Arven's Scarlet Desire

Chapter One - The Lighthouse

There was someone at the lighthouse. Scarlet raised her arm to shield her eyes from the morning sun, but she couldn't see any clearer. Her hands stung suddenly, and she realised she had scraped them up badly when she went down the cliffside.

Nemona saw and winced in sympathy.

"Oh, damn," She said. "We'll have to fix you up too - you're both in pretty bad shape. Let's go to ask at the lighthouse."

Scarlet looked down at the strange Pokémon, sitting meekly at her feet. It had seemed so much bigger, moments ago - it had saved her from a pack of dogs and brought her back up to Nemona, but it had clearly used up all the energy it had left to help her, and she felt powerfully responsible for the poor thing.

"Maybe that guy over there knows something about this Pokémon," Nemona was saying. "And if not at least we can ask him for a washcloth or something to get you cleaned up.

Scarlet was a little apprehensive - the morning was already going off the rails, and they were definitely going to be late for the first day of school, but Nemona was hard to disagree with.

"OK," Scarlet said, "but please can we be quick? If we're late we'll get in trouble, and I don't want to make a bad impression on my first day."

"Yeah, yeah, of course." Nemona waved her hand dismissively. She hitched her backpack on her back and started up the hill to the lighthouse. The weird wheeled Pokémon followed her eagerly, if a bit gingerly.

At the top of the hill they blinked hard, adjusting to the morning sunlight glaring full in their faces. Scarlet squinted at the lighthouse, looking for the door, when he saw them.

He was tall and barrel-chested, a senior student like themselves, from his uniform. He had a peculiar look about him - the way he stood at the door, head bowed, as though he wasn't just leaving for school; he was leaving for good. He stepped out from the shadow of the tower, his ash blonde hair hiding one eye as it caught the sun. The other eye narrowed as he saw them, and scowled in recognition at the Pokémon, swearing under his breath. He walked directly to the Pokémon and looked it over, coldly.

"What the hell have you been doing?" He said as he checked its head for wounds.

Scarlet was a little thrown by his demeanor, but she was keen to have this problem solved quickly.

"We found it down-"

"I'm not talking to you two," he snapped. "Shove off."

He scowled at them over his shoulder. Nemona cocked her head. "Wait, I know you. Aren't you Professor Sada's son? Arven, right?"

He snarled at her. "Doesn't matter who my Mother is."

He was lifting the Pokémon's front paws and checking them half-heartedly, but when his hand came away stained with blood, he tensed up. Turning to Scarlet, he asked, "Why is he in this state?"

She didn't appreciate the accusatory look he was giving her.

"I was just about to tell you," Scarlet said, scowling back at him. "You need to learn some manners."

He frowned and stepped in closer to intimidate her. Scarlet held her ground, though he was nearly a foot taller than her.

"We heard it crying," Nemona chipped in, cutting off the budding fight at the stem. "We went to investigate, but Scarlet slipped off the cliff."

She gestured pleadingly to the younger girl's grazed hands, which Scarlet attempted to hide in her pockets - she decided she didn't need sympathy from this tosser.

"Your Pokémon saved her," Nemona continued, "but he got kind of worn out in the process. He got all... slumpy afterwards."

The Pokémon still looked pretty beat, and it lay down with its chin on Scarlet's foot. Arven watched it closely.