Disclaimer:
Note: This chapter makes use of various of a few cliche tropes (or one very cliche one), such as...well...read to find out. I also decided not to do that little profile thing again, because:
1) I suck at finding pics.
2) How you imagine the characters is going to vary wildly from how I do, and I don't want to ruin that image for you.
Alex awoke in the morning, well rested- if a bit stiff from the previous day’s injuries. He sat up, stretching, to find the Feeblass sitting at his feet. He blinked as he watched her going through his bag, checking out its contents. “Uh, what are you doing?” Alex asked. He had a good idea, but he wanted to see if-
She hit the ceiling, as Alex had suspected she would (and, admittedly, kinda hoped). Not literally, of course, but she came surprisingly close. She leapt up and back to a surprising height, making Alex wonder if she had a little frog in her. Perhaps that crazy warlock Yousuke had made Feeblasses by injecting girl’s with toad DNA. She hit the floor with a soft whump. “Wh-where’s you’s come from!?” she exclaimed, startled.
“Uhh…right here”, Alex replied, pointing down.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, dat ain’t obvious!” she sneered sarcastically. “But you’s was asleep! I saws you, I did!”
“Yeah, well, people tend to get attentive when you start ransacking their shit” he commented dryly. “Looking for something?”
She shifted, and began “Wells, I was kinda-” Then, angry with her circumnavigation of the answer, her stomach gave an angry growl.
Laughing, Alex opened the food pocket, pushing the backpack towards her. “Grab something to eat, kay?” he said as he stood, stretching a bit and, to be frank, preening inwardly about how nice he was being to the ‘girl. I’m such an awesome Tamer he thought. And everyone knows fortune favors nice people. Darius doesn’t stand a chance against the power of my kindness! Alex uttered a dry, almost villainous chuckle.
He had reflected, on occasion, that villains (both true and those simply labeled as such) and those with the False Superiority Blood Trait had something in common: A distinct desire to laugh in ways that made other’s uncomfortable. It was obvious why. When you knew you were going to come out on top, when you didn’t know what was going to happen but were confident that you could handle anything, and especially when you had a really, really good plan (all the plans of Alex’s kind were really good, apparently), well, it just felt so good. It was like an itch; you could ignore it, but it just got worse if you didn’t relieve it. With ambition, laughing expressed, as if you were uttering solid gold mouth noises.
“What’s a’maata with you’s?” Feeblass asked cautiously as she munched on a bit of sushi, obviously put off by his laughing.
Grinning, Alex shook his head. “Nothing, nothing at all”. No need to bother the simple pokegirl with his complex thoughts. She’d probably just get confused. “So” he asked, rolling up his bedroll and getting his pack together, “You said you don’t have a name. Would you like one?”
She tilted her head curiously, raising an eyebrow. “And why’s you wanna give me’s a name?”
Scratching the back of his head, Alex he admitted “Well, it’s getting kinda annoying referring to you- in my head, that is- as ‘The Feeblass’. It’s long, for one, and it’s like ‘the dog’; it feels weird referring to someone who can talk to me like she’s an animal”.
The Feeblass’s- damn you, lack of name!- eyes clouded over, and she repeated quietly to herself “Like an animal…” looking away, she added something even more quietly. It wasn’t words; It was like…an odd mix of low gurgles, smooth hisses and soft croaks that lasted for about three or four seconds. It was certainly an animalistic noise, not refined like speech, but it was smooth and oddly musical, pleasant to hear.
Biting her lip, she glanced at him and said “You’s wanna call me a name, you’s call me a name. Don’t care what it be, I don’t”.
Somewhat puzzled by her behavior, Alex simply pushed it away; it was probably just some weird pokegirl thing. “All right, how about Kazuko? That’s a nice name, right?”
Grinning at him- her smile almost a sneer- she replied “Tamer like the name, Tamer use the name. That be how it works, don’t it?”
“I guess” Alex replied tiredly, her obstinance starting to annoy him. He finished packing and pulled his backpack around his shoulders. “Ready to go?”
* * *
Outside, it was a bright morning. The sun hung high in the sky, beating down on the old ruins. The tall, shadow-casting jungle trees weren’t present among the old buildings, so the sun was able to shine happily on the abandoned streets. Alex shivered, despite the heat. While the city was heavily eroded by time and nature, it was still recognizable as a place where people used to live. Humans once bustled down the streets, going about their business. Children’s laughs once echoed down the streets, playing without a care in the world. The Revenge War had changed that. Now, the town was empty. It was…wrong. It was like the eyes of a dead man, devoid of life. It was like a living body without its soul, still there, still existing, but unable to serve its purpose. Alex’s eyes moistened a bit, and he turned away, facing back to the jungle.
“I’s hate the jungle” Kazuko complained, stepping out of the building. In the bright sunlight, her features were…more obvious. The moonlight had soften her features last night, making her kind of cute, despite the unattractive traits, but that was gone now. She wore a simple, ragged grey dress, slowly dripping water despite the fact that she was dry. Her fingers and toes were webbed together, the membrane oily. Her nails were short and jagged, and she bit her index fingernail as Alex watched. Her skin color was, at its most generous assessment, an oily bronze. More realistically, it was a yellowy-brown, and still oily. Everything about her was oily, except for her only redeeming feature, her silky chocolate hair.
Catching him looking, she scowled and said “Stop staring, pervert!” and looked away, the tips of her ears reddening.
Scowling himself, Alex strode forward to the northwest, before putting on a quick burst of speed and dashing away his feet beating lightly against the ground. Then, as he approached the first trees, he leapt, higher than any normal human should’ve been able to, and snatched a low-hanging branch, scrambling up.
From about twenty feet below, Kazuko grimaced and yelled “Oi! What you think you’s doin? Leavin me to be eat’s’ed? Well, I’ll tell you, you’s outa luck! Not one pokegirl like’s the taste’a Feeblass!” she smirked ironically at this, the look biting harder than any sarcasm.
Alex laughed, ignoring her words, and called down “Impressed, eh?” It was at times like this that he thought maybe he didn’t have false superiority, and instead had Perfectly Justified Superiority. A lot of people claimed to be one in a million. He had once done the calculations and, considering his various Blood Traits- five in total- and their rarity, he was approximately one in one 1,048,576; he was genetically more unique than those who simply claimed to be unique! “I have two Blood Gifts, called Speed and Lightweight, which, in tandem, make me fast and agile as lightning!”
Speed made him, well, fast. He had wonderful reflexes, and great sprinting abilities, thanks to his Electric Ancestry. It also improved his hand-eye-coordination a bit. Lightweight, on the other hand, gave him less-dense-than-normal bones. He didn’t have the hollow bones of the avian pokegirls in his family, but he could move more agilely and jump higher than any normal human.
“Just get down here!” Kazuko growled, and Alex pouted, dropping down.
Dusting his pants off, more because it looked cool and nonchalant than because his pants actually needed a dusting, Alex asked Kazuko, “Do you want to go back in your pokeball? I’ll be able to move through the jungle more quickly that way”.
She quickly shook her head, fast enough that Alex was surprised the pokegirl didn’t suffer whiplash. “No! No no no no! I ain’t goin’ back in dat damn ball, n’you cannae make me!”
Raising his ands yieldingly, Alex said “Alright, aliright, that’s fine”. He turned around and crouched down, adding “You can climb on my back then”.
Warily, Kazuko stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs tightening around his waist. She weighed surprisingly little, even taking her small size and petite figure (though “scrawny” might be a better word) into account. “Your backpack’s uncomfortable” she complained. Rolling his eyes, he had her get off so he could take it off, have her put it on and then get back on.
“Ready?” Alex asked, and after receiving a grunt of affirmation, he sped off into the jungle, climbing swiftly up the trees and leaping from branch to branch. He had done this for years, and, unlike when he’d began, he rarely made a bad jump, missing his mark or breaking a branch with his weight.
The fact that he was moving felt great. Location, Lightweight, Speed, and False Superiority- Alex had one last, and final Blood Trait; a curse, specifically. He was afflicted with Wanderlust. He only began to notice the feeling after a week or three without travel, at which point he began to get anxious. However, the lust part of it shouldn’t be ignored. Moving swiftly through the trees, the air whipping at his face, making headway, and more than that, actually having a destination, a goal, a mission…it just felt good. It was a feeling he imagined flying to be like- a freedom, a lightness in his heart, a feeling that he could not just go anywhere, he could do anything, he could be anyone, that he could-
“Stop”.
The freedom ended- or, at least, lessened. Sighing, Alex eased Kazuko off his back and hissed “What is it, Kazuko?”
Sniffing, she said “Well, if you’s gunna be that way-“
“Oh, just talk!” Alex said, rolling his eyes.
After a moment, presumably debating whether she should hit him or not (Alex recalled his parent’s gentle description of him as a child, being difficult), she said simply “We’s is bein’ watched”.
“Oh, that’s your observation?” he asked, laughing sardonically. Then, he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and bellowed “There’s probably a thousand pokegirls within ten feet of us!!!!!”
Without missing a beat, and almost causing Alex to fall off his branch in surprise, Kazuko commented “I believe that’s called a kilo-orgy”.
Speechless for a moment, Alex began “D…did you just make a-“
That’s when he heard it.
A gentle buzzing.
Rising up, from below the branches in front of them, the creature revealed itself: a Buzzbreast, her mottled shell a yellowish-brown coloration.
Alex sneered. Was that it? A stupid Buzzbreast? “Get out of here before I call out my Ha-”
He blinked, slowly turning his head around to look at the Feeblass on his back, who did nothing but gaze back, her watery-brown eyes passive.
“Oh, fuck”.
* * *
“WE ARE GOING TO DIE, WE ARE LITERALLY GOING TO DIE!!!” Alex screamed as he sprinted across the forest floor, a swarm of at least a hundred Buzzbreasts chased them. Alex hadn’t had time as the bug pokegirls materialized for his own partner to climb back on his back, so he wrapped his arms around her and dropped to the ground, immediately breaking into a sprint. He held the Feeblass at his left side like he was carrying a log, his left arm wrapping over and around her waist, his right going under and gripping her shoulder.
Alex wasn’t sure if she was trying to help him carry her or if she was actually in shock, but Kazuko’s body was ramrod straight, her legs together and her arms against her sides. Her fists were clenched, her shoulders hunched, and her eyes were wide as she screamed “Was’da point in shoutin dat!? How in the silva’ seas do it help us a’all!?”
“Dramatic tension, my dear!” Alex exclaimed, grinning wickedly. “I love a good chase!” Casting his head back, Alex cackled wildly, dodging as the Buzzbreasts launched a volley of stinging attacks at him.
“YOU’S IS INSANE, YOU’S IS!! I’S NEVER MET A CRAZIER TAMER, NOT A ONE!!” she shouted over the high pitched droning of their pursuers.
As a child, he had heard stories that if someone was being chased by bees, wasps, or other predatory insects, jumping into water would help lose them. He wasn’t sure if this worked on pokegirls similar to those creatures, but it was worth a shot. A lake or pond would probably be better- easier to hide- but he couldn’t exactly hear still water, could he.
Kazuko continued to shout about how mad he was until he came upon the river and plunged in. Being a water pokegirl, she was naturally at home in the water. For himself, his Lightweight Blood Gift came in handy, allowing him to move deftly through the water.
They began to swim downstream, watching as a large cloud of Buzzbreasts passed overhead. Starting to feel lightheaded from oxygen just as they passed out of sight, Alex allowed himself to raise his head above the surface and take a ragged breath. He saw the last few pokegirls cross into the trees farther upstream.
Of course, their trouble wasn’t over. Turning back around, the sound registered just as he saw the cliff. They were about to go over- well, Kazuko was already gone- a roaring, white-frothed waterfall.
“It never ends, does it?” Alex muttered as he slipped over the edge.