My eyes self-wandered to the piece of the thicket that was now smoking. Small embers could still be seen on the sides of some twigs and a smell of burnt overwhelmed any other fragrances. The loud sound of a heckling person brought my attention to Marco and Doug. Marco was the one having a blast while Doug, with a confident look on his face, kept the breloom in check with the hairdryer-from-hell locked in between his hands.
- Whoo-hoo! That is some sweet destruction!
- You said it Marco, Doug added. The boss was right, we need this. Even a grunt like me with no pokemon can do this much damage.
- What's crazy is that pokemons can do this much damage to begin with. But nevertheless, you're lucky you managed to grab that TM. Now you can finish that sucker.
- You bet!
Without much of a warning, he aimed his device at the breloom and hit the trigger again. Just like before, there was a spark and next thing I know, there's a giant blaze of fire torching its way through the air, headed straight to the breloom. The problem is, while falling back, the breloom lined up with me and I was now in the literal line of fire. The breloom jumped aside to avoid being hit, leaving me face to face with the wall of fire. I quickly grabbed the poochyena and ran to the left as fast as I could to escape. I was able to jump out of the lane and fell on my side to shield the poochyena in my fall. A searing pain tore through my back and made me scream. My top was smoking as if it caught on fire – which it didn't – because while the flames missed me, the heat was enough to bake most of my upper body. Laying down in the moist ground, I curled up on myself, frenetically trying to extinguish non-existent flames for several seconds. It took me a minute to realize I was safe. The whole of my back was stinging painfully. This was going to need a lot of ointment to heal. As I was contemplating standing back up, words of a gloomy discussion echoed:
- You nearly incinerated the pipsqueak, Marco said.
- Yeah, well tough luck! he replied. If he didn't lead these crazy pokemons to us, we would be back on the ship by now.
There was a silence during which I painfully came back up on my feet. I looked over to Doug and Marco to which Doug responded with a fiery glare.
- Marco, do you remember what "He" said about this operation?
Marco went quiet. He looked towards me, but then looked down. I could swear I saw his whole face go dark, like you often see in animated shows, when a character has a dark emotion moment. Doug continued:
- He's seen us and he's seen the prototype in action.
As he said that, he pointed the weapon – not in my general direction because the Breloom was still over here but – straight at me this time and with a look that sent shivers down my spine. In that instant I understood two things. First, these guys weren't random trainers who happened to be in the forest today of all days. Second, I needed to escape from them even more than I had to escape the brelooms. But before Doug could put his threat into action, an angry growl reminded him of the wild breloom. After being shot twice, the breloom was now charging angrily towards Doug and Marco. But Doug took aim and shot with the weapon towards the breloom again. A third ball of fire spawned midair and flew towards the breloom. While it was still very impressive and dangerous, it looked smaller than the two previous shots. The breloom rolled out of the way to the right, avoiding the fire, before resuming its run. But because the wall of fire hid Doug and Marco while it was dodging it, the breloom didn't notice the second shot that Doug fired towards it as soon as it emerged from the other side. Taken aback, the breloom just kinda froze in place this time. The flames rammed into it in a noisy "whoosh" sound and engulfed it in a blaze. It caught on fire, and I heard it squeal while flailing around, trying to extinguish itself. It fell frontwards and started frantically rolling around on the soil. It took a whole minute of rolling and plenty of painful screams for the flames consuming its body to finally go out. After that it stood back up. It looked pitiful, charred and covered in dirt. Its cap and tails were still heavily smoking, and you could read the pain on its face. This pokemon severely threatened my life earlier today, but I was starting to feel sorry for it, seeing the state it was in. The breloom looked pained, but now that it was standing, its attention went immediately back to Doug. The pain on its face was replaced by pained anger and once again, it started waddling towards them. Each step caused it to grunt in pain, but it didn't stop. Doug and Marco, still looking super gloomy, were only a dozen meters away from it now. I saw Doug raise the weapon again and aim it towards the breloom.
- Stop! I screamed out while reaching my hand out to them.
But that did little. In the next instant, a fireball of about a meter in diameter came out of the cannon of the weapon and hit the breloom full force. The flames violently lit up its body and knocked it back a few steps. But as soon as it regained its balance, it paid no mind to the flames silently crisping away at it and it kept moving towards them. Marco, now terrified by this vision straight out of a horror story, was staring at it from behind Doug.
- This thing is a monster. How can a plant pokemon resist to fire this much?
- I don't know, Doug replied. But look at it. It's barely alive now. This next one will do the trick.
I saw him press the trigger and closed my eyes and looked away. But instead of the sound of blazing flames, the mechanical clicking noise was followed by the three consecutive "beeps" again. I looked at them again and saw Doug panicking.
- What's going on? Marco said, in a breaking voice.
- The TM's out of gas.
- What? Already? What did you load?
- Overheat, Doug replied while still holding the weapon in front of himself.
- Shit! That only has five PPs.
The breloom, still covered in flames and fumes, covered the last five meters that separated it from the two men, who seemingly frozen in fear were just standing there, unmoving. The breloom let out much quieter but just as angry growl and suddenly slapped the device out of Doug's hand. I saw the device fly towards the right before separating into three or four pieces that fell scarcely over a bush. Doug grunted in pain and fell to the ground, taking Marco down with him. They both stared at the breloom, as it raised its arm once more. But then suddenly let out a quiet squeal, fell on its knees, and collapsed forward, barely missing the two men. Still burning up, the breloom stopped moving.
- Finally! Doug said as he stood up after a stressed laugh. The beast is down.
Marco stood up as well and stared a while at the pokemon that was now laying at their feet.
- Tenacious bastard!
- You said it. Now all we need to do is…
I saw him turning towards me, but suddenly freeze and go white as if he'd seen a ghost. That's when I noticed that there was a lot of smoke around me. The heat I was feeling in my back wasn't just from my recent burn. I heard a new whooshing sound and multiple cracking branches and twigs behind me. I turned around and looked left and right. The forest was on fire – which wasn't so surprising since someone just sent fireballs flying all around the woods this close to the summer. While the vegetation was lush and humid, it still caught on fire after so many blazes. The fire was moving quickly, and I realized that it was already well advanced in pretty much every direction and only the path towards the bluffs was not covered by a potentially deadly cloud of white smoke. And as if to confirm my assumption, I heard multiple distressed growls and squeals down the path going towards the forest and a cloud of dust was coming towards us. Once it got closer, I realized that it was a group of pokemons running from the fire. There were multiple kinds on the ground, but primarily wurmples, slakoths and shroomish. There was also some sort of bug with claws at the ends of both front appendages, antennas and small wings that weren't strong enough to allow it to fly just yet: nincadas. I grabbed the poochyena and raised it off the ground, towards my chest. The group of fleeing pokemons ran past us all in a noisy brouhaha of pokemon cries, crackling flames, and stomping noise. Since they were all too small for us to consider a threat, they mostly avoided us and kept going in the direction of the cliff. Once the noise of the stampede started fading, I dropped the poochyena again. The two men in front of me were done figuring out their move as well.
- We need to go now, Doug said.
- What about the kid? Marco asked.
- He's the fire's problem now. Let's bounce!
The next second, they started running towards that opening on the bluffs that I noticed earlier on, Marco limping somewhat. Probably the pain from his maimed arm. I saw them disappear outside the woods before the noise of a small tree being crisped behind me and crashing to the ground awoke me to my own predicament. I needed to find a way out. I considered my options for what felt like the thousandth time that day. I would definitely choke to the death if I went any other way than the bluffs' path. If I had a choice, I would much rather not go the same way as the two men who implied that I was a problematic witness. But it seemed the choice was already made for me. I was never a lucky guy, but my misfortune was working overtime today. I decided, reluctantly, to run up to the bluffs and see what possibilities might be given to me:
- Poochyena let's go!
We both started running down the path towards the opening. The heat was rising, and the smoke was now everywhere and was irritating my eyes. I started coughing dangerously, which was one more sign that I really needed to get out of there. The poochyena was running ahead of me, barking occasionally, which helped me know where it was because my eyes were starting to fail me. But suddenly it stopped and started looking to our left.
- Why are you stopping? We need to get out of here.
The poochyena paid no mind to my words. Instead, it barked again and ran a dozen meters to the left of something that was lying on the ground. It started barking frenetically at it. I went closer to it to grab it and keep running, but then I realized what it was doing. What it was barking at was the second breloom that collapsed earlier. The fire went out, but its burnt body was still fuming here and there. I assumed it had fainted and so did the two men it was fighting, but I could see its face. Its eyes were wide open: the anger was gone. Its breathing was chaotic, but that was probably the consequence of the rapidly dropping air quality. The poochyena's barks continued as it jumped around it, trying to incite it to move. The breloom groaned and I saw it painfully attempt to raise its body with its arms. But it didn't have the strength to do that anymore. There was no way I could move something nearly as big as me. I had no way to help it. But the poochyena didn't show any sign of leaving the breloom behind. It went around it and started pushing it from the back, but that did little. The smoke and flames were coming, and we needed to move. I was about to grab the poochyena and gun for it when the glare of something shiny interrupted me. At the foot of the bush in front of me, there was a round object with a glassy textured top of blue and red colors, a clear bottom and with a circular button in the middle. I was so surprised I couldn't stop myself from saying out loud:
- What are the odds?
Someone must have lost it here. Judging by the fact that it was a great ball, whatever they wanted to catch was powerful and they couldn't get this back. In any case, the timing was perfect. I ran to the bush and grabbed the ball before the bush lit up like a candle. It was super warm from the heat and slightly burned my hand, so I dropped it at first; but I picked it up again and returned to the pokemons. I kneeled by the breloom with the ball in my hand. It looked at me for a minute, and I could swear I saw it nod, then close its eyes. I clicked the ball's button and tossed it on the breloom. It opened and in a flash of light, it swooped the breloom inside it, closed and fell back to the ground. I saw it roll left, roll right, and roll left again, before the light of the ball's button flashed golden. That was my first time catching a pokemon which was somewhat an emotional moment. But I had no time to celebrate. I grabbed the ball and put it in my pocket, next to the poochyena's ball and I stood up. I turned around and looked many steps behind me where, next to another bush, the other breloom was still lying unmoving. The flames had now passed us and were burning on both sides of the path. The only reason why we weren't engulfed was because we were on a damp soil path mostly devoid of combustible vegetation. But the smoke cloud had only gotten thicker. I turned my attention back to the path, bit my lip hard, did a small prayer in my head for its good fortune, rolled up my top to cover part of my face and then, along with the poochyena I restarted running towards the opening in the thicket.
The cool and salty marine breeze welcomed me as I stumbled upon the bluff. Sadly, there was only about twenty square meters of bluffs available to me and it didn't extend to any viable escape route. The woods behind me were on fire and in front of me, there was a forty-meter dive into a rocky and surly ocean. I was from alone here. Many of the small pokemons that ran by us earlier were still hanging around. The ones able to fly already left but just like me, nincadas and shroomishs were stuck. Behind us, the forest had now turned into a wildfire. On the bright side, the marine breeze was keeping the flames and the smoke away from us. One thing was off thought: there was no trace of the two men. I saw them coming this way so they should have ended up on this isolated bluff too. I walked slowly to the edge of the precipice. Here, land abruptly came to an end and, as a chaotic rocky wall, dropped to the sea. Down there, the waters were waging war against the littoral, frequently slamming harshly against the cliff. It was maybe thirty or forty meters drop but I had serious doubts one would survive it unscathed. How were they able to escape? Soon enough, I heard a loud boat horn northward in the sea from my location, so I turned my attention to the horizon. A large blackish cargo ship was moored somewhat far from the coast. It looked quite big so it was probably avoiding the shallow waters. What could it be doing out here since it was way off both the ports. Not that it mattered much to me. It was way too far to see me gesturing and rescue me. I turned on my feet to face the fuming forest. Nothing left to do but wait the fire out I suppose.
- I really hope school gives me a week off after this, I said out loud to myself mostly.
I looked down and saw poochyena just sitting down on the ground looking at me with a glint in it's eyes. I really couldn't have asked for a better partner for this unlikely adventure. I put a hand in my pocket and felt the poke ball and the great ball. I always heard about how it wasn't uncommon for children my age to brave the roads in quest of championship and fame just a few decades back and I now could somewhat relate to what their stories must have been like, out there in the wild, by themselves, with no more than poke balls in their pockets. Even more incredible were the one like the legendary May, who left Little root with a treecko and went on to defeat two evil groups and save the world. That could have not been easy to pull off. Maybe the stories are exaggerated? As I pondered this, something that sounded like cloth whipped in the wind resonated in my ear. I heard it again and then once more. I could clearly hear it rhythmically whipping in the wind from the bottom of the cliff. I turned around with a confused look on my face. Suddenly, a large shadow rose past the bluff, send a small gust my way that blew some of the small pokemon around me back, and made me cover my face with the back of my left hand. The noise was now coming from a bit above me and the gust had died down so I removed my hand and looked up. A dragon! It was a huge dragon-like pokemon; quadrupedal with a light blue hide, a pair of bony red wings that repetitively beat the air harshly, a big mean head sitting on an elongated neck, and a large blue tail at the other end of its body. For a minute it simply hovered above the bluff and I was just staring at it, trying to figure out where it came from. A voice came out of nowhere:
- Sir, that's the kid.
I recognized the voice of Doug. I squint my eyes and realized that there were actually people on top of the dragon, three of them to be precise. The heads of Doug and Marco were poking on the back to the right side of the pokemon, with Doug still staring at me malevolently. I guess this solved the mystery of why they weren't on the bluff when I got here. The last person was also looking down on me but closer to the neck of the dragon. I couldn't see much but it was an old man with a fairly bushy white mustache. You could tell he was quick buff, even under his brown coat. I noticed something else interesting about the coat. Because of how he was leaning, I could clearly see the left sleeve of the coat, but for some reason, it was floating in the wind, as if there was no arm in it. He was fulling wearing the coat, so that was definitely weird. Was he missing an arm? In an abysmally deep voice, he said:
- A school kid... Incompetent fools! he uttered after short pause. Not only did you create this huge mess and lose the prototype, you also had to involve a kid.
He shrugged, which made both Doug and Marco gasp. He continued:
- I will deal with you later.
His attention came back to me and he stared me down for a bit, during which I saw a glint of sadness. But then, his eyes seemed to wander around the bluff a bit, noticing the small pokemons gathered here to avoid the fire. His expression then was quickly replaced by one of resolution. I immediately knew something bad was going to happen.
- Don't hold this against me child. Your death will fuel my cause.
And with a shake of his head, he suddenly made his pokemon fly upward again. The wings started beating harder, pushing them higher and higher in the sky. Then I saw energy suddenly gathering in front of the pokemon's mouth. Soon, there was a huge ball of bright light bundled in front of the dragon and clearly aimed at the bluff - well at me really. I froze in place. The energy ball turned into a beam of light that started descending onto the bluff at highspeed, creating massive ripples of wind and making the entire bluff tremble beneath me. I was about to die. I seriously was about to die and there was no way out of here. My throat tightened and tears came to eyes. I guess this was the end of the line. The only thing I managed to do was close my eyes. That's when I heard high pitched bark and felt something heavily slam into my chest, making me lose balance and fall backwards. I opened my eyes just to see the poochyena, now on my chest, with its momentum pushing me off the cliff, right as the beam hit the ground, in an explosive noise. The scene was irradiated with light and we were projected off the cliff. As we started falling to the seas below, I saw the bluff break into pieces and crumble towards the waters as well. I flipped around on myself, now staring at the water, coming at me at high speed. Internally, I heard myself say "shit". That was my last thought before I hit the water and lost consciousness for good.