My trainer was going to be pissed.
Really, I should be listening to him, but the thing is, I don't think I can help it. There's just something in me that's not set right or something, and it causes me to act screwy. Maybe one of these days they'll figure out what it is and I won't be this way anymore. Though I don't know if I'd like that. It's hard to say.
What had I done that I knew would earn his wrath later? For most other Pokémon it would be a fairly mild crime; I'd swiped a lighter and snuck out in the middle of the night. Two things made this something different: first, the lighter in question was not my trainer's, but a stranger's, which was definitely a little bit higher on the no-no list. The second was what I was going to do with it when I snuck out.
Namely, light myself on fire.
Once I was outside, I was off like a shot. Getting out was really the hard part; once I was in the open, all it took was one Agility boost and I was flying through the woods with ease. We Grovyles are pretty renowned for our speed, so as you can imagine it didn't take long before I was out all by myself, well away from prying eyes. Once I had my space, I flicked the lighter, trying to get it to light. It was a rather difficult mechanism for a Pokémon, but I'd had plenty of experience with it and it took me only a few seconds to get that bright yellow flame dancing. I watched it for a bit, kind of mesmerized by the tiny bead of fire, like it was from a foreign world.
Then I brought it up to one of the leaves on my arm. Right up to the very end of it. I watched as the flame made contact, heating up the green foliage. Oh, yes, it was painful - those leaves are part of our bodies, and despite the fact that they grow back quickly, they do have a kind of nerve in them so we can kind of control them a little. And they also feel pain as well. Not as much as the rest of or bodies, but enough to smart. I didn't care. Actually, the pain was probably part of the reason I did it.
The lighter wasn't much, and it took a while to actually get a flame going on the leaf. It's not like the leaves off of trees, the leaves on my body are pretty hardy and burn for a while before being really damaged. So I could enjoy it for longer. Or so I thought.
"And just what are you doing?"
Grovyles are also known for jumping. And boy did I jump. I'm almost sure I brushed some of the lower-hanging branches. Turns out I wasn't as far from prying eyes as I'd thought. It was my trainer's Raichu who had caught me - most likely he'd followed me out almost right after I'd left. Now he was standing in front of me, arms folded, and despite the question he'd greeted me with I knew he knew exactly what I had been doing. This wasn't the first time he'd busted me.
"Put it out."
I did as he said - I may resist Electric attacks but this Raichu was way stronger than I was, I couldn't have lasted a minute against him. I snuffed the flame on my leaf with my hand, trying to get as much out of it as I could before it went away.
"Now hand it over." Usually he would ask where I got the fire this time, but I think judging from me being way out here he already had his suspicions. Maybe he caught wind of something earlier after I'd nicked it, too, I'll admit I'm not exactly the slyest guy around and kinda lousy at hiding things. I didn't see much point in trying to fight it, so I tossed him the lighter. He caught it and looked at me a lot like my trainer does when he catches me at that kind of stuff. "You're going to get our trainer in a lot of trouble, you know. You can't keep taking things that don't belong to you."
I nodded. Of course I understood this. It wasn't like that was what I was trying to do. It was just that I couldn't help it.
It's been going on for as long as I can remember. My trainer, his parents, their Pokémon, anyone who was ever in charge of me always had the same message: keep away from fire. And small wonder, it could be pretty nasty to someone my type. But for some reason I had trouble following that rule; if there was fire around I was almost certain to be there, danger or not. And more often than not, I ended up scorched to some degree, partly because of tempting fate and partly because I was kind of trying to.
On some level I always knew this was weird, that others of my kind or my type didn't have this kind of behavior and there was probably something a little screwy with me since I did. But it didn't change anything. They scolded me but they didn't really think much of it, they just thought I was too curious for my own good and more than a little klutzy, so they treated me and sent me on my way. That's how it was for a while.
When my trainer finally was ready to go travel on his own, he took a few of us with him, including myself. We had battles, as is the usual, and it was through this that I encountered something much more thrilling than the occasional burning thing: battles against Fire-type Pokémon. I didn't have any problem listening to my trainer under most circumstances, but I'll admit I tended to stop listening when he wanted to call me back when a Fire-type came out. Usually I'd just charge in headlong before he could return me to my ball, which was a lot more reckless than I was with other opponents. Every now and then I actually managed to snag a victory, sometimes just because they were too surprised to react in time, but more often I just got my ass torched.
And I loved it. Call me crazy - I probably am. But just the intensity, the sensation of being lit up like that, it's incomparable. It's just so overwhelming that it sends me into kind of a weird euphoria. Oh, yeah, it hurts like hell, don't get me wrong, but weirdly enough, the pain actually kind of makes it even better. It adds that extra something that really completes it.
At first I did this pretty often, whenever I had the chance. That was probably my mistake, because my trainer started to really notice the pattern and suspect that something was up. I remember him taking me to get checked out after one of those escapades and talking to the nurse about what he I was doing. The nurse mentioned something called "pyromania," which one of my teammates said was some kind of obsession with fire. Which I don't think really fits quite exactly - I'm not really obsessed with fire, just its effects on me.
Whatever the case, after that there were some pretty big changes. I wasn't allowed to fight Fire-types anymore; he was very cautious about which foes he brought me out against, and actually it felt like he avoided trainers who were more likely to have Fire-types in the first place. At first I was disappointed but dealt with it, since I figured he just wanted to make sure I didn't hurt myself too badly. But then it started eating at me. I needed to feel those flames again.
That's why I started stealing the lighters. Most people don't know they're missing until long after I've gotten away, and usually they just think they've misplaced them or something. The flames are pitiful compared to even a newborn Fire-type Pokémon, but by the time I get to the point of taking one I'm just desperate for anything. I'd never been able to convince any of my comrades to roast me, and most of them thought I was completely cracked. Which, again, not entirely off base. So the lighters are the last resort. Of course, I can never hold on to them for long, because my trainer checks me often and the others are usually watching me. Like Raichu was tonight.
When we got back everything was still dark. I didn't know if he was going to tell our trainer about tonight or not. I hoped not; sometimes Raichu would go easy on me, since he kind of gets that it's not something I can completely help. But he didn't always because he didn't want to make it easier for me to keep doing what I was doing. I had a feeling this was going to probably be one of the latter cases, but he wouldn't say.
Still, I'd be lying if I said I regretted it. I hadn't gotten much burn, but it was enough to at least keep me from going round the bend for a while. Maybe one of these days my trainer will catch a Fire-type Pokémon just psychotic enough to indulge me every once in a while. Who knows? Until then, though, I really don't know what I'm going to do. Probably steal some more lighters, unless I can find something else I can easily conceal.
