Sinnoh Journey

Chapter 29 - Mocked Fear

Lucario and Eevee woke up to see Kyra was already awake. Both hoped that Kyra had simply just woken up before them, but they doubted that.

"You ok Kyra? Did you get any sleep in the end?" Eevee asked, hoping Kyra had at least slept a little bit.

Kyra shook her head but stayed silent.

Lucario went to nuzzle Kyra's cheek to comfort her, but Kyra ducked into the sleeping bag and curled up so neither Lucario or Eevee could touch her.

Both pokémon were surprised by Kyra's reaction to them. They understood that Kyra had been scared by the Kricketune last night, but they hadn't expected Kyra to be uneasy around them too.

"Kyra...what can we do?" Lucario asked, worried for her trainer.

Lucario and Eevee heard Kyra crying in her sleeping bag. They wanted to know what they could do to help calm their trainer down, but Kyra wouldn't talk to them.

Eevee walked over to Lucario and rested her head on her legs, "Do you think Kyra's scared of us? Those Kricketune were worse than we thought?" she asked.

Lucario sighed, "Kyra's terrified of us, her aura says it all. It's best we give her some space. We'll find Nate and Willow then hopefully they can help ease Kyra's fear again," she explained.

Eevee agreed with Lucario and suggested they took Kyra's pokéballs too, that way Kyra wouldn't accidently face her fear before she was ready. Lucario double checked the tent was zipped up again so Kyra felt safe, letting Eevee onto her shoulder so they could find Nate and Willow.

Once Kyra was back alone, she came out from her sleeping bag and changed into her clothes, she was completely broken over being scared of even her own pokémon now. Just when she had begun to truly enjoy being with pokémon once again, that had been completely shattered and she doubted she would be able to claw her way back out again.

Kyra got her phone from where she had put it in her bag last night and worked at writing a message to Victoria, asking to go home. She couldn't stay on her journey if she couldn't even cope with being around her partners.

"I'm sorry Mum, I'm coming home. There was an incident with some Kricketune last night whilst I was training, and now I can't bring myself to be around pokémon again. I couldn't sleep last night since I was so scared Lucario or Eevee would hurt me as I slept. It's stupid, but I can't continue my journey like this."

Not long after Kyra had sent her message, Victoria called her to talk things through. Kyra was scared to pick up in case Victoria would be annoyed at her, but she knew that no picking up would only make things worse.

"Kyra, baby, you can't just give up over this. I know you're scared, but giving up isn't the way to go about. You're pokémon care about you more than you realise, they'd be more broken than you are now if you stopped training them," Victoria said, hoping Kyra would listen to what she was saying.

"You don't get it. Lucario always nuzzles my cheek when I'm upset and it helps calm me down, but this morning my body refused that comfort and made me cower away. My pokémon don't deserve a trainer who can't be around them without panicking," Kyra replied, crying even more. She hated how she had lost all her effort towards overcoming her fear and had been pushed back right to square one once again.

Victoria sighed, she could see that Kyra was upset at what was going on, but going home wasn't the answer. She hated the fact she had to resort to taunting Kyra, but it was the only way to get her to see straight. "You know I'm surprised: you're not the kind of girl to just run away from your problems. You've got six amazing pokémon on your team who all want the best for you, are you really just going to abandon them?" she asked.