by Martial Arts Master
Pokemon and all related characters copyrighted by Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures Inc., Satoshi Tajiri, TV Tokyo, 4Kids, and Wizards of the Coast. For this fic to make sense, you'd have to have seen the "Wherefore Art Thou, Pokemon?" episode. That way, you'll know who Ralph and Emily, the two humans, are, and you'll know who Tony and Maria, two former Nidorans who are (as of the end of the aforementioned episode) a Nidorino and a Nidorina, respectively, are. Now, on with the story.
***
It was a beautiful day outside.
The sun was shining, the wind was a gentle breeze, and the Pidgeys were singing. (Author's Note: That's a take-off on "the birds were singing", since I'm not quite certain real birds exist in the Pokemon world. They probably do, considering that they must get meat from somewhere and they wouldn't kill trainable Pokemon, but why take chances?)
It was a day that Tony, a Nidorino who belonged to a human named Ralph, and Maria, a Nidorina who belonged to a human named Emily, would have enjoyed.
It had been quite a while since the episode with Team Rocket, who had tried to take Tony and Maria captive but had inadvertantly given them the experience, via a battle, needed to evolve.
For you see, a human named Tracey Sketchit, who had been present at the incident, had wondered whether the two had evolved from the battle or the kiss they had given each other afterwards.
What Tracey did not know was that there were no Pokemon that evolved from kisses, and that male Nidorans and female Nidorans were among the many Pokemon that evolved from experience.
The two couldn't blame Tracey, though.
They had learned he was a Pokemon watcher, but even Pokemon watchers don't know everything.
They had learned something else, too.
Another human who had been present at the incident, named Misty, had believed that the reason Ralph and Emily argued was because they liked each other.
When they had learned this, Maria had thought that was true.
Tony, on the other hand, did not.
Tony believed that the reason Ralph and Emily argued was because they sincerely didn't like each other because they always ended up catching the same Pokemon, and according to Tony, each had started to believe that the other was copying him/her. And as many know, when someone thinks another is copying that one, that one will get jealous and will start to detest that person.
Whichever the case, Ralph and Emily, after some encouraging from Tracey, Misty, and Ash Ketchum, another human who had been present at the incident, had decided to be tolerant enough of each other to see to the needs of their Pokemon, and since they were next door neighbors, had built a small house in between their own houses for the Pokemon to live in.
Tony and Maria, you see, were in love, and had been ever since they first met.
It had started when Ralph and Emily both won first place at a Pokemon competition, which believe it or not had no Pokemon battles in it.
Tony and Maria, who were Nidorans at the time, were instantly smitten with each other.
But coming back to the present, although the day was beautiful, it was not a good day for Tony and Maria.
Tony fell ill with a nasty flu, and could not leave the house because he was too weak.
Maria acted as a nurse, but now that she was a Nidorina instead of a Nidoran, she was no slouch in protecting the house, either.
No one would go near her beloved when she was around.
So, of course, you couldn't exactly call Maria "too feminine".
Tony, though, wouldn't want it any other way.
His taste ran towards females who were independant, not "damsels in distress".
Ralph was worried sick over Tony almost as much as Maria was, Ralph being Tony's trainer and all.
Emily was proud that Maria was making such an excellent guard.
But they were currently having an argument outside their houses and beyond Tony and Maria's house.
"Your stupid Pokemon got my Pokemon sick!" Ralph shouted at Emily.
"How could that have happened?" Maria shot back.
"It must be cooties! Tony caught cooties because of his romance with your Maria!" Ralph retored.
"That's an idiotic notion! I bet Tony's just pretending to be sick so he can have my little Maria waiting on him hand and foot!" Emily shouted.
"That's a lie! Tony has better morals than that, unlike Maria," Ralph said. "But of course it figures you'd be covering for her."
"I could say the same about you and Tony!" Emily said.
"I'm not covering for Tony!" Ralph shouted.
"Are too!" Emily shouted.
"Am not!" Ralph shouted back. "You're the one covering for Maria!"
"Am not!" Emily shouted.
"Are too!" Ralph shouted back.
"The only reason I let my little Maria anywhere near Tony is because she loves him so much!" Emily said. "And if it hadn't been for Misty telling me off I wouldn't even have let him near him at all!"
"I could say the same thing about Tony," Ralph said. "The only reason I'm letting Tony go so much as a foot towards Maria is because he loves her so much! If it hadn't been for Misty telling me off I'd have kept him away from her!"
Then Ralph and Emily reached the peak of their fury.
They tried to solve their problem by the usual method.
They each picked up a stick and started hitting each other.
And as usual, they were panting afterwards.
Back in Tony and Maria's house, Tony and Maria were oblivious to Ralph and Emily's arguing because Ralph and Emily had gone a long way from the houses.
Tony was in bed, and had slept the night, but because of his nasty flu, he wasn't refreshed in the least.
Tony groaned.
"I almost wish I was battling Arbok and Victreebel again; at least I couldn't get poisoned because I'm a Poison-type," Tony said to Maria in Pokemon language.
"Yeah, but at least now no one's trying to take you away from me," Maria replied back in Pokemon language. Maria was standing, having...so far...not caught the flu.
"Yeah, that's true; I don't know how I'd stand being away from you," Tony said.
Maria blushed.
"Well, you did survive without me before we met," Maria teased. She was trying to lighten the mood. Tony might psychologically feel better if he was happy.
"Yeah, and I don't know how I did," Tony said.
Tony groaned again.
"This stinks," he said. "My head feels so stuffy I feel like somebody shot a Water Gun up my nose. And now for some reason I'm hungry!! I need to get some food."
Tony started to try to get up out of bed, but the flu made him weak and pathetically slow, so Maria gently laid him back down.
"You're too weak," Maria said, deliberately sounding sweet so it wouldn't seem like an insult. "Let me get some lunch for you."
"I can get it myself," Tony protested, but Maria had already opened the door of the tiny house Ralph and Emily had built, and Maria was gone.
Maria came to a field with some trees that usually grew berries.
Maria used her Tackle attack on one of the trees.
As a female Nidoran she wouldn't have been strong enough, but she'd evolved into a Nidorina, so she easily knocked down a bunch of berries from the tree.
She scooped up the berries in her mouth, being careful not to bite them as she needed to save them for Tony, and was about to head home.
But then something made her uneasy.
She felt like she was being watched.
It was probably silly, but she had to make sure.
Maria used her Growl attack all around her.
"Ok, ok, quit it, I'm coming out!" a voice said in Pokemon language. "Just don't lower my attack power with that Growl attack!"
A Nidoking stepped out from behind a tree.
"Who are you?" Maria demanded.
"I'm Tony's big bro," the Nidoking said. "At least, I think his name is Tony now from what I've heard. He and I go way back. 'Course, that dummy couldn't get himself away from a trainer in time like I did."
"And who says that's bad?" Maria asked. "After all, if he hadn't been captured by Ralph he'd never have met me!"
"What, are you his mate or something?" the Nidoking asked.
"What's it to you?" Maria retorted.
"I wanna settle a little score with him," the Nidoking replied. "Let me explain."
The Nidoking cleared his throat and began.
"See, like I said, Tony's my little bro," the Nidoking began. "We were part of a family. 'Course, I was always stronger than he was. I was also faster, and I was more agile. I was basically better at everything than he was."
Maria snorted. Nidoking was beginning to sound like an egotist to her.
"Anyway," Nidoking continued. "Sometimes we'd have little mock battles, like how human children sometimes wrestle for fun, and I'd always win. Of course, my family thought that me and my little bro were equal in stature. I was determined to prove them wrong, so I deliberately set out to defeat any wild Pokemon I came across, without the knowledge of my parents, of course."
At this the Nidoking smirked.
"It took about a year, but eventually I got so much experience I evolved into a Nidorino," the Nidoking continued. "Since my parents didn't know I'd been battling in secret, they simply thought I had matured extremely quickly. They wondered, but they decided that since I was a Nidorino now, I was old enough to go into the world. It was just as I'd planned."
At this, the Nidoking smiled in evident triumph.
"Before I went out into the world to prove myself, I took my little brother along to tease him; give him a taste of what he'd be missing," the Nidoking continued. "For some strange reason he preferred to be back with his family. I told him it was his loss, and I started to take him back home."
Then the Nidoking grimaced.
"But then that trainer came along and captured him," the Nidoking said. "I escaped because he didn't want two male Nidorans. I tried to defend him, of course, but...you know how trainers are, they can be pretty resourceful."
"That trainer was Ralph," Maria guessed.
The Nidoking shrugged.
"So I went home and explained to my parents what had happened," the Nidoking continued. "They knew about trainers, so of course they didn't assume it was my fault, which it wasn't. But they did have the audacity to say that since my little bro could become better than me now, because trained Pokemon usually have better statistics than wild Pokemon."
At the Nidoking shook with rage.
"How dare they!" the Nidoking shouted. "As a Nidorino I could go out into the world now, while my little bro was still a Nidoran! How could my little bro possibly be better than me?"
Then the Nidoking calmed down.
"But then I realized that unless you don't let Nidorans evolve and get them to extremely high levels, Nidorinos like I was would always have better statistics, so I was safe," the Nidoking said. "So I went back out into the world again. But a while ago I heard 'through the grapevine' that Tony had evolved. So I stole a Moon Stone from a passing trainer and evolved myself. That's why I'm a Nidoking now. Since I don't think Ralph has a Moon Stone, now my little bro will never be better than me."
Maria waited, to see if Nidoking was finished. When it was apparent he was, Maria spoke up for the first time in a while.
"So why were you watching me?" Maria asked.
"Because I was waiting for an opportunity to issue a challenge," Nidoking said. "I want my little bro, who Ralph gave the name Tony, to come and fight me in this field tonight, to see if he's really better than me just because he's trained and not wild."
"Tony is sick with the flu," Maria said. "So you can't challenge him now."
"Yeah right, female dog, you just don't want him to fight me," the Nidoking said.
"No, it's true!" Maria said.
"And I said, yeah right!" the Nidoking said. "Maybe he's just a wimp. He's too afraid to fight me! He's afraid to find out that I truly am better than he is!"
"Tony has the flu, you moron!" Maria shouted. "Nobody can fight having the flu!"
"Shut up, you prostitute!" the Nidoking said, becoming enraged. "Tell him of my challenge or I'll hurt you!"
"You can't threaten me!" Maria shouted. "All that proves is that Tony really is better than you!"
"Tony will never be better than me! Never!" the Nidoking screamed.
Now Maria could tell that ever since his parents had said Tony might become better than him, it had become a long-buried fear, and he was afraid that one day Tony might truly become better, so he'd go to any length to prove he was the better one.
Furthermore, Tony was better, at least in Maria's opinion. Then again, Maria was in love with him, so she was sort of biased. On the other hand, the Nidoking had no right to threaten her, and certainly no right to challenge Tony while he had the flu.
Maria quickly ran away from the Nidoking.
For some reason, the Nidoking did not follow.
Maria figured it was because he thought Maria was going to give Tony his challenge...
Later, Maria arrived at home with the berries.
Maria wasn't about to say anything of her encounter with Tony's brother, for fear that Tony might indeed take up the challenge.
Maria had to help feed Tony, since Tony's flu hadn't left him with very much strength.
After Tony had eaten, he said, "Maria, what is wrong? Your face is filled with fear."
"Nothing," Maria lied.
Tony wasn't fooled.
"Nothing? You have to be kidding me," Tony said. "I can see the fright on your face just like reading an open book. What scared you out there?"
So Maria told Tony of the Nidoking's challenge.
Tony didn't seem too concerned, until Maria mentioned that the Nidoking had called her a prostitute and threatened to hurt her unless she gave Tony the Nidoking's challenge.
Then Tony became almost as enraged as the Nidoking had been.
"How dare he call you a prostitute!" Tony shouted. "And how dare he threaten you! I'll accept his challenge, and I'll show him no one messes with my girlfriend and gets away with it."
"You're insane!" Maria replied. "You have the flu! You can't fight in a battle in your condition!"
"I don't have a choice," Tony said.
Then, Tony tried to get up, but in vain.
"It's very sweet of you to be so protective of me," Maria said softly, "but if fight Nidoking tonight you're sure to lose, or even worse. Promise me you won't go out to meet him in the field tonight. Please?"
Tony sighed, and reluctantly said, "Okay. I promise."
Maria was relieved. Little did she know that on this very night, her relief would be short-lived...
That night, Tony was asleep, or at least seemed to be sleeping.
Maria had gotten into bed with him so they could sleep together. No, I said "sleep together", not "sleep with each other", for those of you who happen to be perverts.
Tony opened his eyes. He had only been faking his sleep.
Maria, on the other hand, was sleeping for real.
Tony sighed again. He hated having had to lie to Maria, but he simply couldn't let Nidoking insult and threaten her and get away with it. He had to face Nidoking tonight, even if he had to try to overcome his flu to do it.
Tony began to commit his strength to this task.
It took a full hour, but eventually he tried so hard that he was able to slowly and weakly get out of bed, crawl outside, and crawl to the field.
Once Tony got to the field, he heard a voice say, "So, we finally meet, little bro."
Tony growled. It wasn't a Growl attack, since he had Leer instead of Growl like Maria had. That voice was indeed that of his big brother, though it had changed now that its owner had evolved.
"Yes, we finally meet," Tony said. "Show yourself."
A Nidoking stepped out.
"So you're a Nidorino now," the Nidoking said. "A far cry from the weak little Nidoran you used to be, but I swiped a Moon Stone and evolved myself into a Nidoking. You're no match for me."
Then the Nidoking noticed how weak and pathetic Tony looked.
"What the heck is wrong with you?" the Nidoking shouted. "Why don't you stand proud on all four legs? You're acting like you're sick!"
Tony didn't bother to tell him how sick he really was, having heard Maria's account of what transpired between her and his brother.
"You insulted and threatened my girlfriend," Tony said, his limbs shaking from trying to keep standing. "I will defeat you in battle despite my illness, and you'll pay for---"
"Don't give me that crud about your illness!" the Nidoking said. "You're not sick! You can't be sick! I waited so long to challenge you! I have to beat you as soon as possible so I can prove to our parents that I'm better than you!"
The Nidoking sounded desperate, and Tony figured out why.
Because of that one idle comment about how Tony might become better than his brother, his brother had developed an inferiority complex. So he was desperate to prove he wasn't inferior, and would therefore find excuses to battle Tony even though Tony was sick with the flu.
That was fine with Tony. If Tony tried hard enough, maybe he could win.
Then Nidoking attacked him with a Horn Attack, knocking him backwards.
Then, Nidoking slammed into him with a Tackle attack.
After that, Nidoking hit him with a Double Kick.
From then on, Nidoking just kept on attacking Tony, showing no mercy.
Tony was suffering, and not just from getting hit.
He was being attacked as he was still suffering from a flu, and the pain of being attacked was aggravating his condition.
Soon he was in great pain, but Nidoking ignored it, desperate to win the battle and prove he was the better of the two.
Suddenly something slammed into Nidoking with such force that Nidoking was knocked backwards quite a long way.
Too bad he didn't look behind him or he would have skidded to a stop.
There was an extremely small cliff behind him, and he fell over.
Luckily for him he wasn't killed on impact, only knocked unconscious.
Tony looked around for his savior, and caught a brief glimpse of Maria, who had apparently awakened to find him gone and gone looking for him.
Then he succumbed to his now-aggravated flu, and he fell unconscious himself...
When he next awakened, he was in a hospital bed.
Apparently Maria had carried him to a hospital.
He saw Ralph, his trainer, and Emily, the girl Ralph always fought with. And as usual, they were arguing.
"This never would have happened to poor Tony if he hadn't hooked up with Maria!" Ralph said. "In fact, I didn't see what happened; maybe Maria did this to him!"
"She would never!" Emily retorted. "Something else did this to Tony, and it served him right, since he left Maria to go off by himself!"
"He probably had a good reason!" Ralph replied.
"Did not!" Emily shouted.
"Did too!" Ralph shouted back.
"Did not!" Emily said.
"Did too!" Ralph said.
They kept arguing.
Meanwhile, Maria came in, sitting down by the bed. She had a semi-angry expression on her face.
"Tony, why on earth would you take such a stupid risk?!" Maria said. She probably would have shouted, but that wouldn't help Tony recover.
"Because I couldn't let him get away with insulting and threatening you," Tony said. "You're my whole life. I had to make sure nothing interfered with your pride and your safety."
The expression on Maria's face softened.
"Tony, that's really very sweet of you, but you could have sent me back to him with a reply that you'd fight him when you got better," Maria said.
Tony grinned sheepishly.
"I guess I didn't think of that," Tony said. "Is my brother coming back?"
"No, I checked after getting you to this hospital," Maria said. "He'd apparently woken up, climbed back the cliff, and went back to the field in hopes of continuing the fight. Once I told him where you were now, he was so ashamed of himself that he swore he'd never go near you again."
"I don't know whether to feel disappointed or relieved," Tony said.
Maria nuzzled him.
"Let's stick with 'relieved', dear, so there's no danger to you," Maria said.
Tony nuzzled her back.
The End
E-mail all questions and comments to bleifer@msn.com.