Chapter 23

Jax didn't doubt for a second that his father was dead. The reason why? Standing behind the two young children stood a towering Charizard. Even through the picture, Jax could feel how powerful the Charizard was. A normal Charizard only stood up to about 1.7 meters but this Charizard was over 2 meters tall. Size might not usually indicate how strong or weak a pokemon was, but it was the rule of nature. The bigger the pokemon, the more deadly they usually were. The flame on its tail was also brighter and bigger than any Jax had ever seen in his previous life. 'Yeah, no way someone defeated my daddy with a starter as strong as this. If his first pokemon was already this strong, the rest of his line up wouldn't fall behind this guy.' Even without meeting the man, Jax had absolute confidence in his father.

Storing the picture frame into his schoolbag, Jax decided to take a look at the rest of the makeshift shelter. The rest of the cave was rather boring. The basin served its purpose of a washtub, where they got the water, Jax had no idea. The table looked like it had been used as a dinner table where the two ate and talked at. With nothing left to do, Jax figured it was about time to leave this place. There was just a slight problem. The two killing fortresses that was out for his and Vioarr's blood was still making their way towards them!

"Why are they chasing us so badly? All we did was run into one of them outside. It's not like we killed their children. If someone looked at the situation, they would have thought that we kidnapped one of the Beldums! HAHAHAHA!"

Jax looked at Vioarr funnily before remembering that Vioarr was in his Pokeball at the time so he had no idea what happened with the Beldums or that Jax really did steal their egg! Catching Vioarr up about the situation, the purple lizard had a gob smacked expression with his whole bottom jaw hanging down as low as it could go. Jax took out the egg and megastone in the meantime to check their condition hoping neither were damaged inside his schoolbag while they were on the run.

The egg was a creamy blue color and the occasional shaking could be seen. As for the megastone, it was in pristine condition. Megastones were usually on the pokemon which meant that when they mega-evolved and battled, the megastones were right there in the middle of all that chaos, so it only made sense that they would have superior defense. If a megastone broke every time a pokemon mega-evolved and battled, they would be even more rare than they already were and worth far more than they did on the market.

Sighing in relief that neither the egg nor the stone seemed like they were damaged on the bumpy journey, Jax took out some more emergency rations for the two. With nothing else left to do, Jax decided now was a good time to wind down from their long and arduous day with a simple meal before sleeping on the stone slab that his parents called a bed. It wasn't like the Metagrosses were going away any time soon anyways.

Vioarr could do nothing but go along with Jax's idea since he was rather hungry. Even after eating all those berries earlier, all this running with a child on his back made him extremely starved. After the two were finished with their meals, Jax took out some of the berries that had already regrown inside his sub-space as an after-meal snack. With their tummies filled and exhaustion settling in, the duo climbed onto the bed and slept like there wasn't two monsters waiting outside who wanted nothing more than their heads.

In the meantime, back in Arklight city, Doria was going crazy with worry. It's been over a day already and still no sign of Jax showing up. She called the school and all the parents of the students who had classes with Jax, but no one had seen neither him nor Vioarr. Imaging that the worst had happened to Jax on one of his adventure in Thora Forest, Doria made up her mind. The last time Jax had disappeared and came back, Doria made him confess everything about what he was doing and where he had gone. As such, she knew about Nidoking and his abode, so she decided to go meet up with him. Who knows, maybe Jax just got tired after training all day and was taking a nap in a musty cave rather than back at home on his warm and soft bed.

"Arcanine, let's go find that troublemaker I call a son. I swear if he really is sleeping in a cave, I'm going to tear him apart! Vioarr too! I learned a wonderful new soup recipe that I think he will be great in!" If only she knew how true her words were. Although not the same cave, Jax and Vioarr were indeed sleeping the day away in one.

Since reaching Thora Forest by car took two hours, Doria decided to ride Arcanine instead. Not only was he faster, Doria could prepare ahead of time if Jax really was in trouble. Upon reaching the forest's entrance, she set off in the direction that Jax told her about last time. A couple hours later, she came to the cave was very similar to the one her son described to her. The obvious reason why she knew? A giant Nidoking had his head sticking out of the cave's entrance basking in the warm sunset sun.

"HEY! YOU! SLEEPING GIANT! WHERE'S MY SON!?" Doria had absolutely no chill. She was usually a very calm and collected individual but when anything concerning Jax as at play, she lost all rationality.

Lifting his head to see what bug woke him up from his nap, he was greeted by the sight of a beautiful, blonde, and petite human woman. Thinking that it was a human challenger who wanted to catch him, Nidoking was about to fire a Sludge Wave when he remembered the grey-haired boy who was with his son earlier in the day. In a passing comment, he remembered that the boy told her about his mother, a woman who was described to look very much like how this human woman looked right now. Shaking his head at the incoming headache he knew was to come, Nidoking took back his killing intent. Knowing that the mother didn't have psychic abilities like her son, Nidoking communicated in a way that all sentient knew, charades!

Nidoking pointed at himself then opened his palm and squatted down lowering his arm as he went. To Doria, it looked like this Nidoking was just sick in the head. 'Why is he kneeling and pushing the air? It's not the precursor to any move I know of.' Nidoking noticed that the human woman had no idea what he was trying to get at so he could only shake his head. He then pointed to the human woman before repeating the same gesture of squatting down and lowering his hand. Pointing back to himself and then back to the human woman, he repeated the same actions. After repeatedly doing this, Doria started to catch on that Nidoking was trying to communicate with her.