A Couple of Special Kids

Rust and the Ilex Forest

Rust's vision's blurred as he hung from Drifty's string-like arms. He was beginning to feel very cold and dizzy, wondering when they were ever going to land. After a few more minutes of what felt like an eternity of flight, Drifty began to float down. Rust was laid down gently on the grassy plain and he felt a little more at peace. But that feeling was soon replaced with dizziness. He glanced around, but saw no healing places to speak of.

"Flooon~" Drifty calls out, gently floating and bumping its fat purple body against something.

Just as Rust thought he'd be left to die again, he saw something scurrying in the grass; A small pokemon with pink flowers on the grassy backside of its small white body. It scurries over on its stubby paws, sniffing Rust all over. On his face, his neck, and wounds. As his vision faded out, he could've sworn he saw the small Pokemon glow.

Rust woke up to the feeling of something on his chest. His eyes flicker open, and he gets up slowly. He didn't remember collapsing in a tree house. His Cubone now slides down unto his lap; happy its trainer was awake. Rust couldn't believe it. His Sableye tackles him from behind and nuzzles him, making him smile a bit. 'The crazy bastard actually did it, huh? Strangely enough, I seem to be healed too.' Rust thought as he held the two in his lap and hugged them. Sableye brings his attention to where a note and Pokéball rest. Rust gets up and grabs the note, reading it over quickly.

Hello! Like I said, Drifty brought you to a safe place, and like I said, I got your pokemon back! I know what you're thinking – the Ilex forest is not a safe place. But if you know me and I like you as a friend or whatever, the meaner inhabitants should maybe leave you be. Also I figured I was gonna have to patch you up when I found you, but it seems something else got to that first, and did a very good job! So I brought you to the old tree house I used to play in. I also left you a little surprise in that Pokéball – its small and cute at first, but way more useful later! I hope we could cross paths again, and you better treat your pokemon nice! Unless you want the forest guardian to come for you, hehehe~

Don't worry about it though!

-Hayune

Rust just puts the note down. He has a sinking feeling he is never going to understand that guy. He turns his attention to the Pokéball left on that desk. He grabs it, and lets out the mystery pokemon inside. A small black bug pokemon sits there, looking up at him. Rust searches for the name of the thing in front of him. Since he couldn't think of the correct name, he figured a nickname would have to do. But he wasn't to good at that, either! He figured anything goes. He let the small pokemon crawl onto his hand. It was soft in a strange way, not exactly like fur, but still a bit like it?

"I'll just call you Velvet." Rust says to the little pokemon.

The Scatterbug seems to like that name. Cubone and Sableye welcome Velvet to their little family. Rust returns all pokemon to their pokéballs, save for Velvet, and goes off to train it. The training was difficult – Hayune was right when he said she was small and weak – he had to often swap out for Cubone so she wouldn't fall victim to a bird pokemon. But he was also right that it was sort of cute. Besides, he wanted to see what it looked like fully evolved.

As he slowly but surely trained the small critter, troublesome thoughts came to mind. How was he ever supposed to function normally here? He was always treated poorly, and he treated those beneath him how he was treated, and always strove to be tough and brutal. He had been out spying before, seen someone he really did want to interact with. Yet he never did, because something felt wrong when he tried to approach. Was how he always acted the right way to be? Should he try to act a bit differently? It wasn't like he was some 6th sensed freak who just did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and only got those positive results from it. The boy even entered and exited the fortress that was once his home to get his pokemon, with the utmost confidence that he would never be hurt, and he wasn't and got out just fine. Was it normal to be that naïve? That oblivious? He had the sinking feeling that guy was just insane and super lucky. Or maybe, he made a deal with some sort of legend. Maybe he had some markings on him that indicated that? He couldn't remember Hayune's face well, especially because it was dark when they met. Would that old tree house hold clues, he wondered? He wasn't too far away. He could check.

Once Velvet beat up that last pokemon, and got near evolution level, Rust backtracked to the tree house. He climbs up, and looks around. There were many old papers on the walls, the pictures that used to be on them now smudged and faded beyond recognition. It actually disturbed Rust quite a bit. Turning his attention away from those, he looks at the little chest in the corner of the room. Lucky for Rust, the lock was already broken. Inside the box were a few old crayons, and a book that was just marked with "my adventures" in shaky children's handwriting. Rust opened it up. The writing was faded and barely even legible, but luckily there were pictures too. The first page had a bunch of colorful question marks on the page, and a sort of confused looking stick figure in the middle of it all. Rust could make out the word "color" several times in the writing. It was sort of troubling. The next few pages were filled with colorful scribbles, seeming to have no rhyme or reason in it. On another page, the handwriting is way clearer, and a drawing made with red crayons sits opposite of the text.

"I like red. I can see this one the best." The text reads. The drawing in different shades of red had labels of what he drew. An apple, fire, fire truck, peppers, blood... Rust moved on from that page. Another page was made for the color blue, and one for purple and pink, too. On a page after those, a mess of shades of green, yellow, and some shades of orange were scribbled all over the place. "Dad says these are supposed to be different colors. They all look like grey. Is it a joke? I don't like that joke. I want to see what green looks like! It sounds pretty!" the text on the left of the page reads.

'Well... that's quite a surprise...' Rust thought, flipping the page once again.

The next page was a drawing of a girl with purple hair, in what seemed to be a black shirt and pink skirt. The text read "Azure is my best friend. She likes all the colors I can see. Her hair is purple and pretty! Azure and I are gonna share secrets today. I wanna show her Celebi!" Rust tried to remember where he heard the name Celebi. It was an important pokemon, right? Maybe it would explain if he read on. He flipped to the next page. What was there was an illustration of him, Azure, and a green pokemon. "Celebi says she's supposed to be green. I'll take her word for it, but she still looks grey..." the text reads. Another flip of the page shows a drawing of a shadowy figure. "Azure's secret is so secret, she doesn't even want me to draw him. He is very nice though." The text on that page read. Rust noted the shakiness of the drawing, as if someone was trying to stop the hand that had drew it.

Rust flips through a few more pages, trying to find anything more significant about the two pokemon mentioned. Or, was it one pokemon and one person? Rust wasn't really able to tell. He got to a page where drawings and writing were a bit clearer, but seemed to skip pages. By what was drawn and written, Rust could see Celebi was very strong. It seemed to help Hayune out of bad situations often, or just follow him. The writing seemed to depict Celebi as something only Hayune's family knew of personally, and strived to protect. As entries and drawings began to just fade into the back pages of the book, Rust closed it and put it back in the box. For a moment he felt the presence of something behind him. It unnerved him enough to make him glance behind him, only to see whatever it was disappear. Rust glanced around; it wasn't Velvet, because Velvet was asleep in his lap, and the rest of his pokemon were resting comfortably inside pokeballs. The tree house was beginning to unnerve him. He quickly vacated the tree house and went to go level up Velvet a bit more.

As Rust trained, he tried to make sense of it all in his head. Hayune's note did make a bit more sense now. 'The reason I'm safe here was because Hayune wished it to be so. The reason that could happen would be because of his connection with Celebi. That makes some sense. Perhaps that Celebi had a hand in the way he just wanders? Could it be guiding him somehow?' Rust thought as he watched Velvet take down another pokemon. A bright light interrupts his train of thought, and he watched as Velvet began to evolve. He recognized the pokemon Spewpa even less. He really wished he looked into Kalosian pokemon a bit more. Or was the thing Alolan? Regardless, he felt like more research would've benefited him in the long run. He picks up the newly evolved Velvet and has to carry it around and let it watch Cubone fight to let it gain experience. 'Is Hayune sure this pokemon would be useful? It doesn't really seem that way...' He thought. He decides to go for a break after a while and find something to eat.