Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Desert Hurts ❯ Desert Hurts ( Chapter 8 )

Desert Hurts
By Hector Gilbert

Chapter Eight
"Desert Hurts"

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.

Rob found himself talking half to the floor, and half to Butch. "You should take this like a man, not the little rat that you are. Show some respect."

Butch's face twisted into a frown. "...Respect?"

"You have killed my pokémon. Give me the pleasure of killing yours." Rob looked up to stare Butch in the face, tightening the grip on his pipe. "Don't make me take it from you."

Butch's - Brock's - pistol was now out of ammunition. Inside its pokéball Mantine was unconscious, or at least Butch wished that to be so. The cave's exit was a few paces away from Butch's position, but Rob stood at half that distance.

Butch stared back at Rob with a smile that said nothing. And with that, casually he attempted to walk past him and to the other and more gently-sloping end of the hill.

Rob's pipe interrupted Butch's stroll, knocking the wind out of him from behind his back. Butch felt the pain on his back as if it were a large weight, keeping him down on the ground in a twisted heap.

Rob spared his legs the effort of kicking Butch while he was down; he preferred putting his pipe to some use anyway. Butch took another blow to the back, this time swatting him flat against the ground.

Butch couldn't move himself quickly enough to fight or flee with the blows to his back keeping him down. Rob had Butch's life hanging by a thread now that he was finally down like this; both of them knew that. This was perhaps why Butch for once failed to predict what Rob did next.

Everything outside had now gone quiet. Butch could only hear Rob's breathing as he felt him go closer and closer to the back of his head. When he felt as if Rob was breathing down his neck, Butch also noticed a hand reach into his pocket for a certain pokéball.

Butch's left hand flailed across the rocky ground, looking for something to stop Rob with. All he could find was a few small stones, but he chucked them at Rob's face anyway.

Rob seemed to react to this, as the next thing Butch felt were a few sharp kicks to his side sending him rolling away. Rolling and rolling, to the edge where he would fall off.

"The Rat's taking a beating," Rob observed as Butch kept flopping away, "the Rat's taking a fall."

Every time Butch tried to get up, he was promptly kicked once again. So, he didn't get up at all. But that didn't help either, as the kicks kept sending him rolling closer and closer towards the edge.

Even with this in mind, Butch was still taken somewhat by surprise when he found the upper half of his body with no ground supporting it. It leaned back on the steep ledge, letting his head slip into a state of vertigo.

All Rob had to do was nudge Butch slightly to effectively knock him off, at least until Butch had found the exact same pieces of metal as the handles that he had climbed up onto the top with with his flailing arms. Without hesitation he clung onto one with his right hand for dear life. But of course, he still wasn't off the ledge yet.

Rob continued to approach, until he was standing right above his new enemy. Butch looked right at his face to prevent him from in turn looking down.

However, it was only a matter of seconds before the hand that clung onto the metal handle suddenly found the whole thing give way. The piece of metal was indeed flimsy; it broke off the ledge, causing the arm to swing in a panic.

"Swing" it did. After a brief moment where the sharp end of the metal jammed against bone, Butch could have sworn that he heard Rob scream. The tall, lean man who had destroyed Team Rocket collapsed, slipping past Butch and the edge of the hill's steep face.

Rob had apparently accepted his fate, as Butch didn't hear him scream on his way down. Butch should have got up right there, as the hill could well have just continued to crumble from there and it would have been most ironic for him if it did, but for what seemed like hours but seemed minutes he gradually caught his breath.

Once he was finished fiddling with oblivion Butch reached into his pocket, remembering a certain pokéball. But no matter how much he felt around in there, he couldn't find any now. He swallowed hard.

Butch didn't think that he would get himself to look down the remains of the falls again - but for Mantine's sake he did, having now stood securely up taking no notice of his crippled right arm. For a brief second, he thought about that fall he nearly managed to appreciate himself. But only for a second, as the gift was for Rob's taking.

The pokéball had slipped out of Butch's pocket, and fallen the same height that Rob had. It was cracked in several places, and the Mantine inside it was dead.

"Old habits die hard," Butch remarked.

***

One woman and two men not wearing Rocket uniforms stuck around in the shadow of the Johto Falls, using a man bearing an Executive uniform that they held captive as a human punching bag.

Probably, Misty reckoned, to ease the pain of something they had lost.

She looked down at her feet, sighing. I guess I'll interfere anyway. Bringing out her pistol, she pulled herself out from around the corner to meet them.

"Halt!"

A pause. The three assailants looked up at her, their guns poised but not aimed. All three seemed to quickly accept that she could blow their brains out with a few shots before they could so much as press the trigger. Or at least, Misty liked to think so.

"Go," Misty ordered, surprising herself with how she relished her grip on her own gun.

The three shrugged, and left hastily.

Once they had run off, Misty finally recognized the man on the ground before her. "Butch."

"Indeed!" Butch gurgled back with a sort of raspy noise that sounded vaguely like laughter.

It was the first thing Butch had said to her, on that fateful encounter. It was the last thing he said, before the pain finally sent him off the mortal coil.

***

The two figures cautiously observed the collapsed motorbike. They had been well-known trainers once, friends of the famed Ash Ketchum. But that didn't stop them from mugging a biker that happened by chance to come their way.

Misty had a Beretta successfully hidden in an inner pocket, but with a 'click' after the blast she discovered that it was now out of ammo.

"That was our last bullet." Misty threw her pistol away, leaving it to lie in the sand.

"At least you didn't waste it on a miss," Tracey concluded, shielding his eyes from the sun.

"I never miss!"

The End