Close Call - Leo

The youth yawned, feeling the prickle of tears along the outer rims of his eyes before brushing them away lazily. Silently cursing that he didn't make it his mission to get enough sleep the night beforehand, but then again. The ground was only so comfortable. Regardless of basic sleeping apparatus he carried. Which was very little judging from the mediocre size of the backpack he carried slung over his right shoulder. He was thankful the wild pokemon didn't bother him as much as they could have. Waking up to find you'd been the heat source of a family of furrets was more pleasant than being mauled by an ursaring.

"Chuu~" The content snore made his look upward in vain. Because it's origin as perched within his unruly mane of hair, and sleeping at that. 'Well it's nice to know someone's getting enough sleep.' He grumbled spitefully in his mind, though the quirk of his lips drew the venom from the mental statement. The familiar restless feeling had the duo on the move yet again. To where? Who knew. They'd decide when they got there, wherever there may be.

Leo felt his brows lower at the well-used route he was traveling. There was always and uneasy feeling when taking these roads, a feeling of suspense he didn't like in the least. That what shy he usually went by the less populated routes. By far more dangerous and confusing than the main paths but he'd somehow managed to traverse them with minimal injury.

Even if he did feel the oncomings of a heart attack whenever he had to scale a height.

Maybe it was because Scruffy was out in the open. Well, kind of but not really since he was pulling off some impressive camouflage. The several patrols he'd passed by didn't even think to at an eyelid at the boy. Didn't the other regions let their kids wander around at ten anyway? Leo pouted. Oh the envy. He didn't have much time to think on the matter further before a raised voice was directed at him.

"Eh?" Blinking in confusion he turned to see- oh crap. Nevermind the dude it was the crouched luxio he had a problem with. "G-ah!" The glint in it's eyes and the tensed position of it's body screamed it was about to let loose and go for him. Leo wasn't going to wait around to find out. But before he could coherently think his decision through he'd already made a beeline into the trees.

Which was probably the worst road of action he could have taken considering a predator's natural instinct was to chase prey. Though the fight or flight response cared little for that level of logic.

Well he can't say he wasn't expecting the weight on his back. And in the brief but very real force of impact he caught sight of his pokemon companion fly from his head and off into the shrubbery somewhere. Whoops. But Leo didn't really have the time to dwell on it what with there being a luxio perched atop his back and...nuzzling his head?

He could feel the telltale tingle of static electricity brush his skin and make sections of his hair stand up on end. Coupled with the near violent nuzzling he was receiving by the time he managed to right himself his hair was all ways of haphazard. "Pleh!" He spat out a few strands of grass that'd managed to get into his mouth during the fall. "Gross gross gross."

Flipping himself over so he was resting on his rump rather than flat out on his face he was happy to find the cat had gotten off of him and returned to whoever it was just catching up to them. Presumably it's trainer.

Wait trainer? Oh boy. Leo knew well enough that someone walking about with such a pokemon freely would be affiliated with his supposed opposition. Even if he wasn't exactly inducted into spectre ranks, it didn't matter to them. He paused. "Kitty?" Leo blinked with a blank expression; coupled with a sweatdrop. "What kind of name is kitty..." He mumbled inaudibly to himself. The hand that wasn't supporting his weight reached up to touch a particularly stinging area of his cheek. He winced at the contact and drew back to see his fingers coloured a light red.

Likely the fault of either the debris of the forest floor of that of the luxio, he wasn't quite sure. Looking back at the most definitely older male he huffed. "And what was that for?"

He knew what the luxio seemed so keen in finding. Tufted head looking about the clearing they'd stumbled into, seeming a little disheartened when the cat hadn't found him on his head as she'd previously hoped he was sure. "What other ways are there to travel but routes." he huffed sarcastically. "Not that it's anyone's business but my own, I'm heading to see my gramps in Valedge."

Fabricating stories came to him with ease at this point. Giving out the street-rat identity didn't seem the best option to Leo, never had and likely never would. The pitying looks - as much as he hated them - were something he could grudgingly deal with. But when that one officer had suggested he be taken to an orphanage some years back he drew the metaphorical line in the sand.

"Anyway. What're you goin' on about?" Leo's brows furrowed while he picked himself up and dusted his clothes of foliage from the fall. That totally wasn't his fault in the first place. "I don't own any pokemon." The remark came out with such practiced ease. His believable tone was something he'd been working on from an early age, since manipulation seemed to serve him well enough in certain situations involving bleeding hearts.

Besides, Scruffy was an intelligent creature. Aside from Leo not actually having the bugs pokeball on his person (finding it far more managable to keep it amongst his stash of belongings back in Redwell) the Joltik was well skilled as evasion. Almost as if he were trained in such tactics. There were many scenarios where Leo found himself stumped by his friend's unexpected shows of dexterity and prowess.

Taking a little more time to assess his 'attacker' the teen crouched to meet the luxio- eh, kitty's - bright eyes. "I've never been this close to a luxio before." Or any of shinx's evolutionary line. But lucky him. Today he'd only been tackled by one. There was something for the memory scrapbook.

Whoops. Leo mentally beratted himself for the geographical mix up but steeled his expression so as not to show it. Making a pass as the unamused youth how didn't at all appreciate being corrected but was embarrassed by his error all the same. "Thanks..." he mumbled. He was still peeved by the entire spectacle though. Even if this soldier showed less of a tight attitude toward his presumptions he still felt the system flawed. perhaps it was because he was young but he didn't have much patience for being told 'just wait 'till you're older.'

He bit the inside of his cheek, unsure whether or not to voice the question that sprung to his mind. "Out of curiosity's," he began. "Why exactly is it such a bad thing to be caught with a pokemon?" Because they're dangerous. Is what he expected to hear. A threat to society in the wrong hands and blah blah blah. But so were a lot of other things He'd heard the same spiel countless times in passing. Personally found it total bull but he tended to word it nicer when his thoughts became bit more vocal.

Truthfully he had no notion of where his friend was at this point. Unbeknownst to the blonde the joltik was speaking animatedly with several other bug-type pokemon among the tree canopies very near starved for interaction with his own kind. Not that he didn't love the little human he'd become so close too. But there's only so much of a language barrier one can take.