At the End of an Age

Intro: A Char-ming Display

40 minutes later, and no one had found anything significant. Leaf's team stumbled on a few charmeleons, and Green found a plentiful helping of charmander, but really, everyone was looking for the charizard; there was always at least one with gatherings like this. Red considered the possibility that it was away and currently trapped by the rain, meaning they would have to wait a while until after it stopped.

"Like hell," Red muttered. He lifted up another rock with a small tunnel-like path leading from it. The way they'd been doing it was, two people lift, one person stabs. This time around, the new guy to the guild was the one stabbing. Granted, the guild had existed for less than a year already, so none of them were exactly veterans, but this guy was fresh out of the skillet, and it showed.

Obnoxious and cocky, Harley was the archetypical newbie. All bark, and no bite, he didn't take anything seriously except himself. That doesn't mean he seemed to care too much for his well-being, though. While Green wasn't in love with the recently-turned 18-year-old, he did at least want to give him a chance to prove himself. Red disagreed, but the kid was persistent, and just good enough with a weapon to pass the entrance trial and make it this far. Didn't mean he wasn't a damn idiot, though. Red wondered as Harley missed the stab on the surprised charmeleon how he was ever going to survive this business. The squawking charmeleon pounced from the dirt to the doofus, who proceeded to struggle in all the wrong ways, just barely pushing a scorching-hot maw away from his own face. His squad mates looked on for a moment, giggling and teasing, before Red simply drew his sword. The laughter froze with the frigid-cold look that Red wore so well, as his three-foot blade expertly pierced the charmeleon and stopped right on Harley's chest. The steel went just deep enough to make an impression; the squad stepped back, shocked, for a moment, until the rookie made it very clear with all his thrashing that he wasn't dead.

"Wha-what the hell?!" Harley clambered to his feet, shaken and angry. "You almost killed me, man! Are you crazy?!" The kid even took off his mask just to show how upset he was. Rookie move; if only he knew how uncomfortable it would be putting it back now that his face was no longer dry. Despite the silliness of the situation and the look on Harley's face, Red didn't shrug it off. He stepped in close, his mask still on, sword still drawn and dripping bright orange blood.

"You think I didn't know exactly how far to thrust? How much force to use? Which part to pierce? I've spent my entire life doing this. Training for this. And even if you had done the same- which you haven't- it wouldn't matter if you never take this seriously!" Red stared harshly from behind his mask, while Harley's brown eyes looked away, still hurt.

"Oh, come on, man… I-I am taking this seriously! I mean, here I am, in the rain with you guys, hunting monsters…" The kid sounded defensive, but humbled- a step down from the outrage of second ago. He knew not to challenge Red, especially when he was clearly right. "Look, Red, I just- "

Red didn't reply, but instead hushed both Harley and the squad, who was silent already. Through the rain, he heard a cry- a different one from Harley's. It had been a while, but he'd heard it before. Honestly, he did halfway hope that he wouldn't have to kill every living fire-spawn before the charizard would appear, and it looked like the soaked charmeleon some 10 yards away hoped the same. When the others saw it, they immediately drew their weapons, but Red kept them still.

Let the poor thing go ahead and call mommy; saves me the trouble of having to flip over another stupid rock, Red thought. And call, it did. The cry was an odd sort of chirping howl which honestly sounded like, "Char"; it was a call for help, and exceptionally loud despite the rain. He'd read about it, and heard it twice, and in each scenario, the troupe's charizard appeared within a few minutes. While he was glad the charizard would finally show, still he knew that the call would bring every other lizard in the area to him, as well. It would be nice to have the dragon all to his squad, but every fire-lizard in the immediate vicinity was currently flocking to his position. He clenched his teeth, ready, and flagged his team.

"On me!" Swords still out and washed in the rain, the squad darted to the charmeleon and set their weapons to strike; the creature must've tried its absolute best to get away, since Red missed the first couple attacks, but it did slip, and he capitalized, brutally slamming his blade into crimson flesh, pulling away, and cleaving again. The bright orange blood poured onto the rocks where the lizard lay, like magma spilling into puddles on the ground. Normally, charmeleons are extremely arrogant and daring, but in the rain, they were timid and skittish, and all the more terrified upon watching their kin be slaughtered. Something he wanted to evoke in the now amassing reptiles.

A few charmanders on their own wasn't a threat, and the same could have been said for a charmeleon or two, if you weren't a complete novice. But the swarm that now flocked them was at least 20 charmanders and 6 charmeleons, by Red's count. Seemed like the cries definitely got some attention, and Red suddenly found himself wishing that he had found a few more nests before the arrival of the charizard, which could already be heard roaring in the distance. On a sunny day, they'd pretty much be either forced to flee, or dead, at this point, fire-spawn assembling in a semicircle in front of them, the conjunction of their heat igniting their tails despite the still-falling rain, and a rather large dragon homing in for an air-assault. However, his advantage was the only reason Red let the creatures gather in the first place. Now that they were here in thick numbers, they were instinctively less likely to flee, making for easy kills. Not to mention, the horn one of his group carried would summon the rest of the guild, who could seal the deal in the extermination by flanking the creatures as they focused on Squad 2, but that could be at least 10 minutes from now. This was the definitive moment- they had to hold their ground. Red just hoped his squad wouldn't piss it all away. He entered his signature, deceptively relaxed stance and spoke with solemn authority.

"Focus- we've trained for this!" Red declared to the shaky group behind him on the rocks. "Assume Wedge Formation! And Tristan- blow that horn, already." Things are about to get exciting… "Advance!"

Author's Note - Thank you to anyone who reads this. It's been an idea in my head for a while, about what Pokemon-human relationships must've been before there were trainers and rangers and champions, and what-have-you. I also found the idea of humans having to go face-to-face with Pokemon quite appealing; anytime you see this, in the anime, at least, the human never strikes the Pokemon- he's always got his own Pokemon to fight for/ suffer with him. Additionally, they never die. You hear about it sometimes, in bits and nuggets, but in all the battles I've seen and played, not one Pokemon of trainer has ever not somehow survived. So, this is going to be a different kind of story. Think Monster Hunter mixed with Pokemon, since that's what inspired this whole thing. However, this is not just a cause for me to write about a bunch of Pokemon being murdered (though that will happen); this is an intensive look at how enemies became friends, between two races so different, and the wars that initially raged between them, from the classic viewpoint of a young protagonist and his friends. In the future, I'll will be uploading more information regarding each person and Pokemon in my world, the role they play/ the danger they pose, and eventually, there will even be pictures, uploaded to Deviant Art (and not of the oh-so-facepalm MS Paint-quality, either!). Maybe even a comic-strip on Inkblazers, probably, maybe. Who knows? Anyone? ...seriously, does anybody know?!