Chapter 2: V1 C2 – Taking a Tumble

As Joe was running he heard the sound of electricity behind him. Absol stopped not too far in front of the young man, turned and prepared an attack. A black and purple sphere, Shadow Ball, formed before Absol’s open mouth and shot through the air just past Joe, straight into a fast approaching golden bolt. The attacks collided, creating a small amount of smoke as they negated each other. The human gave his thanks as he sprinted past Absol.

To try and make himself more agile, Joe moved his backpack’s shoulder straps aside and let the bag fall away. He thought he could come back for it later, but unfortunately, as if running into a frenzied Legendary wasn’t enough, his pack of expensive equipment fell off the side of the mountain and was never seen again. Joe was surprised by his lack of caring considering he was practically tossing money away, but his life was more important. Something was off about Raikou, it had no issue attacking a human in the back as they ran away. A sense of urgency has long since washed over Joe.

Absol kept running behind Joe as they made their way down the mountain path, with Raikou approaching ever more. The Disaster Pokemon could move much faster than a human, but hanging back and keeping pace would allow it to counter Raikou when necessary. Having a human between the two Pokemon complicated things.

The Legendary Beast kept launching electricity towards Joe and Absol as it rapidly closed the gap, and it eventually got a good, albeit indirect, hit in. An immensely powerful electric-type attack came from above and struck the mountain, destroying the snow-covered path right where Joe and Absol were. The path broke into chunks and sent the two tumbling down the side of the mountain, disorienting them both.

With their vision spinning, neither of them could see the steep, thousand metre drop they were hurtling towards. Absol was able to level itself out by digging its claws into the rocky surface and quickly began assessing the situation. It looked up to see Raikou bolting down the slope, then looked down to see the human fall off the steep cliff. Without hesitating, Absol retracted its claws and rushed after Joe.

That’s not good…! Joe thought to himself as time felt like it stopped just to show him the path he was about to plummet into, spelling his end.

But he still had a capable ally. Absol lined up the angle and used the steep surface of the mountain to jump underneath Joe with expert precision, catching him on its back. Jumping away from a surface may not have been the best decision since it resulted in Absol and Joe being further away from solid ground, but it was what it was. With a human hanging onto its back for dear life, Absol careened past the path the human would’ve collided with.

After a solid twenty seconds of descending at an incredible speed, Absol finally came into contact with solid ground, skidding along until eventually stopping on a dirt path close to the base of Mt. Silver. Joe’s body felt a strong jolt as they hit the ground. Going from full acceleration to a complete stop in mere seconds felt beyond unpleasant. Especially because his stomach was resting on Absol’s back. He didn’t even want to imagine what would’ve happened to him if the Pokemon had simply collided with a path without being allowed to decelerate.

Thinking about how he never wanted to do that again, Joe got off Absol’s back and onto his own knees, rubbing his stomach with his left hand. “Is it over?” Joe asked, eventually brushing his forehead with his arm, causing his thick coat sleeve to absorb beads of sweat that had formed from doing some very extreme sports in inappropriate clothing.

Rising to his feet, Joe noticed four deep gashes in the dirt that lined up with Absol’s paws. They really did come into contact with the ground hard. He knew Pokemon were strong, but hitting ground at such a speed with extra weight surely had to deal some damage to Absol’s legs.

Regardless, Joe moved his hand to pat Absol’s back. “Thanks for the help. I really owe you.” Its fur was wonderful to touch. Joe had stroked many Pokemon’s fur because many customers would bring their Pokemon with them to the PokeMart, but none had felt quite so soft and well groomed as this Absol’s fur.

The Pokemon didn’t react to the young man’s hand. Instead, it looked up to where they’d fallen from and narrowed its eyes. While Absol looked up, Joe looked down off the side of the path. They’d fallen quite far, to the point where Joe could clearly see the cafe he’d rested at a few days ago in New Bark Town. To think that not even a minute of travelling straight down would cancel out days worth of effort on his part. That was just depressing.

“Hm?” A quizzical noise left Joe’s mouth as something hit his leg. Or saying ‘hit’ was being harsh, it was just Absol nudging the human. It spoke its name, seeming to still insist on running away.

Understanding why he was being nudged, Joe spoke to his saviour. “Right, better not take any chances. C’mon, let's go.”

Just as he spoke, Raikou’s roar could be heard as it thundered down to the same path Joe and Absol were on. The beast landed with a hefty thud and released a large amount of electricity on impact. There was such force behind Raikou’s collision with the rocky path that Joe was blasted off his feet and fell back a couple of metres. Absol was able to simply dig its claws into the earth, managing to stand its ground.

At this point Joe was just tired of this mess and wanted to be done with it all. His stomach still felt unpleasant and he was sick of being thrown about by the force of a powerful Legendary. But as he was scrambling to his feet, he noticed the helpful wild Pokemon standing its ground against something he wanted to flee from. “What are you doing?! We need to run, there’s nothing that can be done about a Legendary!”

You are reading story Pokemon: Becoming Legend at novel35.com

Facing such a powerful enemy was beyond reckless. At some point the challenger has to recognise that it’s a lost cause to fight a battle where the result would be a one-sided failure. If there is no chance of victory, then isn’t it just a bad decision to pick a fight against a strong opponent? And yet despite these feelings, there was another thought swirling around in Joe’s head. It doesn’t matter if what one faces is overwhelming loss, getting involved in such an unwinnable battle is still the duty of those who are capable of doing so. It’s the correct thing to do. New Bark Town was so close now. If Raikou were to reach the settlement, who knows what would happen. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. 

Absol briefly looked over its shoulder to bark at the human, and that was its first mistake. A ridiculous amount of electricity burst from Raikou’s body in a sphere, kicking up dust and dirt to cloak itself. Absol turned back to face the Legendary Beast, only to see a big, heavy paw with glinting white claws swing out of the dust cloud. In an attempt to dodge, Absol lept back while beginning to form a Shadow Ball in front of its mouth. But it was too slow. The paw struck Absol in the side of the head and the partially formed dark orb, cancelling the attack and smashing Absol into the side of the mountain.

Forgetting about wanting to flee, Joe was now worried about the Pokemon that had done its best to protect him. It was lying on the ground, under a freshly made crater in the cliff face, seemingly dazed from taking a strong hit to the head.

This was no place for a human, but Joe found himself liking the company of a righteous Pokemon such as Absol. A Pokemon that had a strong sense of justice. It was risking its life to keep a stranger safe, and yet there was nothing he could do in return except give moral support. 

“Get up!” He yelled as a breeze rolled through the area and erased what remained of the dust cloud Raikou had created. “I’m with you until the end!”

Gritting his teeth, Joe couldn’t help but think it was a pointless thing to say. They didn’t even know each other, he didn’t even know what species of Pokemon it was. The wild Pokemon has no reason to care about anything Joe says to it.

The Legendary Beast looked at the paw it’d used to strike Absol and shook it. Even though Absol’s Shadow Ball attack hadn’t fully formed, it seemed to have had some effect.

Absol quickly forced itself up and used an attack from a crouched position, although it seemed to still be disoriented to some degree. But nevertheless, a pink crescent formed on Absol’s horn and it was flung at the opponent at near point blank range. This pink arc attack had so much strength behind it that Raikou was struck in the side and, upon impact, was forced closer to the edge of the mountain path the trio found themselves on.

Raikou actually seemed to have taken some damage as it glared at Absol from the corner of its eyes. Despite being pushed back, Absol wasn’t even worth Raikou’s full attention.

Why do humans have to be so useless in these situations?! Joe was desperate to help in any way he could at this point, but couldn’t think of a single thing to do apart from watch the battle from his current position nearly ten metres away.

Seeing the human just standing there, Absol barked at him again, still hinting at him to run.

But before Joe could confirm he wasn’t going anywhere, Raikou effortlessly unleashed a Thunderbolt attack in the human’s direction. Joe dived out of the way, barely making it out of the line of fire. When another bolt of electricity was launched at him he rolled to the side and quickly rushed to his feet as Absol launched a Shadow Ball into Raikou’s face in hopes of distracting the Legendary. For the briefest of moments Raikou, a Legendary Beast, was forced to stop. Taking a hit to the face wasn’t something to ignore. 

A moment passed and Raikou just opted to fire electricity everywhere in order to hit both the human and the Pokemon that opposed it. Massive bolts of lightning carved up the dirt path and the cliff face before passing by Absol, who had managed to dodge after shaking off its dizziness. Joe managed to dodge a few bolts of electricity by ducking and diving to the side, but luck was just not on his side today. A stray bolt struck his leg and caused the muscles in the limb to seize up. With no control of his leg, Joe fell sideways. Straight off the cliff.

“Ah.” He was in on position to grab anything and could stare at Raikou as he fell off the side of the mountain.

You can find story with these keywords: Pokemon: Becoming Legend, Read Pokemon: Becoming Legend, Pokemon: Becoming Legend novel, Pokemon: Becoming Legend book, Pokemon: Becoming Legend story, Pokemon: Becoming Legend full, Pokemon: Becoming Legend Latest Chapter