was regrettable. It had been stabbed pretty badly, and it was not in a good state at all. I'd called the ambulance to save it, and it seemed to be fine now. However, the fact remained that things hadn't exactly gone perfectly from there on out.

Right now, my parents were barely talking to me. This was no surprise. I had never been a target of abuse, but my parents definitely seemed to love my sister more than me. I had no idea why it was. Maybe I was just harder to raise than she was, with my having Asperger's, but it was just the way things were going. None of us had any control over it.

I sat on my bed, crossing my arms over my chest, brooding at the ceiling. At the moment, I wasn't really liking my life.

Admittedly, it had been pretty embarrassing to pass out in front of my sister and those doctors. To my knowledge, I was not dehydrated, underfed, or anything else. My parents weren't neglecting me, as much as they did favor Michelle.

Why did my parents favor Michelle? I wasn't sure, and I didn't know how I would find out. It wasn't like I could just ask them, I thought, watching the sky darken outside of my bedroom. Soon enough, it would be time to get ready for bed (my usual bedtime was 10:00 sharp).

I decided to put on my pajamas, which I did. Then, I saw something that looked unusual in my mirror in my bathroom. What was that?

I didn't know what I had just seen. To do that, I would have to go closer to my mirror, something I was reluctant to do. But I wanted to know the truth above all, so into my bathroom I went.

Staring into the mirror, I noticed something strange.

There were parts of my hair that seemed to be dark red as opposed to its usual brown.

 

Here we go! Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Here are my responses to you guys. By the way, the title of this chapter comes from a Pokémon fanfiction that has gotten popular.

Cosmicsafe74: Glad you're enjoying it! Here's another chapter for you.

DisastrousDwarf: You'll have to see!

Hoppshungerfan: You'll have to wait and see

Rocker on (guest): I don't know where to begin, since you don't have a profile. I'm not the only person who has asked you to get one over the last few years. Suffice it to say that I'm glad you reviewed and, should you PM me as a user (there's a waiting period after you create an account), I'll be more than willing to address each point individually.

Answer: I live in the United States, in the region known as New England. The weather here is pretty nice most of the time, and I do carry a slight accent. Not that major, but it's there.

Question: If you could be any Pokémon for a day, which would it be?

If you have any character ideas, or Pokémon you want to see in the story, just PM me with your suggestion (including age, gender, name, and Pokémon team) and I will incorporate it in any way I can. With that in mind, let's get this thing going!

SAMUEL'S POV

The first thing I registered was pain. Pain in a way that would have you on your knees, praying for Arceus to just strike you down already so that you would be able to no longer feel such pain. Pain that brought to mind images from torture scenes in a Harry Potter book or movie.

Then, I was able to open my eyes. There was still quite a bit of pain, but my aura had been able to sense where I was. This is thanks to the fact that I am a Lucario, meaning that I can see a short distance around myself through using the aura that is in all living things, even with my eyes closed.

I was able to register that I was in a hospital bed, lying on top of the blankets. There was a slight itch on my chest due to the heart monitor that was connected to me, as well as several IVs. I wasn't comfortable by any means, but everything did have somewhat of a dreamy quality due to the sheer amount of pain medication coursing through my veins. This made my eyes, as well as my aura sensing organs, feel extremely heavy.

My waking triggered the heart monitor to increase, even though I had been able to conclude that there was no imminent danger to me. I was just in a hospital, hoping for the doctors there to use their technology to help mend me.

"Good evening, Samuel. I see that you are awake".

I couldn't talk. For one, it hurt to open my mouth. Also, there was the fact that my stomach hurt everywhere. Not the type that came from eating too much, or from being sick. No, this was something else entirely...yes, I remembered now.

I'd been stabbed. Yes, that was what had happened.

"I am awake" I said using aura. "What is it you want to tell me?"

"It is that you were seriously injured. You were stabbed, with a knife, in the stomach, which we had to suture back up. We barely managed to keep you from going into cardiac arrest".

"Well, it's good that you were able to avoid that. I rather like this thing that we call life".

The doctor chuckled slightly. "In any case, the surgery was successful, although you did require three blood transfusions. You are expected to survive, although the medical costs are quite high. Do you have insurance? Does your trainer?"

That's the thing...I don't have a trainer. As far as I can remember, I've never been a Pokémon who was owned by a human being. It just wasn't working that way, and I never wanted it to.

Of course, if I lied and said that I did have health insurance, they'd have a way of knowing that I was not telling the truth. And then there were going to be consequences, ones that would be extremely far-reaching. The only answer that would not create a huge mess would be to tell the truth, admit that I was uninsured, and deal with the costs.

"I do not" I said.

"Very well" the doctor said. "We're obligated to treat you, but the bill is going to be $62,442. You'd have to be adopted by someone else. Do you have a trainer at all?"

"No" I admitted.

"Very well. I think that you could join the family who brought you in here, then. They are the Londons, correct?"

"I don't know. I was unconscious, you know that".

"Well, we're going to have the Londons adopt you. The paperwork will no doubt be done quite quickly, because Caleb and Denise have always wanted to have a pet Lucario. I think that you will find a good home there".

The doctor nodded as he said that last sentence, and he left to go over to his desk, which was located within the ICU. I didn't know precisely how sanitary that was, but I was willing to deal with it. After all, part of being a Fighting type is that your body can get over injuries and infections faster. It's because of the aura in your system. And I was no normal Lucario, after all.

As soon as the doctor had left, I began to feel very sleepy. Perhaps they had upped the dosage of my pain medication, or maybe I was just tired from everything I had been through today.

In any case, I soon fell asleep.

~~~Flashback (3 weeks ago)~~~

Samuel walked along the avenue. He was still an ordinary guy back then, an ordinary teenager who was going into his junior year of high school. The pine trees...the smell of the mountain air...yes, he loved this part of the country.

One day, he was on the bus ride home from school when it happened. He went to a private school, so Lucas London had never heard of him. He didn't go to school with the Londons, not at all.

He'd been walking along the street when he noticed the necklace. It looked, on paper, like it was nothing extraordinary. Really, it could have been anything someone had left on the road. If anything, it looked like an enormous retainer; not something too crazy. Granted, that would have been crazy, but the point was that it looked like something that one might encounter on a daily basis.

However, it was clearly a necklace. The front of the necklace contained the head of a Zoroark on it, and its eyes looked extremely intensely at Samuel...

I woke up in the middle of the night. I had been told not to move too much when I woke up, so as not to disturb my IVs. They were, I was told, necessary for me to recover. I wasn't going to protest them if that was the case, so the doctors didn't really have to worry about that. In fact, I was willing to be a model patient, if only those nightmares would leave me alone.

The thing was, however, that they weren't just dreams. These were far more vivid than those, and I knew why. I knew what my dreams were of; that was the scary part.

I was having flashbacks to my past.

LUCAS'S POV

The next morning, my family was gathered around the breakfast table. Yes, my family is one of the rare ones that actually eats every meal together. It's not something that one would typically expect, but this was just the way things worked. Personally, I normally didn't mind this.

Michelle was putting some bacon on her toast as I stuck to the fruit salad. Even though I'm not religious, I don't eat bacon. I don't know why this is, I've just never really liked pork. It wasn't my thing.

Suddenly, I felt a severe pain in my legs. I'd had growing pains before, but this was something else. It felt like my leg was shaking, and my very bones were on fire. (If you stretch out your leg and keep on pushing, you can simulate this feeling to a certain degree, something I would not recommend). It felt as though my legs were trying to grow more, and I visibly grimaced.

"Uh...Lucas...are you okay?" Michelle asked me.

I nodded, trying not to betray my anguish. Even my parents seemed worried about me. It was a similar look to what the doctors had given me when I'd passed out in front of them.

"Yeah...just...might have pulled a muscle".

"That kind of sucks" my younger sister said.

I also felt hungrier than usual, which was ironic. Usually severe pain could cause nausea, but this wasn't going to be like that, I could tell that much. This was something very, very different.

My stomach rumbled. However, I didn't want to pig out in front of everyone else. I ate a lot, but not that much. My parents would definitely think that something was up if I did.

"Well, I think we should be heading to school in just a few minutes" Michelle said.

"Just one thing" my father replied.

We both sat back down at the table. "What is it?" I asked.

"You know the Lucario you rode with to the hospital yesterday, Lucas?" my mother asked me.

"Yeah? What about him?" I said.

"He doesn't have health insurance, so the doctors were wondering if you wanted to adopt him...".

"Mom, it's all I can do to take care of myself, now you want me to take care of a-".

"-and I already said yes and signed the paperwork. As soon as Samuel Cranmore is released from the hospital, we are going to take him in, and he is going to sleep in your room, on an air mattress. Like I said, it has all already been figured out".

I was going to argue more with my mom, but it was pointless. When Denise London is dead set on something, you'd better believe that she's dead set on it. There's no changing her mind.

However, I was still thinking about the implications of having a Lucario in the home. Would he eat the same things we ate, or would it have to eat Pokémon food? Would it be aggressive, or more passive? There was no way to tell, except that I was about to find out, whether I liked it or not.

It was a relief to be heading to school, even though I didn't really like school. I was a social outcast, if the incident with the egg has demonstrated anything. You could call me the class nerd, but that wouldn't really be accurate. I wasn't the one person people always came to for help on a math problem, for instance.

By the time my sister and I had gotten to school, I was already thinking about what was going to go on. I was going to have to explain to somebody why I kept having these pains in my legs, because they wouldn't go away. Twice on the way there I had had to stop due to the agony. I thought about seeing the school nurse, but she'd just refer me to go see a doctor. I didn't want to have to be anywhere near Samuel Cranmore until we actually got to the point where we would be keeping him as a family pet.

"Hey, Zach! How's it going?" I called to my friend.

Zach's forest green eyes looked back at me. If anything, he was even more of an outcast than I was. He still had braces, which made him look far more nerdy than me. In addition, he wore glasses, which only added to the target on his back.

"Great, Lucas. I've been reading Curse Of The Lucario lately. It's a great story, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I'm glad that it's been bound. I won't tell you how it ends, but the author's definitely a millionaire by now".

Curse Of A Lucario, a novel about a high school student transforming into a Lucario in the middle of science class, was written in 201V. It was published by Disney-Hyperion, and it instantly sold millions of copies. Well, not instantly, but you get the drift. The author, an anonymous young man from the South, was no doubt filthy rich by now, three years after it had been published. He'd even written a sequel, which was making just as much money. Both of us were very big fans of his work.

"How else is it going, Lucas? I saw you on the street earlier yesterday, you looked pretty shocked".

I didn't know what he was talking about at first, until I remembered that there had been the Lucario who had been lying on the road, bleeding. "What about it?"

"What happened, Lucas London? I know that there was clearly something bothering you".

I saw no reason to lie to my best friend. "I saw a Lucario on the road. It had been stabbed and was bleeding badly. I rode with it in the ambulance to the hospital. Is that enough?"

"Yes, it is" Zach said. "It's quite a tale, but I'll believe it. I trust you".

"It's not just that, though. My legs are really hurting, and I don't know what's going on with that".

"Probably nothing. At our age, we get growing pains. I wouldn't be worried".

As I said before, I knew what growing pains felt like, having experienced them before. This was clearly nothing like that. Of course, I didn't have the guts to tell him that. This was just part of me. I was a relatively shy person, not least because of having three names that all started with the same letter.

This was how it went for the rest of the week, in fact. School had started on a Tuesday, and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mainly passed without incident. I continued to experience the phantom pains in my legs, as well as the increase in appetite. I wasn't sure what either of those meant, but it might have had something to do with that necklace...

No. That was conspiracy-theory talk. I couldn't chalk it all up to the necklace. That most likely had had nothing to do to it, it wasn't anything I should be concerned about. I had just been hungry or dehydrated. Maybe it was my teen hormones. In any case, it wasn't that Zoroark necklace. Samuel Cranmore had just happened to have it on him, and it had surprised me or something.

And maybe the red highlights in my hair, which I had noticed on two different occasions besides the initial one...maybe those were just tricks of the light, too. There was no way that there was any supernatural power involved with the necklace...there was just no way. Over the next week, I tried to convince myself that this was true.

SAMUEL'S POV

From the moment I woke up in that hospital bed, hearing "Brony Style" by Rucka Rucka Ali playing on the hospital's radio, I knew that my recovery wasn't going to be fun, but it was something I would need to go through.

As I began with my physical therapy, at first with several IVs in at once, then with less and less of them, I was able to put my flashbacks out of my mind. Every night, I was feeling exhausted, but it was less and less so. I was starting to feel better for sure.

"You're going to get discharged tomorrow" the doctor in charge told me as he took the last intravenous line out of my arm. I was pretty glad that things were ending. It wasn't just the physical therapy I was doing in order to get back in shape, however. It was also the fact that I was sick of feeling like a human pincushion. At first, I'd had quite a few, but they had needed to add one more, I was told, because a pine cone had to be used to help block some of the blood from flowing. A fever had apparently set in, making this necessary.

I could now open my mouth more easily, so I said, "Okay. And I am going to be living with the Londons?"

"That is correct" the doctor said. "You are going to be staying in the bedroom of Lucas London, who is a seventeen-year-old high school student. You're going to have to figure out how to get along with him, because I'm afraid that this is a very different type of therapy than what I am trained to do".

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean", he said, "that this Lucas London person is not the most friendly towards the Lucario species. The way things are going, he's going to be a hard person to live with at times. You do understand that, don't you?"

"I am prepared to deal with this".

"Very well, then. In the morning, Denise London, Lucas's mother, is going to pick you up from the hospital and drive you home. Are you ready for this?"

I looked him directly in the eye. "I am".

The next morning, finally free of tubes but with more bandages than I could count, I walked into the waiting room. I was looking around for who looked like she might be a mother. Using my aura to try to sense these things, I was able to pick up on people's ages, and who was related to whom. Surely it wouldn't be difficult to find Denise London.

Eventually, a woman of average height, with slightly long hair, came over to where I was sitting. "Are you the Lucario that my son came with here? Samuel Cranmore?"

I nodded.

"You're coming with me. I'm Denise London".

She held out her hand, and I took it. Normally, I didn't like to hold the hand of a woman I didn't even know, but I could tell that this woman was going to do what she said she was.

Although, with my aura, I could detect a slight ulterior motive. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but this was just something I was noticing. Hopefully, it didn't mean anything too important. If it did, then that would be a problem. Even though I had been released from the hospital, I was still pretty weak.

"So, what's Lucas like?" I asked Mrs. London.

"Well, he's my son, so you know I'm a little biased. I think that you'll get along greatly with him".

I could tell that there was at least part of the woman that didn't really believe what she was saying. I wasn't going to ask her about that, just because I would be risking so much, but I didn't think that this was going to end well.

"Anything else I need to know about him?" I decided to say.

"Well, he's been eating a lot lately. Like, more than usual. I don't know if he's having another insane growth spurt or what, but he's already tall enough, I should think. In any case, we're about to be at home. You'll get to meet my son soon enough".

I could tell that there was some kind of resentment towards me. Denise London might have looked like a sweet lady on the outside, but I could tell that she wasn't too genuine. I could only hope that she wouldn't be the person I would spend most of my time interacting with.

Finally, we got to a fairly large home. I got out of the car and walked in.

The front hall was gorgeous. There was even a fireplace there. If this was a rich family, that would be pretty great. Maybe my lot in life wasn't so terrible after all.

"It's Saturday, so Lucas is probably upstairs, playing video games" said Mrs. London. "He's in his bedroom".

I took note of that as I made my way upstairs. Even though I tired easily, it didn't really hurt to get into the room at the end of the hallway.

Sitting in a swivel chair was a teenaged boy. He was wearing slippers, black gym pants, a green fleece, and a fierce expression on his face as he fought to get ahead of online players on Mario Kart 8. He was very tall and had longish, fluffy brown hair with small bits of red. It wasn't red in terms of ginger, though; it was red red. It wasn't normal.

"What's up?" he asked.

There we go! The chapters are getting longer, this one was more respectable than the last two in terms of length. In addition, I am now at nearly 400 views!

I hope to see some reviews by the time I wake up in the morning. I'd like to know what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, what I could have added, what I could have taken out.

SnowLucario is out of here.

 

This is the longest chapter yet, but not by very much. I'm hoping that you enjoy it anyway. I'm proud of how well this story is being received already. I don't know how much longer these quick updates can continue this way, so enjoy it while you can. By the way, this is not a YAOI. This isn't a romantic pairing, it's just a platonic pairing.

Responses to reviewers:

Cosmicsafe74: You'll have to wait and see. Maybe you could analyze the title and see.

Dabsallover (guest): Yeah, I like to break the fourth wall. Those are the stories that inspired me to start, and I have read and re-read them dozens of times. I'll discuss them with you if you get a profile here.

FanficCrossoverMaster15: You'll find out. Thank you so much for complimenting my story!

Foxyjosh: That made me crack up. It might happen in this chapter. Maybe.

Rocker on (guest): That forum is now a thing. It's the "Get Rocker On To Get An Account" Forum. I'm being dead serious. I love that you keep reviewing, and, as for your question, look for my other online accounts.

What Lies Beyond: I give all credit to Talkingbirdguy for writing two amazing stories, Curse Of The Lucario and The Return Of The Cursed Gift. Read them if you have not already.

Answer: I'd be a Lucario, of course! I might be (read: probably am) a bit of a furry, but there would be no sexual things involved. I just like talking animals or Pokémon. Plus, he's just so badass!

Question: What is your favorite scene thus far in the story, up to and including something that takes place in this chapter?

With that, let's get going!

SAMUEL'S POV

My aura could sense something about this boy that was, in a way, not human. I couldn't tell what Pokémon he was partly, but there was a certain aura about him that was wrong, that shouldn't be in any normal human being.

Had he been touched by the necklace? It was entirely possible. That pendant wasn't benevolent, let's put it that way.

"What's up?" Lucas asked me. He was barely taking his eyes off of the TV screen in order to talk to me, which was when I realized that he was engrossed in the middle of a video game.

"What game is this?" I said. "I'm Samuel, so you must be Lucas".

"That is correct" the human teen said. "I'm just gaming, so that's why I don't seem too attentive. Trust me, I would very much like to meet you, I'm in the middle of an online race".

"You know, I've played Mario Kart 8 before" I said. It was true. I'd played it before as a human...wait, no. Bad brain. I couldn't be thinking that way. If I dwelled too much on my past life, more flashbacks would come. That was what I had learned.

"Cool" Lucas said. "Do you want to join an online group with me?"

I nodded. I'd never played the game online, and I wasn't quite sure how that worked. Playing video games with people around the world, that was what it sounded like, and that sounded pretty amazing. I didn't really see how that could be done.

Once Lucas had finished the race, a determined look in his eyes, he had come in fourth place out of eleven. "You gain points if you do well, and you lose points if you do poorly" he explained. "It gets harder and harder to gain points the farther up you go, in order to even things out. Right now, I'm at 6418. It starts at 1000".

"That's interesting" I said. "I guess I'll take a Wiimote and join up with you".

Lucas nodded before taking a sip from a glass of water. "This is going to be good" he said.

My host selected a yellow Yoshi, while I selected Link. After that, we went into an online lobby with eight other Miis, including Lucas's, a yellow one, and the guest Mii I was using.

"You pick a course from that list of three, and then the system chooses randomly among what each of us picked" he explained.

Soon enough, everyone had voted, and the race was determined to be taking place on Cloudtop Cruise. We went to the starting line, and we were ready to rock and roll.

At first, things seemed to be going all right. Then, I remembered that I had not played this game since transforming. The only times I had ever played Mario Kart 8 were when I was a human. With three fingers, it was a lot more difficult than with five fingers. Even though there were ten people playing, I was consistently in 7th place for the first lap, not too impressive.

Lucas, on the other hand, was having good luck. After falling into 9th place by the time he reached the first set of Item Boxes, he got a Starman and went all the way up to 2nd, where he stayed for a while. As I was struggling to defend 6th place, he was making his way into 1st. And everything seemed to be going right for him all the way up until the final lap.

As he was on the final straightaway, Lucas was hit by a blue shell. This sent him down from 1st place to 5th, which was where he finished the race. Punching the pillow in frustration as he watched me come in 8th, I saw that his anger was not only fueled by his loss. There was a special type of aura in him that I had seen before, but I now knew positively what it was.

I'd seen Zoroark: Master Of Illusions. I remembered that scene vividly in which Grings Kodai has the Zoroark trapped inside of a metal box, with strands of electricity binding her. She keeps writhing in pain whenever she tries to move too much, which only adds to her anger.

This was what I saw in Lucas. And I remembered that, as I'd passed out after being stabbed, the attacker had given me something...was it...

No. I couldn't think about it. I didn't want any more flashbacks. I swore to myself that I was done with those, and I didn't intend to go back on that promise to myself.

After four more races, I heard Lucas's mother calling us up to lunch. I could tell that Denise London's son couldn't hear her, as he was still playing. We were having such a good time that I didn't want to disturb him, but I knew it was necessary. I could sense, using my aura, that Lucas was very hungry. More than usual, even for someone his age. One of the telltale signs?

LUCAS'S POV

Samuel and I had had a very good afternoon together. After a large lunch, which consisted of sandwiches and potato chips, we went back up to my bedroom and started playing chess. For once, my parents might have been trying to reward me for saving the Lucario's life by having me adopt him. It was sure changing my life in a good way.

The only problem I had with the Lucario was that he seemed to act around me as if I was a bomb that was about to go off. Or, like he was picking the type of flowers I would like best next to my tombstone. No matter what, he seemed to be sorry for me, somehow. Really, I was the one who was sorry for him. A wild Lucario, forced to be domesticated and live with me. Sad.

We had some good times, playing video games and board games. I even showed him my collection of Pokémon action figures. You could call me a little old to be into those things, and you would be right. Even so, this was something I liked doing, and how dare you insult it.

I was woken up in the middle of the night by a loud noise. It sounded like a balloon popping, except far more intense.

"Sorry" Samuel said.

What had he done? I couldn't see too well in the darkness; I was no Hoothoot. Neither were my ears the best at times. However, I could probably guess that he'd done something wrong, which was...

"I rolled over in the night...rest in peace, air mattress" he said.

I realized what he was talking about. Thanks to his chest spike, Samuel had to be very careful with turning over in the middle of the night. Clearly, he should have been more careful than he was that night, because he had pulverized the air mattress my mother had given him to sleep on. Sometimes, my mother could be so careless that I wanted to cuss her out. If she didn't get any more sleep for the rest of the night, it was on her. She should've realized the anatomy of a Lucario, and how it would clearly have precluded this arrangement from working.

As far as I could tell, however, nobody had woken up. This was a very fortunate situation, considering.

"Sshhh. You can sleep in my bed tonight. We're going to make it work. Just...try not to explode my bed, too".

Samuel chuckled, embarrassed. "Don't worry about that, Lucas London. This bed's aura tells me that it is much more durable than that air mattress".

"You can sense aura in nonliving things?" I asked. "I thought it was only for living things. This bed does not naturally occur, so...".

"Oh, I can sense the aura of this bed as well" the Lucario said. "You see, Lucas, I'm not an ordinary Lucario".

"In what way?" I asked. "Really...".

"No!" Samuel burst out, clearly trying not to wake my family. "I'm not going to tell you. That would be saying too much. Just go back to sleep...if only I had Aromatherapy or something like that...all I've got is Aura Sphere, Laser Focus, Foresight, Quick Attack, Detect, and Metal Claw. I'm only Level 3".

"But you're seventeen years old! At least, according to that Social Security card. How could you possibly be only Level 3?"

"That", the Lucario said, "is the first step towards realizing the answer to that question. Asking it".

"Wait...what?" I asked.

"Nothing" he said. "Go back to sleep".

I tried to do what he said, but it wasn't easy when you had a giant, hairy body right next to you in a bed that was only made for one person. I was six feet, two inches tall, and Samuel was probably only an inch or so less. This was not very comfortable, not in the least.

Eventually, I did manage to doze off, pondering how this living arrangement was ever going to work out. Because, right now, it sure seemed questionable in terms of its livability.

SAMUEL'S POV

I knew that I had an awkward conversation to deal with in the morning. I got out of bed early, at 60 AM. I could see Lucas still sleeping, although my aura sensed that his sleep was not deep; he would wake up within the next few minutes. Deciding to use that time well, I wanted to get this conversation over with before he was up.

I walked over to the room that my aura told me contained Lucas's parents, parents that seemed not to care about their son as much as their daughter. I wasn't quite sure why this was, but what I did know was that I wanted to apologize to Denise London, no matter how much I didn't really care for that woman.

"What is it?" she asked, once I tapped her on the head to wake her up. "It's Sunday...and we're not religious...we're not going to church...we can sleep in".

Good. We're not going to church.

I had never believed in God, and so I had hated it when my family had constantly forced me to attend church with them. If the Londons did not attend Sunday services every weekend, that made me like my new predicament a little more, or at least dislike it a little less.

"I had something to tell you" I said via aura, so as to not have her confuse me for her son.

"What is it?" she asked sleepily. I decided to cut to the chase.

"I turned over and popped the air mattress" I said. "I didn't do it on purpose, but I'm still very sorry. Could we get a sleeping bag or something?"

"Sure" Denise said. "I'll order one later on Amazon. Do you want to go downstairs? Do you need our help with fixing breakfast?"

"Nah, I'm cool" I said. "Things are going all right, I should think".

I was glad that we were going to be receiving a sleeping bag soon. Really, I was happy to sleep in the same room as Lucas, because I really did care about the guy. Not in a romantic or sexual way, but it was purely in a friendly way. It had only been a day, and I was already beginning to see him as a brother figure to me. That wasn't to say that he was perfect, far from it, but I did like the guy.

Going back to Lucas's room, I saw that he was just waking up. I was waiting for him to get dressed, but then he came out of the room.

"I often stay in my pajamas until as late as ten" he said. "On weekends, I mean. It's not like every day at school is Pajama Day, that's just once a year!"

"They have Pajama Day at your school?" I asked. "Are you considering using my fur as nightwear?"

"Of course not" he said, looking seriously at me. "Why would you ever think that, Samuel?"

"Just a thought" I said.

Clearly, he didn't think much of that idea. Lucas, based on his aura, also cared about me.

"Let's go downstairs and get some breakfast" I said. "It's going to be a great day".

And it was a great day. After we made bowls of cereal, we decided to play another game of chess, followed by a Mario Party match. Really, we were having a good time getting to know each other. I still hadn't told Lucas about my secret, but I worried that he might find out anyway. He was a smart kid, Lucas London was.

What I also didn't tell him was that his aura told me that he might not be a human for too much longer. There was something ominous there, something that looked like he would transform soon. It was a tough decision, but I was going to, at least for now, leave him in the dark about his eventual fate.

This triggered another flashback, which I tried to stop. However, it was a losing battle.

That necklace...

I'd discovered it on the street when walking home from the bus stop. Then, looking around and seeing that nobody was there, I took it. I figured that it was going to be pretty valuable at some point down the road, and I wanted to take advantage of it. It wasn't like my family was poor, per se, but we could really use the money that would come from selling it.

From the day we brought it home, I was having chest pains. These weren't normal chest pains, mind you; this was what you might expect before you had a heart attack, except that I was a healthy teenager. Why would I be having a heart attack now? That just wouldn't make sense, would it?

I complained about it to my parents, so they took me to the ER. After the doctors ran an EKG of my heart, they found nothing abnormal. We went home, and I figured that I was just feeling guilty about taking the necklace. It wouldn't be the first time something similar had happened to me, so I brushed it off. For a while.

The next day, the pains intensified. It wasn't getting any better; in fact, it was getting much, much worse. So I went to the doctor again.

This time, they did a blood test. As they were scanning the specimen, one of my doctors' eyes widened, and I knew that the news could not be good. I wanted to believe that I would be okay, and I could keep on living my life like normal, but it just wasn't going to happen.

I'll never forget when the doctor looked at my mother and said, "It's inevitable. Just make sure he's comfortable when he transforms".

After that, the enormous appetite started. I was eating even more than a growing boy normally would, to the point that my family's grocery bills nearly doubled. I wasn't believing what was going on, until it happened one day while I was in bed.

I suddenly felt very hot, and my eyes were watering. My hair felt like it was receding back into my skull, and two black blobs came out in its place. I was shocked. I couldn't believe this was happening. I was turning into a Lucario!

LUCAS'S POV

After the weekend was over, it was time for me to head back to school once again. As good of a time I was having spending the days with Samuel, it wasn't going to work out forever. I knew that, so why was I so sad?

I supposed that I would just have to deal with it, and come what may, I would be able to make it through the day. Walking to school, I kept telling myself this. It was going to be okay, no matter what.

I met Zach at the front steps. "How's it going?" I asked him.

"Nice" he said. "Yourself?"

"Yeah. I've got gym first period. How about you?"

I looked at my schedule. "Yep, it's gym for me as well. More specifically, battling. Is that what you have?"

"Sure as hell is!" Zach replied enthusiastically. "Looking forward to it. What Pokémon did you bring?"

"Um..." I began. How could I tell him that I was living with a Lucario in my house? That was going to be an awkward conversation, especially considering everything else that was going on.

"Hey" said a voice behind us.

I turned around to see that it was Samuel. "What are you doing here?" I asked, slightly angrily.

"I wanted to battle another Pokémon" he said. "That's what Arceus made us to do. Your mom said it was okay, too".

"Really?" I asked.

Samuel nodded. "Let's do this".

The battling gym at Hanover High School was a large room that was perhaps fifty yards by fifty yards. The ground was covered in mattresses so that, if a Pokémon was knocked unconscious, they would not get hurt too badly. Battles were mostly just for fun.

The forty or so of us all lined up, waiting for our turn to do battle. The teacher, Mr. Genger, was somewhat strict, and he always wanted you to play by the rules, which were that each Pokémon could only move once before the other creature would get a turn. After that, the rounds would repeat, and things would continue on until one Pokémon had fainted or was otherwise unable to battle.

This was the purpose of battling, in order to make your Pokémon tougher. There was a separate gym class that wasn't for battling, but Samuel was the one who was going to be tested here.

"Are you sure you're okay to battle?" I whispered in his ear. "So soon after getting stabbed and all".

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be" Samuel said to me. "I just want to get going".

"The first battle", said Mr. Genger, "will be between Lucas London and his Lucario and Margaret Malachi with her Vulpix. One move per turn. Once one Pokémon is unable to battle, the other person wins. Both Pokémon are Level 3. Are both of you ready?"

"Yes!" both of us said in unison. I was looking over at Margaret, a very pretty girl who had black hair and green eyes. She looked very determined today, however. She looked ready to battle.

"Let's get this show on the road!" the gym teacher bellowed, blowing his whistle.

The Vulpix started out with Ember, the most basic move for a Pokémon of this species. However, Samuel was able to dodge it well.

Samuel created an aura sphere and blasted it towards Vulpix, but the fox was able to dodge it at the last moment, although it singed some of its hair. The Vulpix was angry, and she began to charge up another fire breath.

It was clear, at this point, that Samuel was in trouble. He didn't seem to realize it, though, and it dawned on me once again that he was new to battling. After all, he'd told me that he was only Level 3. Clearly, that meant he was inexperienced. Maybe he didn't know that when a Vulpix charged up, its next fire attack was going to be far more devastating. Particularly against a Steel type like Samuel, it was best to be careful.

The Lucario didn't pay this any mind, though, instead launching a Laser Focus. He was fighting fire with fire, in a sense. His next move was also going to be charged up, so the stakes were high. This was an all-out Cold War of sorts.

Margaret and I were watching intently on the sidelines, waiting to see what was going to happen.

Vulpix went out with an Ember, and it was a big one, engulfing Samuel in orange flames. I knew that, as a Steel type, this was going to severely hurt him. However, I had faith that he would be able to come back from this. He had to.

KIERAN'S POV

Ah, the nice mountain air. It was a great way to unwind, and it made sense to be living here. After all, this was where I was most comfortable. And that was important, because...well, I'll tell you later.

I was woken up by my alarm clock at 50 in the morning. I always got up early, because I didn't want to waste what time I had left sleeping. That was the way I saw it. As I went over to my dresser, the one with the Weezing on it, I thought about what I was going to do today.

Motivated by my past, I decided to pursue my goal: To find out what was going on with Lucas London.

Okay, guys. First off, who is this Kieran fellow? You're going to find out in the next chapter!

Second of all, I have a new update schedule planned. Every four days, like it is for Wing And A Scare, Attack Of The Anglars, and Rise Of The Enemy (that's my Star Fox trilogy). I am hoping that this makes me write longer chapters than this, like I used to. Should I have a chapter written four days from now, I will post it. This is the way I'm doing it, starting today, because now my updates for the two stories, ROTE and this, will be spaced two days apart.

SnowLucario out.

 

Put this out earlier than initially planned, but I just couldn't wait any more. Today seemed to go on forever, since allergies have been kicking my ass and I haven't left the house.

First of all, I forgot to do this in the last chapter, but credit for Kieran goes to Insomniac98338. He's also created several characters for Talkingbirdguy's stories, which you must read. Hint, hint. Also, I have to go in for an EKG on Tuesday (the test where they put electrodes on you to check your heart). Despite this, it's not likely to interfere with my writing too much. What is is the large amount of schoolwork I will need to make up.

We've passed the all-important thousand-view mark. To think that we've gotten here after only nine days is truly astonishing. The story has also been added to two C2s, Transformation And Pokémorph Stories and OC Pokémon Fanfiction. For those of you who don't know, if you want to add my story to a community, the answer is always yes. More C2s means more views...I literally just came up with that.

Responses to reviewers:

DabsAllOvar (guest): Yeah, thanks for the review. Glad you appreciated my making sure nobody thought this would be a YAOI. And I'm not a furry in a sexual way.

Fern Lucario (guest): Man, so many guest reviewers! But I'm glad you're enjoying it!

Foxyjosh: I might have done some things differently now, looking back, but I'm doing things differently now. I'm no longer rewarding myself for pushing myself to get a chapter done, since they will only be released every four days at this point. Thanks for adding the story to the community!

Jake Lucario (guest): Thanks for favoriting me! Well, now the next chapter's here.

Rocker on (guest): I did create that forum. I don't know why it hasn't shown up yet, but I did do it. I'm hoping that you heed all of our advice. Just look up "SnowLucario forums" and you'll find it.

Answer: My favorite scene is in this chapter, I think.

Question: What question should I ask next?

KIERAN'S POV

At first, I'd lived a normal life in Concord, New Hampshire. It hadn't been a perfect life, but I had two loving parents and was an only child. Based on that, you could have been forgiven for thinking everything was fine and dandy with me.

It wasn't.

My parents were overprotective at times, including one occasion when I had felt a slight chest pain. I wasn't thinking that there was going to be too much of a problem; after all, when I ate a lot, I sometimes got a slight case of heartburn. I figured that this was just one of those usual cases, but my parents still insisted on taking me to the hospital to get checked out.

Even though I was twenty years old, and didn't see my parents as the bosses of me anymore, I did love them. And so, I went and did what they asked of me. I even allowed both of my parents to sit next to me in the room while they did an EKG test.

Once that was over, I figured that everything was going to be wonderful. There was going to be absolutely nothing wrong with my heart, and then I'd be able to go home and continue on with my life. Eventually, I would enroll in college (although, since I was a fairly late bloomer, I was going to wait another year or two to do that. And I was perfectly okay with this; I just wanted things to work out.

Imagine my surprise when the doctor came back in and said, "I have some bad news for you guys".

"What is it?" my mother asked.

"Kieran has a form of progressive heart failure. It's only going to get worse the longer it goes on, so his life expectancy is roughly about five more years".

I was shocked at that. I had figured that I was going to live to be 75 or 80 years old, just like the average American male. Instead, I'd be lucky to see 25 or 30. A full fifty years was going to be deducted from my lifespan, all because of something I had no control over.

On the way back home, I cursed Arceus for the lot in life he had given me. I didn't see how I deserved something like this. It wasn't like I'd ever done anything wrong!

Once we got back home, I sat down on my bed and seethed for a good hour, wasting one of my precious hours that I had remaining. It was so precious, every single moment was, when you knew approximately how many more you had left. I refused dinner that night, instead meditating on how things were going.

And, suddenly, I felt a heightened awareness of the world around me. For whatever reason, my parents both gave off an aura of some sort.

Wait...aura?

I looked down at my chest. There was no chest spike there, just a heart that would keep on pumping blood through my veins until it just couldn't do it anymore. As it turned out, there had to be some other explanation for what was going on.

Normally, only Lucario could use aura. I wasn't sure exactly why I was able to. I hadn't transformed or anything!

So, now you know at least part of my motive. Part of the reason why I was determined to discover the secret behind what was going on with Lucas London and Samuel Cranmore. However, you still need to know more of my story before you can be fully aware of why I did what I did.

After my diagnosis, I moved out of my home. I didn't want to cause my parents any more pain, and we didn't have any health insurance anyway, so that wasn't really a problem. Besides, I didn't have to take any medications; it was just something I had to take as a given that I had five years left to live, and I couldn't bear to see my parents going through with their lives, or at least trying to, with me at home. It would just be too emotionally painful for them, and for me.

I found a nice, small house in Coös county, a great place to live if you wanted to be alone. It wasn't too expensive, and my parents, after I had been able to persuade them that it was worth it, were willing to lend me some money in order to make the purchase. It wasn't the greatest house, but I learned to live with the sound of the leaks. It told me that this new life, even if it was to be a short one, would end up being worth it.

I never did tell my parents that I had the ability to see aura. It had never come up over the few occasions a year that I did call them on the phone, just so they could have confirmation that I was still alive. And, with my heart beating at a normal speed, you wouldn't have thought that there would be a problem with me; indeed, neither would I had the doctors not told me what was going on.

Once I was settled in my new home, I decided to do as many things as possible, in order to spread as much fear as possible. That was my new purpose in my life, just to spite Arceus for what had been done to me that I had no control over.

SAMUEL'S POV

I had lost. Badly.

The Vulpix's Ember, when charged up, would completely decimate a Steel type like myself. I hadn't been quick enough in dodging, and so I had gotten hit with the full blast of the flames. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, to say the least.

I could feel the knife wound getting reopened by the heat. I knew that this was going to be painful, and that it could cause serious problems for a Pokémon of my type. Fighting to stay conscious, I fell to my knees.

However, it was a losing battle. I blacked out after less than a minute.

I woke up lying on something soft and comfortable. Looking around, I could see that the room around me was white and relatively sterile. Much cleaner than the gym. And I could sense a kindly aura coming from the woman in the corner...was this...?

It seemed that I was in the infirmary. I could tell, because there were all sorts of bandages around the place, as well as other medical supplies. The nurse at the desk, a Chansey wearing the typical nurse's hat, noticing that I was awake, came over to greet me.

"I see you're up. How are you feeling?"

"Like I just got burned" I said, via aura since I was still in some serious pain.

"That's only to be expecting, considering that you were burned" the nurse said. "And, as a Steel type, I recommend that you not take part in any battles for at least three more days. After that, you'll be as good as new, considering that you are also a Fighting type. But, right now, I'm afraid that you must take this medicine".

Nurse Pinky (yes, according to her tag, that was her actual name), held out a spoonful of an orange liquid. It smelled absolutely vile, and I was sure that it didn't taste too different. I was really dreading taking it, but it did seem like I was going to have to.

"Open wide" Nurse Pinky said in her coyingly sweet voice. Man, that voice was annoying as hell.

She poured the liquid into my mouth, and I nearly spat it out. It was so disgusting! It tasted like glue, and was probably made out of the stuff now that I think about it. Even after it had passed my mouth, I was still fighting not to vomit it up. I was sure that she was going to give me a shot if I didn't manage to keep it down, and I was sick of shots. Even as a human, I hadn't liked needles, not that anyone really does. But now, so soon after being released from hospital, I liked them far less still.

"You really should head home and get some sleep" Nurse Pinky advised me. "You weren't even supposed to come here today, and rest assured that Lucas London is going to get a full reprimand for his actions. Really, bringing in a recovering Lucario without permission of the doctors...".

I just sat up and got out of there after that. Knowing that it wasn't too far back home, I decided to just walk it. It wasn't like I had any other choice; after all, that was the way I had come, so why would I do anything different now?

LUCAS'S POV

The rest of the day was all right. Even though I knew Samuel was okay, I couldn't stop being concerned about him. We had developed such a close friendship over the last few days that I was starting to miss him once he had left the gym to go to the nurse's office.

It wasn't just that he was a Steel type against a Fire type; he was only just recovering from being stabbed, so it would not be surprising if he had injured himself further and prevented himself from recovering as a result. I could have made him go home right after seeing him in the gym, but no. I had to agree to battle.

I got a few weird looks for the Lucario that had come to school with me, but nothing too bad. Really, I was just worried about getting through the day without having someone else throw an egg at me. As for what was going to be waiting for me at home, I could only guess. It might not be good, but I was going to have to be able to deal with whatever it turned out to be.

Once I had arrived back at home, I heard what sounded like a fairly heated argument taking place. I didn't know what it was about at first, but then I recognized the voices of Samuel and my mother. They seemed to be talking about...something involving me.

"Really, you shouldn't have joined Lucas at school!" my mother was saying. "For heaven's sake, Samuel, you're still recovering! You shouldn't have done battle against a Fire type!"

"I wanted to help my new master" the Lucario said. "Is that so wrong?"

"Yes, it is", my mother replied, "if you are doing that at the expense of your own well-being, Samuel Cranmore. You have to look after yourself, you know. We can't be the only ones doing that for you!"

After that, she seemed to notice me walking into the room. "Good afternoon, Lucas. We were just talking about the consequences of your actions".

"Wait, consequences?" I asked. Normally, that meant punishment. My mother was never abusive towards me, but she could dole out some strict punishments when she wanted to. Evidently, this was one of those times. Not surprising, considering that she was pretty angry with me for allowing Samuel to go to school with me.

It wasn't like it was my fault, either. I hadn't been the one who had snuck out of the house in order to participate in a battle, when I was still recovering from a stab wound. Really, that was a foolish thing to do.

"Yes, Lucas. I'm thinking that you and the Lucario here are going to be going to bed without supper. I believe that this is a just consequence for your actions".

I sighed. This wouldn't be the first time that I'd been sent to bed without dinner. I'd always been able to cope with this, even if I did feel pretty hungry the next morning.

Now, however, things might be different with my newfound massive appetite. We still didn't know exactly why I had such an appetite, but it was going to make it more difficult to endure this evening. I guessed that we would have to wait and see what happened.

Samuel and myself were sent up to my room, where we sat for a time, neither of us knowing what to say.

Eventually, the Lucario said, "I'm sorry I got you into so much trouble".

"Really, it's no problem" I said. "You couldn't have known. What is a problem is the physical trouble you might have gotten yourself into. Did that fire affect you too much?"

Samuel blushed visibly. "I'd rather not talk about it. Really, it hurts like a bitch".

My stomach was already growling. It was only about four in the afternoon. My family often didn't eat dinner until seven. That was three more hours, and even then we would not be able to eat anything.

"Want to play some chess?" Samuel asked.

I looked at him ruefully. "I really would, but I've got homework. Seriously, though, I would if I could, but I promise you I can't".

The Lucario smiled sadly. "Nah, it's cool. You do what you have to do, you know? That's how the world runs".

I supposed it was, as I got started on my math. Being an Aura Pokémon, Samuel could sense when I was having trouble on a problem, and so he was able to help me on a few things. I was going to ask where he had learned all of this math from, but I got the feeling that aura might have helped with this as well.

Even with this bonding experience, we were pretty miserable that night. There's just no way around saying it. Particularly when my family ordered pizza, and we could smell it from up here. Pizza was one of my favorite foods, so that was tough to deal with.

However, even with all of this, the most important event in my life, it could be argued, did not occur until the next day.

I woke up, feeling even hungrier than usual, not surprising since I'd missed dinner. It wasn't just hunger that I had to contend with, however.

Even as I ate breakfast, my stomach was still growling. My mother had made us pancakes, which is one of my favorite breakfast foods. They're very filling, too, so you would expect this to have at least somewhat made up for my punishment. But no.

Once it was time to head to school, I was feeling light-headed. I had my backpack on, but it felt like it weighed nothing. For whatever reason, I felt...untethered to the human world.

Wait...WHAT? What did that even mean? How could I be untethered to the human world if I was still alive?

I really wasn't sure what was going on. I just continued on my walk, but I soon felt another sensation. It wasn't a pleasant one.

My legs began to hurt much more than they had before. It was some of the most excruciating pain I've been in, and this is speaking as someone who has survived a broken arm, a broken leg, and a burst appendix. This was definitely up there, and yet the pain was somehow not so bad that it was impossible for me to walk.

By the time I managed to reach the school, a couple of minutes late for my first class, I was feeling even more light-headed than I had been before breakfast. It wasn't from lack of food, it was from the pain. I had to fight not to pass out with every step, and I could tell that some eyes were looking my way. It wasn't like I could help it, though. With no idea what had caused this, I could only try to act as normally as possible.

After that, there was such a pain in my chest area that I fell to my knees, my painful legs unable to support me anymore. I knelt on the ground, fighting not to throw up. It felt like my chest was trying to expand in two directions, but was still constrained in one. That was what the pain was like.

As luck would have it, I found myself right next to the nurse's office. Was that good luck or bad luck? I guessed I was about to find out.

Nurse Pinky, who was the Pokémon nurse, was not the one in this office. The nurse here was Nurse Valentina, and she was a sweet enough woman, I supposed. The fact remained, however, that I wasn't keen to see the nurse at this point in the day.

"What's going on, Lucas?" she asked me.

I could barely get out, "Chest...hurts".

"In what way?" the nurse said.

"It feels like it's trying to branch out in two different directions. Is that a sign of a heart attack or something?" I'm kind of a hypochondriac, so you can see why I would be worried about this.

"It could be. I'm not saying what it might or might not be".

I tried to stand up, but couldn't. The pain was far too great; it was like there was an elephant sitting on me, squeezing my chest in two different directions.

"That's it" the nurse said. "I'm calling 911. Let me just get my phone".

As I heard her describe my symptoms to the emergency responders, I knelt there on the floor with pain rivaling a heart attack, for sure. It seemed that the nurse was saying that I might be having one of those.

Oh, Arceus! I'm too young to die! I still have so much left to live for!

I felt a weird tingling in my toes. It wasn't the kind you get when your foot falls asleep; no, this was something entirely different. It felt as if my toes were turning into spikes, and it was very painful. I now had the pain in my chest as well as the pain in my feet.

I could tell that something had changed. I could no longer really feel my toes, and I was worried that I was going to pitch forward. That would be pretty embarrassing, but luckily there were not very many people in the hallways, since class had started six minutes ago (class started at 70, it was 76 now).

And then I felt more light-headed than ever before. It was just like last week, what things had been like right before I'd passed out. That necklace had really caused a lot of trouble; was this caused by the necklace? I had no way of knowing, but my vision was darkening, even as I could feel the same sensation that had happened to my toes happen to my fingers. It seemed that they were becoming spiky as well.

I heard the nurse scream, "No, Lucas! Stay with me!".

Then, nothing at all.

I woke up, and immediately I noticed where I was.

I seemed to be in an ambulance of some sort, not surprising considering that the nurse had called 911. I was lying on a stretcher, and there were paramedics all around me. One of them was holding a series of electrodes.

"Okay, he's awake!" one of them yelled. "Let's do an EKG! We need to know what's going on!"

As they were trying to put the heart monitor on me, my entire body felt itchy. Instinctively, I started scratching it, but scratching myself revealed that my fingernails were a lot...sharper than normal. Had they changed fundamentally?

"Don't scratch it. We'll have to shave it off for the exam!" another paramedic, this one a woman, yelled. "We must know if there are any problems with his heart!"

Wait...shave it off?

I looked around at my body.

My shirt had been cut from me, so I was able to see my bare chest. I'm not that hairy, but what few chest hairs I did have had been replaced by...

Black fur.

MICHELLE'S POV

After school, I learned that my brother had been taken to the hospital at the beginning of the day. They hadn't said why, just that it was important that we knew what it was. They didn't want to tell us over the phone for whatever reason.

My mother drove me to the hospital, as our father was still at work. The whole way, I was wondering what was going on with my brother. He had to have gotten pretty sick in order to be hospitalized, right? That wouldn't just happen at random, and yet it seemingly had.

These were the questions that plagued me as we arrived at the waiting room, a place that I was becoming somewhat familiar with. We signed in and waited for my brother to come out.

"Here's Lucas London" the nurse said. And then a being walked into the room.

But instead of my brother, there stood a Zoroark, with black fur and red hair that went all the way down his back in a ponytail. His blue eyes looked wild, like a lion that had just discovered some easy prey and was about to go in for the kill.

"Lucas?" I asked.

"Yes, it is me. Lucas Leonard London" said the Zoroark, who still had human vocal cords. It was a good thing, too, because neither of us knew the Pokémon language, which would have made things highly inconvenient in terms of communication.

"Well", said my mother, "we still need to pay some bills. I'll do that, and then we'll go home".

Lucas the Zoroark and I stood there for another few minutes while my mother got the tab settled for the hospital visit her son had been subjected to. Then, we went back to the car and drove home. Lucas got the passenger seat, since his hair took up so much space. The whole time, he looked pretty embarrassed at what had just happened to him, although he hadn't really done anything that we could see. It just looked like he'd just so happened to turn into a Zoroark, right in the middle of nowhere. None of us knew why.

Once we got home, it was quite an awkward dinner. Samuel sat right next to Lucas on one side of the table, while the three humans in the room sat on the other side. We all figured that it would only be a matter of time until this story ended up on the news. Surely the reporters were going to go absolutely insane over this, since it wasn't something that happened every day.

All I could think about was what it was going to be like for me now: I'd be the girl at school with the freak brother, the brother who had turned into a Zoroark with no explanation whatsoever.

All right! Longest chapter yet! I keep saying that.

In any case, if you'd like to PM me any OCs or Pokémon suggestions, I will field that request. Even if something goes wrong and I have to be admitted to the hospital (almost positive it won't happen), I will get it out.

I'll post the next chapter Wednesday afternoon. I always find that the evening, and overnight, is prime time on this site. I like waking up and checking my inbox. And, if you're enjoying it enough that you want to keep reading it, and you have an account, just follow the story and you will get an e-mail notification whenever I post a new chapter.

With that, SnowLucario out.

 

I was fully intended to spend an hour writing on Monday night no matter what. And then I discovered a "what" to my "no matter". Jirulius, one of my favorite authors, has a Discord now, for his story. I went on there, and unfortunately they couldn't hear me. I'll need to have my dad help with that.

This chapter does go into some dark themes, so reader discretion is advised.

Also, I have continued beta reading. I won't do anything too long, but if you have something you want to send me, by all means do it.

Answer: Thank you, HoppsHungerfan, for ideas for questions. Will I do anything so personal as that, though?

Question: I guess...are you in school right now? If so, what is your favorite subject? And are you very athletic in gym class?

Responses to reviewers:

Cosmicsafe74: He already did turn into a Pokémon.

DabsAllOvar (guest): Let's try to get this train into the station! Really, I found that analogy really cool. Hope you continue to stick around, because I love all the reviews I can get.

HoppsHungerfan: I'm interested that you enjoy the domestic scenes. To a certain degree, I do as well, but I know that a large majority probably prefers action.

Insomniac98338: Sorry if that was a bad idea for Kieran.

SAMUEL'S POV

I was shocked to find that Lucas had turned into a Zoroark. Maybe shocked was the wrong word; after all, I was expecting it, since I knew what the necklace could do. Even so, you could say I was shocked, but not surprised, at what the necklace had done.

You would have figured that Lucas would have turned into a Lucario rather than a Zoroark, but apparently the necklace had a mind of its own. If so, that made it that much more dangerous.

After eating dinner next to the newly-transformed Zoroark, in what felt like the seats of shame (since we were the two Pokémon in the group), Lucas and I headed up to his room. Looking at the floor, I was very grateful that the sleeping bag had finally arrived from Amazon, because if it had not we would have a Lucario and a Zoroark sleeping in the same bed, a bed only designed for one human being.

"That's nice" I said, noting that we finally had the sleeping bag. Lucas also smiled, which revealed his new, pointy teeth. Somehow, he had still been able to eat steak for dinner, even though his teeth looked like they might have a hard time chewing it.

"Yeah" he replied. "I think that I should do some homework- or would they have sent it to the hospital? I don't know".

"What did they ask you to do?" I asked him.

Lucas gritted his teeth. "I have a three-page essay, double spaced, on the DNA of a Zoroark. It's due on Friday, assuming that I can even come to school after this".

"You've got to" I said. "You don't want to attract too much attention by skipping school. During my first few days as a Lucario, I made the same mistake".

"Wait...first few days?" he asked me. "I thought you were always a Lucario".

"I wasn't" I replied. "In fact, I only became one about a month ago. I was a human before, same as you".

Lucas looked as though he was about to pass out. "But...how...?"

"I think it might have something to do with this necklace, Lucas. I discovered it on the road, and I had soon turned into a Lucario. If this was what initiated your transformation into a Zoroark...".

The Zoroark boy looked like he was still having a hard time believing me. After all, it was a pretty extraordinary claim, and I had nothing to back it up. It was like trying to claim that God did or didn't exist; you couldn't prove it either way, so if you claimed absolute knowledge, you would be left with a burden of proof you couldn't possibly meet.

"I guess it's possible" Lucas said. "Still, though...it sucks that I won't be able to wear pajamas tonight".

"Why did you still wear PJs?" I asked him. "Surely you'd have stopped by...how old are you, exactly?"

"Seventeen" he replied. "And, to answer your question, I've always liked to. I find it more modest, you know? What if someone comes in the middle of the night?"

"Fair enough" I said. "Although, by ten, I was just wearing underwear to sleep. Maybe you should, too. You'd be a lot less hot at night".

"Well, now I'm sleeping in the nude, whether I like it or not. Pretty much nothing's going to fit me anymore" Lucas said with a sigh. "So...want to play some chess?"

We ended up pulling out Lucas's game of Super Mario Chess, which has coins and shells for pawns, Yoshis and Birdos for knights, Peach, Daisy, and Magikoopas for bishops, Toads and Goombas for rooks, Luigi and Bowser Jr. for queens, and Mario and Bowser for kings. Since my host was more familiar with this version of the game than me, he had a natural advantage. Even so, I was having a very good time with him.

Our friendship had certainly evolved, now that we both had something in common besides living under the same roof. Both of us had been normal human teenagers, only to come across a necklace with a Zoroark head on it and turn into a Pokémon. That wasn't something that happened to most people, and so we shared that bond almost instantly.

Later, when I got into my sleeping bag, I was desperately hoping that my telling Lucas about my past would not result in another flashback. Flashbacks...how much I hated them, and yet they had also been increasing in frequency. What a frustration.

Sure enough, as soon as I fell asleep, I began having a vision of my past.

I walk along the avenue...this is after I'm a Lucario. Once I'm on a street near where the London family lives, I see a knife on the ground.

Is this worth it? Yeah, my life has really been sucking lately, but surely ending my life would cause there to be a lot of stories on the news...the boy turned into a Lucario, set to end his life. Yeah, that's what it would be of.

It wasn't as though I had nothing to live for. Quite the opposite...I had nothing to die for. And yet, this made all the difference. Much like Veronika in Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho, my life seemed to be without purpose. I was just running away, trying to live on what I could find out of trash cans. It was tough, being a human turned into a Lucario and living alone.

No, I wasn't really living. I was just going through the motions, trying to stay one step ahead of the cameras. Looking back on it, I'm surprised that Lucas London hadn't heard about me before. Probably he didn't follow the news too closely, or else he would have been far more aware of what was going on.

I pick up the knife. A nice, three-inch blade, not serrated. Perfect for chopping vegetables...but would it be as good at chopping through flesh?

Let's find out.

I bolted awake, right after reliving what had been my suicide attempt. That was how I had been stabbed. I'd stabbed myself, wanting to make my life over. It was just too complicated, too painful to go on living.

And yet I still had. Trying not to cry, I looked around, noticing that it was morning. Wednesday morning.

I knew that Lucas was probably still going to be attending school today, even if he was a Pokémon now. Even if it made things more difficult, he did seem like a diligent student. As much as I felt like I wanted to tell him about my flashback, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to. Not with him going to school.

Evidently, Lucas had already gotten up. I supposed that I had slept pretty late, which wasn't like me. Normally, I was up with the roosters, but not today.

I decided to head straight downstairs. I wanted to know exactly what was going on with Lucas and his family. In a flashback, I seemed to remember something that had run through my mind...what was it...?

Yes.

I remembered that there was a place Lucas could go, a place where the young man might find answers. It was a preposterous suggestion, to be sure, but I really thought that it would be appreciated. Yes, this was what I figured would be a good idea.

Once I got downstairs, the Londons were all eating their scrambled eggs and toast. Three of them were all staring at the fourth, and I'm sure you can guess who the fourth person was.

"Excuse me" I said.

"Oh, hello, Samuel, you're up" Mr. London said. "Thanks for joining us for breakfast".

I tried to read on Mr. London's aura. He seemed to care about me more than he did Lucas...why did they favor their daughter over their son so much? This made no sense. And they favored Michelle over me, that much I could tell.

The truth was, however, none of this mattered. I knew that I was just thinking about this in order to steel myself, no pun intended, for what I was about to say.

"I have an idea" I said daringly.

"What is that?" Mrs. London asked me.

"Yeah" Lucas said. "I'm all for ideas".

I chose to jump right in, not caring about the possible consequences at the moment. "I think that there is a place you guys should take Lucas" I said.

"Where is that?" Mr. London asked, taking a bite out of his toast.

"There is a Zoroark colony in Quebec" I replied. I knew it was true as I was saying this. It was as if the necklace had imparted this knowledge into my brain, for me to take out and peruse at my leisure, much like a book. "It's about a six-hour drive north of here. Lucas could go there for a weekend, learn how to use his illusions. I have a feeling that he'll need them".

"Probably true" Lucas the Zoroark said. "Really, you guys should let me go. Can anyone here drive me up to Canada?"

"I can" I replied. It was true; I had gotten my license before I had transformed, and I knew the precise location, the exact coordinates. I could make this work.

"Samuel, are you sure you're up to it?" Lucas's father asked me. "It's a long drive for someone who's just recovering from a stab wound".

I knew that I could do it. We were going to go up to Canada, and there Lucas would learn how to use his illusions properly. I figured that this was a good idea. And Lucas clearly did as well, because, as he was leaving the house to go to school, I saw him wink happily at me.

LUCAS'S POV

It was going to be tough adjusting to life as a Zoroark.

For one, my wardrobe. Normally, my outfit was a T-shirt, long gym pants, boxers, and socks that might or might not match. However, once you had turned into a Zoroark, all sense of normalcy was out the window. Lucario like Samuel could wear clothes if they really wanted to, but I couldn't, simply because they wouldn't fit on me.

Everything private, however, was covered by the mass of black fur I was covered in, so I was unlikely to be arrested for indecent exposure. In addition, I could run pretty fast in this form. And, if I did go up to Quebec this weekend and learn how to wield the powers of illusion, I might even be able to turn into my old form. Then, I'd be able to wear clothes.

My backpack was also slightly difficult to carry. Had I lived in a more densely populated area, I would have been weaving in and out of traffic like crazy, and my backpack would bonk a lot of people, on account of the fact that I had to tie it to the back of my giant red ponytail.

So I was walking down the sidewalk, with an orange backpack at the end of the ponytail. If I saw Zach, would that be enough for him to recognize me? Or would he have a hard time making the connection that I was the Zoroark?

Zach was in the schoolyard, right next to the American flag. He was helping to raise it, which was one thing that students took it in turns to do.

"What's going on?" I asked him.

He turned around, looking shocked. "Is that you? Lucas?"

I held out one of my claws and pointed it upward like a thumbs-up sign. "That's me. I don't know why I turned into a Zoroark, but how much work did I miss out on?"

Zach smiled. "Not that much. All of us were worried when we heard that you were going to the hospital".

"It was pretty funny when they tried to do an EKG, actually" I said. "Really, I would have laughed if not for what was going on with my body. I didn't know what it was, and I still don't".

I could tell that there were people laughing at me, while some others were giving me a wide berth. I wasn't too surprised about this, because it was pretty rare for humans to turn into Pokémon. No doubt some of these pictures were already on Facebook accounts, of a Zoroark carrying a school backpack on its ponytail. That was quite laughable.

As it turned out, there were going to be more problems for me besides how I was perceived by the other students.

For one, a lot of us, as humans, tend to take for granted that we live in a world built for humans, not Pokémon. The world is Pokémon-friendly, but not the usual high schools that you have, that humans go to.

The first class, Writing, was pretty hard. The QWERTY keyboard is designed for someone with five fingers on each hand, and I can type upwards of 60 words per minute. That is, when I'm not limited to three claws per hand.

When you're a Zoroark, it's a lot harder to write essays, or whatever else you might be working on. It's just not very easy to do. And, while I tried to hunch myself over my MacBook Air as low as possible, in order to hide my poor work from everyone else, I was sure that there were plenty of people staring and laughing at my struggles. Really, why wouldn't they be?

In Science class, my saving grace was the fact that we weren't doing any labs. All I had to do was awkwardly thumb through the textbook, while awkwardly jotting down notes for the test we were going to have on Friday, which was a half day due to parent-teacher conferences. It was pretty much the same with Math and History, both of which were very much verbal classes, except when they involved jotting down notes and answers to questions.

When it was time for lunch, I sat apart from the others. It wasn't like it wasn't cool to be a Zoroark, it was just that nobody else was likely to want to sit with me. If you were sitting next to the freak who had managed to turn into a Zoroark in broad daylight, in front of a bunch of paramedics, that was probably social suicide. I wouldn't be the one to ask about this, but it's probably safe to assume that this is the case.

It was a relief when the next period began, even if fifth period was gym class, something I wasn't looking forward to. Since I was wearing what amounted to a gigantic, actual fursuit, I hoped I wouldn't get overheated. It was getting to be a pretty hot day out, in the seventies or eighties, and my fur was going to make me burn alive. Hopefully, this wasn't going to be too hard.

When Mr. Falco announced what we were going to do, which was playing basketball, I became fairly excited, as well as anxious. How was I going to fare in this new form?

In my human form, I was tall, but I wasn't particularly muscular. I was also not very fast, and I wasn't great at scoring. It was time to see, however, what it would be like as a Zoroark.

I was instructed to put on a red pinnie, along with everyone else on the red team. Of course, I couldn't wear it like a shirt, so I just hung it from my ponytail so that people could see which team I was a member of. Let's see how this goes, I thought. Let's see how this goes.

I was pretty much terrible at basketball as a Zoroark. I was normally decent at dribbling the ball, but my three claws per hand didn't cut it. Really, it was embarrassing, but there was nothing I could really do about it. As much as people might have screamed, "Lucas, get in shape!", the fact was that this wouldn't cut it, either. The fact of the matter was, I had had no control over my transformation.

And it pissed me off.

MICHELLE'S POV

Once school was over, I was very glad to just be able to go to Olivia's house the way I usually did. There were so many crazy things going on lately that it felt great to be doing something ordinary, to have a sense of normalcy in my life.

Over the course of the school day, I had gotten quite a few stares thrown my way. This wasn't really a surprise, considering the fact that my brother's transformation had been all over the news. In the paper, it had been on the very headline. That's one thing that should tell you when something is big news.

I sat down next to my best friend, and we continued watching Friendship Is Magic. Sometimes, it was easy for me to think that friendship could be magic. Olivia didn't seem to be judging me for having a shape-shifting brother...that had to count for something, right?

In any case, we'd set up the beanbag chairs just the way we liked it, and we were sipping on root beer and eating popcorn as we saw Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack sing a parody of "We Built This City". It was pretty much the same as the song by Jefferson Starship, except that instead of "Marconi", every use of the inventor of the radio was sung as "My pony".

My pony plays the mamba, let's look at the rodeo! Something like that.

Eventually, Olivia had to use the bathroom. Probably because she was drinking so much root beer. I swear, that girl must have drunk a full two-liter bottle of it. It wouldn't have surprised me, but, being the good friend I was, I paused the show until she came back. I wasn't the die-hard fan that she was, but I appreciated it just the same. There was just something about watching colorful equestrians running around, just hanging out. Really, I would have tried to introduce Lucas to it, but I knew he wouldn't have appreciated that.

Once Olivia came back, she asked me a question. "What did happen to your brother?"

I couldn't really answer that question. The truth was, I didn't know. I supposed that he had just turned into a Zoroark out of the blue, because that was what all of the evidence pointed towards. And I really didn't want to lose any friends over this.

"I guess he just...transformed. It happened about a week after the first day of school. He saw a Lucario that had gotten stabbed on the road, and he went with it to the hospital. Once he was there, it seems that he passed out for whatever reason".

"Your brother fainted?" she asked me.

"Yes. Fainted. Passed out. Swooned. You get the point. He's not a wuss, though. It was just because of...something".

Even though I liked Olivia a lot, that didn't mean I was willing to trust her with something like this. It could be argued that this would make me not really her friend, but I digress.

"I feel bad for you" she said. "After all, you have to work with all of that social stigma, with a brother who turned into a Zoroark. How do you deal with that?"

I smiled sadly. "Sometimes, that's just what you have to do".

LUCAS'S POV

The week felt interminable. For the most part, it was fairly easy to participate in my classes. Once I had gotten used to them, that was all that was necessary. I was still not great at basketball, or anything else in gym class, though. I'd need to work on that.

It was also kind of awkward walking around without any clothes on. Of course, all of my important partswere covered, but it was still weird. If you've ever had a dream where you were at school only in your underwear, imagine it being like that for me, only in real life. And I wasn't even wearing any boxers. It was just me. Of course, it wasn't my nudity that was the thing most people paid attention to.

For all of the bad things, however, I also had a positive reason to be looking forward to the weekend. Samuel and I were going to be driving up to the Zoroark sanctuary in Quebec, a distance that was not inconsiderable, and I was glad that school got out early.

After running home as fast as my furry legs could carry me, I found Samuel in the kitchen, eating from a bag of Cape Cod Potato Chips.

"You like those, don't you?" I asked him.

He nodded. "We should probably leave right after lunch" he said. "We've got a long way to drive. We'll need to make sure that we have our passports".

"It won't be a problem" I said. "Mom put them in my backpack. She really can be caring, when she wants to be".

Samuel didn't have a reply to that. Eventually, he put the potato chips away. "I'm going to have to stop eating these. I'm just glad they're not chocolate".

I'd seen Lucario And The Mystery Of Mew, and I knew what Samuel was talking about. According to that movie, Lucario were absolute chocolate addicts. Personally, I'd never really been a fan of chocolate, myself, but I could see why other people liked the rich flavor.

After my parents ate lunch with us, my mother made sure that we knew all of the typical rules of the road, so that we'd be as safe as possible. She also gave us each fifty dollars, just in case we needed it.

"Be safe, guys" my mother said. "I don't have too good of a feeling about this, so be careful as hell. You got that?"

Both of us nodded.

"Have a nice time north of the border".

I felt like making this a little longer at first, but I realized that this was a good line to end the chapter with. I'm putting this out before I go in for the EKG. I'll tell you guys the results at the top of the next chapter!

Sincerely,

SnowLucario.

 

My mother hasn't told me yet about the EKG results, so I take that as good news. I'm fine, guys. I can start the new medication for my new OCD, that will hopefully allow me to get my life back. Let's check the story stats:

Reviews: 39. Views: 2,119. C2s: 3. Favs: 10. Alerts: 23.

Hm. I'd say I'm doing all right. What do you guys think?

Here we have what is easily the longest chapter yet. It's a little over six thousand words. The fact of the matter is that I haven't been writing chapter lengths to my best ability, and I think I really should try to hold to the four-day schedule, which is hypocritical of me because I'm posting this, or at least intend to, on Thursday night. With that in mind, let's get to the question.

Answer: I'm not the most athletic, and I'd say my favorite subject is English. I don't particularly like math this year. I'm a sophomore in high school.

Question: What's your favorite Pokémon story on this site?

I have created my own Discord, which is called SnowLucario's Fanfiction Club. If you have a mic and a Discord account, just PM me and I'll send you an invite link. Make sure your earphones are earbuds with microphones, because I ran into this problem in the That Universe Discord chat.

Also, the President Of The United States is mentioned here. It's not Donald Trump. Despite my left-wing political views, this chapter is not intended to take a stab at Trump. Just know that.

With that out of the way, let's get into the chapter!

SAMUEL'S POV

An hour later, we were driving straight through the White Mountains, appreciating the scenery. As Lucas did not have his license yet, and I did, I sat behind the wheel as my Zoroark friend sat in the passenger seat. For the most part, neither of us said much for the first two hours of the trip.

It was only when we were getting fairly close to crossing into Quebec, into Canada, that Lucas spoke up. By this point it was mid-afternoon, and my bladder was starting to act up. I should not have drunk so much water prior to leaving, but that was just what I had done. Besides, I hadn't wanted to be too dehydrated for the road. I had to remind myself that the important cargo was sitting right next to me. Lucas Leonard London.

"So...did news cover your transformation?" he eventually asked, reclining back in his seat. He put his hands behind his head like he was about to do some sit-ups, and was completely pumped up for it.

"Not really" I replied. "I suppose that the government must have figured that there was nothing they couldn't cover up. Really, President Jenkins covers up a lot".

I thought about what I was saying. Estonia Jenkins, the President Of The United States, was known to be hiding a lot of things. Who would put it past her to cover up something as potentially threatening to national security as teenagers changing into Pokémon? It was completely possible.

And, as I thought about it more, I had to actively focus. I knew that I didn't want to crash the car. Not when I had such an important mission, to get Lucas to the Zoroark habitat in Quebec. There, he'd be able to learn more about his powers of illusion, and how to better manipulate them. No doubt this would be an important skill for him to have in this world.

"Maybe I can wear clothes again, once we get to the point that I can use illusions to look like a human" Lucas said.

"Speaking of clothes" I said, trying to address the problem at hand, "I'm about to piss myself. Let's stop at the next rest stop, so we can see where we're going. I feel that we're going the right way, but my aura is just not at that level yet".

Lucas nodded. "That sounds good. Do you enjoy being a Lucario, by the way?"

I weighed the question before deciding to throw it right back at him. "Do you enjoy being a Zoroark?"

His face drooped. "I guess not, when you put it that way. I'm not liking not being able to wear any clothes. It's just weird, you know?"

"I know what you mean. Are you going to look out for the rest stop?" I asked.

"I will" Lucas replied. I saw him start looking on the other side of the highway for rest stops. Any place that allowed me to empty my bladder, and maybe confirm where the hell we were going, would be more than welcome.

You might be asking: Samuel, couldn't your aura help you find the habitat, no matter how far away it was?

That would be a comforting idea, but it's wrong. The fact of the matter is, there must have been some sort of protective powers around it, so that it could not be sensed from this far away. I could see why they would do that, even if it was wildly inconvenient for us.

Finally, we found a place to stop. After we relieved ourselves and bought some water, Lucas checked the map that was on the side of the rest stop.

"It says to keep going on this highway until we cross into Canada" he said. "Then, we'll hit passport control. Once we're through there, it's probably another couple of hours to the village. This really is a long drive".

"I hear you, Luke" I said to him.

Lucas stiffened up. "Please don't call me Luke. Like, ever. I just prefer the name Lucas".

My aura could sense that he wasn't kidding. He probably thought that his legal name sounded more professional than the nickname people often gave it, which is understandable. I mean, I don't go by Sam, for instance.

"We're going the right way, though" I said. "Another four hours and we'll be there. Another half hour and we'll be at border patrol. Make sure to have your passport ready".

Lucas opened his book, which had a photo of him that was probably taken when he was a couple of years younger. LUCAS LEONARD LONDON. DOB: JUNE 29, 200R.

"This is going to be fun, I know that much" he said sarcastically. "I hope you enjoy international travel".

"Never been to another country" I told him. "My family couldn't afford it".

"That kind of sucks" Lucas replied. "Then again, traveling sucks as well, sometimes. I mean, look at my legs".

"Well, right now those legs aren't that crazily long. Although we should probably avoid the news vans from here on out".

Lucas laughed dryly.

KIERAN'S POV

Ah...pizza. One of my favorite foods to order and eat for lunch, this place was my favorite by far. They had the best doughy crust, and the pepperoni was practically an inch thick. It didn't really melt in your mouth, but I'd always preferred foods with some substance, you know what I mean?

And, watching reruns of the Pokémon TV show (I know I'm 24, but don't judge), I was somewhat happy with my lot in life. It had been four years since my diagnosis, and, if the doctor's prognosis had been correct, I only had a few more months left to wreck havoc. A few more months to feel truly alive.

If only my pet Weezing hadn't come in to butt in on my bliss.

I was just sitting there, munching on my third slice of pizza, when the purple Poison type floated in through a window. I didn't know what to think, but the news couldn't be good. I had a sign right outside my room that my pet Pokémon were not allowed to come in when the door was closed under any circumstances. You would think that, if they were actually disobeying me, that there was some kind of problem going on.

"What is it, Weezing?" I asked it. "I'm busy watching Ash catch Pikachu, damn it!"

"Master, Sir Mortimer-".

"Just call me Kieran".

"Sir Kieran-".

"What did I just say?"

"Okay, Kieran. According to reliable sources, Lucas London, the boy who transformed into a Zoroark, is traveling towards the Zoroark habitat in Quebec. He's going to learn powers of illusion there, powers that may be enough to challenge you".

"Why should I care? I got nothing to lose" I said, waving my arm around this room. "A few more months, and I'm checking out of here".

"But Kieran...you know that he's going to be dangerous if he gets these powers. You must meet him at the Zoroark habitat".

I looked at my clock. It was 10 in the afternoon, and I knew that the habitat would be a quick flight, if you managed to find it. For the most part, it wasn't on maps, so it could take hours to find it even if you were within ten miles of its borders. It was in the middle of the northern woods, so I understood why.

"All right. I'm going" I said. "Will you call a Crobat in here?"

"Yes, of course, Kieran. Just wait for it to come, and then you'll be ready to fly in there. You don't want to drive?"

"No. Too tough to find" I said. "Better to look for it by air, you know?"

"Of course. Just wait five minutes".

I stood up and turned off the TV. There was no point in continuing to watch the show when I wouldn't be able to finish the episode. There really wasn't, and if I had ever believed that there was, I had been deluding myself.

LUCAS'S POV

Getting through the border control wasn't too difficult. All we had to do was show our passports, and there were some stares at our new Pokémon forms, but they ultimately let us in. If someone was going to cause trouble, it was unlikely that there would be a serious threat from a pair of teenagers that had turned into a Lucario and a Zoroark.

Finding the habitat was only slightly harder. It wasn't shown on maps, but Samuel seemed to have a general sense of where he was going. The weird thing was, so did I. I got a feeling that there would be a place nearby that could really help me realize my potential. I didn't think this sense was aura, but there might have been something else guiding me.

The scenery began to get less mountainous, with pine woods being a greater feature. We also saw billboards in kilometers rather than miles, and French words were listed next to the English. Really, those are the typical things you'd expect after crossing into another country.

Eventually, the sun began to sink, turning the sky orange. It was one of the prettiest sunsets I had ever seen, and I reclined further in my seat. I didn't fall asleep, but I did have a great time watching the trees flash by us.

Perhaps I did fall into a little bit of a doze, because the next thing I remember is Samuel saying, "Okay...we're here".

I opened my eyes to find that the sun was completely down, and it was getting dark. Already a few stars had begun to appear in the evening sky.

The scenery hadn't changed too much. There were trees all over the place, some clumped together as though they were mating. We were at the top of a circular valley perhaps five miles in diameter, with a river cutting through it. I could tell that, making up one piece of what looked like it could be a pizza, there was a small town made up of houses.

"That's where we're going" Samuel said. "Cars aren't allowed in the village, so I'm afraid it's on foot from here".

I groaned. Standing up, I found that my legs were pretty stiff from riding in the car for so long.

"Lean on me if you need" he told me. "It's about a two-mile walk into the village, so keep up your strength".

We began on our way down, passing pine trees upon pine trees upon pine trees. It was as if Arceus had decreed that this valley was meant for pine trees and nothing else. Which, really, made little sense, because it wasn't just trees. You get my point, though. There were a lot of trees.

There were a few flowers in some clearings, though. From the high point that we were standing on, we could see quite a lot, and even in the night these were visible. I couldn't wait to see what the clearings looked like in the daytime, because it would no doubt be breathtaking. Large swaths of what looked like prairie grass dotted the landscape.

"Is your aura vision working?" I asked Samuel. "Do you know where we're going to be staying tonight?"

"Not yet" the Lucario said. "But I can figure it out the closer we get to the village. Follow me".

And with that, we continued into the valley. For the most part, I only had to hold Samuel's hand rather than completely lean on him for support. Even though my legs were still fairly stiff, I enjoyed the walk very much. It was pretty awesome, watching the stars slowly turn above us.

It was no wonder that this was the place where the Zoroarks lived. This mysterious forest really looked like a great place to practice illusions. I could only hope that my skills I would learn here might be applicable to my new life.

After what must have been at least seventy-five minutes or so, we finally arrived at the edge of the village. From what I could see, most of the houses were log cabins, but they did have electric lighting. Streets made of dirt, rather than cobblestone or concrete, cut through the area. The houses were not arranged in any particular manner, but most of them all looked pretty much the same.

"I've heard that the village is socialist in nature" Samuel told me. "Pretty much everyone here has the same opportunities, and they share their resources. That's why so many of the houses are so similar".

I nodded. "Let's just find this place. I'm pretty bushed".

"I know. We're almost there, Lucas".

I felt dead on my feet by this point. Had I not been holding the hand of Samuel Cranmore, I might have been eating dirt for dinner. I just wanted to find where we were going to be staying at.

After what felt like an eternity, but was probably not more than five minutes, we arrived at a house that looked pretty much the same as the rest of them. Samuel took out his paw and knocked for a few seconds. There was no doorbell.

I was about to suggest that we just find a place to bed down in the woods when a Zoroark, slightly shorter than myself, came to the door. Instead of being dark red, its ponytail was blue.

"Are you Lucas London?" a female voice asked. It was coming from its mouth, so the Zoroark greeting us was a woman.

I nodded. "That is me".

"And Samuel Cranmore?"

The Lucario standing next to me, supporting me, nodded. "We've come to see you".

"Yes. Come in, and I'll cook something up for dinner that I'm sure you'll like. You are going to be staying with us. My name, by the way, is Carla".

"Thanks, Carla" I said. Really, this Zoroark woman was hospitable, more so than I could say about my mother. People always talk about Southern hospitality, and the stereotype of Northerners to not be hospitable is very much true. I couldn't wait to see what she had for us to eat.

Later, while we were sitting around the table, Samuel tried to get some conversation going. However, Carla seemed to already know what we were going to say. I was pretty sure that the power of Zoroarks did not involve reading minds, but I could have been wrong. I was still fairly new to this whole turning-into-a-Pokémon gig, so that might have been part of the reason why.

It was a delicious dinner, even better since I hadn't eaten for nine or ten hours. "My husband and son are already in bed, but you'll see them in the morning. We've got a man coming who is going to help you work on your illusions, Lucas. I think you're going to like him very much".

I walked into the back room, which looked kind of like a summer camp cabin. There was a bathroom adjoining it, and everything was made of pine wood. It was a place that so many people would want to live if they could, but no one could.

"The Wi-Fi password is 1652791-571" said Carla. "Here is your bed".

I looked at it. It wasn't particularly impressive, but it looked reasonably comfortable. I got in, pulled the blankets over me, and took a surprisingly long time to fall asleep.

For the most part, I was thinking about how much I liked this place. Maybe part of being a Zoroark was liking these natural settings a lot, but I didn't know for sure. And I wasn't sure that I would ever figure it out completely. All I knew was that I was very tired and very, very grateful to be here.

Finally, I managed to get to sleep.

KIERAN'S POV

It took a very long time to find our target. Even though we knew that the village was somewhere in southern Quebec, Quebec was a large province, and Canada was a large country. The second largest in the world, if you go by land area. Although we had a little bit of a clue where to go, it wasn't all that helpful.

You could have asked me, "Kieran, what about all of the lights?"

My answer to that question would have been, which lights? The city of Montreal was easy to see, and we knew that the habitat would be a decent bit away from that. There would be a few lights, but not more than would be expected of a small town.

I knew it was in the middle of a valley, though, so I ordered Crobat to make sure that we found the right area. If we touched down in the wrong town, we would have looked pretty stupid. In addition, there was no guarantee that we would have been able to find a hotel to stay at, even if we weren't immediately booed out of the place. It wasn't every day that you saw a young man just fly into town on the back of a Crobat.

Then, I remembered.

I hadn't used my aura abilities in a while. To be honest, I was somewhat scared of them. I had no idea why Arceus wanted me to have these powers, but he had given them to me anyways. That was the only possible explanation for what was going on.

As the sky was getting darker, I was getting more and more tired. Crobat didn't have any harnesses, so I had to keep on holding on. If I fell asleep, I would slide right off and fall thousands of feet to the ground. Somehow, I wasn't that cold either, this high up.

I reached out with my aura senses. Somehow, I had to figure out a way to find this village. I had to have faith.

Sure enough, I picked up on a village of Zoroarks just a few miles to the east of me. This was where I was going to go.

LUCAS'S POV

I woke up, and was instantly in a good mood. I'd gotten such a good night's sleep that it was almost unreal. I got out of bed and went into the doorway next to the kitchen, where I saw that Samuel was having a discussion with the Zoroark parents.

"Of course, he can stay as long as he likes" Carla said. I realized they were talking about me. There's nothing I hate more in this world than not being privy to conversations that relate to Lucas Leonard London.

"I don't know about that" a male Zoroark replied. "He's probably being hunted. They'll stop at nothing to catch him, unless he uses his illusions".

"Good thing Eric's coming today, then, right, Dad?" said a smaller, also male voice. I took this to mean that Carla's son was present. I'd been the last one to wake up.

"Yes, it is good, Malcolm" said the male Zoroark. "Lucas needs to learn how to protect himself".

I decided that now would be a good time to show myself. "I'm up" I said, stepping out from behind the door to the kitchen.

In the kitchen were two Zoroarks, one with blue hair and one with red hair. In addition, there was a Zorua with red hair, which was evidently a male. They seemed to be eating some kind of berry dish.

"You're Malcolm" I said to the Zorua.

"That's right" the young Pokémon said. "And I see that you are also a Zoroark. Lucas?"

"That's me" I said. "Although I'm not a Zoroark originally".

"Meema told me" Malcolm replied. "Meema told me that you were a human, and you turned into a Zoroark. How did you do that?"

"No idea" I replied. "I'm happy to say that I don't know. Well, I'm not happy about it, but you get what I mean".

The male Zoroark looked at me. "Greetings. My name is Jason. I would serve you some Oran berry custard, but you're going to be working on illusions today, and it's best to do illusions on an empty stomach. You know what I mean?"

Carla explained it to me. "Turning yourself into something else...can be quite sickening at first. Luckily, there's someone here to help with that".

"And who might that be?" I asked.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. "I'll get it" Malcolm said.

The Zorua went to the door, and on the other side was a medium-sized man wearing glasses and a red tank top. He looked like he was ready to do something important, which I supposed he was.

"Hello. I'm Eric. Where is Lucas?"

I walked to the door, shaking the man's hand. "I'm Lucas London. I believe I'm the one you were looking for".

"Yes, I'm looking for Lucas London" Eric said. "My name is Eric Owsley, and I'm going to be teaching you illusions. I'll also have your Lucario friend come with me. Where is Samuel?"

Just then, I heard the sound of a toilet flushing, then the sound of water running, and then the bathroom door opened. "Sorry" said Samuel. "I was just taking a piss".

"Okay, then" Eric said. "You guys, come with me. We're going to the top of the hill. I hope you're up for meeting my team".

"What is your team?" Samuel asked.

"I have a team of five Pokémon that I carry in these Pokéballs" he said.

Eric took out five Pokéballs. They were five different colors, which were red, blue, yellow, green, and black.

"Where did you get all of those different colors?" Samuel asked.

"I'll explain later" Eric said. "Let's go. There's no time to waste".

After twenty minutes of walking, we had exited the village, where it was about eight in the morning. The sun had come up, and the morning sunlight illuminated the flowery fields. Many young Zoruas were running around, having a good time. Some of them were staring at me; evidently, it was well-known that the village was hosting a former human. How long until this put them in danger?

No. I couldn't bear that thought. I couldn't let myself think I was bringing down harm upon these people. I needed to be able to live with myself, and this was just not going to happen if I kept feeling guilty for something that might happen.

"Want to meet my team?" Eric asked, sounding a lot friendlier now that we were away from the Zoroark family.

"Sure" Samuel said.

Eric took out his first Pokéball, revealing a Haunter. It looked at us like it wanted to scream at us, but wasn't going to in order to not piss us off. Which, admittedly, made me a little pissed off.

"Haunter doesn't talk too much" Eric said. "He's really not going to hurt you; he's kind of shy, but he always does look at you like that. Don't ask me why, I've never figured it out. I've had him since I was ten".

"How old are you now?" I asked. I knew that this was often a fairly rude question to ask, but I got the feeling that this man wouldn't mind.

"I'm 34" he said. "Twice your age. In fact, I've had all of these since I was old enough to be a trainer. I don't have a Zorua or Zoroark, but I'm trained in order to train people about illusions".

"That's good to know" the Lucario next to us said.

Haunter re-entered his Pokéball, and Eric took out the blue one. Now, standing in front of us was a Golem.

"Be careful with this guy" the trainer said. "He can be very aggressive at times, but he doesn't see you guys as threats. That's good".

"Would he help to defend us?" I asked Eric.

"No way to tell" the man said. "He's unreliable in emergency situations. Let us hope that we don't wind up in one of those".

"Hear, hear" Samuel said.

At this point, we were about halfway up the hill. The village was still visible, but barely. We were now hundreds of feet above it. As Golem stared back at us, looking as though he was about to strike, Eric recaptured the Pokémon.

"That's a relief" I said.

"I know" Eric replied. "I think we have time for one more before we get to the top. Come out, Beautifly".

Beautifly was very friendly. She wanted to have small talk with us, but I was trying to focus most of my air on walking up this steep hill. And it was steep, to the point that it would make a double-black diamond ski slope. This was not a casual hike, that was for sure.

Samuel, on the other hand, had far greater endurance than I did. I supposed that this was something that came with being a Fighting type. His aura organs were glimmering in the sun, which was getting warmer the higher up we went.

At this point, once Beautifly was back in her Pokéball, the prairie grass was all there was, with virtually no more trees. There were quite a few rocks, but the view was gorgeous. I could tell why this would be a great place to practice illusions.

"Mesprit is going to help you with this" Eric said, taking out his yellow Pokéball and releasing the being inside.

A Mesprit came out. It was a light blue Pokémon for the most part, except for its pink hair. It looked at us, somewhat angrily.

"How did you get Mesprit?" Samuel asked Eric. "You know it's a Legendary!"

Eric looked at both of us seriously. "You know that I have good connections, enough to get things like this for my team. Now, Mesprit, I want you to teach Lucas London some illusion skills. Can you do that?"

Mesprit nodded. "Lucas, I know that you need to be able to protect yourself. That's my goal here. I will teach you the powers of illusion, in order for you to be able to hide from your pursuers".

"I have pursuers?" I asked. I wasn't sure that I was in too much danger just yet. Then again, I didn't really know that much.

"Yes" Mesprit said. "I know this may come as a shock, but your being a Zoroark has put a target on your back. Already, the news is covering it to an insane degree, and it is important that you learn how to disguise yourself. What would you like to practice being first?"

I thought about it. "I want to be a Lucario".

I had always loved Lucario, simply because my first name was Lucas. Really, they shared such similarities that it was almost like a coincidence. Except that it wasn't.

"The name Lucas. It means 'light'. You must learn how to foster the light that is within your soul, or else it will fizzle out and you will be left as a Zoroark".

That sounded so New Age-y that I visibly cringed. Nobody I knew did that sort of thing, and I didn't even see why anyone would care. In a world with Pokémon, why need magic when you had such advanced science?

"Okay. How do I harness the power of light. I thought illusions were a Dark type thing".

"Oh, they are" Mesprit said. "But you can do it. Imagine a Lucario. Concentrate really hard. Focus all of your energy on picturing an Aura Pokémon, with blue fur, a peach-furred chest, and black aura organs. Picture yourself becoming one".

I remembered reading, in a Biology textbook, about Zoroarks and their powers. They couldn't take the actual form of a different Pokémon, or a human, but only the appearance of one. I'd still be just as much a Zoroark if I managed to become a Lucario; I'd just look like #448 instead of #571. I didn't see how much of an effect this was going to have, but I did know that it would at least be somewhat helpful.

"Focus, Lucas London".

I pictured a large, furry Lucario. Six feet, two inches tall, one hundred and seventy-five pounds of pure Steel and Fighting. I pictured the blue leg fur where one would wear pants, short black legs, and a chest spike. I imagined myself evaporating and then turning into one. How hard could it be?

I concentrated so hard that I began to feel hot and dizzy. The morning sun wasn't that intense this far north, but maybe it was my concentration that caused me to collapse to the ground.

The next thing I remember is coming to on the ground, with Samuel fanning me with his paw. "There. You're awake".

"What happened?" I groaned. It wasn't unlike when I'd passed out in the Lucario's hospital room. This time, the Lucario was the one worried about me. The roles were reversed here.

"You passed out from focusing too hard" said Mesprit. "You need to relax, Lucas. You're going to get it eventually. Maybe try a little less hard, this time".

I nodded and decided to take her advice. Once again I tried to tune the world out...all that mattered was my turning into a Lucario, or at least looking as though I had. This was the thing I had to do. I had to imagine myself as a Lucario, and I would look like one.

And then I remembered what had happened. I had to focus less hard...perhaps a lot less hard. If I didn't tune my focus down a little bit, I might lose consciousness again. That was one thing I didn't want.

I relaxed a little bit...which was enough to fall down on my ass, crushing my tail.

Let me tell you, that hurt.

"Are you okay, Lucas?" Mesprit asked me.

"Yeah, I'm fine" I said, my eyes watering from pain. "Just...fell down. Was I focusing too hard again?"

"It might have been the opposite problem" the Legendary Pokémon said. "You may not have been focusing hard enough. You need to make sure that you have your eye on the prize, but you also have to focus on not passing out. Let me tell you, this is a difficult balance to maintain".

I stood back up with assistance from Samuel. "One more try?" I queried. I was feeling pretty exhausted, if truth must be told.

"Yes" Mesprit said. "One more try. Keep your eye on the prize, Lucas. Keep your focus in the middle".

I stood up, feeling the warm sun heating up my fur. Then, I focused once more on my goal.

This time, it was like there was a gauge that was teetering on a fine line between too much focus and too little. It wasn't something I couldn't handle, but it was like trying to keep your balance on a tightrope, something I've never done before.

I imagined a Lucario standing right in front of me. Not hard, because there really was one. Samuel.

Like a library scanner, the type they use when you're checking out a book, I imagined that I was scanning Samuel, much like Doopliss from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. I had to look like a Lucario, or else I would fail. But I couldn't focus too hard, or else I'd embarrass, or even hurt, myself. That wouldn't be an ideal outcome.

I was changing shape. Not literally, none of my bones were changing or anything like that. But I was getting smaller, and I could sense that I looked different. I had my eyes closed, but I could "see" the meter in front of me, like a meter on a car that tells you how much longer until you're out of gas, as "220 miles till empty tank". I had to keep that needle in between the F and the E.

And then, I could sense that some change had happened. I opened my eyes and looked down at myself.

I was a Lucario. Or, at least, I looked like one.

"Nice job, Lucas!" Samuel congratulated me. "We can be buddies now!".

I laughed. "Weren't we already buddies?" I asked in my Zoroark voice.

And, immediately, I saw myself change shape. I was back in my normal form. Not as a human being, but as a Zoroark...which I suppose had become "normal" for me.

"Sorry about that" Eric said, coming back into focus. "I wasn't talking to you guys, because I didn't want to break your concentration. But, Lucas, if you talk, that automatically breaks the illusion. So hold illusions only as long as you are able to go without speaking".

I nodded. "Thanks for the tip, Eric. Can we head back down the hill now? I'm getting really hungry".

It was true. I felt like I had burned about ten thousand calories from trying the illusions just three times. I wasn't even sure that I could make it all the way back down the hill to the house that Carla, Jason, and Malcolm inhabited. It would take quite a bit of effort.

Before any of us could say anything more, though, a shape came walking up the hill. It was a man with graying, collar-length hair. I was wondering what was going on with him. I'd never seen the guy before.

Next to him was a Weezing, the large, purple Poison Pokémon. It was quite a sight, particularly considering just how ghastly and abnormal it looked amid all of the bright greens of the Canadian countryside.

"What is it?" asked Samuel. "You see, we were kind of just hanging out here, minding our own business, and then you have to butt in on our bliss".

"Don't worry" the man said. He stepped closer into our view, and it was now possible to see what he looked like. With a heavy overcoat on, as well as a wide-brimmed hat and a beak-shaped mask, it was clear to see that he liked baggy clothes.

He took off his mask, revealing a gaunt, frail face with long, collar-length and graying hair. He did not look healthy.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The man leaned in closer to us. "My name is Kieran Mortimer" he said. "Misery loves company, and I am quite lonely".

 

What do you get when you cross two Pokémorph teenagers, fanfiction, and a terminally ill man with nothing to lose? You get ZOROARK'S PENDANT!

I didn't find any time for writing this on Friday, so now I'm working on this over the weekend. I am hoping that you enjoy this chapter, and make sure to review it, just to tell me how I am doing at this.

One quick thing: In my headcanon, Arceus is different from the Judeo-Christian conception of God. I view it like Samirah al-Abbas, the Muslim girl from Magnus Chase And The Gods Of Asgard, views the Norse gods, in that Arceus may or may not have been created by the one God.

Also, if you have not yet joined my Discord, it would be awesome if you did so. I'll PM you an invite link if you are interested. You just PM me first, telling me that you want to join.

Answer: Curse Of The Lucario and its sequel, for sure. They got me into this and forever changed my life. I also enjoy Evergreen by Jirulius a lot, assuming that I can't say this one.

Question: Do you have a Discord, and do you intend to get one if you do not?

KIERAN'S POV

I should probably explain how I got to the top of that hill, when I haven't even explained what had happened the previous night. Without knowing that, there is simply no way you can understand what was going on.

Once Crobat and I had finally found the habitat in a rural part of southern Quebec, we flew down towards the Zoroark village. By now, it was almost midnight, having been completely dark for quite a while, and the stars were magnificent. I was pretty exhausted; I just wanted to find a place to sleep, because there would be plenty of havoc to wreck in the morning.

After touching down just outside the village, I bade goodbye to the Crobat and decided to walk along the avenue until I found a place to sleep. I didn't know how easy it would be to find a family that would be willing to take me in for the night. After all, I didn't look the best-dressed, not by a long shot. In fact, with my huge mask, I probably looked too mysterious for someone to trust. Which I suppose is something to be expected, and you can't really blame them for that.

I decided to look for a hotel. Sure enough, I found one that looked somewhat shabby, but it would fit my needs. After all, I wasn't too worried; I had little to lose at this point. If there was a gunfight that broke out, like in an old Western movie, I had only lost a few months of my life.

The hotel was called the Lucario Lounge, and it appeared to be four stories tall. I had no baggage to carry with me; I hadn't even brought any extra clothes other than my usual overcoat, and I had few luxury possessions. Even then, it wasn't like I was coming here just to relax. I had a mission to carry out.

"Hello. I would like to spend the night" I said to the Lucario at the front desk. Yes, the village was not completely Zoroark and Zorua; there were other evolutionary lines present.

The Lucario looked back at me. "That'll be $44.80 for a one-bed room. Is that what you want?"

I nodded. "I've got the money" I said, pulling out a wad of bills from the pocket of my jacket.

The Lucario behind the desk counted the money before letting me in. "Your room is number 448. That's the fourth floor. You got that?"

Honestly. Did he think I was a toddler? I was an adult, so of course I knew how to get to the fourth floor.

I walked over to the elevator once I had been given the room key. However, the elevator appeared not to be working. No surprise, really. It wasn't like I shouldn't have expected this, but it still pissed me off regardless. You never wanted to stay at a hotel with a broken elevator.

Instead of taking the lift, I took the stairs. I rarely fully appreciated my lack of stamina, but this was one of those moments. It might have only been three flights of stairs to get to the fourth floor, but I was short of breath long before then. I had to hold on to the railing the entire time.

Once I got to the correct floor, I was huffing and puffing like an asthmatic. Searching for the correct door, I found room 448 and tried the key. The door swung open with a creaking noise, and I was able to appraise the room the way it really was.

It was nothing spectacular, just one bed with one bathroom adjacent to it. Aside from those two features, there was what appeared to be an alarm clock of some sort.

I was absolutely bushed, but I had to get up fairly early in order to do what I had come to do. So I set the alarm for 7:00 and hit the hay, crashing almost immediately.

The alarm clock woke me up at the appointed time, playing one of my favorite songs: "Diamond On A Landmine" by Billy Talent. I supposed it was fitting, given that I was now in Canada, that a Canadian band was playing on the alarm clock.

After heading downstairs and eating a quick breakfast from the buffet (there was no need to get dressed), I bade farewell to the Lucario at the front desk. Searching for the path, I walked through the village for what felt like quite some time.

Finally, I found the road leading up the hill. It was a steep climb, but my aura could sense something at the top...something I desperately wanted. Right now, I had one goal and one goal only, so this made sense. I had to find Lucas London.

The morning sun was beautiful. Maybe, had I not been so determined to find Lucas, I could have just gone and picked some flowers. I'd tear them apart afterwards, since misery loves company, but now was not the time for that. Right now, I had to get to the top of the hill.

I began my trek uphill. It wasn't as difficult I had thought it would be, probably because I had had that night of rest. I was hoping that I would find Lucas at the top, and maybe strike some fear into his heart. I couldn't kill the boy- it was far too interesting of a story, an answer I desperately wanted to figure out before I checked out of this world for good.

No, I would just have to subdue him somehow. Or maybe not. I wanted to see how scared I could make him. Create as much chaos as possible, that was my modus operandi in my new life, the life that would soon be ending.

By the time I reached the top of the hill, I saw two Lucario, as well as a Mesprit and a thirty-something man who appeared to be a trainer.

At first, I was confused. However, I then realized what I was looking at.

As soon as one of the Lucario had spoken, it ended up on the ground, having changed into a Zoroark. That was when I knew I had found my target.

Lucas London was standing right on the hill! I had done it!

Now, I had decided, was the time to reveal myself. It had not been a second before.

The Lucario standing next to Lucas took notice of me. Looking rather irritated, he said, "What is it? You see, we were kind of just hanging out here, minding our own business, and then you have to butt in on our bliss".

"Don't worry" I said, trying to suppress a laugh. I took off my mask, trying to make myself look more intimidating. I was going to make them think me an ally, then betray them. I was going to cause as much chaos as I could.

"Who are you?" Lucas London asked me in an accusatory tone. He bared his teeth at me like a lion.

I decided to cut right to the chase. "My name is Kieran Mortimer. Misery loves company, and I am quite lonely".

LUCAS'S POV

The man didn't look threatening at first glance. Of course, this probably meant he was a proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. He might be a nice guy on paper, but there might also be a dark side to him.

"Kieran, huh?" Eric asked. He'd been so quiet that we had almost forgotten he was there to begin with. "You don't look good. Are you sure that you're okay?"

Kieran laughed. "Believe it or not, I'm only twenty-four. I'm a lot younger than I look".

So this old man was, in fact, a young man. That wasn't something I was expecting. Maybe, even though he had a Weezing in tow, he was a good guy, someone we could trust.

Of course, given so many other things, we could never be so lucky. I had never thought I would end up coming across such a weird necklace, one that would turn me into a Zoroark. Maybe it would be pushing it to expect Kieran Mortimer to be a nice guy.

"Anything else you want to ask of me?" the young man said.

Samuel stepped forwards. "I feel like you're looking straight through me. Are you an aura user?"

Kieran laughed. "I am. Something like one in every three thousand humans is able to sense aura, my being a lucky one. If you could call it lucky".

"What do you mean?" I asked. I had always felt jealous of those who could use aura. Those people were essentially superhuman, an adjective that I wished I could have used to describe myself. Instead, I couldn't even be a normal human. What kind of lot had Arceus cast for me?

The way it was going, I didn't see how Kieran couldn't have a nasty streak to him, somehow. It's been said that every rose has its thorn, and the question was: what was Kieran's thorn? There was just no way to know. Not until we spent a little more time with him.

The thing was, however, I was exhausted. I didn't fully trust my ability to avoid myself from collapsing right here and now, let alone make it all the way back down the hill. Like I said, it felt like I had burned 10,000 calories, which would mean running dozens of miles for a human. And I'd never been in the best shape.

"My aura abilities...came at a price" Kieran said, shrugging. "I don't know if I'll tell you what that was just yet. I'll need to get to trust you more. Are you willing to hear the story?"

I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear the story. Mesprit had already been called back into her Pokéball, and I got the feeling that she was going to be staying there for a while. Should Kieran turn out to be dangerous, however, we could really use the help the Legendary would provide.

"Let's hear it!" Samuel said, stepping out from behind me. For a Lucario who had previously been a human, he sure seemed to be confident. He was holding out his fists aggressively in front of him, as though he was itching for a fight.

"Stop that!" I said. "He might be an ally".

"I can be either your ally or your enemy" the young man said. "What you do right now can determine that".

It was as though a dam broke in my mind. I now knew, with absolute certainty, that this guy was a threat. How could he not be, when he spoke in such dangerous terms? There was no way that he was completely benign.

"That's a threat" Samuel said. "You're going to have it!"

I couldn't do anything to stop him from attacking Kieran. It seemed that, when Samuel Cranmore was dead set on something, there was no keeping him from it. You could get out of his way, or you could pull a Hail Mary, trying to stop him, but risk hurting yourself. Really, there were no good options.

Samuel went out at Kieran, throwing a Force Palm towards his side. However, the 24-year-old man was ready for it, and he dodged with ease. What he hadn't noticed was that the Weezing next to him took some damage. Its face, perpetually in that one creepy expression, began to get angry, and the Weezing started to grow bigger.

"Why did you do that, Samuel?" Eric asked the Lucario angrily. "Now he's going to kill us all!"

"Not if we can resolve this peacefully, Eric Owsley" Kieran said, a hint of venom in his voice. Gone was the frail man who had seemed benevolent. He'd been exposed for what he really was, and none of us liked it.

"How did you know my name?" the trainer asked angrily.

Kieran shrugged. "Aura abilities. I can sense just about anything about you. Your age, your blood type, your general health situation and mood...you're an open book. You're thirty-four years old, aren't you?"

Eric gritted his teeth, meaning that he could evidently not lie and say no at the same time. He was, in fact, probably 34.

I wasn't happy with Samuel. However, the war had begun, and I had to fight in it, regardless of whether or not I wanted to. I aimed a Night Slash straight at Kieran. Let him feel the pain that he was probably about to cause us.

Just then, the air began to smell like rotten eggs, like the geysers they have at Yellowstone National Park. As far as I knew, however, there were no hot springs near here. And, considering that we could see for miles from the top of this hill, I could feel reasonably certain of this.

And then, I realized something. The air was now covered in a thin purple haze, similar to smoke, but a lot more noticeable. There was only one conclusion that could be drawn: My Night Slash had set off the Weezing. It was now using Poison Gas.

The smell felt suffocating, it was that horrible. I could see Samuel holding his snout, although he wasn't in much trouble. Steel types couldn't be affected by poison, but Dark types most definitely could. I had to be careful.

Could I do another Night Slash, aiming it at Kieran this time?

It was either going to be very brave or very, very foolish, but I couldn't just stand here and do nothing. At some point, the poisonous gas would force me unconscious, possibly causing me to suffocate. It would take all of the oxygen out of my lungs, and I would just die. I couldn't let that happen.

"I'll take Kieran!" I yelled to Samuel, mustering up all of my strength to get those words out. It was tough, since I was getting short of breath. "You'll run to safety, with Eric. I can hold him off, or try to negotiate".

"You're asking for it!" Kieran shouted. "Your Lucario friend didn't have to attack me!"

Before I could say anything, the young man, with strength that did not befit someone as gaunt as he was, punched Samuel in the head, knocking him far away. I could only watch as he flew, as if thrown by an explosion, over the field, and landed somewhere in the tall grass surrounding the place.

My rage exploded. Whatever the Lucario had done, he was still my friend. He didn't deserve this, to be thrown unconscious into the field...or worse. Maybe he's dead, I thought, not exactly reassured by that idea.

I could hear Eric screaming at me to hold off, that he'd run away with me, and to leave Samuel. However, I didn't know if I was capable of that. My vision was already starting to darken, and my lungs were starving for air. The gas was already starting to take effect.

I charged again, a Scratch this time. It was all that I felt like I was capable of in my weakened state. I didn't expect it to work, but I was determined to try to hold Kieran off for long enough to escape. Perhaps we could get Samuel along the way, although we had no way of knowing just how far out into the grass he had been thrown.

Just then, I fell to my knees, feeling dizzy. It was as if I had just stood up very abruptly after lying down next to a furnace. I could barely see or hear any more, and the nausea was also pretty bad.

Leaning over, I retched the nonexistent contents of my stomach onto the grass. I had literally been going nil per os the whole day, so it had no effect other than to cause me more pain and speed up my loss of consciousness.

SAMUEL'S POV

Pain...so much pain. Really, it was more of an ache, but it was still terrible.

I tried to open my eyes, but my head hurt too much. It was enough to rival someone with meningitis, that bad. I felt like I had been cast in a mold of cement. My limbs were almost impossible to move.

My aura could sense that there was a doctor near me, or someone in the medical profession...someone who had washed their hands and been sure to take precautions. If so...

I opened my eyes at last. I was in what looked like a hospital room. Unlike the one I had woken up in after being stabbed, this one was completely different. It didn't look quite so white; instead, there was a wooden floor, which I wondered if it was even sanitary. I saw that there was one corner of the room with curtains pulled up around it. Other than that, my bed was the only one in the room.

Using aura, since it hurt a lot to talk, I said, "I'm awake. What happened?"

Eric, the man from earlier, was still in the room. "Kieran hit you, making you fly in the air all the way over the field. You got a nasty concussion. Don't you remember?"

I supposed that I'd been unconscious as soon as Kieran had hit me, and I didn't remember flying through the air. That didn't answer one other question...what of Lucas? What had happened to him?

Aura was a skill I was very happy to have in that moment. Even though my concussion might make it a little more difficult to sense, I tried to see beyond the curtain. After all, wasn't that where Lucas was likely to be?

I tried to pick up on his physical state, but it wasn't working. Clearly, something inside me had been muddled from my fall. That was the only possible explanation.

"Where's Lucas?" I decided to ask Eric. There was also a doctor in the room with me, a Lucario wearing a white lab coat, spectacles, and with a stethoscope around his neck like a pair of headphones. The Lucario doctor walked over to the curtains.

"He's behind here" the doctor said. "Are you sure you want to know? He's not dead, if that's what you're wondering".

"Sure" I said. I wanted to know how my master was doing, because I still saw him, somewhat, as that, despite the fact that we were both kind of in this together.

The doctor pulled back the curtain. Lying on the bed was an unconscious Zoroark, with an oxygen mask over his face. He didn't look good.

"Is that Lucas London?" I asked.

"Indeed" said the doctor. "I'm afraid he got hit with the Weezing's poison, so we'll keep him here until he wakes up. For a physical Poison attack, the antidote can be administered either intramuscularly or by spraying it on the skin. With a poison gas attack, there's really no way to speed up the recovery other than through supportive measures. But he's going to wake up soon".

"Did you tell his parents?" Eric said.

The Lucario doctor frowned. "I've not been able to establish contact with them, because I don't even know their phone numbers. I did not even know that Lucas had living parents".

I shrugged. "It's not like they'd care, anyway".

I supposed that, were Lucas to die, the Londons would care, but I didn't see that that mattered right now. I just hoped that Lucas would wake up.

After a few more minutes, the Zoroark in the bed next to me opened his eyes. He was trying to talk, I could tell, but the oxygen mask was muffling his voice.

"Don't panic, Lucas" the Lucario doctor said. "It's just there to help you breathe. Just a precaution".

I could tell that Lucas was wishing he had the ability to speak using aura. Really, wouldn't all of us?

"You were attacked by a Weezing, don't you remember?" the doctor asked him. "Poison Gas".

"How long are we leaving the mask on, Doc?" Eric asked. Like on the hill earlier, we had almost forgotten that he was there. The man could really blend in when he wanted to. Clearly, this had been one of those times.

"In a few minutes, we'll see if he's breathing normally without it. Then, you guys can leave. We'll give you guys some tips as to what he can do in order to recover better, but he can return to the Greenlakes once he is discharged".

"Greenlakes?" I asked.

"The Zoroark family that is hosting you and him. Carla, Jason, and Malcolm...their last name is Greenlake. They know about what happened, and we'll make sure you find your way back. They live only about a quarter of a mile from the hospital".

That was good to know, I guessed.

Two minutes later, they decided to test it, to see if Lucas could breathe normally without the mask. The conclusion was that he could, although he might feel a little short of breath for a day or two. He should avoid doing anything too strenuous, although he should also be exposed to plenty of fresh air. The doctor advised that he go outside after lunch, maybe go on a short walk. This would help to get the poison out of his system.

"Sounds good" Lucas said, although I could tell he was short of breath even here. He didn't sound like he was up to even a short walk yet, but he would have to do that in order to get back to the Greenlake household.

He climbed out of the bed, stumbling a little. Then, he started walking in the direction of the exit.

"Hold on!" the doctor said. "I didn't discharge you yet".

"What about the medical bills?" Eric asked.

The doctor looked at him with a funny look. "Have you never lived here? For things like this, health care is pretty much free. There's nothing to really worry about. No paperwork. It's just as simple as that. We help whoever needs to be helped".

"So...socialism, basically?" I asked.

The doctor shrugged. "I suppose. Anyway, yes, you may leave, although make sure that he eats a good lunch and gets plenty of fresh air this afternoon. It's already about 1 PM, so it's getting a bit late for lunch".

As if on cue, Lucas's stomach growled audibly. "I could eat a Rapidash" he said. "Let's go".

After the Lucario doctor handed us a sheet with some instructions on it, we started walking back. I was not nearly as steady on my feet as I had thought I would be, and Lucas had just almost died, so both of us were being supported by Eric. We probably looked like two petulant children being marched back home, not two 17-year-olds.

Eventually, we reached the Greenlake house, where we were greeted at the door by Malcolm the Zorua. The young child sure seemed energetic, practically the opposite of how I felt. I was told by Eric that it would be okay for me to drive back home to Hanover tomorrow, since Fighting types recovered quickly from injuries.

"How was your trip with that man, Eric?" the young Zorua asked. "It sounds like it was really scary".

"It was, but all's well that ends well" I replied.

Just then, Carla Greenlake came in. "Lunch is served. Lucas, it's important that you eat. Let's do this".

We walked into the dining room, where a meal of steak, bread served with olive oil, and Oran berry salad had been set up. After we quickly thanked Arceus for the meal, we started eating. It was some of the best food I had ever tasted, especially considering everything we had just been through.

Once the meal was over, there was a little more conversation around the table, but Lucas was just patting his stomach. For someone who had just been through something like he had, he sure seemed to have been hungry.

"I'm going to go outside" he said, gesturing to the door. "I feel like a million bucks now".

"That's good" I said. Turning to Carla and Jason, I asked, "Can I join him?"

They nodded. And so, I got up from the table and was fixing to get out of the door when Carla said, from behind me, "Wait up!"

I turned back towards the female Zoroark. "What is it?"

"Make sure that Lucas stays safe and doesn't go too far away. He still doesn't have too much energy, I'm sure".

I nodded. "I'll make sure to".

I walked out the door, not making any more eye contact with the Greenlakes.

Here it is: another chapter. It wasn't as long as I was expecting it to be, but hopefully a respectable length. This gets me over 100 pages, though, so that's a milestone. (One page is 275 words or so).

Also, we're at 45 reviews. It'd be great if we could reach 100 before this story is over. I think we can do it, guys! (I'm thinking this will be 15-20 chapters).

So, rate and review!

SnowLucario out.

 

Thank all of you guys for more than 3,000 views. That's about 150 a day! It's really going up, this story.

Answer: I think it's pretty obvious that I do have a Discord.

Question: Where in the US do you still want to visit?

I've been getting a disappointingly small amount of reviews lately. The more reviews I get, the faster I write. That's not to say that I'll hold the story hostage, absolutely refusing to post another chapter until I get X amount of reviews, but I am more motivated the more feedback I get.

In any case, here is another chapter. I hope you like it. And, just to stress, this is not a YAOI. They're just friends, that's all. I know I've said this before, but I feel that it is relevant here as well. Happy reading!

LUCAS'S POV

For the most part, Samuel was telling most of the last part of the story, and for good reason. For much of that morning, I had been unconscious, knocked out by Poison Gas. I'd already seen Samuel thrown far away, and, for all I knew, he might not have survived.

Above all, I felt angry at the Lucario. It had been due to him that we'd even come up to Quebec in the first place; had he not suggested it, he and I would still be alive. Even then, he didn't have to attack Kieran. That man had never had good intentions with regards to us, we could be sure of that much.

I woke up later that day in what looked like a rustic hospital room. It still looked the inside of a log cabin, since it probably was, but the medical equipment was as modern as I had seen back at the hospital Samuel had been in after being stabbed. Someone had put an oxygen mask over my face, and I had a hard time remembering why at first.

Then, I recalled what had happened. I had been poisoned with an attack by Kieran's Weezing. This made me hate the man even more, and the mask was ridiculously itchy over my muzzle. All I wanted to do was to go back to the normal house.

Even though I felt slightly short of breath still, I was extremely hungry. We headed back to the Greenlakes' house, where we had a delicious meal. Then, recalling what the doctor had advised me to do, I decided to go for a walk. Not a long one, mind you, but the crisp air was going to help me get some of the poison out of my system.

As soon as I walked out the door, there was something very inexplicable that I felt. It was something I felt in my chest area, a tugging sensation, as though I was harnessed to a pole by an invisible rope, and slowly getting drawn closer and closer in towards it. No idea what was going on, I started to freak out a little bit inside.

The last time I had experienced something even remotely similar to this, I had transformed into a Zoroark, a change that had not been reversed. Not yet, anyway. Maybe sometime in the future we would find a way to turn me back human, but for now I was stuck in this form.

Really, it was pretty cool to be a Pokémon. It was just the fact that there were people who wanted to know what was going on, and then I would never be able to tell them, because the truth was that I was myself unaware.

But...the pull. I looked at my waist, and I saw no harness, or any belt, or any form of clothing at all. I was completely naked except for all of the fur, which was warm enough for the crisp weather. I could see why so many Zoroarks would want to live here. The village was just so perfect in its simplicity, and yet it was laid out so well. I felt as though Arceus had made this a golden valley specifically for the species.

Of course, I couldn't spend all of my time fawning over how gorgeous the town was. I had a job to do.

Thinking once more on why I felt the irresistible, unexplainable tug towards the trees, I suddenly got an image in my mind of a very specific flower. It was so powerful that it forced me to my knees.

I was about to collapse completely; that was the weight of what was going on. Kieran Mortimer might have aura sensing capabilities, but did he have powers to create illusions, like Zoroarks did? Were we dealing with someone as powerful as a god?

No. I couldn't believe that Kieran would be such a formidable enemy. If I kept on thinking that way, I was going to drive myself insane sooner or later.

I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. Turning around, I saw that the source was Samuel.

"You okay?" he asked me, seeing that I was kneeling on the ground, seemingly in agony.

"You came!" I exclaimed, taking his arm in order to get up. "But..why? Didn't they think I'd be fine on my own".

"Evidently not" the Lucario said, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, you were on oxygen just a couple of hours ago, so...yeah".

"That's fair" I replied. "But there's something else I need to tell you about".

Samuel had started walking with me, not seeming to question that the direction we were walking was taking us towards a place away from the village. Maybe this didn't make sense to him, but it sure did to me.

"Is it about how we're walking this way?" he asked.

Damn it, he found me out, I thought. Can he read minds or something?

"Yes, it is" I replied, seeing no reason to lie to my friend.

"Care to tell me the reason? Or are you going to keep on giving me the silent treatment?"

That made no sense. Not telling him the answer was not the same thing as refusing point-blank to talk to him. "I'm not giving you the silent treatment" I said.

"Sure. What is the reason, then?"

"The reason..." I said. "The reason is...that I feel a tugging sensation in my chest, like it's taking me towards something".

"Maybe we should go back to the hospital" Samuel said, sounding worried now. "Could it be an after-effect of the gas?"

"No, I think I would know" I replied. "Even so, that's why I was told to walk around now. I don't think I'm having a heart attack or anything. It's something...different".

"In what way?"

I was a little embarrassed to tell him. After all, what would he think if he was informed that I felt tethered to a very specific flower in the field beyond us? It wasn't something that had any easy explanations, and he'd probably laugh his head off.

"I feel like...I'm tethered to it. Like there's a rope around my waist that's causing me to go closer and closer to this flower. And it's a very specific flower, too".

I could tell that Samuel was having a tough time suppressing a snicker. "Lucas London, in love with a flower. That's just laughable. How can you convince me to take you seriously?"

"I can tell you the exact hexadecimal color of it, too. You know the RGB system?"

"No" the Lucario said.

"Well, the first two digits are the hexadecimal code for red, the next two are green, and the last two are blue. The flower I feel tethered to is clearly visible in my mind". The second I said those words, I knew they were true.

"Well, what color is it?" Samuel asked me.

"It's #854185. That means 133 parts red, 65 parts green, and 133 parts blue. It's Vivid Violet".

The Lucario looked back at me. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but hopefully it does not involve the necklace. If it does...". He didn't need to finish the sentence.

I was sick of all of these shenanigans. I wanted to be a human again, although...without the necklace, chances were I would not have met Samuel. Or had him stay at my house.

Well, there's no way that you could know if that was really dependent on the necklace or not. Maybe it was, maybe it was just a coincidence that you found him on the street, stabbed and bleeding like crazy. That was the rational, logical part of my brain talking. Meanwhile, the emotional part of my brain was still thinking about how good friends the Lucario and I had become.

We took a path out of the village. It wasn't the same one that went up the hill, we were avoiding that area for now in case Kieran was still lying in wait for us. Instead, we were heading in a direction towards one of the flowery fields we had noticed on our way into the valley. My legs trembled from the exertion, but I was determined to see what this was. What was piquing my consciousness so much?

In front of the field was a thick patch of spruce trees. It was so dense that the village could have used it as a wall to defend against an invading army. The fact of the matter was, I had to make it through there somehow.

Samuel and I stopped right in front of the spruce grove. I got the feeling that I should be the only one to go in. Looking back on it, this sounds extremely foolish to even consider the thought, but I was being serious with myself. I didn't know why the flower "wanted" me to see it alone. It was just a stupid flower, after all! Why should I even care about its "feelings"?

"I'm going in alone" I said.

"You're being somewhere in between brazen and reckless, Lucas" my Lucario friend chided me. "You don't know what's back there. You might find that flower, but you might also find something a hell of a lot more dangerous".

I shrugged my broad shoulders. "I guess you're right" I said. "Still, I'm going to do it".

"You're either very brave or very, very stupid, Lucas Leonard London. Still, by all means, do whatever you want. If I end up carrying your corpse out of this copse, that's on you, not on me, and hopefully Arceus is going to send your soul down to the deepest pit of hell".

I chuckled. "Samuel, you're not really serious about that, are you?"

The Lucario shook his head. "I'm not. Go do what you want, but I am not responsible for any injury you may incur. Okay, I may carry your body out to the funeral, but nothing else. You got me?"

I nodded. "Samuel Cranmore, if I lose my life behind these trees, it's on me. I'm going to do this".

Before I could hear him say anything more, I stepped forward and brushed the spruce needles out of my way. I was determined to see what was beyond here at all costs.

At first, I couldn't tell what was going on, or even if anything was going on that wasn't just a part of my imagination. However, it was clear that it wasn't my imagination that I was starting to feel somewhat drowsy.

Not again, I thought. It wasn't a choking kind of darkness; it felt a little more welcoming. What was causing this?

Soon enough, before I could even figure out what was happening, I fell asleep on my feet.

SAMUEL'S POV

I allowed Lucas to enter the grove by himself. You might think me irresponsible for doing this, but I trusted him to keep himself safe. Clearly, my trust was not well-placed.

Five minutes after Lucas had gone into the trees, he had still not returned. Really, I wasn't too worried at that point. There was little or no reason to think that he was in too much trouble. It might have been silly to think that a flower was calling for him, but weirder things had happened.

Ten minutes and still nothing. No communication from him had come; in fact, I couldn't even hear Lucas sifting through the flowers, a sound that I would have thought to expect. I supposed maybe I was wrong about that.

Or maybe something had happened to him.

I pushed through the trees, calling for my friend. "Lucas? Lucas? LUCAS! LUCAS!".

No response. I made it to the other side of the grove, and immediately started to feel a little sleepy, like I had just been awake for eighteen to twenty hours. Had Lucas been attacked by a Sleep move? It was possible.

"I don't know who this Lucas is, but there's a Zoroark in here who can't hear you" said a sweet voice.

I looked towards the other side of the field, and the sight that greeted me made it clear what was going on.

A group of Bellossoms were standing in a circle, singing, swinging their grass skirts. In the middle of the circle, lying on the ground, clearly asleep, was a Zoroark. It didn't look too dissimilar to the scene near the end of Zoroark: Master Of Illusions where Zoroark collapses from exhaustion.

One of the Bellossoms came over to me. "Your friend...is the Zoroark it?"

"Yes. I'm friends with a Zoroark. And I think this would be it. Did this person enter your grove about eleven minutes ago?"

The Bellossom nodded. "He was threatening the sacred flower. It doesn't belong to him; it's far too dangerous. We were just defending the territory, so I used my strongest Sleeping move".

I frowned. "Strongest?"

Bellossom, the one standing in front of me, said, "Would you like me to knock you out as well? Because you're sure acting like you want it".

I held up my paws like a person being arrested. "No, no, no. Just tell me when he'll wake up. Hopefully not too long?"

The Bellossom said, "I don't know. An hour? Two? Hard to say. He was already slightly weak, so maybe longer than that. But he will wake up. I'd advise taking him to a real bed. The name's Flora, by the way".

"Thanks. I'm Samuel. Can you help me with carrying him? I might be strong, but this guy weighs a hundred and seventy-five pounds. He's no easy burden, that's for sure".

Flora nodded. "I'll do it, as long as you make us one promise".

I'll do it" I said. "As long as you help me carry Lucas back to the house".

The Bellossom took Lucas's legs. "You take his head" she told me.

I shook my own head. "Considering I suffered a concussion earlier today, I think I can be better trusted to carry his legs".

Flora shrugged. "Whatever you say, bud".

"Did you just call me a bud?"

"Yeah" Flora said, giggling. "As in, flower bud. It's what we call people who aren't flowers".

I shrugged. "Whatever. Let's just get this guy into a real bed, so he doesn't feel stiff when he wakes up. Let's go".

Together, we took Lucas's large body, using our hands to make a stretcher of sorts. It sucked that we didn't have an actual stretcher to carry him back on, but this was going to have to do.

"Sorry about that" Flora said.

"It's fine" I replied. "I understand completely. I would've done the same thing. I guess that Bellossom are pretty territorial?"

"Yeah, they are" the Bellossom replied. "There are some who are worse than us; I know a colony that will just use Leaf Blade right away. I don't want to sound dangerous or anything, but your friend got off easy".

We continued carrying Lucas down the hill and back into the village. One thing I was thinking was, I sure hope this doesn't get us more attention than we already are getting!

Of course, we could never be that lucky. Several groups of Zorua that were playing hopscotch on one street near us stopped their game in order to gawk at us. We couldn't do anything about it, because I was busy carrying the unconscious Zoroark. I wondered if the villagers were aware that it was Lucas London we were carrying. I figured that there was greater than an even chance that at least one of them knew, or could figure it out.

"It's important to defend that flower" Flora said once again. I hadn't been talking, trying to conserve my air. Even though Fighting types were strong, carrying Lucas was difficult and took up most of my concentration.

"Why?" I asked Flora. I hoped it didn't have anything to do with the necklace, because if it did we could be in a lot of danger.

"I can't tell you that, Samuel. There are some secrets that you are just not privy to. Now, let's get your friend home before we get too much more attention".

I had no problems with that. I pointed out the way back to the Greenlake household, grunting with the effort of carrying Lucas. It was a lot harder than it looked.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we arrived in front of the house. I could tell that it was, since the blue-haired Zoroark was standing on the threshold of the front door. Carla.

"You're back! What happened to Lucas?" she cried.

Flora looked at the female Zoroark. "He stepped into our territory, and we used a Sleeping move on him. He'll wake up within a few hours, but he'll be fine. If he comes back again, Leaf Blade might be necessary".

Carla looked a little surprised. "I'll make sure that he never does it again. Honestly, I'd just thought this was going to be a quick walk!"

"Me too" I said. "But I guess that Lucas had a mind of his own".

I told her all about the mysterious, invisible tether he felt towards that one purple flower, and Carla seemed to be more surprised still. "I would've thought that, after this morning, he would have been wiser about this. Make sure he's more careful in the future".

I nodded at her before Flora and I carried the unconscious Lucas into the house. Going to the bedroom, I saw Malcolm the Zorua, who was still at home.

Great. Just what I needed. An energetic young Zorua, going to bug us more and more about what had happened that day.

"What happened?" Malcolm asked us. "Why is he sleeping?"

"It was nothing!" I said defensively. "He just got a little careless. He's okay".

"Oh" the young Zorua said. "Tell Mom that I'm going out to play with my friends. Is that fine?"

"I will" Flora said, not seeming to even consider it. Of course the young Zorua could go out and play with his friends; this was a non-issue in this village.

We set the sleeping Zoroark on the bed that he had slept in last night; we wanted him to be as comfortable as possible when he woke up. Then, I said good-bye to Flora and decided to wait for Lucas to regain consciousness.

LUCAS'S POV

This flower doesn't belong to me.

I supposed that was true. I vaguely remembered the Bellossoms singing a song that sounded kind of like "Surrender" by Billy Talent. Before that, they had been yelling at me, trying to get me off of their ground.

And then, I'd gotten hit with multiple Sleeping moves at once. Not all of them would have worked on their own, but the combined force was enough to bring me down.

I woke up with a pounding headache. Groaning, I raised myself up by the palms of my hands, in order to see where I was. It looked like I was back in my bedroom at the Greenlake household. The brown walls, looking kind of like a furnished log cabin, really did look like what I recognized.

"Hey" I said, trying to speak. My mouth felt very dry.

"Oh. Hello, Lucas" said Samuel, who was sitting next to me. "It's about time you woke up".

"What happened?" I asked. I had a feeling that I already knew, but I wanted to confirm my account of the events with my Lucario friend. Everything seemed somewhat hazy.

"You went into that grove of pine trees, thinking you were going to find that flower. I don't know why you wanted it so much, but the flower was guarded by a group of Bellossoms, which sang you to sleep in order to prevent you from touching their sacred flower, or something".

I laughed. "Probably not one of the smarter things I've done in my 17 years on this planet" I croaked.

"No, it really wasn't, Lucas. From here on out, don't do that again. Don't just do something so rash as to run into a grove that you know practically nothing about, and then try to steal something from the field. I get that you didn't know it was guarded, but that was still so reckless of you".

"Are you thirsty? They said you might be".

"Like you wouldn't believe".

Samuel went over to the sink and filled a cup, putting it on my nightstand. I sat up to drink it, before pulling out the covers from over me.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"It's almost dinnertime" replied the Lucario. "That attack was pretty potent".

"No kidding" I said, trying to get up. My legs would barely support my weight at first.

"You're going to be fine, Lucas" Samuel said. "Dinner will be ready in about five minutes. Really, you should try not to get knocked out every time something interesting is about to happen".

I glared at him slightly. "You don't really think this is my fault, do you? I never asked to get tethered to a stupid flower, and then set off a chain of events that led to all of this happening. I never asked for this".

Samuel looked back at me. "Didn't you, though?"

A short chapter, but I couldn't really think of a good reason to follow my original outline, which would have made it probably a good thousand words longer. I would like to thank all of you guys for your support.

Sincerely, SnowLucario.