Dancing Through Life
If Lonce had known what walking into the small, cramped coffee shop would lead to later that same day, she would have just kept walking. She wouldn't have sat down by the cheery window table, ordered a small black coffee, and started chatting with the single young man running the cafe by himself that day. And she most definitely wouldn't have listened to his tall tales of a supposed legendary pokemon that dwelled in the old abandoned power plant right by the town.
Unfortunately she had done all those things, and was now stuck between a rock and a hard place.
A roar shook the cramped cavern Lonce had stuffed herself into. She braced herself against the walls-there was barely enough room for her to even move her arms past her shoulders-flinching as pebbles and dust rained down on her.
She reflected how smoothly things had gone until she had actually set foot on the old land. Using a friend's goldeen to surf upstream to the building, there had been no problems. It had gone swimmingly, until Lonce had jumped off the fish to explore.
One second she's examining the exterior of the building; smashed windows, strange charred markings, rust and moss covering most of the exterior, nothing altogether too unusual; the next, the ground is rocking and a very large, very loud, and very irritable steelix is bursting from behind the side of the building.
What's someone to do in this sort of situation other than run for their life? Dashing for the cliff hugging the back of the power plant, Lonce was lucky enough to find a small break in the rock face.
Although perhaps "lucky" was not the right term.
The teenager groaned as the earth around her shook again, this time much stronger than before. Through the cave opening, she could see rocks and dirt flying everywhere as a loud crash echoed. The steelix was ramming its bright blue head into the side of the cliff, roaring its determination to get her.
Not any steelix, naturally. This was one of the rare, aggressive, diamond steelix. It wasn't a surprise that there were rumors of a legendary pokemon with something like that roaming about.
"Hey! Sam Jr.! What are you doing over there?" The crashing stopped and Lonce's ears perked up. A voice, but she couldn't tell who was talking, or whom they were referring to. Didn't they see the giant, pissed off rock snake? Whoever it was, they weren't the sanest for yelling out like that right behind it.
"Help!" She yelled. "I'm in the cliff, can anybody hear me?" A few seconds passed before someone appeared at the small cavern's entrance.
"You okay in there?" A guy that didn't look much older than she did pushed his glasses back up as he peered into the dark of the shallow cavern. He had a shaved head and wore some sort of dark green uniform.
"Uh, yeah. I'm fine," she paused awkwardly, trying to maneuver her shoulders out from being stuck. "Isn't the steelix still out there?"
"Sam Jr.? Yep, but don't worry, he's completely harmless. Probably gave you quite a scare, huh?" The stranger offered her a gloved hand, and she accepted it gratefully. "So, if you don't mind me asking, who're you?"
"Lonce, Lonce Ridgeback," she dusted off her trousers hastily. She flinched at the bright steelix, whose back was turned to her and tail seemed to be swaying back and forth gently. "Is that your…?"
"Oh, no, definitely not," the man laughed. "He's just a friend. I'm Sam, a landscaper the city of Cerulean hired to try and get rid of the infestations of Genteelweed around the town. It's nice to meet you," they shook hands politely.
The steelix twisted its body around to look at the two humans, a brown and green breloom sitting on its jeweled head. Light scattered across the cliff and ground from the gems on the pokemon's body in the sunlight, dazzling Lonce. It growled happily.
"He's pretty," Lonce commented, surprised. The terrifyingly large pokemon seemed to hear her comment and laid its body down in the grass, causing more small beams of light to scatter across the surroundings. The breloom squawked and hopped off to run back to Sam. Scratching his pokemon on the top of its mushroom head, he chuckled.
"Yep, people forget that sometimes. So, what are you doing here?" Sam said unconsciously tilting his head curiously.
"It's a long story. I mean, it's really not. I was just chasing a rumor."
"Legendary pokemon rumor?"
"…do you have people coming here and getting attacked by your pet steelix often or something?" Lonce quirked an eyebrow up at the landscaper.
"Oh, no," he laughed slightly, rubbing his arm. "A legendary pokemon did use to live here, just, it's long gone. So it's not too surprising when the occasional out-of-town trainer checks this place out. Most everybody knows to avoid the power plant because of Sam Jr."
"Glad to have gotten the memo," she muttered. "Well, thanks. I'm glad your friend there didn't decide to have me for dinner," she smiled awkwardly at the man. "I think I've had enough adventure for the day."
"Oh, yeah," Sam dug through his pocket, pulling out a small glossy card. "Here. It's my business card. Gotta advertise where I can, you know?"
Lonce took the business card and examined it. "Gardner's Landscaping; Only the finest gardening and landscaping services from Gardner!" it read in bold, with an email and phone number typed neatly underneath. She chuckled before putting it away.
"Yeah, I get it. Thanks again," Lonce half waved and ran past the steelix to the waterway back to town. The large pokemon watched as she swam away on her borrowed golden, tilting its head as it watched her disappear past the rocky bend in the river.
Author's Notes:
First time publishing anything for the pokemon fandom, so this'll be fun. Expect slightly rushed, but frequently updated, chapters, because this bad boy is gonna be my submission for Camp NaNoWriMo (with a word goal of 35,000 by the end of this month, but we'll just have to wait and see if life gets in the way).
I feel like OCs really don't get the credit they deserve. There's a lot of potential in OCs, but they have a bad wrap thanks to mary sues. So thus, an entire fanfiction based off of a few characters I've had around! Cause why not.
Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon, but I do own your soul. First and last time I'm gonna say this-I mean, if it isn't obvious, I don't know what to tell you.