Chapter 2: Hell-Hound Hates You Today "YOU KILLED ME YOU BASTARD!" and before Chris could even generate a word of surprise, Growlithe was halfway through the gap that separated them from the newcomer. The Rocket Member looked confused for a moment, no longer sporting the laugh and sneer his face had a second ago. But then he threw the pokeball he held in his hand directly at the speeding puppy. Flames erupted from Growlithe's mouth that shot out and incinerated the flying sphere before it hit it's mark. "DIE!" and with that Growlithe ran smack into the Grunt's mid-section. The Grunt spat something and crumpled to the floor. Growlithe jumped on top of him."YOU'LL PAY! YOU'LL PAY!" Chris reached them then, he grabbed and pulled the struggling puppy off the Grunt. "Woah, come on! Whats gotten' into you? Calm down!" said Chris while he tried desperately to hold the now exceedingly hot pokemon."Growlithe!" "He killed me!" roared out Growlithe. "What!"in sheer surprise Chris. "He what?!" "HE DAMN KILLED ME!" flames seemed to suddenly spring out of the small puppy's fur. "He wont get away with it!" The Grunt jumped to his feet and pulled out a pokeball. He threw it in the air and with a flash of red light, an Ekans appeared. The long and purple snake slipped itself between it's trainer and the enraged Growlithe. "Wait! Thats not possible! Your still alive!" tried to reason Chris. He looked down at his arms and hands and realized that he had received burns from holding Growlithe. "I don't know! All I know is he killed me!" Growlithe charged straight at the Ekans and sure enough, there seemed to be something like fire raging on it's orange coat. It's once calm puppy dog face had become distorted with fury. The Ekans looked at the incoming Growlithe and it's eyes became momentarily a yellowish-white. Chris recognized the technique as the paralyzing Glare. Growlithe didn't even slow down. Suddenly, it's entire coat seemed to be a raging inferno of flames. It ran smack into the Ekans and in a sudden blaze of fire. The Ekans was thrown violently into the air and crashed straight into the ground. Growlithe continued it's mad sprint at the Grunt. As a trainer, Chris couldn't help but take a second and admire what he had just seen. Growlithe had just combined aspects of Take Down and Flame Wheel and created a devastating attack. Then as a person, Chris couldn't help but worry what would happen if it tried such an attack on an actual human. The Grunt had another pokeball in his hands. He was arching his hand to throw it but Growlithe got to him first. In a sudden lunge, Growlithe sent the Grunt flying across the floor. His pokeball soared through the air and bounced on the ground. It had not activated, the pokemon was still inside. Growlithe jumped and landed straight on top of the Grunt. He held him in place and opened his maw right on top of the man's face. From within the throat orange fire began to appear. Chris recognized what was going to happen. Growlithe was readying a Flame Thrower, he was about to char the Grunt's face off. "No! Wait!" yelled out Chris. He ran at the pair on the floor but knew he would not get there in time to stop this."Don't do this!" "I don't wanna die!" "NEITHER DID I!" roared out Growlithe. For a whole eternity Growlithe and the Grunt seemed to stare at each other. Growlithe with flames in his mouth. The Grunt with tears in his eyes. Fear and fury. The holder of life and the taker. Then nothing happened. Chris slowed down next to the silent pair on the ground. He looked down at them looking at each other and realized that flames were no longer in the Growlithe's mouth. Growlithe moved off the Grunt and walked over to the pond's edge. The Grunt remained on the floor for awhile panting. He then jumped off the floor, wiped the tears and sweat off his face, and without a back-wards glance, ran out of the area. There was a strange silence between Chris and the now calm Growlithe. Chris took the moment to retrieve the Grunt's forgotten pokemon. First the pokeball that had not been opened and then the Ekans that now lay fainted some distance away from them. He managed to find it's pokeball a few feet from where the Grunt had been tossed by the second Take Down and recalled the pokemon. He then placed the two pokeballs in his pack so as not to confuse them with his own pokemon. With that he approached the pensive Growlithe but before he could question Growlithe, it spoke first. "It wasn't him," said Growlithe slowly, more to himself than Chris really. "He didn't kill you?" "His smell. It wasn't the same." "He didn't smell like the guy who killed you? How can you even remember a smell?" "If some guy killed you and then started going through your stuff, you'd remember the smell..." Growlithe looked back at him. "But I smelled him just now and it wasn't him..." "Maybe he took a bath?" suggested Chris feebly. "I can't describe it. It's like my nose did something and I just knew..." "Odor Sleuth." said a voice from Chris's pocket. Chris looked down, reached in, and took our his pokedex. He opened it's casing and examined it for a few seconds. "It says Odor Sleuth is used in battle to 'negate the foe's efforts to heighten evasiveness'," he closed the pokedex and placed it back in his jeans. "I never knew a pokedex was water proof...cool." "What about Odor Sleuth?" asked Growlithe. "You must have used it without knowing. The guy was sweating. The guy who killed you must have been sweating. Maybe your brain compared those two odors and figured out it wasn't him." suggested Chris. The Growlithe continued to look back at the pond. Chris realized that without even knowing it, he had accepted that the Growlithe before him had been killed and was now alive and talking. Oh yes, it had been a very strange day. "Growlithe. How bout we head to town? It's gonna get dark soon and I don't like the idea of sleeping outdoors today. Besides, I need to get these burns looked at and turn in that guy's pokemon to the police. Growlithe looked back at him and at his burns. "Oh, yeah...sorry." Chris smiled at him and together, they walked to the other side of the pond and used the road to reach Cerulean City.