Chapter 5

Hello everyone,

Not gonna lie, I was really happy that everyone is on the right track in the reviews, but no one was spot on for this chapter. A lot happens this chapter and I don't have a lot to say before y'all jump in besides enjoy!

Authors note at the bottom.

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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I didn't like the idea of catching different pokemon whenever they were convenient. Something about dropping them off at the gym for my dad or mom to take care of didn't sit right with me. I didn't want to leave my parents with the burden, for one and for two, I didn't want to abandon the pokemon I helped grow strong.

I looked down to my starter who was walking beside me. I hadn't realized it, considering I see him everyday, but he had grown.

A lot.

So much that his head reached up to my shoulder now, where before it only reached to the top of my abdomen. And the fat that the anime and games had shown as his defining feature was shedding off of his frame, to be replaced by muscle. A feeling of pride surged through me, knowing that I had been the cause of his growth.

That feeling of pride is what also made me realize that I couldn't go around throwing pokeballs at everything that moved like in the games. I wouldn't be cruel to my pokemon like that. Granted, to complete the pokedex was literally a point of almost every game, but that wasn't my journey.

My journey was to reach the top of the Indigo Plateau, and stand victorious. My conscience and pride are making me accomplish this with six pokemon. That's it.

'Unless I can get my carry limit increased along the way.' I thought.

That was a thought, increasing my carry limit to even seven pokemon would make a world of a difference with variety on the team, especially considering that I was limiting myself to single evolutionary lines.

I was broken out of my thoughts as the dirt path in front of me ended and turned into grass. I looked up and was met with Berry Forest. And it was a little intimidating.

The berry trees it was named after intermingled with normal pine and oak trees for as far as the eye could see. The realization that wild pokemon would be prevalent in the area also made itself known in my mind. Why would they fence it off, and leave a warning sign if not?

"Mak." Hashi said just as he took a step forward onto the grass.

He summoned his energy and kicked. A wave of brown topsoil fired into the air directly ahead of him. Hashi gave out a grunt in satisfaction as he made sure that he could use sand attack in the area.

"Stay alert, Hashi. We don't know what lives here." I told him and my hand subconsciously reached to my lower back where my bowie knife rested in its sheath.

I started moving forward deeper in the forest. As we moved, pine needles and leaves crunched under our feet and every once in a while I would spot a pidgey in a tree, or a weedle crawling around on the ground. Every once in a while I would cut an x into a tree so that we could find our way back.

Nothing attacked us, but that made me even more nervous. There weren't any wild rattata, the pokemon that was notoriously used as a training dummy for starting trainers.

'The road to the Indigo Plateau is littered with more than rattata.' The famous saying rang in my mind.

I wasn't sure how long we walked into the forest but it must have been another mile and a half from the entrance. We didn't encounter any pokemon and that told me everything that I needed to know. I had ignored too many signs to be comfortable.

"Hashi. We're leaving." I said as I turned around.

He caught my mood and serious tone and didn't argue. We moved back a little more slowly this time and I kept jumping at the slightest of sounds. A bush would move with the wind and I would draw my knife and clear the bush before moving on.

'Trainers don't kill trainers, son. The wild does.' My father's voice broke through my thoughts just as a high pitch screeching rang out not too far from where we were.

"Hashi!" I said as my starter moved in the direction. I held my finger up to my lips to tell him to be quiet.

The worst part about the screeching was that it was directly in our path back to the entrance of the forest. I looked up to the sky to see that I had maybe an hour before the sun set, and wrapping around would take a really long time. I made the stupid decision to sneak up on whatever was going on.

I moved through the trees with Hashi right by my side, and the sounds of metal impacting wood and other things reached my ears.

'Something is fighting.' I recognized the sounds by memory.

Then I saw the first pokemon of worth since I had entered the forest. In front of me, sat a small drowzee. It was hiding behind a tree, trying it's best to hide from something.

I froze once I saw the pokemon.

'Psychic. Drowzee are never far from their mothers ...aka hypno. Leave your brain as mush and eat your dreams, hypno.' I thought as I looked at the pokemon.

I wasn't able to dwell on the pokemon for very long because a silver blur descended from the tree tops with a metallic screech. It flew in a bee-line towards the small drowzee, intending to make it it's next meal.

My heart dropped as I realized what I was about to witness. I almost closed my eyes at the fate of the small, helpless pokemon. And then, in a flash of yellow, there was a pokemon in front of the drowzee.

A purple beam of light extended from the palm of the hypno that teleported in front of it's child and hit the skarmory dead center, throwing it off to the side and causing it to hit a tree with it's right wing.

The fucking bird's wing cut halfway through the tree. The metallic screeching made sense when the bird jumped to its feet. I was met with the sight of an apex predator.

It was a fucking skarmory.

My heart dropped even further then as I realized the situation I was in. The knife in my hand was now as good as useless against the steel type. I almost recalled my starter right then because I knew he would only be in danger if we had to fight the steel bird. Then my genius starter's foot snapped a twig.

The hypno's eyes locked onto mine.

I didn't move, but the skarmory did. It flapped its wings a few times and took to the air quicker than a steel bird should have been able to. The hypno turned its attention to the skarmory determining it a bigger threat.

Then the skarmory attacked again, but this time it was ready for the psybeam that flew its way. It twisted and turned in a surprisingly acrobatic maneuver. The next thing I knew it was in front of the hypno, and one of its wings was pierced through the right side of the hypno's torso. Blood sprayed onto the drowzee and the tree behind it.

The psychic pokemon didn't even bother looking at the bird that was impaling it. Instead, it's eyes were locked onto mine.

I felt a presence touch my mind, in the same manner that Junior, my father's gallade did. Although this time the mind felt …deeper.

'Take.'

The one word had an image that accompanied it, and it was of the drowzee cowering behind it's mother.

It took me a moment to realize that the hypno wanted me to save its child.

Then the hypno was gone, and so was the skarmory that had impaled it. I didn't even hesitate, something that impressed myself.

I returned Hashi to his ball quickly, and belted it before reaching to one of the empty balls on my waist. I enlarged it quickly and ran over to the drowzee, who was looking up at me with a sad but understanding look on its face. Blood covered parts of its fur.

I pressed the pokeball to its head and it disappeared in a red light quickly. The ball shook once before I heard a click. Immediately I grabbed it and shrunk it before placing it on my belt again.

And then I was off. I started sprinting towards the direction of the gate.

I had no idea how far the hypno had teleported the skarmory, and I had no idea of knowing. All I knew was that it couldn't have had the concentration to go very far considering it had a four foot blade-wing shoved into its torso. It was massively impressive that the hypno had even managed to teleport to begin with. In fact, I would have thought the act impossible had I not just witnessed it.

I sprinted past an x that I knew I had carved into the bark and I started to see light pollution over the top of the trees in front of me. My lungs heaved as I kept up my sprinting pace past what had to be the quarter mile marker.

Then there was a screech behind me, and I realized that the fucking fence would do no good to the flying type. I curse myself for not just crashing at the pokemon center instead of trying to train my pokemon.

'But there will be pokemon and trainers on the bridge. They'll either stop the skarmory, or they'll distract it from me.' I thought. I had no time to feel guilt at my plan to use other people as bait because I reached the dirt path out of the trees.

'Hopefully they've got a fire type to deal with this fucking piece of metal.'

I had yet to see or hear the dangerous steel bird besides the screeching from earlier. When the gate came into view, hope soared in my chest and my speed picked up. My breaths became ragged but it was easy to ignore the burn in my lungs and legs.

Then a man stepped out of the guardhouse on the bridge. I was ten feet from the gate when I heard the 'whoosh' behind me.

"Watch out!"

I let my legs go limp on instinct and I dropped to the ground. I rolled on my right shoulder and a line of fire appeared on my hip, and ran up the ribs on my left side to my armpit. Heat and liquid rolled down my side immediately as I heard the skarmory screech.

"What the fu..."

'Squelch'

I didn't bother looking at the source of the sound. Nor did I check the wound on my side. Instead I jumped up, and ran the rest of the way to the fence and through the small gate.

When I swung the gate closed, I allowed myself to glance backwards. What I saw would haunt me for a long time.

A man wearing a security guard outfit stood with his mouth open, and a steel wing shoved right through it and sticking out the other side. The guard had come out of the guard room off to the side of the bridge when he heard the screeching in the forest. When the skarmory dove to kill me, and I ducked, the bird must have changed trajectory and the man was in his way. So it did what it knew how to do, it impaled the man through the mouth on to the wall behind him.

A pokeball rolled out of the man's fingertips as his body went limp immediately and hit the ground, but nothing happened. He hadn't even had time to push the release button.

The skarmory ripped its wing out of the man spraying blood everywhere and painting the wall as his eyes found my form again. It screeched just as I turned around to start running again. I heard it's wings flap and take off towards me.

My heart disappeared from my chest as I realized that I was a sitting duck on the bridge. I looked up to see a familiar looking form. The next words I heard made my heart soar.

"Flame charge."

A form that I recognized as a combusken was already sprinting in my direction. My retinas screamed at me when his body became cloaked in a red flame. It wasn't fast enough.

More fire spread across my shoulders in at least six different spots, it squeezed just as the combusken impacted the skarmory that had just latched on to me.

The skarmory was ripped off of my back, from the force the combusken exerted, but so was the skin it's talons had pierced. I didn't have to look to know that my shoulders were in tatters. At least the screeching sound behind me told me that the fucking steel type was getting an ass whooping.

I fell to my knees and couldn't help but let out a cry from the pain. I tried to reach around and removed the backpack so that I could reach inside it for a potion. They weren't designed for humans in mind, but I needed to stop the bleeding that I could feel trickling down my chest from my shoulders and my ribs.

'Why won't my arms work?' I thought, panicking as my arms would barely respond to my commands. It took me a moment to realize just how bad the damage must be for my arms to stop responding.

An ugly grey filled my vision and I felt something pressed against my face.

'Is that concrete?'

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I had always associated the sterile smell of a hospital with death.

It was no wonder, considering almost every time I had watched a loved one die in my last life, it had been on a hospital bed. I couldn't think of a worse place to go to the other side. I'd rather go fighting, on my feet and looking death in the eyes.

That was not how I had acted in Berry Forest, I had run from the skarmory. I almost died on my knees, not my feet.

'Never again.' I thought as I rolled my shoulders.

There was a slight lance of pain that ran up my neck and down my arms at the movement. I was currently laying on a hospital bed with an IV in my right arm, and bandages covering my shoulders and left ribs.

I hadn't woken up with a scream, or panicked at all. In fact, I had been the calmest I had ever felt, almost peaceful. I woke to a hospital room, with Hashi and my newly caught drowzee sleeping in chairs off to the side.

I clenched my fist and raised my arms in the air, testing the movement in my appendages. The relief I had as I realized that I had full functionality again was enormous, I couldn't describe it.

I tried to sit up, and a much sharper lance of pain ran down my left side as the newly healed muscles protested. I persevered and got into a sitting position, wincing as the pain continued.

I knew I shouldn't be trying to move, but I can not stress how much I hate being in the hospital. I didn't waste time and swung my legs over the bed and tested my ability to hold my weight.

My legs held, which made sense, they didn't get injured by the skarmory at all. I stood up, and pain shot through both of my injuries, but I didn't even grunt. I just accepted the reminder of my brush with death.

Taking the hospital gown off brought me the most pain. My arms pulled it over my head and my shoulders screamed at me the whole time. I actually grunted then. That was what woke my starter up.

"Mak!"

I shot Hashi a small smile, before realizing I was completely nude. I walked over to my backpack and opened up the compartment that would have clothes for me. I wasted no time in slipping on underwear, socks, a pair of black tactical pants, and finally some black tactical boots. I grabbed a black shirt also, but held off on putting it on.

I walked over to the bathroom and relieved my aching bladder. Before I walked back out into the room, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. I had a new scar over my right eye, one I didn't remember acquiring during the attack. It sat right below my eyebrow. Then I noticed the bandages. I just couldn't help but peel them off of my form to look at the damage.

I started at my ribes and peeled the gauze off. Thankfully the pain was internal, and the skin didn't hurt while I exposed it. A long white, almost perfectly straight, line ran up my left side. It started at my hip bone and ended right below my armpit. I marveled at the fact that it was already completely healed.

'I love pokemon.' I thought as I realized this world was leagues ahead of my last one in healing.

Then I took off the shoulder bandages and inspected the damage. I half-expected for gouges to be torn out of my shoulders. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Inch wide ropey scar tissue appeared in three different spots on each shoulders, more specifically my traps. It was a gnarly scar, there was no denying how fucking intense it was. I didn't get upset at the new additions to my body. I personally don't really care about scars, it's just physical proof of a struggle I've been through and lived to see the end of. The worst scars were alway mental anyway, physical scars just seemed ...dull in comparison.

I turned around to my back and saw two more circular scars right above my shoulder blades, where the last talon must have had a clean exit, instead of the others on my shoulders. I took a long time looking at the new additions to my body before turning the light off and heading back into the room.

I threw the black t-shirt on, suddenly feeling much better and energized now that blood was flowing through me.

"I thought you would be mad at me." I said towards where Hashi stood watching me.

He didn't have an angry look on his face, not like after we lost to Brendan. It was more of a concerned look.

Hashi didn't answer me at first, instead he walked over to the drowzee that was still asleep on the chair and set his big hand on it's head. He put the other hand on his own head. The drowzee opened its eyes sleepily and locked on to the hand on its head. It had to have been one of the cutest things I had ever seen.

"Mak."

I wasn't sure how I knew what he said, but I deduced what he was trying to say. "He showed you how useless fighting would have been?" I asked.

Hashi nodded his head and patted his hand on the drowzee's head, like one would with a dog. I almost laughed at the look the drowzee sent my starter. Then I thought of a very important question.

"Drowzee. Do you want me to find you a new home? I'm sure there will be other viable forests on our journey." I asked the pokemon, even though I really wanted him to join us on our journey. He fit the criteria for a single evolution, and I really needed a psychic.

I felt a really small presence in my mind and I expected the little guy to speak to me. Instead he sent me images. The first was of his pokeball that was currently attached to my waist, the next was of his mother firing off a powerful psybeam and hitting the skarmory that would eventually take its life.

"I can help you." I said, deducing what it wanted. "To become powerful, more powerful than your mother."

I knew it would be hard. It's mother was one of the strongest pokemon I had ever heard of in the wild. It was extremely uncommon for a psychic type to survive very long in the wild, normally they would attach themselves to a trainer or another powerful psychic to get stronger. The hypno just had the unfortunate circumstance of facing another powerful pokemon, with a type advantage against it.

The drowzee nodded at me and I felt his presence disappear from my mind. Hashirama patted him on the head once again. And there was a glow in the drowzee's eyes that told me he was communicating with Hashi.

"Good! I'm happy you're on the team." I told the little guy. "Now you need a name, and I've got the perfect one."

The hypno, his mother, had appeared in front of its offspring in a yellow flash, reminding me of one of the most overpowered Naruto characters in the franchise.

"Minato." I said, testing the name out.

My new drowzee nodded at me, accepting the name as I walked over to my backpack and pulled out my pokegear. I selected the pokedex option and I pointed the lazer at my new pokemon. A 'ding' rang out as it registered the pokemon and I entered it's new name.

'Drowzee

The hypnotic pokemon. It's said to feed on the dreams of its opponents. It is also known for its powerful psychic attack. Despite its psychic nature, it can also become a physical threat in the proper training circumstances. It's evolved form, Hypno, is extremely rare to find, in the wild or on a trainers team. '

'Male - around seven months old.'

'As it nears evolution, it will start to grow in stature and stay awake for longer periods of time. Much like its cousin, Abra, it needs a lot of rest because of the strain it puts on its mind.'

I read all of the information and committed it to memory. 'Should have checked the gender before naming him, lesson learned.' I thought, realizing how embarrassing that mistake was.

"Alright guys, let's go meet our other team member."

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I found it odd that I met my third pokemon sooner than I did my second, but to be honest, I caught them so close together that I didn't dwell on it.

I also found it odd that I had walked around the pokemon center without being stopped once from a staff member. You would think that they would remember me, considering my extensive injuries. I chalked it up to timing.

I walked out into the back of the pokemon center, where a few training fields laid cut off from the world. Once I saw the sun's place in the sky, I realized that it was very very early in the day, and it explained the barren training grounds. Normally, it would be full with trainers and their pokemon, either practicing or battling.

I didn't complain that I could only see around ten trainers scattered around the area and none of them were in the pool. Hashi and Minato were both out of their balls and walking beside me when we reached the pool. I wasted no time in grabbing my feebas' ball and releasing the pokemon in the water.

It appeared with a dazed look on its face, and looked around the area. It spotted Hashi and glared at him, no doubt remembering the right hook that knocked it out.

"Hello, feebas." I greeted the pokemon. It spit out a jet of water at me that I sidestepped, expecting it. It wasn't as strong as a water gun, but with enough practice it could be.

"That's enough. We fought, and I caught you. I want you to be my pokemon, and I want to help you become powerful." I preached to it, taking the generic route to convincing pokemon once again.

It shot a jet of water at me, this time it hit. My ribs screamed at the stimulation but I ignored it. Hashi took a step forward to the pool in response with a mean look on his face.

"Wait a moment Hashi." I told my starter before looking down to the little psychic at my feet. "Minato, would you mind?" I asked him pointing at my head and then to the feebas.

The drowzee's eyes glowed immediately when I asked. I couldn't tell if he had connected our minds or not, but I sent a single image over to the feebas in the water. It was of a majestic aquatic creature, with a beauty that was unmatched. It was about thirty feet long, and had a cream colored body that turned to a beautiful scaly tail at the end.

'Milotic.' I told it, trying to get across my intentions of making it powerful enough to evolve.

The feebas' attitude switched immediately, and I swore it's eyes turned into hearts as it saw the mental picture I was feeding it. It dove in the water and swam around for a moment before releasing another jet of water straight up in the air. It's happiness was contagious through the mental link.

"I'll take that as a yes?" I asked the feebas. It did a fish equivalent of a nod. I pulled out my pokedex and pointed the laser at my new pokemon. A 'ding' sounded out and I skimmed the information until I found the gender.

'Makes sense it would be female, Milotic are notorious for caring about their beauty.' I thought as I read the gender.

"Alright, you'll need a name." I told it, and once again my mind went to Naruto. 'Might as well keep the theme. Who is the most beautiful character in the series?'

I knew the answer immediately. "Tsunade." I said the name aloud. "A beautiful name for a beautiful pokemon."

The feebas once again swam around excitedly, spitting out jets of water in the air in celebration. I smiled a bit at the display and filled out the pokedex information to register the pokemon in my name.

Then I heard a voice behind me, a voice I knew all too well. A voice that I was not prepared to face just yet. I groaned as I turned around to look at the mountain of muscle behind me.

"Well isn't that heartwarming." My father, Brody stood there with his arms crossed. He had a maniacal grin on his face.

"What the fuck is up, squirt?"

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A/N: Boom!

I considered adding in the berry forest scene in the last chapter and leaving everyone on a cliffhanger, but I decided against it. It's overused anyway, and I have been doing it a lot in my stories lately.

Brawly got messed up this chapter! That skarmory really did a number. Can anyone guess who it was that saved him on the bridge?

And now, he has to face his father for the first time since leaving unannounced. At least he has two new pokemon to show for it!

Let's talk in the reviews!