Chapter 11: Of Blood and Blooms.
I heard your voice through a photograph.
I thought it up, it brought up the past.
Once you know you can never go back.
I've gotta take it on the otherside.
-Red Hot Chili Peppers, Otherside.
Emerald Earth’s Past:
She fell, her side screaming of unbearable pain. Charcole found her flank was fine. What was wrong then? She wiped tears from her face. It passed several minutes ago. What was that? She checked her side again, nothing.
She laid down. She wondered if it was guilt she was feeling. He loved her for so long and his hopes of their union brought him back to Emerald. She had finally managed to drive him away. So why did she feel guilt? She wanted him gone. She wanted to be alone. Or did she? Was that what she really wanted? To die without another’s touch, to have love, to make love? She cried again as she remembered the pain and tears on his face when she rejected him that night he rescued her.
He held her close, he asked her to stay with him. He saw her scars, her broken horn. He placed a hand upon her cut horn and told her no matter what she looked like he would love her. How did she react to his loving touch and words? She slapped his hand away. She moaned as she recalled the heartache in his eyes as he stared at his slashed hand. He still bore the scar on his right hand. He was hurt by her for slashing at him on a deep emotional level. He was unlike the others because he didn’t strike back at her, he just walked away.
Was this what she really wanted? This utter silence of solitude? She could try to let Draco love her, she could try to love him again. But, he was a male and they couldn’t be trusted. She growled under her sobbing. Then why did she feel this hideous about losing him?
*****
Emerald Earth’s Future:
Ace turned around, something was wrong. He smelled nothing unusual yet he felt a buzzing sensation in his head. He took off running and releasing his Yanma. Nero looked up from the scroll he was writing on. Laura tried to keep up but, when he went wolf she fell behind.
He found the pool of blood, putting his snout to it he knew it was Draco's. Two other chars had been here and Cynder.
"No! Shit!" He ran when he saw the Ty corpse.
It was a doe that laid half eaten. Where was Draco and Cynder? Draco lost too much blood to just walk off. Then it hit him, blood. He ran tracking the trail of drops.
Great flames surrounded him. Draco heard something hissing. Snarling himself he tried to pin point the threat. The pit reeked of brimstone. Draco felt his eyes water as clouds of vapors struck them. Something darted at him. A boulder big enough to fracture his skull.
He leapt to his right, again something hissed. Draco saw his tail still burned, there was hope! He sprang through flames and rushed up hills. He had no clue how to flee the hell before him but, if whatever was back there killed him his run was over. This wasn’t the Cave of Ice and Darkness there flames here. Draco shouted out in unstable screams as something grasped at his throat.
Rotting chars tried to block him. In his eyes the paralyzing terror was clear as the creatures composed of bleached bones and blackened rotting flesh reached to strangle him. His claws shattered them. Roaring he fought the souls of the damned. Dull silver eyes menaced toward him, the stench assaulted his olfactory. Terrified he blindly swung his fists. Another rock almost broke his body. He realized the thing was flying above him. He realized this had to be Lizardon’s Hell. He was damned for his fickle faith in the Poké Gods.
"This way quickly!" An odd colored ninetales ran to him.
"And I should trust you?" Draco snapped.
Another boulder narrowly spilt his skull.
"What choice do you have?" It ran, Draco followed.
"What's up there!" He looked over his shoulder.
"Don't know and I have a feeling I don't want to know!" It shouted. "Just run!"
He didn’t know how his mind hadn’t snapped at the sight of the animated corpses attacking him. Other pokémon races rose to grasp his arms and legs. His skin flinched as the spongy flesh touched it. He bit down another scream and wrenched himself free. He kept running not knowing how much more of this could he take before he just collapsed into a fetal position praying for it to end. One mind could only take so much horror before that mind and heart dead within.
A shaft of light appeared. The light looked so pure to Draco as he examined it. It beckoned to him, he felt energy surge from it. He felt someone jab him in the side as he just stared.
“Hurry up and get in it! You want out this is the only way.” The Ninetales avoided it but, instructed him to enter it.
"Why won't you touch it?" He glared.
"It's not for me fool! Now go!" She began to wonder why she was helping him, what did she owe him? Nothing, so why was she risking her fate for him?
"Who are you? So I know who helped me." He watched for the thing but, it seemed nowhere in sight.
"Vixen, now go! If that thing get's in the light it'll take your body!" She shoved him.
Draco felt the pain return, his body lifted. Then it came, whatever it was it was determined to escape. It tried to haul Draco from the light. Snarling Draco lashed his claws. It sank it's jaws into his wing.
Draco saw it was another char! One like no other he ever saw before. Great spines grew from it's neck and back. Blazing white eyes and towering horns struck at him. Dragon rage only forced it back slightly. Below the hell was vanishing. Fiery red scales flashed with lightning speed as the spiked char sent it’s tail slicing through the dismal atmosphere. Draco flamed intensely forcing the barbed tail away.
The creature howled and his minions cowered from the vast voice. The demon circled down snatching Vixen up in it’s fist. Golden eyes shot through her as they narrowed. All his meticulous planning ruined by this detestable soul. The dreams he sent Draco, the torturous accusations he spat in Charcole’s form all ruined by that repulsive char and Vixen. He lead Chad to Cynder when the dream failed to completely unnerve Draco.
“How dare you! How dare you defy me in my very kingdom!” It shook her petite form. “Vixen! There are worssse fatessss than being sent to my Hell! You are about to find out what they are!”
“Fuck you!” Vixen swiped her paw at the demon. She figured what did she have left to lose. “You can shove your spiky tail up your ass!”
Light? Yes, light was streaming about him. The world opened to him once more, he found the air revitalizing as he drew in each precious breath. Cynder was waiting alongside Drowxena. She smiled at him. She placed another wet cloth to his forehead. His hand reached out and held her shoulder, she was always watching out for him. Draco smiled at his adoptive mother before he fell under sleep’s spell again.
*****
Time passed and he eventually found himself surfacing out of his dreams. He had only one thought on his mind as he lay fainted. He had thought of how beautiful Cole was and how he wanted her. He had dreamed of her as he laid there and recalled the nights the two spent just enjoying each other’s company. Back in those innocent times when he was but, a charmeleon. Those times before he saw the evils of man and pokémon alike. The Rocket War created such grief and anger in him and Ace.
Draco would have given anything if those times he spent with Cole near the pools, in the gardens, in the castle, anywhere in the kingdom as long as it lasted forever and the war never would come. He at last knew it all did happen and he might never know what it was like to grasp Cole and make love to her. He woke and found his family there waiting for him.
"Drow? What are you doing here?" He found he didn't know where he was.
"I sensed you were in danger. I teleported you here because the others said help was to be found here."
"Yes young fire breather you found help." A Vileplume entered the stone dwelling.
Ace had no idea why he was searching for Draco. That look he gave him. He was paralyzed by it. His curled lips, narrowed eyes, the fangs gleaming he quivered thinking about it. He leapt over a rotting log and kept his nose searching for clues.
"I am Talo, Rafracia to this village." The flower helped Draco stand.
"Rafracia? The healing God? She helped fend off Lizardon's evil." He saw his side was healed and even his scar was gone.
"Lizardon is not evil, he is the Cleanser! He rids the earth of foul things with his flames."
"Chah is the Cleanser! He defeated the evil of Lizardon." Draco recalled the stories the elder charizards taught him as religion.
"Chah, your fiery god who supposedly created the world instead of Rafracia." Talo stared at him.
"The human God made the world. The Poké Gods are here to maintain the balance of powers."
Talo began to laugh, Draco, Drowxena and Cynder looked at each other. Draco was enraged that this plant would ridicule his beliefs.
"The humans have a god!" Talo chuckled. "That is too hard to believe!"
"Well they do! Thanks for nothing!" Draco felt a slap across his face, looking down he saw Drow leering.
"The Plume saved your life Draco! Show some gratitude!" She gave him the look only a mother could use to instill fear into the disobedient.
"He did?" Draco studied the plume.
"He did! I saw it with my own eyes!" Cynder added with awe.
"I've been rude, forgive me." Draco lowered his head.
"Forgiveness is a quality of the Vileplume. Let us start a new for I have hurt feelings as well fire breather." They shook hands.
To be continued........