The Dragon Master: Chapter Two

	After the dust cleared, Puff, my starter pokemon, who has always been 
faithful to me, always obeyed me, was lying on the ground, knocked out. And 
Lance. Just standing there, still laughing. I had many thoughts going 
through my head. Too many thoughts. What I was thinking of, I don't know, 
but there was just one thought that had stood out in my mind. I lost.
	"Puff, return," I said, with no tone in my voice at all. A thin red beam of 
light came from Puff's pokeball, engulfed him, and brought him into his 
pokeball. Slowly, I picked up all of my pokeballs, and left the stadium.
On the ferry back to New Bark Town, I stayed in my room the entire trip. 
When I got back home, I said nothing to Delilah, and went directly up to my 
room. I stayed there for a week. When I came down for breakfast the day 
after the week was over, I ate my breakfast and was about to go up to my 
room when Delilah said something.
	"You know, Bob," she said gingerly, "if you ever want to the Pokemon League 
Champion, you're going to have to train harder. You almost did beat Lance." 
For the first time in a week, I felt like talking.
	"You're right, Delilah," I said, hinting a smile, "You're always right. I'm 
gonna train harder, and then I'm gonna go back up there and beat him." I 
grabbed my belt with my pokeballs and I grabbed my backpack. Then I started 
to head out the door. But Delilah stopped me.
	"Where do you think you're going," Delilah asked me. I smiled back at her 
and simply said...
	"Training." Then I ran out the door and headed for Route 29.
	"Are you going to be home for supper," Delilah yelled at me.
	"Maybe. Don't wait up," I yelled back.
When I got to Route 29, I was looking for trainers to battle. Yet, there 
were none to be found. I kicked a rock in anger. The rock hit a tree. Dozens 
of Beedrill came out of it!
	"Holy Miltank," I muttered under my breath. Then I took off in a dead 
sprint. It was only another mile to Cherrygrove City, I thought. Soon, the 
Beedrill got tired and stopped chasing me. As I walked into Cherrygrove 
City, catching my breath, a building caught my eye. It was run-down, it sat 
in-between the PokeCenter and the Pokemart, and it had an "ABANDONED" sign 
on it. I wasn't sure what it was. Then I remembered. This was the orphanage 
that my parents dumped me in because they didn't want me. There was really 
nobody around, so I decided to take a look around. It couldn't hurt. As I 
walked in, there was an eerie silence about it. The kind of silence that 
made you think that something would scare the living daylights out of you.
	"HOLY SHIT," I yelled, as a flock of Zubats and Golbats flew out from the 
building. I continued through the orphanage. After about 10 minutes, I 
reached the front desk. There was still a filing cabinet in there. I went 
through the door to the office. There were three drawers in the cabinet: 
A-H, I-R, and S-Z. I opened the S-Z drawer. Inside were all the files of all 
the people that had ever been put up for adoption here. There was only one 
folder. All of the others must have been taken. The name of the folder read 
SHEPARDSON, ROBERT. My name, this was my file. With trembling fingers I 
opened the file, there read my birth records, my birth certificate, and 
numerous other things. I was looking for something certain. My parent's 
names. There they were, but no, it couldn't be...
	I took off in a dead sprint out of the orphanage, and had the intent of 
going and talking to Delilah. After all, it was his 14th birthday tomorrow 
and I must know if those two people on that sheet are my real parents or 
not. As I went out of town, I turned the corner and ran into someone.
	"Ouch," I yelled. I was about to cuss out the person that I ran into, but 
then I saw who it was. It was a girl, about 3 inches shorter than me, red 
hair worn in a ponytail, a red bag worn over her shoulder, jean shorts with 
suspenders, and a yellow tank top. She happened to be with two guys, one 
with black hair, a red Pokemon League hat, blue jacket, jeans, a black 
t-shirt, a green backpack, and a Pikachu sitting on his shoulder. The other 
one was tall, tanned, squinted eyes, spiked hair, khakis, an orange shirt 
with a vest and a big blue bag over his shoulder.
	"What the heck do you think you're..." said the redhead, but she trailed 
off when she caught sight of me.
	"Are you okay," I asked the redhead?
	"Yeah," she replied, though she seemed dazed. "Just fine." We both stared 
at each other for some time. It took a while before someone broke the 
silence. It happened to be the kid with the Pikachu.
	"Uh...okay...that settles everything...except for...who are you," the kid 
with the Pikachu asked.
	"What...O...how rude of me. I am Bob Shepardson," I replied.
	"Hey, you're that kid that lost to Lance by one pokemon," the kid with the 
Pikachu exclaimed.
	"Yeah, that's me," I answered him. "But that doesn't solve the mystery of 
who you three are."
	"O, we're sorry," the redhead girl offered quickly. "I'm Misty, that kid 
with the Pikachu over there is Ash, and this one over here is Brock."
	"So where are you headed in such a hurry," asked Brock.
	"New Bark Town," I replied to him.
	"It's getting dark," stated Brock. "It looks like we should turn in."
	"You'll never make back to New Bark Town in time," Misty said. "Maybe you 
should camp with us tonight."
	"I guess you're right," I replied. "I better just set up camp with you guys 
then." So we started to set up camp. Brock tried to start a fire with 
matches, but he couldn't do it. So I had Flare use flamethrower to start the 
fire. It was about 9:45 P.M. when we turned in. Right before I fell asleep, 
I remembered that it was my 14th birthday tomorrow. I was determined to get 
some answers out of Delilah about who my real parents were. The last thing 
that I saw before I fell asleep, was the clouds above, blocking out the 
stars.
	I woke up at midnight with a terrible pain in my head. I couldn't fight it 
back any longer. I got up, went into the woods away from the group and find 
out what was going on with my head. It felt like it was about to explode. I 
started to hear a ripping sound. My shirt had huge holes in the back. 
Extending from the holes, were wings, two wings like a Dragonite's. My eyes 
turned a teal sort of color. The clouds above were swirling savagely. A 
twister was forming right above my head! I held out my hands and a hyper 
beam exploded from them! I wasn't sure what was happening to me, but it 
wasn't normal, that's for sure. After the hyper beam, a dragon rage came 
forth from my hands. Next, I could feel my mouth warming up; Dragonbreath 
was flowing from my mouth. I wanted the twister above to stop and the clouds 
to go away. Miraculously, the twister stopped swirling and the clouds went 
away. My wings merged back into my body, my eyes changed back to normal, 
Dragonbreath stopped flowing from my mouth, and the dragon rage stopped. I 
felt so weak, I collapsed.
	"Bob...Bob...wake up," somebody was tapping my face. I opened my eyes. 
Misty was tapping my face. I was in the ground away from the campsite. I 
tried to recall what had happened the night before, but I couldn't. Then I 
remembered, the twister, the hyper beam, and the dragonbreath, all of those 
strange and weird things that happened last night.
	"I'm all right," I assured them. But deep down, I knew that I wasn't all 
right. "I just gotta pack up and then I will leave you guys." So we all 
packed up and said our goodbyes, though Misty tried to persuade me to stay.
	"Please can you come along with us," Misty begged.
	"I really gotta go to New Bark Town," I said. "Family emergency." It took 
me a while to get going, all these thoughts rushing through my head. When I 
got to New Bark Town, there had to be at least 20 Officer Jennies there. All 
parked at my house. There was an ambulance there, too. I sprinted there and 
asked one of the Jennies what was going on.
	"There was a stabbing here last night," Officer Jenny replied. "But only 
family may go in there."
	"That's my mother," I calmly told her, even though I wasn't calm at all.
	"Fine," she said, all choked up, "Get in the ambulance." I got in the 
ambulance right before it left.
	"Bob," Delilah exclaimed, "I'm so glad you're here." Her nightdress was 
soaked with blood. Evidently, someone had stabbed her in the stomach.
	"Delilah," I asked calmly, "who stabbed you and with what?"
	"It was a man in a teal hooded cloak," Delilah answered, now apparently 
gasping for breath. She wouldn't make it to Violet City, where the hospital 
was located. "He stabbed me with a...a...agh." Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. She 
breathed her last breath. She was gone.
-                                         End of Chapter Two                 
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