Painted Paradise

A plump berry rested at the peak of a large towering tree. The tree bared few leaves accept few stunted buds clawing through may through the tough dry bark of the limbs. However despite the poor shape of the tree, healthy radiant berries basked in the sun towards the very top of the tree, showering glistening icy blue and bitter indigo reflected from the sunshine. Silver’s ears pricked, was this what he needed? Clawing his way up the tree with renewed strength from eating the fish, he scaled up the brittle trunk and gripped one of the biggest berries gingerly between his teeth, taking care not to let his canines to piece the sensitive skin of the fruit before scaling back down. Rushing now, he quickly picked his way through the tall-climbing pines and the reaching stems of bracken.
He quickly found the route he was all so familiar with, and with the fruit still clamped in his jaws he ran to his home, his nest. He looked down upon the two brittle squirming bodies as his mate, Nisa, licked each kit gingerly with her rough tongue. Although the pride fluttered like a trapped butterfly in a cage in his stomach, Silver also found the heavy sinking of a cold stone in his belly as well when he looked at his kittens. Both kits where skinny despite being well fed, looked sickly and pale with an ongoing fever that had remained since the day of their hatching, and they seemed more the size of two sick Rattata pinkies rather than two healthy Meowth kittens. Nisa looked up from cleaning one of the two kits and stared at the berry with a touch of curiosity.
Silver straightened his posture and padded up to Nisa, smiling with the berry still unharmed in his jaws. Nisa, despite not having the burden of carrying a berry, didn’t speak. Instead she looked away, her eyes saddened with a tang of sympathy bouncing from her. Silver caught the sadness and kept it, placing the berry down in front of Nisa as the hurt massaged his heart. “You know that isn’t going to change anything,” Nisa murmured bleakly. “And why shouldn’t it? Oran berries have healing properties, maybe they can help?” Silver retorted miserably. Nisa said nothing again at first, instead letting her tired expressionless gaze travel across the two weak kittens fumbling in the nest. “Oran berries are upon the weakest of them all,” she murmured softly, “it will only prolong their suffering before they die.”
Silver felt anger pulse through him that trampled down his sorrow, “So you say I made weak kits?” He hissed. “They’re kittens, not legendary Pokémon,” Nisa whispered calmly. “They’ll pull through this! What if I found a stronger berry this time?” Nisa started losing her patience then, “Don’t play dumb, maybe these kits won’t make it but we could always try next spring… and the next until we get somewhere. It isn’t the end of the world; they were just the unlucky bunch,” she growled, stalking up to the Oran berry still remaining on the ground and taking a hungry bite into the flesh of the ripe morsel. Silver sighed, knowing he had to resign the argument when Nisa was putting down laws on the campus, they remained solid and sturdy. “If the first litter didn’t make it, the second probably won’t be any healthier,” he whispered giving the kits a long look of longing.
“Maybe not but no sense crying about spilled milk. While I have kits, I want to get rid of the milk I still have, so I need you to fetch me something to eat.” Silver suppressed a gasp of distain; did Nisa really think their kits where nothing but spilled milk? He lashed his tail irritably before turning around, ready to get away from their dying kits if he could, before turning around and calling “at least eat the rest of the berry!” Nisa was quick to respond, calling back “they’ll taste it in the milk anyway, that is if you ever get to feeding us before I run dry of any milk!”
Silver sighed, turning around and disappearing among the bushes and thick trees. Nisa wasn’t the most forgiving patient Pokémon, and she was quick to use her tongue in scorn before considering the other Pokémon’s reaction, but Silver knew she cared for the dying kits as much as he did despite her dismissive attitude. In fact she probably wasn’t hungry at all, but instead wanted to be with the kits while she could, which was all fine with Silver since right now he could hardly bare to look at his flesh and blood on the verge of death. He decided to change his course of thoughts, instead focusing on finding something for Nisa to eat as he had already eaten the fish he caught. The forests where teaming with Pokémon, especially since a large amount of Pokémon die at old age since a battle must commence before the pray is ready to be killed and eaten. In the wild, battling a Pokémon before killing it as pray is a way of showing respect for your meals life and to show that just because the opposing Pokémon is the others pray, doesn’t mean it can’t be just as strong.
Because of the teaming life of the forest, Meowth almost instantly walked across a fresh trail. Silver quickly doubled back and rested his sensitive paws right where the feet of the pray once stood. Meowths did not have noses; instead they had their sense of smell in glands on their front paws which is also why Meowths are often seen standing on their hind legs, letting their front paws touch the air currents above their heads. A Meowths mouth is also large to hold its pray, bear its teeth but most importantly, to breath from the nose passages as well as mouth passages leading to the lungs. In other words, extra large breathing tubes are connected in the mouth instead of the nose and mouth. Silver sensed multiple things from the pray, but pricked his ears in surprise at what kind of pray it was. It was a buneary; Silver remembered its scent back when he lived with Giovanni and had seen a few of the strange creatures in the base. He remembered how much he longed to fasten his teeth on one, and instantly began to trek down the trail in pursuit of the creature. He knew if he found the rabbit Pokémon protecting kits, he could easily snap up a few kits instead of the parents so that he could come back later and use the hole as a favorite snacking area since Bunearies made children year round and quickly.
After dodging a few shrubs and hopping a few gnarled reaching tree roots, he spotted the Pokémon drawing one paw over its ears in a cleaning process. Silver lashed his tail irritably noticing the Buneary must be a loner, but in hindsight it probably would have been weirder otherwise considering bunearies didn’t come from Kanto and was most likely brought here by a trainer and then released afterwards. His eyes on the catch, he quickly scaled around the hill and vanished in the embrace of the thick bushes, careful to stealthily avoid rustling the leaves and alerting the pray. Silver drew closer now, emerging from the branches and into the open as the Buneary was being distracted by a fallen beechnut.
Silver knew the chances of catching the Pokémon where slim if it were to dash, considering its lithe tough muscles where much stronger in its back legs than his were. By an unidentifiable noise, the buneary was alerted to Silvers presence, pricking both ears up in alarm and listening intently for the slightest snapping of a twig. Silver froze, only advancing towards his pray in the slightest movements, careful not to announce his presence completely.
Suddenly the Buneary lashed its body around and stared directly into the eyes of its predator, horror hollowing the edges of the bunearies eyes. With an angry snarl, Silver pushed every scrap of energy from his hind limbs and extended his claws towards the throat of his pray. The buneary threw itself back, its speed quickly outmatching Silvers only to launch itself foreword again with a Dizzy Punch attack. Silver dodged swiftly, knowing because of his Lassitudia illness, he was most likely to faint or at the least be hurt badly if the attack would have been a hit. The buneary hesitated for a moment, seemingly preparing for when Silver attacked next, but Silver didn’t play by the same rules. He launched himself foreword with his jaws parted in the same way as a Bite attack. Launching itself foreword with a Quick Attack to dodge, the buneary ran in with its shoulder outstretched to deliver a painful blow. Silver turned in an unforgiving position to the buneary, its Bite attack soon turning into a bite attack as he fastened his teeth onto the flesh of the creature. Unfortunately the Quick Attack made him miscalculate and his teeth crunched down on the bunaries’ hind leg. The rabbit Pokémon screeched in pain and horror, lashing it’s entirely body as much as possible before yanking its crippled leg out of Silvers jaws.
It stood wide-eyed at the wound which spilled hot blood around bald patches, clumps of matted fur clinging around the bloodshed. The buneary clawed a gaze of burning hostility of betrayal onto Silver before turning fluffed white tail and sprinting for cover. Silver hissed in fury in himself for miscalculating the death-blow to the throat and set chase after the buneary, its speed quickly cut by the wound which led an unforgiving trail streaking across the sun-baked soil. The buneary quickly darted into the gnarled tangles of tree roots and close-growing grapevines, warning Silver that the buneary was so new to the forest that it hadn’t made a burrow yet. Convinced he could catch it for sure now, he charged blindly through the vine tangles, catching the hot stink of fear pouring out of the buneary almost instantly and then charging for the trail. The bunearies eyes where glazed in utter horror now as the fear waves wafted off of it by now. It turned tail once more and darted into the new safety of a dense patch of parched wheat stalks.
Here among the stalks the buneary was completely enveloped and out of sight in a moment, and the scent was shattered in millions of fragments on several stalks making it seemingly impossible to track and find, but Silver could already taste the oxygen-rich blood on his tongue, and the hot pursuit pulsed energy and determination into his limbs. With what little scent he could find scrambled but full of fear and exhaustion in the air, Silver ran through the stalks, crunching the hollowed out stems under his toes with each step. Soon the fear scent became overpowered by exhaustion, and his pray finally became in sight the moment it burst through the stalks and found itself in open space. The buneary turned knowing it had no chance here, but Silver was too quick to cut off access and letting out a furious hiss of victory. The hostility dissolved from the bunearies eyes, soon to be filled with pleading eyes of sheer horror before it darted off again, cannon balling into the scorched pebbles.
The sun-bleached pebbles seemed to be icy-hot coals under his paws, burning holes through his pads but he did not let up in the slightest being so close to capturing his pray. He guessed the buneary was so terrified that it didn’t even notice the heat absorbed in the rocks as it ran, its leg injury at first a burden but now its killer. The buneary suddenly decided to do a surprise, turning around and throwing a stream of foul-swelling purple liquid at him, the move was Toxic. Silver realized it was probably in effort to make sure the buneary is able to survive being alone in the forest, especially since Toxic makes its opponent poisoned. Silver dodged this just in the nick of time with the exception of the foil liquid grazing his fur. During the time it took for Silver to dodge, the buneary had already scaled the fence perhaps preying its predator wasn’t interested enough to climb for it.
Silver smirked with satisfaction, gracefully scaling up the fence in a few quick leaps. Below him the buneary was scrambling to dart again, but its energy had been runned out of its limbs and it could do nothing but stumble foreword in a panic. With one last snarl of victory, he launched himself over the fence and gripped his claws onto the back of the buneary. It unleashed a squeal as Silver sunk his teeth where they should have long before the chase began, fastening his teeth with an iron grip around the neck. The buneary squealed and lashed about but before it could deliver an oncoming dizzy punch, Silver heard the welcoming snap of the bunearies neck before it lay limp.