A way towards the light

"Gyarados? " Aoki looked at him to confirm why he didn't get any response but was shocked to see that Gyarados was shaking with fear.

Boom!

Another explosion rang out as Clefairy fell to the ground from Charmeleon's attack.

~Nido ~ Nidorino who has blasted away for the second time ran towards Charmeleon again with his poison-clad horns.

'Why am I doing this ….I don't want this ' tried to scream Charmeleon but his body wouldn't listen to him.

No matter what he tried, he would not get back his control.

He absolutely hated the fact that he was trying to kill his companions.

Charmeleon had released all his restraints as immense Dragon-type energy that surpassed fire-type energy by a lot had started going rampant.

Aoki's facial expression didn't change as he let his Pokemons quiet down Charmeleon.

Meanwhile seeing the berserk mode of Charmeleon, a painful memory surfaced in the mind of Gyarados as his vision darkened.

His earliest memory belonged to a time when he was Magikarp who was caught by a fisherman boy.

The boy was very happy getting a Golden Magikarp and promised to make him a strong Gyarados.

But happy moments don't last long as his next memory was from the time a few people with an R logo on their shirt snatched him away from the boy after severy beating him up.

Gyarados still remembers the painful cry of the boy as he was getting taken away.

The Magikarp was taken to a place where he saw different Magikarps who were terrified of something.

Each day he and he and the other Magikarps would be fed different things that made him uncomfortable and injected various things making him cry out in pain.

Each day he wished that would be better dead than suffer from this torture but still clung to the hope that he will escape one day.

He got to know that he was something called a shiny because of his color and totem because of his size.

There was a day when a batch of Magikarps evolved into Gyarados from the constant experiment in which the Golden Magicarp evolved to a red Gyarados.

That is when his torture worsened, each day he would be injected with something that would make him lose his mind and rampage without control.

One by one he watched the Gyarados that he came to know as companions fall either by the people's hands or his hands.

There was a time that he finally snapped and completely lost his mind.

The scientists experimenting on him deemed him a failure too and released him into the sea instead of getting rid of him.

After an unknown amount of time, he opened his eyes and found that he was surrounded by a large number of Gyarados.

His memories and instincts kicked in as he started attacking every other Gyarados on sight. By the time he somewhat came to his sense, he had already defeated the entire group of Gyarados and became their leader.

Still, his life was full of darkness.

He always imagined himself to be inside a sphere of darkness with no way out which only worsened when he was captured by Aoki.

But Slowly he felt like the darkness was turning into light the more time he spent with Aoki.

His cheerfulness, his love towards Pokemon, his food everything about him made Gyarados comfortable.

Although he knew that Aoki was using him to train his Pokemon, he found that his Pokemon never critically injured him.

Aoki always ensured that he was having plenty of food and rest.

Aoki would often spend hours talking to him about his life after restaining him while his Pokemon slept on his body. For the first time in years, he felt like he had a place that he can call home.

Not only Aoki, but all his Pokemons would also share their story too like how they met Aoki and how their life was before meeting him.

Today seeing the condition of Charmeleon losing control and attacking his own companions make him remember all those memories. Gyarados felt like he was getting surrounded by darkness again making him scared like when he was a Magikarp.

"Don't be scared" Aoki's voice rang out in the ears of Gyarados.

"You don't have to suffer anymore, I am here with you "

Crack!, the sphere of Darkness cracked

"Believe in me Gyarados, I will take you to a level that no one can harm you and what you love anymore"

Crack!

"You just have to open your heart to me. Give me one chance to prove that I am worthy to command you "

"I believe in you Gyarados, everything will be fine. Just believe in me "

Crack!

Shatter !!

The entire sphere of Darkness was shattered as the light fell on the entire body of Gyarados.

He looked up and saw Aoki extending his hand to follow me.

'Maybe this isn't so bad '

Gyarados was back to his sense and found that Aoki was hugging his tail and looking at him with a confident smile.

"Ready to bring Charmeleon back on track ? " said Aoki.

~Grrrr ~ Gyardos gave a light roar as if telling 'let's do it.

Meanwhile, Charmeleon had death Clefairy, Nidorino, and Bagon a lot of damage in his berserk from using his strongest moves without restraints.

The other could not use too much force against him as Charmeleon had completely abandoned all his defense and they didn't want to hurt him too badly.

Pidgeotto and Weepinbell were still hanging better than the rest but they had injuries all over their bodies. Charmeleon slowly accumulated injuries but was still berserk.

'I don't want this….they will hate me ….I don't want to be abandoned again …..I don't want to kill my family 'cried out Charmeleon but his body was still in the same condition.

At that moment a powerful Hydro pump hit Charmeleon who crashed into the forest breaking several trees.

"Gyarados use dragon dance before Charmeleon attacks again"

~Grr ~ Gyarados roasted his giant body at a fast speed in a pattern activating dragon dance while Charmeleon balanced himself and shot towards Gyarados with a combo of dragon claw and flame claw.

Gyarados used twisted and summoned a short storm around Charmeleon but he used fire to spin in the opposite directions negating the twister.

That gave enough time to Gyarados to shoot another Hydropump at Charmeleon which he almost cut through with his claws but he was hit with a Hyperbeam from Pidgeotto making him roll to a distance.

~Roar ~ Charmleoen roared as he was about to use Fireblast but vines emerged from the ground closing off his mouth and stopping all his movements.

Taking the chance Gyarados used water pulse which brought Charmeleon low on health. Weepinbell was not idle and used sleep power and stun spore on Charmeleon.

In spite of the danger to his life, Aoki approached Charmeleon and touched his forehead with his.

"Stop it Charmeleon…calm down"

~Grrrrr~Charmeleon started to struggle

"Nobody will hate you"

The struggle lessened a bit

"It's fine that you lost control, everyone will forgive you"

The struggle lessened even more

"I will never abandon you …so come back to us Charmeleon"

Tears started dropping from the eyes of Charmeleon as he stopped all his struggle and fell off from the control of the vines.

[You will not abandon me right ?]

Aoki somewhat understood the gesture and gave Charmeleon a tight hug.

"No, I will not abandon you. I took the responsibility to make you strong and I will fulfill you"

"What do you think you were doing huh! " Weepinbell slammed his leaf-like arm on the head of Charmeleon.

"You better apologize to everyone, " said Pidgeotto as she slammed her feet on the head of Charmeleo too.

"You almost killed me you bastard ! " said Nidorino as he slammed his horn in the stomach of Charmeleon. Bagon only watched from a distance with a smile while Clefairy started healing everyone.

"I AM SORRY EVERYONE….IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN "apologized while touching his head on the ground. Instead of getting any reply, he was tackled to the ground by a group hug.

"Well somehow everything went well " Aoki sat on the floor. Somehow bringing Charmeleon under control was more stressful than the gym battle.