I feel like such a huge nerd posting this... like... yeah, pokemon.

Wrote this for a contest over on dA, I placed in the top three. This was also written... months ago, months and months ago so it isn't up to my current skill or style but I still like it because of the characterization I managed to pull out of the characters.

Italics are human speech.

Ondin stumbled, his small claws dug into the grass and he pushed himself up, he couldn't stop. Behind he could hear the trainers, and the bayleef, coming after him. With a growl he surged forward and over to the road. An oncoming car blared its horn at him as he raced acroos. Light from the headlights blinded him and unthinking unleashed a shot of mud from his mouth. It hit the car making it skid sideways into the far ditch, cars screamed to a halt, horns blaring. On the other side of the road Ondin could make out the outline of the bayleef as he stood by in the light of the mayhem he'd caused. The trainers came running up behind the pokemon amazed by what had just happened.

Then the humans started yelling, the one Ondin had hit was yelling that a quagsire had hit him. Half blind and hurting Ondin stumbled away from the road as they continued to yell. He heard the bayleef call after him, berating him by yelling he was weak and pathetic; he didn't care. He hurt all over and needed to rest.

Slowly he made his way away from the main road to another smaller one his feet deep in the grass. By the bright moon overhead he knew he should be asleep, and after the thrashing that bayleef had given him he was so weak he was only moving by force of will. As he walked he smelled water; beautiful clean water. Exactly what he needed, he hoped it was a pond or a river, somewhere with cool deep mud.

A fence stood between him and the water, he frowned and stood up on two legs. Then he pried open the wooden fence just enough for him to slip in, and he smelt his way to the water's edge before sliding into its cool embracefifteen. The water tingled the new wounds on his body from the previous attacks but the water refreshed him in ways that no potion ever could. He swam to the bottom of the little pond and found it hard and unyielding; no mud here, but Ondin couldn't find it in him to care. He wanted to sleep and rest. So on the bottom of the hard bottomed pond he finally fell asleep under the bright moon and the sparkling stars.

—

"Kelly, time to get up," her mother gently woke her and Kelly opened her eyes. It was summer, and she still had to get up early! This vacation blew. She sat up blearily rubbing her eyes and shooed her mother out of the room. She was fifteensixteen dangit, she didn't need her mom telling her what to do, or waking her up every morning! She hobbled out of bed and got dressed, yawning all the while.

Her mother had breakfast waiting for her at the table when she came out and she scarfed it down, pointedly ignoring the houndour at her feet who was doing his best to look adorable, hoping she'd "accidentally" drop a piece of her sausage on the floor. "None for you Caesar," Kelly said through a mouth full of toast and the houndour whimpered before walking away, put off, tp go find something else to occupy his attention.

"You ready for your first day of classes, sweetie?" Kelly's mom asked making her remember why she was getting up so early during her break. Today Kelly was going in for classes to get her trainer's license. In the last few years the requirements for becoming a trainer had become a lot tighter and the age requirement had risen too. Now you had to be sixteen (Kelly was turning sixteen in six days!) and had to pass the trainer test. Pass the test and you got your license so you could train at gyms, participate in the league, and buy poke-items at the marts. Oh, and best of all you could stop by one of the breeders and get your first pokemon with a voucher from the league! It was all very exciting and now Kelly remembered why her mother still woke her up in the morning or she would have slept in!

"Yep!" Kelly cried delightfully. At the same time Caesar started barking outside. "Oh, what is he doing now?" Kelly said crossly. Caesar only barked when someone entered the yard, her dad had trained him really well.

"Go check on him Kelly," her mom said, "I'll clean this up."

"But mooom, I have to get ready for class," she whined.

"Go check on Caesar, you have plenty of time," and she shooed her away.

Kelly sighed and got off her chair. "Caesar, what are you barking at?" she demanded sliding open the glass door, Caesar was standing by the pool barking and growling at something or another. "Caesar, stop it," she groaned. The houndour looked at her like she was being and idiot, then back down at the pool and continued to bark. Kelly sighed and went over to the poor, "What are you barking at you stupid houndour?" she demanded looking into the pool. "MOM!" she screamed. Something big and blue had taken up residence at the bottom of their pool.

"What is it Kelly?" her mom asked, suddenly appearing at the sliding door looking alarmed.

"Pokemon in the pool," and she pointed at the pool. Her mother came over quickly. "What is it?"

"Its a quagsire, I think," her mom said slowly, it was just laying on he bottom of the pool, it looked wounded. "Oh dear, Kelly, go get your father, he's in the garage.

Kelly nodded and ran to get him, "Dad, dad," she said urgently.

"Hey there Kelly Belly, what's the matter?" he asked a relaxed grin on his face at seeing his daughter.

"A quagsire got into our pool. Mom says it looks hurt," she said urgently and started pulling her dad toward the backyard.

"A quagsire? Out here in the suburbs?"

"That's what mom said, now c'mon."

"Okay okay, I'm coming," and he followed Kelly out to the backyard. "Well it is a quagsire. A pretty big one too," he said looking into the pool.

"What should we do?" asked her mom.

"I'll have Leonidas get him out, we can take him to a Center; he looks to big to be a wild one. I bet someone's looking for him," Kelly's dad said and went into the house, Kelly stayed by the pool looking worried, her mom went back inside too, now satisfied that everything was going to be okay. Her dad came back out with a great ball in hand.

"Hey dad, why don't you just catch it?" Kelly asked.

"Because it might belong to someone," he said. "C'mon out Leonidas," and he let out a poliwhirl.

"Poli?" Leonidas asked his trainer gently bouncing on his feet on the brown spanish tile.

"A quagsire got into the pool Leonidas."

"Whiiir!" Leonidas didn't like the sound of that and glared into the pool where the quagsire still hadn't moved from.

"Hey, easy does it Leonidas, I just want you to bring him up here so I can get a look at him."

"Poli," and Leonidas nodded and jumped into the pool.

—

Ondin sensed the disturbance in the surface water and slowly opened his eyes. It was light out but he didn't feel any better. About five feet above him a poliwhirl dropped down and with a quick kick of his legs landed in front of Ondin. "What are you doing in master's pool?" demanded the poliwhirl.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know it belonged to a human," Ondin rasped.

"You shouldn't be here," the poliwhirl wasn't pleased by Ondin's answer.

"I didn't know where else to go. I'm hurt, I'd gladly leave, but I can hardly move," he groaned and tried to lift his head off the pool bottom; he couldn't.

There was a definite change in the poliwhirl's tone at that exhibition, "My master told me to bring you up to him," he rattled. "Since you can't swim I'll carry you," and gingerly the poliwhirl picked him up from the bottom of the pool. Then with a strong kick he rose six feet through the water and breached the surface.

"Good boy Leonidas," a man said and Ondin looked up at him blearily as Leonidas swam a few feet to the pool's edge and heaved Ondin up onto the side. The man helped him and they rolled Ondin onto the earthen sun-warmed tiles.

"Will she be all right dad?" asked a young girl and Ondin's eyes flicked to her, she was hardly above child as far as humans were concerned and for some reason seeing her young face filled Ondin with a deep sense of loss. He whimpered and looked away from her.

"I think he will Kelly, go get my bag for me will you?" the man was very gentle and Ondin felt safe with him.

"My master is a good man," Leonidas said bobbing his body at Ondin.

"I bet," Ondin breathed. Off to the side someone growled at him.

"Trespasser," they snarled.

"Leave him alone Caesar, he is hurt, master is helping him," Leonidas berated whoever Caesar was, they were out of Ondin's line of sight.

"Here you go dad," the girl had returned but Ondin refused to look at her, the sense of loss and loneliness she gave him hurt him so bad it was like he was being whipped by that bayleef's vines again.

"Thank you Kelly Belly. Now you should get going, don't you have class today?"

"Oh! Yes, mom is taking me. Will she be okay?"

Again with the she thing, Ondin made an effort and slapped his tail angrily on the tile, the end splashed into the pool. The man laughed, "I think your she is a he Kelly."

"Oh… I'm sorry Mr. Quagsire," she said.

"Kelly! Hurry up or you'll be late!" another female voice called from far away.

"He'll be okay right dad?"

"Yes, now go on, I got him."

"Okay," and Ondin heard her run away.

"Who was that?" Ondin asked Leonidas who pulled Ondin onto his side so the man could look at his underbelly.

"That was the master's daughter, her name is Kelly. She's going to participate in getting her trainer's license today."

"And the other lady?"

"Master's mate, Shelly."

"Yeeesh, you got quite a scar here buddy," said the man rouching Ondin's old wound on his side.

"It is old," Ondin whispered closing his eyes as the man uncapped some potion. "What is your master's name?"

"Jeffery-

"You shouldn't tell strangers everything Leonidas," Caesar suddenly growled.

"I mean them no harm," Ondin said and Jeffery helped him open his mouth and pour some of the potion in.

"You'll be okay now," Jeffrey smiled at him. "That potion will help you sleep, I'm calling the Center so they can come get you," and he rubbed Ondin's muzzle.

"You have a nice master," Ondin told Leonidas as the poliwhirl let Ondin back onto his stomach. "He is very kind," he felt himself getting tired. Leonidas wasn't there anymore though; he was taken away in a flash of red light. Distantly he could hear Jeffery talking but couldn't make out what was being said. Slowly darkness bubbled across his sight and he fell asleep.

—

Ondin sat on a hill, a chikorita next to him, he was a wooper again. That was funny, he didn't even remember being a wooper; or evolving. All he remembered was waking up on the beach of the ocean and that was it. The chikorita smiled at him and spoke but he couldn't understand her; for it was indeed a her. His heart felt like someone had carved it out of his chest with a claw.

He wanted to wake up; because he knew it was a dream, he knew it was; he knew, he knew, he knew!

He looked away from the chikorita who didn't seem to have a problem with it, she just jumped up and scampered over to the other side. Then she looked up expectantly and a shadow fell over them. "Lets go Ondin," and he called the chikorita something Ondin couldn't hear properly. "We're going on a great adventure," Ondin looked up into the wide smiling face, though the eyes were invisible because the sun was right behind him.

"C'mon Ondin, we're going we're going!" and he chikorita danced around him. Ondin slowly rose to his feet and followed the two down the hill.

This is Ondin

http:/ Ericanii. deviantart. com/art/ Ondin-the-Quagsire-163175332