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To Lose and to Gain
Topic Started: Aug 22 2008, 05:39 PM (256 Views)
Kyozuki
Member Avatar
Articuno
Eeehh.... this didn't turn out quite as well as I might have hoped. Mostly because it changed tack completely from the original idea and went all srs business. Still, I was getting stuck on the ponyta freeform, and I want to get something out-there in before the cut, so here goes....

Also, for posterity, I've nabbed the Lv8 :ponyta that used to be in the Moorfeldt Orphanage.

-------



“Any luck finding more kindling?” Egrinain asked as Jerome came back to the clearing.

“Kip” he replied, shaking his head.

“Ah well, I'll have to make do with this stuff – now, if I could only find those matches....” she fumbled around in her bag for a while, before finally locating the matches and turning to the fire – only to find it already lit and burning merrily. Next to it, Amalthea stood looking at Egrinain with bright button eyes and a brightly flared mane. Egrinain looked at her, looked at the matches in her hand, then shrugged and put them back in the bag, giving the little Ponyta a smile. “Thanks”

Aaah, this is lovely. Ralts said as she snuggled down next to the other pokemon in front of the fire (with the exception of Jerome, who was sitting a little further back, where the grass was still wet). Could it get any better than this?

“Mud, mudkip!” Jerome quipped back playfully.

Oh don't be silly, they're not real – besides, it would not be cooler if aliens came out of the sky and-

sssSSSSSWWEEEOOWOWOwowowowoooowoooowwww.....

What was that? Ralts said, floating up and looking around.

“I don't know” Egrinain said standing up as well and looking around. “It sounded almost like -”

“Mudkip!” Jerome squeaked.

No it did not sound like a spaceship, stop saying stuff like that! Ralts snapped back, slightly edgy.

“Pidjoouu” Farrell squawked, getting up and giving her wings a flap.

Oh, don't tell me you agree with him? Ralts looked at Amalthea pleadingly. Please tell me you don't think it's an alien spaceship too!

Amalthea gave a querulous whinny. Ralts did a resigned facepalm.

“What's an alien spaceship?” she says....

“Oh calm down you lot” Egrinain said. “Look, like Ralts said, there's no such thing as-”

zzzzZZZZZRREEAAAAMMMMM!!!

Egrinain shielded her eyes as a bright green light flooded the clearing from above, accompanied by a loud metallic buzzing. She had enough time to realise that the light was coming from something just above the trees, before she blacked out.

----------


Egrinain blearily opened one eye and looked around. She seemed to be lying on an examining table of some kind, with a bright light shining in her face. And on one side of her was a pair of.... well, they weren't human, whatever they were. Too short. And too round. Although that could just be what they were wearing – it seemed to be a helmet of some kind, she couldn't tell with the light in her eyes. They weren't looking at her, and were currently talking to each other.

“So, what do we do with this one?” one of them said.

“Well, I was thinking of grafting her head onto a trophy stand.” the other replied with an evil chuckle.

“You did that with the last one.” the first figure said. “And the one before that. Actually, come to think of it, you've done it with all the female specimens so far. What's up with that?”

“It's a free galaxy” the second figure said defensively. “Don't you go stamping on my freedom of expression!”

“Can't we just go with the classics and do some alien impregnation? Just once?”

“Hell no, that stuff's way too kinky!”

“And a trophy fetish isn't?”

“Now just you wait one- oh hell!”

Egrinain had heard enough after the “graft head onto trophy” bit. And now she was going to get the jump on these aliens before they noticed she was awake. Rolling off the table, she grabbed one of the small figures and swung it round into the other, sending them across the floor like bowling balls. Egrinain got ready to go after them – and then saw what they were. They were Mankeys. They were wearing some kind of perspex bubble helmet that enclosed their entire body, with space-suit arms and legs attached to it, along with a fifth one for the tail. Egrinain was so surprised by this that it took her a while to notice that the Mankeys were knocked out – in her slight panic, she'd actually put a lot of force into the swing.

“Okay, this is weird...” Egrinain said to herself as she looked around. She was in a laboratory of some kind, with lights and dials and knobs everywhere. Occasionally a screen would flash and a show a fancy little sine wave graph, before switching off again, and there was a soft, regular, hum-beep-throb sound that could have come straight from a sci-fi series on the TV.

“Right, let's get out of here” she muttered, reaching for her belt – only to find her pokeballs were gone. She looked wildly round the room. No sign of them. They must be somewhere else on board. Which meant she'd have to sneak through the ship to find them. Without any pokemon to defend her. This wasn't good. Egrinain looked round the room for a weapon of some kind – a laser pistol, or a stun rod, or a -

Or one of those.

Egrinain walked over to one of the shelves, picking up one of the devices lining the wall. It was long, with two hand grips, one of which had a trigger button of some kind, along with a needle-like spike with a spiral disc-like thing going up to it's tip. The body of the device was green, slightly translucent, with lights blinking on and off occasionally.

“Now this looks promising...” she murmured, shouldering the rifle and aiming at the wall. “Let's see how this works....” She pulled the trigger. A bright green beam of energy lanced across the room and struck a moniter on the wall, sending a shower of sparks everywhere. Egrinain grinned. “That'll be useful.” Holding the rifle in front of her, Egrinain went to the double doors at the exit, which slid apart with a hiss as she approached. The corridor outside was deserted, but there seemed to be a computer terminal on the wall opposite. Going up to the display, she found it was a schematic of the ship. It was a classic saucer design, looking a bit like a very wide flat mushroom from the side. The text around the outside of the screen was, surprisingly, in English, and identified the ship as the Sassafrax. Egrinain put her finger to the screen and tried pressing a few buttons. Immediately, the display highlighted a section on the lower decks, creating a little text-box on the side which said 'Pokemon holding chamber'. Unable to believe her luck at randomly hitting the right button to bring up that location, she stepped back and examined the map, trying to work out where she was in relation to the highlighted section. Two decks up, it looked like. Taking a firm grip on the gun, she walked round a bend in the corridor – and straight into a pair of space-suit Mankeys.

“Huh? What-” one of the Mankeys said, but they didn't get any further before Egrinain fired a couple of point-blank shots at them. There was a bright double-flash of green. When it cleared, the two Mankeys were on the floor, scorch marks blasted onto the front of their bubble helmets. Egrinain stepped over them and continued quickly down the corridor, looking for a lift of some kind.

--------------

Egrinain inched closer to the door, straining to hear anything that was being said in the room where the pokemon were being held. Nothing. Hopefully these doors weren't soundproof. Well, nothing for it... she stepped in front of the door, gun held as the doors slid open with a hiss – revealing three space Mankeys at a lab bench. Egrinain sent one of them sprawling on the floor before they'd even started turning, and the second before they'd even said anything. Then, as she took aim at the last Mankey, it hurriedly blurted out a “Don'tshootdon't!!”. Egrinain paused, lowering the rifle slightly, but still keeping her finger on the trigger. “Give me back my pokemon and I'll consider it” she growled in what she hoped was an intimidating tone.

“Of course, of course” the Mankey said hurriedly, scrambling over to another bench and grabbing a handfull of pokeballs, which he brought over and pressed into the hand Egrinain had taken off the gun. There were more than her three pokeballs, she could tell that, but now wasn't the time to worry. She turned to the Mankey, who was up against the wall, trying to slide away inconspicuously.

“Who are you lot?” she asked the round primate. “Where are you from?”

“Uh, well, y'see, we, er...” the Mankey dithered, sliding further away: then, before Egrinain could react, it leapt up and swung on an alarm switch on the wall. Egrinain uttered some choice swear woreds as she fired off a shot at the Mankey, even as the alarm sirens began to blare and the corridor lights blinked red. Now she was in trouble. Hopefully the ship was still on earth and she could just escape through an airlock.

---------------

“Move, move move! Find the earthling! Don't let it escape!”

Egrinain pressed herself into the door frame, waiting until the security squad had passed the corridor. Peeking out, she dashed across to the other side, coming up to the T-junction and leaning around to check the coast was clear. No sign of the Mankeys. Good, now to get –

A hand came from behind her, clapping over her mouth as a second hand grabbed her round the waist and pulled her back. Fighting to free herself, she twisted around to aim her gun at the attacker – and stopped as she saw he was human.

“How did you get here?!” Egrinain whispered. “I thought I was alone here...”

“Same” the boy whispered back. “They had me in the holding chambers. I'd still be there if all the guards hadn't got called out to look for an escapee.” He grinned. “They didn't seem to realize humans can memorize a security code typed on a keypad.”

Egrinain smiled back. “Well, let's get out of here – we need to find an exit, or-”

“Not without my pokemon” the boy replied. Egrinain stopped for a moment, non-plussed, before she remembered the extra pokeballs she'd picked up.

“I think I've got them” Egrinain said, digging out the handful of pokeballs. Sure enough, there were an extra two pokeballs in her hand.

“Excellent” the boy replied. “You hold onto them for now, we'll sort them out later. Right now, we need to get out of here. Any idea where to go?”

“Well, I was just about to check the floor plan” Egrinain replied, dashing over to a computer console. “Honestly, it's a stroke of luck they write in English...”

“Universal Script” the boy said. “It's what the Mankey's call it” he added as Egrinain looked at him. “Near as I can figure out, it's a language that's so advanced, anyone can read it, whatever language they speak. I know” he shrugged as Egrinain raised an eyebrow. “Doesn't make any sense to me either. I'm Stuart, by the way.”

“Egrinain” she replied, turning back to the map. “There” she said, pointing. “There's an airlock at the other end of the corridor. If we hurry, we can-”

“THERE THEY ARE!”

Egrinain and Stuart whirled round. Coming round the bend was a full squad of security guards, armed with laser rifles like the one Egrinain had.

“Run!” she yelled, dragging Stuart down the corridor as she bolted in the opposite direction towards the airlock. Bolts of green energy struck at the walls and floor around them. Egrinain was first to the airlock, yanking the switch down as she used it to kill her speed. The door slid open with a hiss and the two escapees clambered in, Stuart pulling the release lever just in time to shut the Mankeys outside.

“I'm really hoping we're still on the ground.” Egrinain said as she slid the porthole cover out of the way. She was greeted with an early dawn mist, with trees poking out here and there.

“Thank god” she breathed, pulling on the release switch while the Mankeys jumped up and down angrily at the viewport.

“So, how did they get you?” Stuart asked as the hatch slid open and a blast of icy morning air swept in to meet them.

“Camping out” Egrinain replied, jumping out onto the grass after Stuart and trying to match his running pace. “Got a campfire all set up, pokemon all out, when this bright green light appears in the sky and, yeah, next thing I know I'm on an examining table. Yourself?”

“Pretty similar” Stuart replied. “Out with two of my pokemon, doing a spot of 1-on-1 training, when this big round saucer swoops overhead. Ended up in an interrogation room of some kind.”

“Any idea what they're here for?” Egrinain asked as they left the flying saucer behind to disappear in the mist.

“Near as I can tell, they're on some kind of galactic safari hunt – I saw a lot of other aliens around the place as well – most of them just animals, but a couple of semi-intelligent ones as well. I think they don't realize humans are sentient – they said a lot of things in my hearing that I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have said if they thought I could understand.”

Suddenly there was a sharp buzzing of laser rifles, and plumes of dirt erupted around the pair. Whirling round, they saw a troupe of four Mankeys in bubble-suits charging across the grass towards them, firing wildly. Egrinain fired wildly back, and found that it was fairly easy hitting something at point-blank, but hitting something several yards away was another matter. She managed to clip one of the Mankey's on the leg, before a stray bolt of light shot straight at her. By sheer luck, it hit the gun rather than her – but now their only weapon was gone. Seeing this, the Mankeys got down on all fours, charging forwards even faster, while their tails grabbed the rifles and got set to fire.

“It's no good” Stuart said, “we'll have to use pokemon. Egrinain, send them all out!”

“Right!” Egrinain called back, hurriedly pulling out the six pokeballs and opening them all one after the other. A Mudkip. A Ralts. A Ponyta. An Absol. A Pidgey. A Kabuto.

“You've got some rare ones” Egrinain commented.

“Dad works at a pokemon sanctuary.” Stuart said by way of explanation. “Alright Absol! Swords Dance, then Night Slash on one of those Mankeys!” Artemis, use Metal Sound, then Ancientpower!”

“Farrell!” Egrinain called out. “Wing Attack! Jerome, Water Gun! Ralts, Confusion! Amalthea, get clear and get behind me!”

The little horse was only too willing to oblige – this wasn't her scene. The other three, however, were more than ready to meet the Mankeys head-on.

“PidJOOUUUU!!” Farrell screamed as she powered forwards, wings glowing as she dive-bombed one of the Mankeys and sent him tumbling over like a bowling ball. Jerome wasn't far behind, spitting a glob of water at another Mankey, throwing off it's aim and sending his shot wide. Ralts wasn't far behind, sending out a lash of psychic energy that caught the Mankey off guard and flung him into the air.

“Get them!” the squad leader called as the gleaming white Absol sent a curved slice of dark energy slashing at him.

“Chief, are you- AARRRRGGGH!!” the Mankeys stumbled to a halt and clapped their hands ineffectually against their bubble helms as the small, shell-like Kabuto let out an ear-piercing shriek, like some monstrous key dragging along the side of a bus.

“Ow, my ears....” Egrinain whimpered, rubbing them as the Kabuto levitated up to shoulder height, glowing as rocks and pebbles buried in the earth underneath were wrenched out and brought into a clump in front of the shellfish. Finally, with a grunt of effort, the Kabuto hurled the lump of rock at the squad leader, hitting his bubble-helm with enough force to crack the perspex.

“They're too strong!” the Mankey spluttered as he scrambled to his feet. “Retreat!”

“But sir, we can't leave witnesses! We've got to deal with them!” the Mankey turned and fired off a shot at the two teenagers – and hit Stuart square in the chest. Egrinain screamed as he fell, running to his side. She didn't even notice the squad leader's reply.

“Forget them, we have to get off this planet before the natives wake up! You know how much trouble we'll get into if we're spotted by too many people while we're leaving! Now move!” the Mankeys turned and ran for the spaceship, leaving Egrinain, Stuart and the six pokemon alone.

The pokemon drew around the two trainers and Egrinain knelt down next to Stuart, trying not to look at the deep red stain on his shirt. Stuart smiled weakly.

“Well,” he coughed. “guess I got unlucky.”

“Don't talk like that” Egrinain, choking on her words. He couldn't die, not like this... she couldn't let him... if she just got him to a town, yes, there had to be a town nearby, or a farm, or...

“'Nain?” Stuart said as Egrinain tried to pull him up. Despite herself, Egrinain gave a small laugh. She barely knew this boy and he was already using the nickname she really detested.

“Yes?” Egrinain said, still trying to pull Stuart upright.

“Look after Absol and Artemis, will you? My other pokemon'll get treated well, they're all champions, but these two don't have anyone except me – everyone thinks they're too weak to make good battlers.”

“Stop it” Egrinian said, fighting back tears now. “You're not dying, we just need to get you to a... to a farm or...”

“Nain...” Stuart put his hand on Egrinain's arm, making her stop trying to lift him. “It's okay... s'not your fault... s'okay....” Stuart's hand went completely limp, and his head lolled back, eyes glazing over. Egrinain froze, holding Stuart half off the ground. Slowly she lowered him back down to the ground, hands trembling as she felt for a pulse at the temples. Nothing.

“Soolll...” the Absol crooned faintly, coming up and sitting down next to Stuart's head, gently licking at his ear, trying to wake him up. Egrinain swallowed the hard lump in her throat, kneeling dejectedly on the grass, not noticing the dew soaking her skirt and socks, barely registering the low rumble of the spaceship's engines as it took off and climbed into the upper atmosphere.

He was dead. He'd died... right in front of her. And there was nothing she could have done about it. Even though she'd barely known the boy for fifteen minutes, having someone die in front of you like that.... not many people could go through that and come out unscathed. Egrinain was not one of those people.

It's not your fault Ralts repeated, coming up to Egrinain, putting a comforting hand on her back. Please, don't blame yourself...

Egrinian wasn't even paying attention. Still looking down at Stuart's limp form, she got up staggering slightly as she took a few steps away. Then, turning round, she tried to walk another few steps. It was more than she could manage. Two steps, and then her knees gave out from under her, dropping her into a kneeling position again, sprawled sideway over the grass. Staying where she'd fallen, Egrinain curled her arms around herself, squeezing her eyes shut, before starting to cry softly.

--------------

You going to be alright? Ralts asked Egrinain as she and the troupe of pokemon stood in front of the mound of earth in front of the tree, a small cross fashioned out of two branches and a length of leaf fibre.

“No” Egrinain replied. She continued looking at the grave for a while. “That's the worst part of it” Egrinain said, more to herself than anyone else. “I can't tell anyone. Not even his parents, if I ever run into them. What do I say? He was killed by alien Mankeys? No-one would believe me, and they'd think I was involved somehow. Which I am.” she sighed and fiddled absentmindedly with her hair. The Absol came up to Egrinain and rubbed against her leg, looking up at her. Egrinain smiled weakly and knelt down next to him, stroking his head as the Kabuto floated over as well, yellow eyes glowing from the dark recesses of its shell. It was going to be awkward training these two – knowing that the only reason she had them was because their real trainer had died. At least they weren't shunning her – although they were obviously upset by Stuart's death, they had taken his last words to heart, and had decided to go with Egrinain – in honour of a mutual loss, as Ralts had put it.

“Kip?” Jerome came up to Egrinain, nuzzling her hand. Egrinain absentmindedly stroked his back as she collected her thoughts.

So, what now? Ralts asked as her trainer finally stood up again.

“I don't know” Egrinain replied. “I'll think of something...” she shook her head and continued in a slightly lighter tone. “First though, I'm going to find out where we are, and where the nearest hot pool is. I think we all need to unwind.” She reached down to her now full complement of pokeballs and unclipped the first two. “Take a rest you lot” she said recalling Jerome and Farrell, before unclipping the next two pokeballs. “You deserve one.”


-----------

Yeah, like I said, not the best of freeforms. But that said....

Self-mod to give me:

:absol :ml Lv13 +1 :happiness
:kabuto :ml Lv13 +1 :happiness

and 6.0 :gexp
Character Profiles

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Egrinain Aldwiné (Click to Open)

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Jennifer Clavés (Click to Open)
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Fordy
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ain't no new thing
This is the most recent of your threads that I've found, so I'm just posting here.

Now, I really wanted to let you keep all this stuff. It's awesome stuff. So, I kind of twisted things around to the breaking point to try and keep things fairer.

You can keep the Ralts and Ponyta. They came from the Adoption Places anyway. For Absol... Legacything rewinds time, and it becomes and egg. But a special egg, for after 15 posts, it will hatch just as it is right now, Lv. 13, +1 :happiness, yadda yadda yadda. The Kabuto... well, it gets set back too, you can have the fossil. I forget just what it was, Claw Fossil? Meh. Now, how to get it back to a Kabuto? You could freeform, but there should be a place around here that you could do it in. Or, I think makes sense for you to do it in. It's very Lab-y, and deep in the woods. Check it out some time!

And assuming you got anything else... keep it.
541 :lp
oh! sweet nuthin'
APL: 5
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