Out Of The Ashes (A Pokémon Fanfiction) ~on Hold

Chapter 10: Lurking In The Darkness

Chapter 10: Lurking In The Darkness

As soon as the dejected figure had disappeared from sight, Ash fell to his knees and threw his arms open. "You were awesome!" he yelled energetically, smiling so widely that his cheeks hurt. Tank practically pranced into his arms and nuzzled affectionately against Ash's jacket. There wasn't even a scratch on his shining steel armor, though it had become slightly dirty.

Ash shifted so that he could count out his winnings. He hadn't received too much, but that was to be expected. The trainer had looked as novice as Ash himself, and likely had only battled a few times.

Still, though, the exaltation of victory was more of a payment than anything else. He almost couldn't believe it. He was a real trainer! It was as though he had been dozing all this time and was only just waking up to the realization. Finally, he had started out on a journey that would undoubtedly change his life… and so far, he was doing pretty good. (Granted, it had only been two days, but he wasn't going to quarrel over numbers.)

As the afternoon strengthened, Ash encountered several other trainers and won all of his matches. There really wasn't much chance of him losing. All of the trainers he encountered were similarly new and inexperienced, using Pokemon like Pidgeys, Rattatas, and an assortment of weak bug-types like Caterpie and Weedle. Tank's natural defense left him practically impenetrable. Tackle attacks bounced off his body. Scratch couldn't even leave a mark. All the while, Tank was growing in experience with every battle, learning the rhythm and flow of fighting just the same as Ash. He learned to conserve movement, allowing his armor to take physical attacks without trouble before retaliating with a devastating Headbutt or Tackle when his opponent came too close.

Ash also made another important discovery–Tank couldn't be poisoned, as the multitude of trainers equipped with Weedles and their move Poison Sting eventually found out. The poisoned pins couldn't even penetrate his armor. According to the Pokedex, steel-types were immune to all types of poison, which lifted a weight off Ash's shoulders. He'd been worried about his Pokemon getting poisoned and ill in the midst of Viridian Forest, far away from any professional aid like a Pokemon Center.

At the end of the day, Ash had kept his winning streak and accumulated quite a bit of pocket change. They had broken through Viridian Forest's outer ring of trees just before mid-afternoon and kept to the main trail for the majority of their walk. The woodland was bursting with Pokemon, mostly bug-types and the occasional Pidgey, but Ash didn't make any efforts to catch them, though he acknowledged that he needed to bolster his team quickly. Because he only had one Pokemon, the battle would be over immediately if Tank fainted.

Twilight set in with alarming speed. Ash quickly switched his prerogative from battling to finding a suitable campsite for the night.

"All right Tank, help me look for a place to set up camp," Ash instructed. Tank looked at him curiously and plopped to his stomach right where he stood, patting with one stubby leg at the earth as if to say, "Why not here?"

Ash sighed. "Maybe for you, but not for me. I'm looking for a place where I can have some shelter and maybe a campfire."

Tank's entire little body heaved in one great huff of breath. With an exaggerated grunt, he climbed back to all fours and trudged forward. Ash eventually brought out his flashlight, clicking it to a low setting to help sift through the darkness. Tank didn't seem to have a problem with his vision, which was expected of a species that spent most of their time in caves or digging underground. His large blue eyes glowed luminously, an eerie but pretty cool attribute.

They eventually wandered into a large cluster of trees enclosing a ring of mostly free space. Ash was tired, dirty, and sweaty, but too exhausted to do much beyond wiping himself down and setting up his sleeping bag. Tank quickly ate a few large stones embedded in the earth and curled up next to Ash's sleeping bag.

He couldn't see much beyond the leafy branches interwoven over his head, but Ash fell asleep while searching for familiar star constellations.

He was woken by Tank's deep, rumbling growl.

It was a different pitch than he had ever heard before–deeper, rougher, and more wary. The sound jerked him right out of his sleep instantly, and he jackknifed into a sitting position, partially unzipping his sleeping bag in the process. Tank was standing a few yards away, his head lowered challengingly into Headbutt position.

"Tank?" he mumbled sleepily, looking around wildly. It was clearly the dead of night. The forest around them was silent, unnaturally so. The air had also chilled considerably. He rubbed the tops of his arms, banishing the goosebumps that had formed there. A sense of wrongness, of being watched, slid ice along his spine. He scrambled out of his sleeping bag and stood warily, doing 360's to scan their surroundings.

Tank's growl deepened, and Ash finally saw it.

A white, grinning mouth and two glowing pinpricks of eyes, stared straight at him from thirty feet up in one of the trees that overlooked their camp. A primal sort of terror intensified the dread forming in his heart. The floating face performed slow, smooth rotations until the grisly smile was upside down, then right side up, and so on and so forth.

Moving slowly, silently, Ash knelt down and unzipped his bag, never breaking eye contact with the creature watching them with a frightening level of focus. Tank began to pace back and forth, clearly unsettled. Ash turned his Pokedex on, muting the volume immediately lest it startle the creature into attacking, and set it to long-range scan mode.

Cautiously, he brought it out and discreetly angled it upwards, hoping to find out what they were facing–

The creature emitted a harsh, cackling laugh and suddenly disappeared. Tank snorted and tore warily at the ground with his front left leg. Ash waited, frozen, feeling certain the the strange Pokemon was still there in the dark.

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Find out what happens in the next chapter as the journey continues!