A New World, a Fearful Way

by Votederpycausemufins

ch. 12 secret

After Lea had dropped off the short list of four combinations, she and Matrix went back out. It was still late afternoon and the two still had a few hours before it would start getting dark, so they decided to focus on trying to find someone, or somemon, they knew. Before a whole hour had past, they saw a rather banged up absol walking on the street.

“I think that might be Angela!” Matrix told Lea.

“What! How… how can you tell.”

“Well, each pokemon has a slightly different scent depending on their type and gender. For instance, I can tell that that is a female absol. The scent also slightly differs for each individual pokemon. That’s a little harder, since it’s a slighter change, and can sometime be wrong.”

“Chances that it is her and not some other absol?”

“One in six chance that that is Angela.”

“That’s good enough for me! And if it isn’t, maybe she knows where she is!”

“Well absol normally don’t- aaaand she’s off.” Lea was already halfway to the absol and couldn’t hear Matrix.

“Hey, wait!” Lea called to the pokemon before she walked faster. “Stop! I’m talking to you.” The absol quickly looked at Lea before going even faster.

“Will you stop running! What are you afraid of?” Lea asked her.

That was apparently the magic phrase, but not in a good way. The absol quickly stopped and turned toward Lea, placing her horn up against Lea;s neck with an attack charged.

“What… the hell… did I do to you?!”

“Um… I, uh… just wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh,” The absol stopped charging her attack and stood normally. “Sorry, I’ve been running into a lot of pokemon that have grudges with me. Can’t believe most of them still remember… but it was some memorable stuff. What do you want to ask?”

“Well, your statement there kind of answered my first question.”

“What was that?”

“Well, I’m one of those pokemon that used to be a human,” The absol nodded in understanding. “and I used to have an absol of my own. I wondered if maybe you might have been her, but I can’t think of how any pokemon would have a grudge with her, so that made that a no. My next question would be if maybe you’ve seen her.”

“I’ve come across a couple of absol on my journey, may have met her. She have a name?”

“Yeah, actually. Her name is-”

Lea was cut off by Matrix coming up to them panting. “You… could… have… waited… for me… y’know…”

“I’m sorry! I got excited to see if she was Angela!”

The absol gave a startled expression. “Wait. Lea? Matrix? That’s you?”

Lea looked surprised before pouncing on Angela to hug her. “Angela! I’ve missed you so much! You’ll never believe what’s happened while you were gone!”

“Ack! No! Stop! I hate hugs! Get o- fine go ahead!” Angela rolled her eyes.

“Now what were you saying about pokemon having grudges with you?” Lea pulled back and gave Angela a serious look. “What haven’t you told us?”

Angela sighed, “A lot of things. I don’t like and don’t want to remember my past from before I met you. It wasn’t something I wished would happen to anymon, much less me.”

“You do know you’re going to be telling us later, right?”

“I do now. Now let’s leave. I’d rather not risk-”

“YOU! YOU’LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!!!”

“-Risk that… *sigh* what do you want?” Angela said, turning to face her rival.

She turned to see it was a cryogonal who was speaking to her. “Oh, hey! I actually remember this pokemon.”

Lea looked at Angela. “Is this the same one we saw when we met you?”

“Yep.”

“SHE WILL PAY FOR WHAT SHE DID!”

“What did Angela do?”

“SHE KEPT ME LOCKED IN THE CAVE, NEVER LETTING ME OUT!”

Angela turned to face Lea. “Long story short, my past involved people I didn’t like who ordered me around, and making me guard this guy was the only reasonable thing they made me do.”

“REASONABLE?! I WILL MAKE HER PAY!”

“Enough with the yelling and sayin’ you’ll make me pay! We get it, alright? Let’s just get this over with.”

“FINE! ICE BEAM!”

Angela dodged it by leaping in the air, arcing toward Cryogonal. “I told you to shut up! DARK PULSE!” The attack took a direct hit.

“NOT UNTIL I WIN! FREEZE-DRY!” The attack hit Angela, bringing her down for a few moments. She quickly got back up and used her signature night slash.

“Stand down. We both know that I’ll be winning this.”

“OH REALLY?! FROST VANISH!”

The crystallizing pokemon disappeared from view, catching Angela off guard. Suddenly, from behind her came the pokemon’s voice. “ICE CHAIN!”

Cryogonal came back into view just as, as the name implied, an ice chain wrapped itself around Angela.

“Angela! No!” Lea called to her.

Angela payed no attention to Lea’s concern. “Is that all?” She asked the cryogonal. “Dark edge.”

She said it quietly enough that it caught Cryogonal off guard. The attack broke the ice chains and hit him. It was strong enough that Cryogonal was knocked out and fell off to the side. The small crowd of ponies that had formed during the battle paused to look at the group before continuing on their way. Angela brushed herself off before heading over to Lea and Matrix.

“So,” She said, nonchalantly. “Let’s go home.”

---

“We’re back!” Lea called as they entered the building.

“Lea! You’re back!” Caddi welcomed them. “Who’s that?

“It’s Angela! We found her!”

“I’m guessing someone exciting. The translation spells wore off I guess and I don’t want Midnight to find out that I’m an angeling-chay. Let’s go up to Citrus.”

Lea nodded and they went up to the roof where Citrus Flower was watering the freshly planted berries. In front of each mound where the berries were planted was a sign with the name of a berry, most likely to show which berry was which. A few areas were left empty for when they would be able to plant new berries.

“Hi Lea! Hi Matrix! I was just finishing here. I see your search was successful.”

Citrus casted the spell on each of them so that they could actually have a conversation. Unfortunately, Citrus still got fatigued from casting the translation spell three times. So they helped her downstairs.

“Remind me… to teach that officer friend of ours… that spell.”

“You should rest Miss.”

“Don’t call me Miss… My name is Citrus Flower… but you can just call me Citrus.”

“Okay then, my name’s Angela.”

“There! Now that we’ve got introductions out of the way,” Lea said. “WHAT WERE YOU DOING ON THE NIGHT OF OCTOBER 16th, 10 YEARS AGO!”

“Lea, don’t worry, I’ll tell you later. First can you show me around this place? I want to know where everything is.”

As Lea went to show Angela around, Citrus pulled Matrix off to the side. “How the hay did she get whatever she got from what Lea said?”

Matrix gave a small smile. “Lea and I always got along well, but when it came to her and research, she could get a little out of hand, and Angela was the only one of us who could really follow along with her. I always wondered why, but maybe now she’ll be telling us.”

---

After Angela’s tour, Lea brought them into the bedroom and fetched Matrix before locking them all in the room. “Okay! Talk!”

“Few years before you found me, I forget how long ago, I was captured in the wild by one of those evil teams. By the way, I’m not saying which. I deserve to keep some of my past a secret. They decided to work on a team of pokemon that could conquer others and to do this, they tried messing with the attacks we had.”

“Sort of like creating new attacks from old ones the same way bubblebeam was made by bubble?”

“Exactly like that. Anyway, I never liked to follow orders. The fact is that they couldn’t hold me in a pokeball because I wouldn’t let them, so I was a little tougher for them to train. They caught me in a net instead, and forgot about the idea of using a pokeball on me. Eventually they got what they wanted, and even went overboard.

"Most of the pokemon they used didn’t like me, because since I was a free ‘mon, I could really do whatever I wanted. A bunch looked to battle me, but I always won. The only other pokemon that came close to beating me was that cryogonal. Eventually, he stopped listening to anyone, and they sent me and him away to that cave you found us in. They froze him in place, and left me in there. The only reason I listened then was because it was the one sensible thing they had wanted.”

“And then we came along…” Lea remembered, half sighing.

“Yep. Warmed up enough that he got out. I stopped him to save you. I later went back to find out I hurt his pride and he became a mostly run-of-the-mill pokemon.”

“So… nothing too horrible?” Lea asked.

“Not really. I just don’t like talking about it. By the way, I have a question. Why haven’t I been attacked by Kya or Sparks yet? Are they waiting to catch me off guard?”

Lea looked down at the ground, pawing at it. She tried to keep herself from tearing up. “W-we haven’t found them yet. It’s just been Matrix and I for the past week. Well… that’s if you don’t count our new pony friends.”

“What about Linoone?! Haven’t you heard anything?!”

“N-no… but Linoone’s the oldest of us, he can take care of himself. Why are you so worried?”

“Because I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.”

“What do you mean?” Matrix asked.

Angela sighed, “I was out one time looking for him to tell him Lea was getting dinner ready, and found him with another Linoone. A female one.”

“He has a mate?! Since when?!”

“Since apparently before you and Kya were even around, that’s why you never knew. He told me a few days before we were brought here that they had an egg which was supposed to hatch soon.”

The three of them exchanged looks before Matrix spoke up. “Yeah, that’s a big reason to be concerned.”

“We can only hope he’s okay.” Lea said, pulling her two siblings into a hug. “I’m just glad I have both my brother and sister here after all we’ve been through. Hopefully we’ll have everyone together soon enough.”

---

Lea unlocked the door so they could leave, but Angela asked if she could hang out with her for a little bit and talk. Lea brought Anglea into her office. “What do you want to talk about?” Lea asked as she jumped into a new chair that had been placed there after they had left. It caught her off guard and the swivel chair started to spin around.

Angela stopped the chair for Lea. “Thanks.” Lea said dizzily.

“So then, what happened with you guys while I was gone?”

“Nothing much. I mean, The town thought I was a criminal, we caught the real criminals, one of them tried to kill me, and now we’re making this place. But other than that, nothing.”

“So… basically it’s better than home?”

“If it weren’t for the part of me almost being killed and not having the whole family together, yeah! Pretty much!”

“Have you thought about talking to Arceus yet?”

“What?!” Lea half shouted at Angela “I can do that?!”

“Yeah,” Angela said. “He announced that to everyone in that mind speech thing. He’s staying in the Everfree Forest, but I don’t know where that is.”

“Oh that place?!” Lea exclaimed, remembering where Bluegrass had gotten her berries. “It’s right next to a town called Ponyville. We got the berries we planted from a mare who went there and found some in the Everfree.”

“Speaking of berries…” Angela started.

“”You want pokeblock, don’t you.”

“Maybe…” Angela shifted her glance to the side.

Lea pulled her belt off, a feat she had managed to master after a few times. She dropped it in front of Angela’s feet. “You try and open it. I’ve had no luck.”
After fiddling with it a bit, Angela was actually able to open it. She spilled a few onto the floor before picking one up in her mouth. She bit down on an indigo one and Lea herself ate a brown one. Lea picked up the ones that had fallen out of the case and put them back in. Putting the belt back on, Lea went to work on her, well… work. At one point, she took a break and grabbed a new sheet of paper. Carefully, she was able to write down a note for herself. My Dad?

Author's Note:

woooo! new chapter
zeus in i got in a small debate about the attacks:

i did my research. the attacks i used are all real, though i did have to kinda play with what exactly they did (the cards don't really tell you what happens in a real battle.)
You know serebii.net has a list of attacks each pokemon can learn right?
i mostly use bulbapedia, which, after looking at serebii, gives me more info.
the pokemon cards give them more attacks
here's how i got the two attacks for cryogonal: *shows picture*
Yeah I've never really played the card game, nor was I counting those moves as actual moves. Since it just gives a name, damage, and an in game effect
ah, well i actually was more into the card game myself (i've still go over 1000 cards, one of which was a charizard card which i later found out is one of those collectors cards that people would buy for over $300)
i also sort of made mention that this wouldn't be a normal thing and it was...
“Sort of like creating new attacks from old ones the same way bubblebeam was made by bubble?”
like how dark edge could be originated from night slash

then it was all good!
here are the two cards i used:

anyway, the note at the end of the story? it's important! write it down or something if you want. the list is going to be added to in many of the chapters.

Comments

[LovelyMuse]

I'm lovin what you're doing. Keep up the wonderful work!

[Votederpycausemufins]

5313201 thnx! i'm getting close to finishing a new chapter as you read this.