TEEN: - Ongoing Running Away from Dreams

[TrueCharizard]

This is my new story, Running Away from Dreams.. it's about two chapters of completion and follows a group of OTs. It's far from your standard journey fic. They're all much more grown up.

Prologue

The city that once stood was a grand one. Full of skyscrapers, bright lights, noisy streets and busy buildings. Its populace was one that lived prosperously amongst the urban backdrop of consumerism and individualism. This was no longer the case.

Now what stood taller than the buildings were two great lizards, one with a scaley skin the colour of fire, the other's skin being as hard as rock, green and black in its colour. They stood upright on two legs each as they raged at each other, spat fire, called down lighting from the sky, tore each other with their bare claws and unleashed every ounce of fury they had in their bodies. It was as if they were born for this moment. Up until now, everything had just been gearing up for this moment. Their day of reckoning. Fire breathing one, clung a young man, who's skin was scarred from burns of fire and electricity, from falling rubble and pure physical abuse. He was as battered and as bloody as both lizard. He clung not just to his reptile’s back, but to his own dear life. The fire and smoke that tore through the city blurred his vision until all seemed to fade to black.

It seemed so stupid at the time how anyone could think that what I was having was anything more than a series of bad dreams. Yet they would happen, time and time again. I'd wake up in that cold sweat that made me feel like I was trapped in an ariados web. I'd wake up feeling like my chest was going to cave in on itself. It hurt like to breathe. The guys would always recall a couple of things they picked up in a school psychology class whenever I brought them up. You know the guff; repressed memories, Freudian psychoanalysis and inner fears. Like I'd ever had memories of two fighting giant lizards tearing up a city. My Mother wouldn't even let me watch Godzilla movies till I was eleven. We all knew though that we were just waffling anyway. Qualified professionals we were not, adept ters; maybe.

Ack.. it didn’t matter anyway. After my morning smoke, I’d be fine. It was strange that - I didn’t smoke any other time than in the morning, but a single cigarette would just hit the spot when I woke up. You'd think that with the shortness of breath from the dreams, fresh air on its own ought to suffice. But not for me, a few extra cancer cells ought to do the trick. I always kept an emergency packet of Luckies on me, just so I could feel like I was an American GI in a Vietnam movie. Lt Surge or something like that. To be fair though, the flavour, too was good, always calmed me down after one of those dreams. They wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t feel so real, like I was actually living them. Perhaps the fact they had happened every night for an entire month didn’t help much either. There was always that tiniest of inklings that nagged away at me - “What if this means something?”. A shrug of the shoulders and another puff at the cigarette and I’d be grand, back to my usual cocky as hell self.

That morning, the nightmare had woken me particularly early. The fresh dew had the effect of turning the grass a turquoise colour and the sun was still on the rise. Both Si and Chris weren’t up at this point in time so for my smoke it would have to be just be myself and Gengro. I tossed his pokéball from my belt down to the ground to release him and let him into the open air. He hovered several feet above the ground, traveling through the air like a free spirit, at his own will. In height, he was around five foot, but it didn't look it due to its levitation. That and its width. If anyone were to look at it from a third of a mile a way, all they'd see is a pointed square of purple gas. Pointed in that it had odd looking ears, gaseous hands it could scratch with and two stumpy legs. Maybe it was its care free personality that made it such a good smoking buddy.

Though as you’d expect, being an ethereal spirit made out of gas, my gengar didn’t tend to smoke. You can probably guess, Gengro tended to be a bit lacking in the respiratory system for that business but he’d always keep me company. I loved the ghost to bits, especially on mornings like this. He had a sick sense of humour, always telling dead baby jokes that you knew full well you shouldn’t laugh at. I guess it was just the way he told them, that sarky grin that stretched right across his face that said it all. We waked around the campsite for a little bit as I smoked, at that point in time I was only half dressed, still padding around on the balls of my bare feet, probably getting them covered in wurmple poo. Nice. Chris, Si and I had set up the make-shift campsite around a nice freshwater lake, though barely big enough to call it that. It was more like a rather large pond, but we weren’t complaining. It was a pretty bit of greenery, a clearing right in the middle of the forest. Quiet and away from anything threatening like hives of beedrills, but with the odd twittering from pidgeys to let us know we weren’t all by ourselves. We could refill our canteens full of water and even do a little bit of light fishing. Not enough to disturb the eco system, but enough to keep us fed for the night and morning that we camped there.

I gazed down at myself in the reflection. Only Si was vain enough to have a cosmetic mirror with him, so it wasn’t often that I got to check myself out. I Not bad I thought. My brown hair was getting thicker and longer. Not 'hippy' or 'metal fan' long, but probably a bit 'stoner-ish' in its way. My eyes, clear blue for a change. No bloodshot tinges from drinking or smoking as they often would in the evenings. I even had a little bit of stubble. Now that was a turn out for the books. In terms of physique, obviously with the walking most of the days and the training we did with the pokemon, we were gonna keep in trim shape, despite the odd excess you’d expect with us being students. Was always good to have that little extra bit of confidence to know you didn’t look that bad. I especially had this tall leanness to me. Naturally a little bigger built than Chris or Si, I had a bit of a big rib cage on me, but traces of the bones always poked through the skin, so in an odd way I almost looked skinny. I was never a born athlete but through time I suppose I toned up to be a "strappin' young lad" as my Grandad would put it.

“Whaddya reckon Gengro? Am I a sexy beast or what?” I said in a jokey fashion, flexing a little to my reflection in the water.

The ghost just chucked. You had to love how diplomatic he could be sometimes.

“Well then, we’re just gonna have to wake the other two up, I’m sure we could all do with finding some floozies to chat up when we get into the city,” I said as a quip. “Besides, I’m dying to have a sparring match with Si’s Blaziken. I guarantee you, he may be a six foot tall blazing chicken of death, but I’m telling you I can take him!” I said cockily.

Gengro just chuckled heartily again. I put my cigarette out and went to wake the other two.

 

[TrueCharizard]

Chapter One - The Day it all Began

When they woke up, everything seemed to go to some sort of clock work consistency. It wasn’t like we were working to a planned and structured routine, but we just knew what had to be done was going to be done. Put out the dying embers of the campfire, fold up sleeping bags and pack our bags ready to head to the big city. None of us liked sleeping in too long in the middle of the wilderness. We’d all learned that as long as we set up early, we could get our head down for a good rest out in the open but when it came to a ridiculous twelve hour snooze of epic proportions, nothing would beat a nice warm bed. And besides, with every ugly looking bird pokemon within a mile radius deciding it would twitter in some highly irritating series of cacophonic squawks and chirrups, the ears wouldn’t let the mind rest. That’s what Si and Chris would find anyway, being already half awake by the time I’d finished my morning smoke.

When we cleared the grass and surrounding area of our possessions, it was time to get moving. Si refused to let me be humiliated by his Blaziken that morning, despite my previous stressing to Gengro that I could beat it in a physical sparring match, so little held us up. The three of us decided it would be good to give some of our pokemon some fresh air, get them moving along with us side by side. That six foot tall blazing chicken of doom was let out for a good grasp of fresh air. It had a good stride to it, keeping pace with us was easy, but for some reason it chose to hold back. I thought at first it was pure laziness that got this pokemon to keep behind, but I soon realized it was for another reason; its combat instinct ensured that it would protect our rear, just in case some unfortunate swarm of beedrills would decide to gang up on us. Chris let out his Feraligatr too, which chose to plod along at the side of us, rather slowly. It’s speed however, almost wasn’t by choice. Chris had decided to train his totodile to be slow and bulky, so it could take a beating like almost no other pokemon could and dish out far more punch than one ought to. He tended to look for wild pokemon that would build some muscle memory for his feraligatr to do this; carvanhas and sand shrews would take a frequent battering from the chunky water pokemon just so it knew how to take a beating and supply one just as tough. It wasn’t a bad idea of Chris’s. Feraligatrs aren’t naturally built for their speed so it was natural that he should train the pokemon to play to its strengths. I’d seen that gator hits that shouldn’t be legal in the world of pokemon battling. Thunderbolts from the best raichu’s out there, punches to the jaw from hitmonchans that would put a snorlax down, even a scyther that thought it was being clever trying to slice it in the eye. All of them made the same mistake. They let ’gatr get close. From there in, it was over.

All of us had done some specialized training with our pokemon. Gengro and I had climbed an awful lot of haunted tower in our day. Back when he was just a gastly, we were confuse raying and night-shading our way to the top of them, zubats, golbats and fellow ghost types were put down like they were out of control houndours at the pound. He had learned to be fast and the power of his ghost and psychic attacks had grown to the point that they were almost lethal. In fact, other than maybe Charizard, he was the fastest pokemon I’d ever seen. But charizard was gone. Despite having raised him from a bad tempered charmander into one of the most focused fire breathing beasts, he disappeared. One morning, I tossed his poke ball expecting him to come out for a fly. He never appeared. It was not like it was I ever treated him badly. Far from it, throughout the years we had grown together like kindred spirits. He had part of me in his soul and likewise, I was a charizard at heart. I guess that’s why I managed to date Flannery for a bit. Yeah, I thought you might not believe me when I told you. I dated Lavaridge Town’s very own gym leader for a little bit. I think out of all the girls I’ve been out with, she was the most fun. No pun intended, but she could get awful fiery when you got her on her own. Eventually though, our time together had to come to an end. She came to see me compete in the Hoenn League and from there, we kinda knew that I had to go my way and she’d go hers. A shame I guess, but that’s how things go, here Chris, Simon and I were in the middle of the Antaro region. Kind of like charizard. For whatever reason he left, I can’t resent him. Sure, I did for a bit, but my anger was derived more from sense of loss, missing him and worrying about him. Really though, he deserves to be free. Do his own thing if that’s what it was. He was big and strong enough to look after him self anyway and well, it’s not like he could leave a note to say he had to go.

The walk through the forest felt like a pretty long one once we stumbled onto the main path. That was the thing about the Thorn blossom forest. Few people walked that deep into it. On the outside it was something people could walk through, have a picnic and then return back to the city without putting themselves at any danger. Go deeper in and the forest became a marshy jungle, filled with the big, bad and ugly pokemon that a lot of people feared. Because of this, whoever made the path had decided that the main path wasn’t going to extend into the forest’s furthest reaches, perhaps as a warning to keep people and trainers out for their own safety. When it came to it, Si, Chris and I weren’t worried about the danger at all. Sure, we had fear, but fear is what keeps you alive. Gives you that adrenaline rush to treat nature with respect. In the five days or so that we had spent in the marshy jungles, we had grown a lot. In character and in physical strength. Both our pokemon and ourselves.

When we finally came onto the main path, we were greeted with the very sights they had made the path for. Full of trees that grew the most colourful of flowers, healthy hills of green grass that seemed to roll into eternity. Si turned his head to gaze at pretty purples, white lilacs, violets and blues that blossomed in the trees. Pidgeys and starlys twittered sweetly and it was as if Blaziken and Feraligatr could finally let their guard down.

“Makes walking through that rank smelling jungle all the more worthwhile,” Si mused as we walked with a boyish smile that lit up his face.

“So true man,” Chris said in agreement on the other side of me.

I chuckled heartily and straightened out the straps on the backpack around my shoulders.

“And you two wanted to take the bus around the forest. Pussies,” I said teasingly.

“Yeah, you told us so,” Chris said in a ‘yeah yeah’ kind of tone. “Whaddya want dickhead, a cookie?” he asked in a sarky way.

“That’d be nice, you baking now?” I replied in question.

The three of just laughed and looked up. The skyscrapers of New Sky City loomed over the trees, the sound of the highway ringing in our ears around us. We were almost there. We had to walk on the road to get from the forest to the city. Most people who went up to the forest for a picnic went up by car and at half seven in the morning, few people are going to fancy lunch. There were a few joggers around, but no-one we reckoned we could scrounge a lift off. So it was that we were walking down this long road, just the three of us. We decided it’d be best to recall our pokemon in the thoughts that we could try and avoid bringing any attention to us from trainers that just had to have a battle with one of us. It was silly really because there was no-one around. Not even any houses built along the road. It was just like walking on the very outside of the forest, tall trees and the pokemon that lived in them to our left, and on our right, the calm blue sea. The city was built on an island that had only a small stretch of ocean cutting it off from the routes leading away from it. A strong sturdy red bridge arched to connect between the two, which we could see from our on the road. The city was teeming with life, cars, lorries and all sorts of motorized transport zoomed over the bridge in both directions. The sea too had plenty of ferries leaving and going towards the large harbour on the island. Not to mention the pellipers that flew above on the bright blue sky and the water pokemon that came up for air every so often near the city.

As we walked though, we were gifted with the benefit of sweet bird song and the relaxed chat of what we were gonna do once we got to the city.

“Hrm.. What you thinking for breakfast guys?” I asked the other two, looking over to Si for a second, then Chris.

“We’ve already had breakfast though,” Chris pointed out in a half matter-of-fact way.

“That was a tin of baked beans cooked over a small fire, I mean breakfast breakfast,” I re-asserted with a jokey smirk.

“Awww mate.. It would be so good to munch on a big stack of warm pancakes dripping with syrup and a tiny dollop of whipped cream..” Simon detailed for us, as if a big spot of drool was going to drip from his mouth.

“That’s so the stoner in you talking, did you have a cheeky spliff before we left the camp or something and now you have the munchies?” I asked Si, still teasing.

“You’re a far bigger stoner than I. You came down to my dorm in university where I was training as a med student and started passing a fatty bombatty around like it was nothing,” Si replied, in merrily defensive tone.

“Yeah, but how good was it? You so missed having a smoking buddy,” I replied as we continued to walk.

“True. Twas very nicely rolled,” Si added with a chuckle.

Chris just tutted and smiled. “You two have weed on the brain. Can you imagine any of our pokemon stoned?” he asked as a humorous thought.

I shook my head. “Gengro is just a natural stoner anyway. Scizor is a bit too warlike to be chilled out too. You have to respect the warrior in him. Besides that, his skin is steel. You can’t even poison him, never mind get him to smoke,” I decided. “Although.. I’d love to catch a Shiftry. Have you seen their hands? Their quite clearly giant cannabis leaves,” I joked.

“You are not gonna catch a Shiftry just so you can smoke it,” Si said with a boyish snigger.

“Aw can you imagine that,” Chris interrupted with a smile on his face. “Go Shiftry! Use your joint rolling attack!”

“Stop giving me ideas man,” I joked. We all laughed.

As I said that we were nearing the road’s end, where it led onto the city highway. We knew full well that it was against the law walking along it, but we reckoned as long as we stuck to the side and got off it as soon as we could, we’d be fine. It couldn’t be that risky and besides, it was about the only way into the city from where we were apart from a ridiculously long walk that didn’t seem worth double backing on ourselves. Even with the cars beeping at us as we walked and the thick accents that were yelling “You’re gonna get yourselves killed!” and other abuse at us, we knew that it’d be fine. We don’t know why they bothered, it’s not like we were in their way or in danger of causing a major traffic jam. Sure if there were any highway cops, they might fine us for “jaywalking” or some other silly offence, but we were happy enough to take our chances. Or that’s what we thought.

As we were walking, we saw a sight we most certainly did not expect on a highway. I don’t think that anyone would expect there to be a pokemon roaming on the road of the highway. But there it was, in full view of us, dodging cars wherever it could and sliding under them even more so, a giant purple puddle of a being. A muk. Really, it shouldn’t have made a difference. But this was Chris. He couldn’t let the damn thing be.

“Guys.. That Muk.. It looks injured, we need to help it!” Chris declared decisively. “And well.. I’ve always wanted to catch one..”

He was right, there was an awkward limp in the way the thing just slimed its way over the road.

“Man.. Just leave it, it’ll find a way of looking after itself and we’ll probably be putting it in more danger if we go after it,” I replied. I didn’t know about the danger thing for the Muk’s sake, I think I was more or less thinking of hours. I didn’t fancy dodging cars on the middle of the highway. Being two metres to the side was bad enough.

But it was too late. Chris had already reached into the pouch on the side of his backpack and grabbed a great ball. He’d already thrown it too by the time I’d finished blathering.

As the blue coloured ball arched through the air, it sailed over a car or two before it hit the ground and sprung open, sucking the purple coloured pokémon into it, before sealing shut again. It rattled and rolled a few times, a red light on the center of the ball shone as it did. Once. Twice. On the third time, the light died down and the ball stopped its rattle. He’d caught it.

“Yes! That was so easy it was meant to be!” Chris exclaimed in a merry tone. “Aw man, did you see that. I’d be a champion at the pal park, I’m telling you!”

“Dude, how are you going to go and get it?” Si asked looking over the road, to where the ball with the captured Muk lay. It seemed to be almost moving to the other side of the road as well, across two lanes as the series of cars and trucks gusted it over.

“Here, I’ll grab Gengro out, worst case scenario is that a few drivers get freaked out by driving through a ghost. Actually.. That’s a terrible idea, how the hell are we going to go get it?” I quizzed in a be puzzled tone.

“I can nip across and get it, you know how fast I can run,” Chris decided. Before I managed to hold him back, he’d already started sprinting. There was a flurry of hoots and horns from cars that he managed to dodge in the few seconds it took for him to make that gap of road, but it wasn’t the sound that did the damage. As he went to sweep the poké ball off the highway, he stumbled then caught himself again. Maybe if he’d just fallen over properly, he could have landed on the fender bender in the middle of the road, had a bruise or two, a scratch and nothing more. But he didn’t. Catching himself cost him that second where the driver couldn’t slow down enough, couldn’t brake hard enough. There was a screech of tyres and a jerk. I think I looked away when I saw the car coming towards him. I just remember him lying there in that second afterwards, twitching helplessly on the ground.