Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Luck ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

Luck

 

Chapter Six

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Sunrise was always a time of day that I liked. Everything was waking up, getting ready to start on a new day. A soft snoring from my right derailed my train of thought, and I looked over to see my master's traveling companion.

 

Actually, they looked rather alike. They both had red hair, though Master's was flecked with gray; both had gray eyes, though Master's were sharp and Stefanie's were soft and inviting; they both had scars, though Stefanie's were few and because of being a clumsy child and Master was practically covered in scars from all sorts of fights that he got into.

 

I like Master, though. He's nice in his own way: he always is making sure that Stefanie, Zalira, and I are taken care of first, and always lets me run when I want to.

 

I emerged from the tent and looked around, hoping to see Master outside and get in a bit of Taming before we left. However, the man was nowhere in sight.

 

“Master?” I called out, listening carefully for him.

 

Nothing.

 

At least until he flew out of the trees, landing right beside me.

 

“Satsuma, are the others awake?” he asked, sniffing slightly.

 

“No, Master. Stefanie and Zalira and Sexshrew still asleep.” Damn the inability to use proper grammar after being bonded.

 

“Wake them up, we need to get moving.”

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“Master, why must we hurry?” I asked Master about an hour later. We were walking quite a bit faster than normal. It suited me just fine, but I was worried about whether Stefanie and Zalira would be able to keep up.

 

“There's a town a bit further ahead,” he said. “We need to pick up some supplies, and the faster we get there, the faster we leave.”

 

That was just like him. He never seemed to like staying in the cities for very long, and kept looking over his shoulder every couple of minutes. Just as he said, we topped the hill and saw a city in front of us. Large, but mostly decrepit. All of the buildings were in disrepair, ranging from having a broken window or two to barely being able to withstand the slight breeze that was blowing.

 

“That's where we're going?” Stefanie asked as she labored up behind us.

 

“Got a problem with it?” Master demanded, looking back at her with a glare. She backed up slightly, but otherwise stood her ground.

 

“Yeah. It's dirty, and who knows what kind of people are there?”

 

“Enough to get what we need. Come on.”

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We walked through the dilapidated city, met by uneasy glances and hard glares. Zalira was hanging onto Stefanie, and she was following closely behind Master, whose eyes were darting from side to side as if looking for something.

 

“…f-for f-food. W-will paint f-for f-food…,” I heard. I looked in the direction of the soft voice and saw a small girl sitting against a building. She was unhealthily thin, maybe four feet tall if she stood up. Her long, dirty hair was purple with silver streaks, and her eyes were a bright orange. Her clothes—consisting of a painter's smock and beret—were in tatters and looked like they hadn't been washed in years.

 

“Master,” I began, unsure of how to say what I wanted. He twitched his head to the side, showing that he was listening. “There a pokegirl. Ar-Tits. Very weak, very hungry. She need food.”

 

He sniffed the air and looked back at the Ar-Tits. Taking in her appearance.

 

“You said she's a pokegirl?”

 

“Yes, Master,” I confirmed. “Please. She starve.”

 

“W-will paint f-for f-food,” the Ar-Tits said again.

 

“Please, Kokennin. We should help her,” Stefanie interjected.

 

“Fine,” he said, unshouldering his pack and walking to the girl. He pulled out a loaf of flat bread wrapped in paper, a bit of some meat and a water skin.

 

“Here,” he said, handing the food to the girl. “That should last you a few days if you're careful.”

 

“Th-thank you, s-sir!” the young girl rasped to his leaving back. She took a long draw from the water skin and a large bite of the flat bread. She looked from the food to Master and back again a few times before standing up and shouting in a way that still seemed quiet, “S-sir! L-let me repay you! I-I can paint a portrait f-for you!”

 

I still don't remember to this day how Stefanie, Zalira and I managed to convince him to sit still and let the Ar-Tits paint him. Almost ten minutes later, she was finished and turned the canvas around to show us.

 

It was…rather frightening to be honest. There were two halves to it. The right showed Master's left side. It was almost angelic in its beauty: all of the scars on that side were gone; his hard, steely eyes were soft and full of joy; his rusty hair lost the gray and was neatly combed to the back; but the most dramatic change was his mouth.

 

He was smiling. Not his usual “I'm better than you” smirk, but a genuine smile.

 

The complete opposite of the left side. It showed Master's right, which could be described as demonic: the eyes were a burning gold, glaring hard; his ear was more like a Growlie's, but covered in gray fur and with the end bitten off by something; his hair was unkempt and shaggy, a dull gray in color. While the other side's clothes were pristine white, this side's were a dirty black, spattered with red.

 

“It's…pretty good?” Stefanie said in a wavering voice. Zalira just stood gaping and Master got this look like he was remembering something from a long time ago. He stood up and stalked off, leaving us behind. I zipped up behind him and fell in step beside the man.

 

“Is wrong?” I asked. He shook his head and ducked into the building to our right. I followed him and found a bar, filled with some of the worst-looking people I've ever seen. He was at the bar itself, sitting on one of the stools.

 

“No shoes, no service,” the bartender said, jerking his thumb at the sign behind him. I walked up and sat beside Master, fully reminded about the fact that I hadn't replaced the shorts he ripped apart during our first Taming.

 

“No hands, no job,” Master said as pulled one of his knives and buried it in the bar counter. The bartender eyed the blade warily and took in another look at both Master and myself.

 

“A shot of vodka and whatever she wants,” he growled, glaring at the barkeep. The grizzled man reached under the table and revealed a bottle of clear, strong-smelling liquid and a small glass. He poured the liquid into the smaller container, which Master emptied in a second.

 

“You want anything?” the barkeeper asked me, to which I politely refused.

 

“What is this!?!” someone outside shouted. “A mockery of my being?”

 

“What now?” Master muttered before pulling his knife out of the wooden surface and walking outside, leaving a silver coin on the bar. I followed him to see what was going on.

 

“You dare to show such disrespect to me?” a young man was saying. He looked like he may have been sixteen or seventeen, with wavy blond hair and deep blue eyes. He was built very well, and his tight clothes were showing it off.

 

“I-I-I w-was j-just painting w-what I-I s-saw,” the Ar-Tits stuttered, holding her arms in front of her defensively. “Th-that's w-what I-I s-saw.”

 

“Impossible!” the Tamer shouted as Master and I neared him. “There could not be any possibility that you saw me as that!” he continued, pointing at a facedown canvas. “There is no way any person could see perfection such as myself like it.”

 

“B-but I-I—”

 

“You nothing! You nitwit! Motoko, attack her!” he shouted. His alpha, a Ronin wearing a gi, summoned a katana and started a downstrike.

 

I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who really saw what happened next. Master, who had been shoving his way through the gathering crowd, sprung up and over the people and pokegirls. He landed between the Ronin and the Ar-Tits—drawing his other knife in the process—and held his weapons up in an “X” to block the pokegirl's attack.

 

“Why attack her?” he asked, ignoring the stares he was getting from the spectators.

 

“Why? My Master ordered me to. I must do as my Master commands,” the Ronin replied.

 

“You're not a human. You're better than he is,” Master said, pushing the pokegirl away. He took up a defensive position while she stood with her blade in front of her. “Why must you follow his orders?”

 

“He is my Tamer,” the Ronin stated simply. Master snorted at it, and his opponent barreled forward, preparing a Slash attack. Master blocked it with one knife while slashing at her stomach with the other. The Ronin twisted away and stopped a few yards away. The people and pokegirls around them were spreading out to allow room for the fight, while the Ar-Tits had frozen up and wasn't moving.

 

“So what?” Master asked. “What the hell kind of excuse is that? You're stronger than him, and sure as hell smarter. You should ditch him.”

 

“Scoundrel!” the tamer shouted. “Motoko, Slash!”

 

The Ronin charged forward again, but Master redirected her blade and tripped her.

 

“You fight dirty,” Motoko said as she pushed herself onto her feet. Master surged forward and rained cuts and kicks to the pokegirl, using one blade defensively while the other cut at her clothes and limbs.

 

“In a real fight, there's no such thing as fighting dirty,” he said. “If you're the last one standing, that's what matters.”

 

They continued trading blows, as well as the occasional insult, for the next five minutes before Motoko managed to land a hit on Master. He clutched his ear, the very top of which had been cut off.

 

“This…,” Motoko panted, “…shall be our…final move…human…”

 

“Fine,” Master said, favoring his left leg after it had been hit. In the blink of an eye the Ronin rushed forward and prepared her attack. Master used a knife to block her blade, knocked it out of her hands, and put his right hand on her forehead. He pushed her down, falling with her; his right foot landed on her left wrist, while his left leg pinned her knees and his left hand grabbed her wrist.

 

The crowd gasped, surprised that my Master had taken down the Ronin.

 

“Don't,” Master growled while his teeth were clamped on the girl's trachea, “ever call me `human.' It's insulting.”

 

“Motoko! Fiend! Release her at once!” the Tamer, who really hadn't done anything, shouted at Master.

 

Master was muttering something to the Ronin that I couldn't hear. She was lying there numbly, and didn't move when he stood up and released her.

 

“And something else: ditch the idiot over there. You're too good for him,” he said, retrieving his weapons and sheathing them.

 

Every one of the people watching us stared open mouthed at him, their eyes switching from him to the Motoko and back again as he walked away.

 

“Though thou art a scoundrel,” the tamer told him in a quiet voice, “You have won. Under the scavenge rule, you can take one of my pokegirls.”

 

“Fuck the rules and fuck you. Satsuma!”

 

“Yes, Master?” I said, dashing to his side.

 

“Find the girl. I need to get something to calm me down,” he mumbled the last part, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hear.