Swanna Girl and Braivary Man 3: The Rogue Hero

Chapter 13: Chargestone

Braviary and Swanna didn't take me back to Rena's Widgets or the hideout like I thought they would. It was strange. I'd normally stay awake when we flew, but with everything we had encountered, I somehow had fallen asleep. My Pokémon must've noticed that and thought it was reasonable to take a break.

The place were I woke up at was dark with sparks of light shimmering on the walls. My eyes blinked a couple of times, hoping that they were just playing tricks on me. That wasn't the case. Nothing seemed to change. Just the ripples of light flickering across the walls. It was almost like watching the night sky, but on uneven walls and a ceiling that was much closer than the sky.

A smile flickered on my face for a moment as a memory flashed in front of my eyes. I tried shoving the memories away, but I couldn't. This place reminded me so much of that time when I was in the White Forest with...

No. I needed to forget it. The more I allowed myself to think of those memories, the more distracted I'd get. I couldn't do that. Not when I had my Pokémon counting on me. I pushed down on the ground to sit up and looked around, finding Braviary curled up at my feet while Plusle stirred on the ground beside me. For a moment, I froze. She probably hasn't gotten a decent night's sleep since Gila took her from me.

As if noticing I was up, Plusle's ears twitched. She looked up at me and smiled.

"Plu plu Plusle!" she squealed in excitement as she jumped to her feet and wrapped her tiny arms around one of my own.

I just stared at her for a moment, knowing I should feel happy too. Yet, all I could feel was guilt. It was because of me she got herself in that mess. She was on my team because I thought I could save her from harm. A few months ago, when I was still a part of Team Miasma, we were in a small forest in Hoenn. Team Miasma needed to look for something for the Pokémon they wanted. That was all I could gather as they kept me in the dark about that sort of stuff.

All I knew was that I had to help them. While doing so, one of the Krait twins thought it would be a great idea to set the forest on fire to find whatever item they needed a lot faster. As they did, I snuck away to try and warn as many Pokémon as I could. Not all of them listened to me until the fire crept up behind me. Swanna and Mienshao started getting more Pokémon out of the forest, while Audino and I had found as many that were injured to heal them to get them out.

But that didn't last long when the Krait twins found me. They found me and caught me breaking one of their rules I had to follow: no healing. They caught me red handed as I was pulling Plusle out from under a burning log. I knew what they would've forced me to do if I didn't think of anything quickly, so I caught her.

By doing so, I took her away from all her friends.

Maybe things would've been better if I had just tried to stop the Krait twins instead of trying to get those Pokémon out of the forest. Plusle wouldn't have been in this mess. It was my fault she was here, fearing what could happen next. She could've been safe in Hoenn had it not been for my careless actions of taking her in. There would be no way she'd be tortured by Gila. There would have been no fight against Swanna. She wouldn't have to worry about what could happen next.

"Plusle?" she asked, tilting her head.

Not sure what she was really saying, I gave her a smile. "I'm sorry. Once we're back home, I'm going to make sure you're safe, I promise."

Plusle looked more confused than relieved. I sighed as I grabbed her Poké Ball from my waist, only, it wasn't there. I scrambled up to my feet, wondering what I did with it. I thought I had taken it from Gila, or at least, I thought Braviary would've taken it.

I bent down beside Braviary and shook his wing. His eyes widened just before he glared at me. An unusual growl rumbled from his throat as he lowered his head.