Chapter 4 – Enter the Shadow A great gust of wind blew threw the battlefield, blinding trainers and Pokemon alike with the dust caught in the breeze. They all turned their heads away and shielded their eyes with their arms, claws and paws. Dani shouted above the howl of the wind ‘That’s not fair! How can Absol use Future Sight twice in the same battle?!’ Yoshi strained his head to face her and yelled back ‘That’s not a Future Sight! It’s something else!’ Just then, a humongous monster rose above the level of the treetops. It was stumbling around in the air as it approached the battlefield, whipping up more winds with each flap of its wings. As it moved forward it began to fall out of the air, and just before it hit the ground, Typhlosion and Chomper jumped back towards their trainers to avoid getting crushed. The giant creature landed on the ground in the middle of the field with a loud crash. It struggled on the ground, trying to gather all its strength to get back up, but it couldn’t move. Dani and Yoshi looked at each other, before quickly advancing towards the thing that had interrupted their battle. Dani moved around to Yoshi’s side, and they stared at the monster as it clenched its teeth in pain. It had violet-colored feathers, which looked a little ruffled, some sky blue patterns on its back and stomach, and similar coloured spikes at the end of its tail. It also had immensely big feet, and a large horn that bent backwards. Its top jaw hooked down over its bottom one, and it had sky blue lightning bolt patterns over its eyes. It opened them to show the crimson red eyes, and in place of an eyeball it had a plain, light red ring. It growled as it once again attempted to lift its head, but in Dani and Yoshi’s heads, the creature’s whisper was accompanied by a soft, deep voice, that pleaded The two trainers looked at each other, puzzled. Dani cocked her head to the side a little, whilst Yoshi just shrugged his shoulders. ‘What do you think he is?’ Dani asked quietly. ‘I don’t know.’ Yoshi replied. ‘He looks a bit like a Lugia, but real different.’ He circled the beast once again before rejoining with Dani and said ‘He looks evil, but he sounds desperate.’ Dani looked down at what they thought was a Lugia, and gave in to his distressed efforts to get back up. ‘Maybe we should help him.’ Yoshi wasn’t too impressed with the decision, but just looking at Dani’s face, her expressing begging for Yoshi to agree, he sighed and nodded his head. Their conversation was interrupted by a loud rumbling and another gust of wind. They turned to the sky and saw a large, grey helicopter over the tops of the trees. The creature rolled his eyes back a little, straining to see the approaching vehicle. When he had it in his vision he once again whispered, more desperately, before closing his eyes out of lack of energy. Both the trainers looked down at him once again, then looked at each other before running around the Lugia to stand in between him and the helicopter. But it didn’t land like they thought. Instead it just hovered over the Lugia and opened huge doors on the bottom. Out of the gap came a rather large claw, lowering towards the Lugia. Both the trainers freaked. ‘Typhlosion! Flamethrower!’ Yoshi ordered. Typhlosion let loose a large burst of flames that licked the metal claw, which continued to advance towards the Lugia. ‘It didn’t work.’ Yoshi said, gritting his teeth out of frustration. Dani looked at the claw, which was now red hot, and then said ‘It will though. Chomper! Hydro Pump!’ ‘Tor!’ Chomper roared as he opened his jaws and released a powerful torrent of water, which shot straight through the claw, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Yoshi was stunned, and was about to ask what happened, but Dani could read him like a book. ‘Once you heat metal up, then cool it down really quickly it becomes easy to break. Chomper’s force was enough to finish it off.’ She informed him, grinning proudly at her own intelligence. Her little gloat was short-lived though, as the broken claw retracted and the doors closed they reopened with yet another metal claw as a replacement. ‘Oh, what?’ Yoshi was now more annoyed than ever. ‘Typhlosion! Flamethrower again!’ ‘Chomper! Hydro Pump!’ Dani cried, almost equally irritated. Typhlosion once again heated up the metal claw to a glowing red with his Flamethrower, and Chomper shattered it once again with a good, strong Hydro Pump. The claw, or what was left of it, once again retracted into the doors, and they closed again. ‘Don’t tell me they’re getting another one,’ Yoshi whined. At that moment, the Rattata that had been following him around all day jumped up on his shoulder. He then used Yoshi to launch himself higher in the air, and then opened his jaws and powered up a bright, light blue sphere. He lifted his head and the sphere released a powerful, blue beam which struck the door. As Rattata landed on the ground the door froze up. Rattata nodded his head, satisfied, then turned to see both of the trainers staring at him with expressions of complete shock on their faces. ‘What… just happened?’ Dani asked, stunned. ‘I don’t know… Rattata must know Ice Beam somehow.’ Yoshi replied in surprise. Rattata looked at them with a wide grin on his face and cried ‘Rat! Rattata, rat, rat!’ Just then the helicopter hovered a couple inches off the ground before landing quite uncomfortably, as the ice had thickened to the length of the landing gear. The large door slid open and a girl with pink pigtails that reached down to her ankles stepped out, flanked by two suspicious men in grey uniforms. ‘Oh, like, how dare you! You just, like, so ruined my helicopter! Mine! The great Lovrina’s helicopter!’ the girl complained. It was quite obvious that her maturity level was not too much greater than her shoe size. She looked past the trainers and at the injured Pokemon on the ground with a wry smile on her face. ‘Ah-ha! There’s the boss’s Shadow Lugia. He is going to, like, reward me oh so much!’ She began walking towards the Lugia, but stopped when she noticed the trainers and their Pokemon taking up a defensive stance in front of him. Chomper was baring his sharp, pearly white teeth whilst growling, Typhlosion was also growling, and his fists curled up as his flame burned even brighter. All Dani and Yoshi could do was stand between them with piercing glares. Rattata couldn’t do much more, as he just stood in front of them all with a failed attempt at his own kind of fierce look. The girl chuckled. ‘So you really wanna play with Lovrina? Fine by me.’ She took a couple of steps back, waved the men back into the helicopter and pulled a PokeBall from her belt. She threw it high up into the air, releasing a Beautifly. Yoshi pointed to his faithful companion and said ‘Alright then, Typhlosion…’ but was interrupted by Rattata. ‘Rat! Rattata, Rattata, rat, rat!’ The purple rat jumped forward, putting himself right into the fray. ‘Ah, Rattata no!’ Dani cried. She stepped towards him to try and pull him back, but was stopped when Yoshi held his arm out in front of her. She stood stunned. ‘Let him go.’ Yoshi said in a serious voice, ‘I want to see what he can do.’ Lovrina giggled, then said ‘Alright! This will be fun!’ Beautifly hovered in front of the young trainer as she issued her first command. ‘Beautifly, String Shot!’ The Beautifly released a sticky string that was aimed for Rattata, who jumped above it. Then suddenly static began to run across Rattata’s fur, and then he released a powerful bolt of lightning, which made its way up the String Shot and shocked Beautifly, literally. Lovrina’s grin faded at the turn of events and moved onto Dani and Yoshi’s faces. ‘Wow, he knows Thunderbolt too!’ Dani marvelled. Yoshi just looked at Rattata as he landed on the ground below Beautifly, who was now struggling to stay in the air. ‘Beautifly! Blow it away with Silver Wind!’ Lovrina ordered. Beautifly began beating its wings rapidly, whipping up a silvery wind similar to Lady’s. As the whirlwind approached Rattata roared in his high-pitched voice and became engulfed in a ball of flames. ‘What? How can Rattata know Flame Wheel too?!’ Yoshi said. He was finding Rattata stranger and stranger by the minute, but at the same time more intriguing. Rattata, however, didn’t notice what was going on behind him. He charged towards and tackled Beautifly with the Flame Wheel, burning her wings and knocking her to the ground. Rattata nodded, pleased at his work as Beautifly struggled to get back up. As a finisher Rattata raised itself on its hind legs and held its front legs in front of it. Between them a blue sphere began to glow. Rattata cried out before raising the sphere and slamming it into the ground, creating a torrent of water that surged towards Beautifly and hit it with such force that it was knocked back past Lovrina. ‘Was that… a Water Pulse?’ Dani asked hesitantly. ‘That’s what it looked like,’ Yoshi replied ‘but how is it possible that a wild Rattata could be so versatile? Seriously…’ Rattata just turned at them and grinned. Lovrina, however, was fuming at her loss, and shouted at the top of her voice whilst jumping up and down ‘Oh! How DARE you! My poor Beautifly!’ She took a deep breath as she returned her Pokemon, then reached for another PokeBall and threw it out in front of her. Out came a Roselia, which twirled in a circle before facing Rattata, who had turned back around, prepared for another round of battle. ‘Roselia! Cut that Rattata down with Petal Dance!’ Roselia jumped up and began releasing razor sharp petals from the roses on the ends of her limbs. Rattata crouched a little lower before racing forward with Quick Attack, dodging the petals with ease and tackling into Roselia. Whilst his opponent tried to regain her ground, Rattata’s fangs began to glow, powering up a Super Fang. He raised his head to his right shoulder and whipped his head around to his left, releasing a white, glowing razor. It crashed into Roselia, who also began glowing white and crying out in pain, and then the razor exited Roselia’s body, smashing into a tree not far off and leaving a pretty good hole in it. Roselia began panting and then, without any command, raised her roses up high above her head and began absorbing sunlight for a Solarbeam. Before she even had anywhere near enough, Rattata opened his jaws, revealing a bright blue orb. An Ice Beam quickly shot out of it, striking Roselia and freezing her where she stood. Lovrina’s face began to flush red with rage as she held her PokeBall out, sucking Roselia back inside. Lovrina pulled yet another one from her belt and flung it towards Rattata, releasing a Delcatty. The Delcatty meowed and hissed viciously as it took up a battle stance. It had a look in its eye as if it wanted to kill something. Rattata growled back at her, standing his ground for a few seconds, waiting to see what his opponent would do. Before either of them could react the Lugia sharply opened his eyes and struggled to his feet. With a couple beats of his enormous wings he created a huge gust of wind so strong it almost knocked the trainers off their feet. Once airborne he began to fly away in a disorientated manner, stumbling about in the air as if ready to faint once again. He disappeared over the top of the forest, leaving the trainers standing and staring at the horizon of trees. There was a long delay as they all just stood there, but then everything happened at once. Lovrina turned to the men in the helicopter and shouted ‘What are you waiting for?! Go after it, like, right now!’ The doors to the helicopter slid shut and slowly picked itself up off the ground. Lovrina ran in the same direction it was headed, followed by her Delcatty. Yoshi turned to Dani and said ‘We’ve got to stop them. We can’t let them capture that Lugia!’ Dani nodded and replied ‘I’m one step ahead of you.’ With Rattata in the lead they all began running after the pink pigtailed trainer. They ran non-stop, quickly burning up the little energy they had remaining from their battle, but kept on chasing after them. They swiftly dodged trees until finally the forest came to an abrupt stop as the ocean came into view, along with the beach a fair distance below. They had all made their way to the top of a cliff, with the Lugia once again exhausted and collapsed near the edge. Dani gasped at the sight of the extremely weakened Pokemon, and panicked even more as the Delcatty began to glow with a shadowy light. ‘Alright Delcatty, knock it back this way with Shadow Wave.’ Lovrina commanded. The Delcatty meowed loudly and ferociously as the aura surrounding it came crashing down underneath the Lugia causing him to roar in pain, and began carrying it slowly back towards Lovrina, who was giggling with delight. The other two trainers only stared on in horror at the sight of the horrible attack, which neither of them had ever seen before. Yoshi quickly snapped out of his daze as he once again saw the courageous little rat charging into battle. Rattata leapt high over the Lugia and pummelled straight into Delcatty, who shifted back a little, but otherwise wasn’t really fazed. However, the assault was still enough for it to call off the Delcatty’s attack. Lovrina once again giggled and said ‘Now I’ll show you why you so shouldn’t mess with Shadow Pokemon. Delcatty! Shadow Rush!’ Delcatty once again surrounded herself with a shadowy glow, but this time she charged at Rattata. She tackled into him with tremendous force which sent Rattata flying right back over Lugia. Delcatty bounded around the large, fallen Pokemon to stand over the much smaller one. ‘Rattata! Are you OK?!’ Yoshi was now seriously concerned not only for Lugia’s wellbeing, but now for Rattata’s as well. ‘That looked like it did an awful lot of damage,’ Dani marvelled, ‘those two attacks looked pretty powerful.’ Just then the Lugia opened his eyes once more and with the last of his strength rolled himself to the side. He kept on rolling until he tumbled right over the edge of the cliff and water flew up as he hit the water with a loud splash. Lovrina stood stunned and speechless at what had just happened. After the realization truly hit her she felt her anger once again making her feel like exploding. ‘Why… YOU!!! Now I’ll NEVER get that Lugia back to the boss!!! Oh, you are SO… going… to PAY!!! You little RAT!!! Delcatty!!! SHADOW RUSH!!!’ Delcatty once again began growling, building up a powerful dark aura and once again charged at Rattata, knocking him high up into the air. Rattata cried out as the last of his strength left him and the edge of the cliff below him came closer and closer. ‘Rattata!!!’ Dani cried. ‘He’s gonna go over!’ Yoshi didn’t want to go with his first instinct, but felt he had no other choice and that he didn’t have any time to think. As he pulled his last empty PokeBall from his belt he whispered desperately ‘I’m sorry Rattata, please forgive me... POKEBALL, GO!!!’ He lobbed the ball high into the air and struck Rattata. Yoshi’s plan worked as it rebounded off the purple rat, sucked it inside and landed safely on the ground. It didn’t even have to rock about from struggling with the Pokemon inside before locking up. Yoshi sighed with relief. Lovrina, on the other hand, was even more enraged. ‘Oh, that so won’t save him! Delcatty! Knock it off with Shadow Wave!’ Delcatty once again began to build up its attack, but was stopped dead when it took a blow to the side. Typhlosion, who had been waiting behind Yoshi, tackled into Delcatty before it had a chance to attack. As Delcatty stood back up both Typhlosion and Feraligatr began to slowly advance on it. Lovrina groaned and held her PokeBall high. ‘Delcatty, return! We’ll finish this, like, another time!’ The helicopter lowered to the ground as she jumped onto the railing and climbed back inside, and took off into the distance. Both of the remaining trainers and their Pokemon breathed heavy sighs. ‘It’s over.’ Dani whispered. She turned to Chomper, held out his PokeBall and said ‘Thankyou so much Chomper. You’ve earned a rest.’ She expected Yoshi to follow suit, but instead Typhlosion just stood staring past Dani. The confused girl turned to see her best friend staring at the PokeBall on the edge of the cliff with a blank expression on his face. ‘Hey, are you OK?’ Dani asked softly. Yoshi didn’t answer. Instead he just walked over and picked up Rattata’s PokeBall and continued to stare at if for a couple more seconds. ‘He’s part of my team. He’s my Pokemon.’ A warm smile crept onto Yoshi’s face as he looked up at Dani. ‘He’s the one I’ve been waiting for. I just know it!’ Dani smiled back, happy to see her friend cheerful. His kind of happiness was contagious and she always loved to see it. Her expression turned solemn once again as she ran over to him and looked over the edge of the cliff and into the ocean below. ‘I wonder what happened to that Lugia?’ She asked, troubled. ‘I don’t know,’ Yoshi said joining his friend, ‘but wherever he is, I just hope he’s safe now and that he’ll be alright.’ He placed a comforting hand on Dani’s shoulder and said, ‘Come on, I need to take Rattata to the Pokemon Center badly, and it’s starting to get late. We should spend the night there.’ Dani gave Yoshi a weak smile and the two began to walk back towards Gateon Port. But they both stopped when they heard a growling from behind them, ‘Baaarrr!’ Yoshi turned and smiled. ‘Sorry bud.’ Yoshi unclipped Typhlosion’s PokeBall from his belt and returned him to his home, ‘Thanks boy, you did great.’ As Yoshi turned back to her, Dani goes ‘Come on, I’ll race you back!’ And started running back through the forest. Yoshi was taken aback, but then began running after her and shouted ‘Hey! No fair! You got a head start!’ A/N: Wow, my first contact to readers. Anyway, before anyone asks me, yes I am well aware that Rattata can’t use Water Pulse, but I think it should because it’s perfectly capable of doing so. Plus Water Pulse is so much cooler than Water Gun and Bubblebeam, and much more powerful. So as far as this story goes, Rattata can learn Water Pulse. I promise I will back this up eventually so please bare with me. Thanks guys! ^_^