Shelter In The Storm (My 200th Fanfiction)

It is a dark and stormy night...

Zapdos must be furious, Nick thinks as he presses through the downpour. Other small Pokémon stumble past him in attempts to find shelter — or, in the case of the Electric and Water Types, to find the best place from which to enjoy the storm.

Nick's stomach, filled with nothing but the pawful of nuts he'd managed to scrounge the day before, clenches painfully tight with a loud grumble of desire and despair. He uselessly tries to soothe it with promises of finding more food once the storm passes, lamenting the day's worth of foraging lost to the rain.

As the storm's ferocity picks up, fewer and fewer shelters seem stable enough to last, the few that are viable already taken by somemon else. As Nick's desperation grows, he turns his sights to the ruins on the cliff. He's heard whispers that it is an evil place, haunted, but surely it is better than being out in the storm?

The door creaks slowly open, its ancient hinges releasing crumbling rust, as Nick pushes his way into the bright room. He is wary, unsure of what he might find, but excited to finally get away from the dreary gloom.

His eyes widen as he beholds the largest pile of berries he's ever seen in his life; pecha, chesto, oran — there is every kind he knows and many he doesn't. They seem to almost shine after the darkness his day has been full of.

"Nickiiiit!" He breathes in wonder, grinning in utter delight as he steps more fully into the room. He has eyes only for the berries, oblivious to the peculiar color of the room's torches and the red orbs that sit just behind the pile, giving off a soft glow of their own.

Nick dives into the pile of berries, eating his fill and then some. The orbs flicker, pulling the rapidly darkening shadows of the room around them, making the torches' flames dance. The shadows spin slowly, carefully around the room, always getting just that much closer to the unaware Nickit.

A tendril of shade snakes its way around Nick's tail, unfelt and unnoticed in the way only that which is not precisely there can be. The shadows tug sharply on the tail in their grasp, a deathly, inhuman wail reverberating throughout the room as they do. Nick yelps, tumbling off the berry pile and clumsily spinning around to finally, finally, finally see that which had so silently crept up on him.

Nick is frozen in terror for all of two seconds, before a menacing grin forms itself in the shadows, shocking him into action. He leaps over the shadows, dashing through the door and down the hallway as fast as he can, the mad cackles of his pursuer pounding in his ears.

He looks over his shoulder and wishes he hadn't. A wall of twisting, billowing, shadowy tendrils is following him; at its head are the gemstones he hadn't noticed before, the shape of a Misdreavus half-formed around them, part of her melding into the shadows themselves. And she just keeps grinning, keeps cackling, moving forward unhurried but just fast enough to eventually overcome him. He can't outrun, can't outlast her, can't...

Nick's only hope is the front door, the hole he'd snuck in through. He desperately runs to it. But water is rushing past, the cliffs must resemble a waterfall by now, going out there would be death. Nick turns around, back pressed to the door that promises false salvation, watching the gleeful Misdreavus close in — her pace is unchanged, she has all the time in the world.

A few dark tendrils reach out ahead of the rest, almost touching Nick. His eyes widen in terror, he's trapped he's helpless everything is so cold he's doomed–

He squeezes his eyes tight, forcing out the foreign thoughts. What is this? Never once in his life has he given up this easily. He doesn't give up when there are storms out, when bigger or stronger Pokémon are angry at him, when food is scarce and competition fierce — why does he now, of all times, feel such icy and all-consuming dread in his heart?

(He'll never know of the torches' poisoned smoke, never realize the chemical terror and urge to surrender was from them, but it hardly matters. He knew the Misdreavus had to have done something to him, and that was enough)

Nick's eyes snap open, a low growl reverberating in his chest, anger and survival instinct pumping through his veins to melt away the ice. Misdreavus pauses, not because of the aggression (that just makes her game more fun), but because of the spark of blue glowing in what should be yellow eyes.

Nick tries to take a step forward, but is stopped by white and blue energy surrounding body in pulses. Misdreavus chuckles nervously, eyes wide, and begins to slowly back up. Not fair, not fair, not fair! She thinks, before turning tail and running, her shadowy half-illusion falling away in her fright.

Laughing in a cackle of his own, the newly-minted Theivul gives chase.

(The end)