Chapter 12: The rivals


Mark and May healed their pokémon, then started walking off to the hotel.

“Mark... you know, that was amazing.”

“What?”

“That you were ready to sacrifice your own life.”

“May... everyone would’ve done that... especially since I thought he’d kill me anyway...”

“Also, you refused to believe that your life had come to an end and managed to find out what was wrong with the whole thing. That’s something admirable.”

“May... please... if those classmates of yours heard you...”

“They won’t.”

“May... please stop it... I don’t feel so good...”

“Rubbish. Why shouldn’t you be feeling well? You won the battle, Scyther got resurrected, Mew is safe, and you felt very good just a few minutes ago!”

“May, don’t talk about this...”

“Why not? It was exciting!”

“Maybe to you! May, please stop and listen to me for a moment!”

They stopped.

“What’s wrong, Mark?” May asked.

“May... do you know how I feel when I think about anything sharp, anything related to that man, anything related to death? I relive this whole ‘exciting’ thing fast forward, I get the same feeling I got when Scyther was threatening to kill me, I get the feeling I imagine it must be to get a 30 cm long fang through my body, I get the feeling it must be to be stuck in a ventilation and have to watch your friend being killed, I get the feeling I imagine it is to die, and I can’t think of anything else, AND IT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD!”

There was some silence, then May said: “I see... sorry... shocks like this can cause it... try to think of something happy, and not this.”

“Oh great!” said Mark loudly. “I’m depressed, and I’m going to kill myself soon because I’m so curious to know if it’s the right feeling of death I keep getting...”

May did not take this joke well. “Mark. Don’t even think about it.”

“May, can’t you take a little joke?”

“You shouldn’t be joking! This is serious!”

“May, I think talking about this over and over won’t help.”

“Hey, you’ve not recorded Scyther in your pokédex yet!” said May, changing the subject.

“You’re right.” Mark took out Scyther’s pokéball and the pokédex, then pointed the pokédex at the ball.

“Scyther – mantis pokémon. Scyther uses its sharp scythes to kill its prey, quickly and effectively. They are very rare, because they have been overhunted be trainers for the much-preferred evolution, Scizor.”

“Did you hear that??? Even the pokédex is against me! “...uses its sharp scythes to kill its prey...” thank you, pokédex, just what I needed!” Mark threw the pokédex over his shoulder and May picked it up. Suddenly, Scyther’s pokéball burst open. Apparently he had taught himself how to get out of his pokéball by himself.

“Mark, I’m not feeling very good...”

“Me neither,” said Mark.

“I keep imagining that my scythe is slipping, there’s blood all over...”

“I get your point...”

“Wow. That’s weird.” May didn’t say anything else for a second, but then she said: “I think both of you should think about when you felt better.”

They walked to the hotel in silence. Mark and Scyther were both concentrating on the best moments of this whole thing, Mark on the wonderful feeling when he found out he wasn’t about to be killed and Scyther on being brought back to life. May got two rooms, handed Mark one key and went to her room without saying anything. Mark took the key, went to his room and flung himself on the bed. Scyther did, too. They lay there until Mark sighed.

“Scyther, do you also find it hard to think about just one moment for long?”

“Yup.”

“Come, then. I’ll introduce you to my other pokémon.”

Knowing Gyarados couldn’t be let out in the room, he went to the hotel’s battle arena, which had a pool in the middle like all pokémon arenas that are up to today’s standards.

“Go, Charmeleon! Sandslash! Jolteon! Dratini! Gyarados!”

The five pokémon appeared, looked at Mark, then saw Scyther and looked at him doubtfully, then goggled at Mark.

“Guys, this is Scyther. Scyther is my newest pokémon.”

Charmeleon looked at Scyther again. “Are you the guy who stole us pretending to be our trainer, or did you steal the thief’s Scyther while stealing us back?”

“Neither. Scyther joined us.” And Mark told them the whole story.

“And... are you sure we can... trust him?” asked Charmeleon.

“Of course! If not for Scyther, I don’t know where we would be! There are some possibilities... I would maybe be dead, and you’d be owned by that madman, because he’d maybe have realized that I wouldn’t be of any more use to him free than dead. Or we’d still be there and never see each other again because he’d be holding me captive trying to force me to tell him where Mew hides... Or we’d be here, but the madman would know about Mew’s hideout. Or he’d have thought of the fact that he’d not be losing anything if he threatened to kill YOU, and then he’d mean it.”

“Mark, this Scyther was going to kill you! This is mad!”

“Scyther pretended he was going to kill me!”

“And this Scyther did not let you go when you asked him to!”

“...because ‘this Scyther’ knew very well that he wasn’t supposed to kill me!”

“Mark, this pokémon is not worth your trust! Why didn’t he tell you then?”

Mark didn’t want to answer this question. “Charmeleon, both me and Scyther are not feeling very well after this whole deal. He feels even worse than me, if anything. And, this Scyther got run through by a 30 cm long fang just for you and me! I want all of you to accept Scyther as one of you! Everyone who is ready to count Scyther among you, come over here!”

His pokémon just stood there for a while, glancing anxiously at Scyther’s scythes. Mark tapped his foot impatiently and in the end, Sandslash walked forward. Mark supposed it might be because he knew Scyther had gotten along with a Sandslash for some time. And because he knew he also had big claws. He looked quickly in Scyther’s face and said “Hi”, then looked off him again and stood beside him. Gyarados grunted, eyed Scyther with an “I’m bigger than you anyway, so why not?” expression and nodded. Scyther’s expression didn’t change at all.

Jolteon was next, although he seemed a bit scared, walked up to Scyther and said “Hello”, then quickly went to Sandslash’s side and bent a bit down so he looked like he was trying to hide.

Dratini then crawled over, looked happily at Scyther and then took his place at the other side of Mark and Scyther. Mark was actually surprised that a pokémon this small wasn’t afraid of Scyther at all, he seemed mainly just shy.

Then only Charmeleon was left. He just crossed his arms, gave Scyther a nasty look and then turned around. Scyther looked at Charmeleon with an even nastier “fine, have it your way, see if I care!” look, then crossed his arms and turned around, too.

“Oh, stop it, you two!” said Mark, but they didn’t move. The other pokémon looked at Scyther, then at Charmeleon, then at Mark, and then at each other. Mark looked at his watch, it was getting late.

“Hey, I’ll let all of you sleep out of your balls tonight! Gyarados, I guess you’ll have to be here, but the rest of you can sleep in my room.”

When they went to sleep, Mark slept in the bed, and the pokémon on the floor. Mark made sure Charmeleon and Scyther were both fast asleep when he fell asleep, and then he had a very strange dream.

At first, it was just the nightmare he’d been expecting, more reliving the day, more feeling death, more Fangcats and Scythers and more blood, but after that, he saw two yellow eyes, felt horrible pain, and then he woke up, all sweaty. His pokémon were all still asleep. Then he fell asleep again. He had another such dream, but then he was with Mew in front of him, and threw a pokéball. Mew was absorbed into the ball, and he saw himself taking the ball, but he had no face. Then a roar found its way through the dream and Mark woke up to see Scyther awake. He apparently had a nightmare, too. Scyther had seen himself killing Mark and blood everywhere, Fangcat attacking him again, and then he had seen himself attacking various pokémon, but Mark was nowhere to be seen. The other pokémon didn’t have a trainer either. They both went back to sleep, had more nightmares that were all something like that, and kept waking each other up. It was a terrible night.

But somehow, Mark had the feeling he felt better than he would have if Scyther wasn’t also experiencing the same sort of thing. They went through this together, and it made both of them feel better. However, Scyther and Charmeleon were still enemies. Scyther wouldn’t look at Charmeleon and Charmeleon wouldn’t look at Scyther.

But Charmeleon’s dislike for Scyther wasn’t what Charmeleon thought himself. Charmeleon had managed to convince himself it was because he wanted to protect Mark from Scyther because Scyther wanted to kill him. But deep down, Charmeleon knew very well that it wasn’t true. He was simply jealous. Charmeleon felt like it was all Scyther’s fault that the Mew hunter didn’t give Mark his pokémon for the battle. Charmeleon had wanted to be the pokémon that fought Fangcat and was the hero of the day. I’ll show this Scyther, Charmeleon thought, I’ll show him...