Against all Odds

A Slithering Shadow

This should be a fun chappie!! And I'm going to say this here, because I don't think anyone reads all the way to the creds of the chapter: please leave a comment and a star, even a follow is pretty awesome if your interested in the story!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.

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"Well Abra, a few more ingredients, and I think we will be good!!"

Brenden grins at his statement and collects more berries, handing them to Abra, who had a large pile of food collecting in his arms.

"I really hope Tyler is done with the campsite when we get back, I want to relax after making dinner, not work more."

"Ab- Abra!!" Abra mewls out in agreement, floating right above Brenden as he looks around for more food ingredients.

"Oh, that should be a good replacement for the Oran berries we can't find!!" Brenden says as he spots a small cluster of purplish berries. As he turns to get Abra's attention, the bushes shake slightly and he turns back to the berries, except they're not there.

"But.. They were just.." Brenden looks around in confusion, and then suspicion as the bushes a few yards away shift slightly as a shadowy figure flits into them, dodging from its previous hiding place of the tree canopy.

"Abra. You know where we came from right?"

"Ra, Abraaa" it growls in confirmation, it's squinted eyes pursing even more as it scans the environment.

"Then go, and fast."

"Ab..?"

"I'll be fine, whatever it is it seems to be unthreatening so far."

He turns slightly, picking up on a pair of bright yellow snakelike eyes in the canopy above them. They narrow as he finds them and slowly fade into the canopy.

He turns, finding more and more yellow eyes, surrounding them in a circle.

"Abra, I want you to go when I say. As quick as you can, get Tyler, bring him here."

"AB-ABRAAA!!"

"Don't argue, just go.... NOW!!"

Abra flies forward, passing by a pair of the eyes that do nothing as he dashes past them, besides casually staring at him, then disappear.

The other eyes, too many to count, seem to only spare a glance as the psi Pokemon disappears, then focus back on Brenden, narrowing slightly. An audible loud hiss starts, and the eyes get closer, appearing as Ekans, two dozen or more, converging on Brenden.

"Damn, I hope Abra can get Tyler soon.. Or my adventure will be over before it started." He says quietly, turning in a circle, taking in the many vicious looking snake Pokemon that surrounded him.

He crouched low, and dodged a flying Ekans that had leaped from the ground, intent on sinking its fangs into his neck. He dodged another, but they started leaping in duos, and he soon had two wrapped around his waist and arm, pinning the arm to his side. They slowly increased their grasp, constricting him ever so slightly.

"How ya going to get out of this one Brenden?" He asked himself as even more of the snake Pokemon prepped themselves to leap.

"Guess I'll never know." He says in finality as the Ekans leap, and he closes his eyes.

And nothing happened. He opens his eyes slightly to see the Ekans that had jumped, curled on the ground in pain, slashes across their backs. Even the ones on his body had fallen off, the same slash marks across their body. The other Ekans around him started to edge backwards, looking around in confusion and fear, hissing over and over.

Brenden looked around in confusion, stopping at a pair of light red eyes appearing behind the Ekans, an even louder, more guttural hiss sounding over the Ekans, quieting them instantly. A hulking snake appeared from the shadows, an intimidating Arbok that seemed almost too big to be able to sustain itself.

"Arrrrrbok.." It hisses out as it approaches Brenden, slithering around him in a tight circle. Out of notice the Ekans edge away from the obvious alpha Pokemon, and fail to notice the shadowy figure flit in between them silently, jumping into the canopy of trees above Brenden and the Arbok.

"I don't know what you want, but I doubt I have it." Brenden says calmly as the Cobra Pokemon slither around him, making a parted hissing noise, almost like it was laughing.

"Ar-arrrrbo- arrbok" it hisses, training its eyes on Brenden's, and wrapping  its hard coiled body around his legs and stomach, opening its mouth wide.

"I think I've come to hate snakes now." Brenden says quietly as the mouth descends slowly over his head.

Suddenly, as its jaw moves over Brenden's eyes, it stops and recoils, looking around quickly, finally training its eyes above them, where it hisses at an unknown instigation.

A screech responds and a shadowy figure flies at speeds incomparable to the human eye at the Arbok, knocking it off Brenden and causing a dust wall to hide the Arbok and the shadow along with what sounded like a gruesome battle.

The sounds of the Arbok screeching in pain and loud cat calls and inhuman screaming coming from behind the dust cover.

"Brenden!! I came as quick as I could!!" A voice yells out and Brenden turns his head to see Tyler bounding towards him, Abra and Beldum hot on his heels. He stops at the sight of the battle and winces at the loud screeches and roars of the competitors.

"Come on, we need to get out of here now!!" Brenden yells and grabs Tyler by his front, pulling him along back the way he came.

"What is going on, what was fighting back there?" He asks loudly as he starts to run alongside Brenden, looking back every now and then to see the still visible battle.

"An Arbok.. And something else. I didn't get a good look at it, but it was fast and saved me from being devoured by that giant snake and its buddies!!" He yells to Tyler, as they breach the forest, the sounds of battle finally fading.

They look at each other in exhaustion and Brenden glances at Abra, who looks about ready to pass out.

"Abra come here buddy, return." He says quietly and clicks his pokeball, returning his Pokemon with a relieved sigh.

"Your lucky he came when he did or I never would have found you, he came flying out of the forest, scared the dickens out of me and Tank, dropped all of the food he had, and tried to drag me into the forest by the hair." Tyler says, rubbing his hair with a sheepish grin and chuckling lightly.

Brenden sighs in tiredness, and spares a look back at the forest, where one last intensely loud screech of triumph sounds, and sounds nothing like the Arbok.

"Whatever you are.. Thank you." Brenden says quietly, taking in the silence that followed that screech. He turned, taking in the obvious signs of destruction a bit away from the camp.

"OH WHAT HAPPENED!?!?" He yells in exasperation as Tyler laughs sheepishly and scratches the back of his head.

"Well ya see.."

As Tyler starts his story of the battle with him and the trainer, Tank casually floats to his trainers bag, looking in interest at the pokeballs there. It's one eye shoots up as it senses a strong presence near him.

He peers along the edge of woods, his unblinking eye almost missing the lithe shadowy figure that stood in the shadow of a large tree. It peered out at the campsite, nodded at the observant Beldum, it's red eye spinning in interest.

It jumped at inhuman speeds and disappeared back into the forest, but spared one last look at the short blonde, its eyes softening as it turned and disappeared back into the forest.

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And there it is!! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I SURE ENJOYED WRITING IT!! In all honesty this by far is my most favorite chapter yet,