Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon
The Yellow Brick Rose
Chapter One: Kansas
"And that, Greenie, is exactly why you andyour pathetic little mutant flower really need stop cheeking your superiors," The he-witch known as Harley smirked, walking back down the path to the next town over, swinging his hips in what he must have thought to be an appealing matter. Little did he know, nothing could surpass Drew Chiano in aesthetic execllance. "Things could get nasty."
Drew grunted shoving himself up out of the mud, and scooping up Roselia in his arms before holding his head high, and stiffly trudging back to the Slateport Pokémon Center, "It's okay Roselia. We'll show him next time." The great Drew could never be beaten twice by one petty, insignificant wannabe.
"Nurse Joy!" Drew exclaimed as he pushed open the glass doors to the Pokémon Center, leaving many smudges of dirt. "Nurse Joy, look at this!" Drew nodded down to his poor Roselia, who was caked in mud, and barely breathing.
"Look kid, there are other kids here who need my help just as much as you." Nurse Joy huffed without taking a single glance in his direction as she tended to some other nonentity Drew hadn't originally seen due to the freak's blandness. "I don't know why you think everyone has to wait on your every whim every time you walk in here."
This Joy was obviously a bit crankier than the others.
"Yeah, that sounds like Drew." Drew turned around to find his newest friend -and rival- Solidad grinning back at him. He attempted to flick his hair to hide his embarrassment, but only ended up splattering a nearby couch in filth. Nurse Joy huffed and snatched Roselia out of Drew's arms before stalking back to the front desk to perform the necessary healing requirements. Solidad leaned against the desk and picked an apple out of the fruit basket sitting on the counter. She studied Drew's untidy appearance as she took a bite out of the apple. "So, new look, huh?"
"I swear to god Solidad, I'm gonna kill him. I am going to hunt him down, and slaughter him in front of everybody." Solidad gave him a stern look, but Drew could tell from her eyes that she was desperately trying to stifle a laugh. Idiot.
"You just gotta give Harley a chance," she sighed, then turned towards the center's lobby,"Hey Conway, Get over here! Drew needs a shower and a change of clothes." Drew turned to watch his second of a grand total of four friends -including Roselia- sigh, then close his laptop (one of which he was undoubtedly viewing porn upon,) and rise to signal Drew to follow the bespectacled young man to his room.
When they reached Room 69A, Conway showed Drew to the bathroom, and then handed Drew some of the smaller clothes he owned. Due to Drew's slightly stunted height, (which he liked to refer to as "concentrated awesome,") most of Conway's clothing would have been much too baggy.
"Thanks man," Drew said, walking back to the bathroom. Not that he was actually grateful for this in the slightest, but if Drew knew people, and he liked to think he did, Conway would have just died without Drew's holy praise.
"Don't mention it. Oh, and here, take these." Drew turned back just in time to see a pair of red converse lobbed in his face. Before he could respond, Conway interrupted, "I don't walk any muddy tracks in my room, and I'm sure Nurse Joy would appreciate it as well." Finding no argument for this, Drew flicked his hair and shoved into the bathroom, smirking.
After Drew had taken care of personal hygiene, (which took only three hours, a new personal record for him,) Drew stepped out of the bathroom and examined himself in the large mirror on the back of the room's front door. He slightly raised his arms and shuffled from foot to foot, checking to see how everything fit. Had Conway really had this bad a taste in clothing? He was wearing a white long sleeved shirt beneath an unbuttoned, blue plaid short sleeved one, he popped the collar up a little on the plaid shirt sleeve, trying desperately to put even the tiniest of flair into his atrocious hand-me-down attire. He was also unwillingly sporting denim jeans, which in all honestly Drew didn't mind in the slightest, but it was the ghastly shoes he was worried about. Converse? Seriously, Converse? In any other situation, he wouldn't have been caught dead wearing anything but Italian leather black boots. Drew stifled a groan, on top fact that the hideous abominations were smothering his feet, they were red of all colors. Red, the color of blood, of open wounds, war, and anger. A color that, when brushed lightly across your cheeks, could portray your deepest secrets to complete strangers. Plus, Drew would never wear red, it clashed utterly with his deep, mysterious smoldering, emerald eyes!
And oh, his poor hair, a majestic, and elegant chartreuse, an inimitable gift from Arceus himself, to be so anticlimactically shamed with something as petty and unworthy of his grace as the nauseating color of roses. Drew found roses severely overrated. Why even call a plant beautiful, when the world had been so undeservingly embellished with something as tear jerkingly exquisite as the face of Drew Chiano? Not to get him wrong, Roselia was probably the only soul to ever come close understanding him, but he had told her numerous times since her egg had hatched; no matter what she did, her beauty could not, and would never, surpass his. Drew smirked at the aesthetically gifted angel in the mirror and flicked his hair-of-many-products. Who cared if he had been forced to place peasant clothes upon his skin? He was still the most heavenly creature on the face of the earth, and for that matter, in the universe.
If Drew hadn't been so busy, he might have noticed Conway sneaking up behind him. But, since he didn't, "Still got that self obsession problem, huh? You know, there might be some sort of rehab for that."
Drew closed his eyes and contorted his features into a tight smirk, a last-ditch attempt to hide the fact that Conway nearly made him wet himself, "Lily's taken me." He kindly explained to his inferior companion, "Six times. I swear, the nerve of her sometimes… It's full of a bunch of misfits who think they're better than me, which, the whole world knows that in reality, I'm much more superior to them. Hands down."
Conway raised his eyebrows, but said nothing on the subject. Probably because he knew His Excellence was right, as the Drew concluded he always was, but didn't want to humiliate himself in the young prodigy's presence. Drew was about to console the Conway by telling him that nothing could embarrass him more than his face, but then a knock sounded from the door.
"Conway? You got my cousin in there, or just another poor unfortunate eight year old little girl?" Drew smirked in recognition of his fiery cousin, unlocking the door and opening it to reveal a scatterbrained, flighty thirteen year old girl in faded jeans with dark green thread forming patchwork mending jobs across the knees of the pants, lime green plaid flats, some old cast t shirt for a play with a commercial date from two years prior, and an old, single-shouldered cerulean backpack, which no doubt was also riddled with dark green thread. She had wild, untamable frizzy, wavy, burnt auburn hair which she'd obviously given up hope on fixing today, throwing it up in a haphazard ponytail, a few copper springs falling into hair faces and slightly covering her smoky, gray eyes that, when viewed from up close, contained flecks of silver, and, on occasion, robin's egg blue. Her face had sort of a mischievous glint to it, as if she was just dying to mess with you somehow. Which, she probably was. Her Masquerain, Zora, fluttered gracefully near her head. Drew, along with the rest of the family, was glad Lily had found herself a responsible, authoritative starter. Who else was going to keep Lily in check while she traveled alone? She could barely even work a microwave oven, yet she always insisted upon trying out everything she did independently before asking for assistance. Drew recalled a time where she used an ATM preset on "Spanish," just because she was too stubborn to ask an attendant to help her change it back to "English".
Hardly missing a beat, Conway gave a somewhat perverted grin, and mock-whined, "Oh, come on, Lily! You know that was only one time!"
Lily's eyes got very round, as if startled, and then they gave Conway a very serious dead-pan stare, making him fidget. Lily then cleared her throat, and put on an unreadable expression, "Um, No actually… No, no I didn't… that's… wow… um, I don't know if I want to come in anymore…" There was an awkward silence following the exchange, in which Lily had crossed her arms, and Conway shamefully stared down at his terrifyingly hideous converse.
Are they… Are they serious? Drew thought to himself, looking back and forth between his slightly older friends, but then, he didn't have any friends his age. He found that he was far more intellectually gifted than everybody else at the age of ten, after all, no one laughed at his Chicken-crossing-the-road jokes. There was seriously something wrong with the minds of his peers.
After about thirty seconds of this though, both of the childhood friends busted out laughing, and Lily accidentally dropped her bag, trying to cover her mouth while she peeled in her strange, sueaky, hiccuping laugh. Lily took no notice, and skittered into the room when Drew sighed with relief, and swung open the door.
Of course, He muttered inwardly, I knew it all along. Zora sighed, and swooped down to scoop the bag up in her teeth, before fluttering in herself, dipping her head slightly in greeting to Drew as she passed. Drew felt that a low bow and maybe a kiss or two on the toe of his ugly converse might have been more sufficient, but he let it slide -this time.
Suddenly, a vibrating pulse was heard throughout the room.
"My cell phone!" Lily scanned the room anxiously to see where the noise was coming from, but Conway found it first. Determined to extract some form of revenge from a previous encounter, he jumped up and knocked the backpack out of Zora's mouth, then fished a pearl flip phone out of the cluttered bag. He gave a shout of jubilance and held Lily back by her forehead as she waved her arms manically trying to get to her precious phone. What girls will do for social interaction.
Conway hurried to read the caller ID before Lily broke through his grasp, but he really didn't have to rush. The forehead-palm-plant seemed to be very effective against angry girls. Drew decided to take note of this, but he didn't see why he'd ever need it. After all, what young maiden would ever be mad at him? Conway finally managed a glance at the feminine little phone, and immediately dropped it as if it were a plague. Or worse, Drew shuddered to himself, A Barbie doll. He had had a very traumatic experience with one once, something he vowed never to talk about again…
Lily dove for the phone, and slid it open just before the buzzer ended"Hello?" Lily paused for a second, recognizing the voice at the other end and then flashing a triumphant smile at Conway. "Hey Dev… I'm at the Pokémon Center near my house… Yes in Slateport, you think I'd walk five miles to Mauville before deciding to catch a plane? … Yeah, I would do something like that, wouldn't I? Alright I'll be boarding, um, soon… No, not 'soon' as in I forgot I had a plane to catch, 'soon' as in I have some business I need to take care of! And I thought, you know, with that freak hurricane coming, what were they calling it? Oh yeah, Hurricane Harley… Well, if you're sure it won't hit Slateport… Alright, yeah, bye, see you there." She slid the phone shut, and turned back to the two boys now sitting on the bed, Conway wringing his hands.
"You're going somewhere? Devanie's going somewhere? Where are you guys going? Is it safe? Will she-you two get hurt? When did this plan take place? Why was I not notified?" Somewhere within the onslaught of questions, Conway had gotten up from the bed and assumed shaking Lily's shoulders. She shrugged out of his grip and started shuffling from foot to foot, eyebrows worriedly knitted together, causing Conway to sit on the edge of the bed and grow silent, watching her to see if she had some sort of announcement. Once he was settled, she stood comfortably, relaxed her eyebrows, and continued calmly, and a bit smug. She'd just gotten someone she'd known her whole life to sit down and shut up in under thirty seconds by powers of an expressive face.
"Um, back to why I came by the Center today. Well, as you know, I kind of beat the Hoenn Pokémon Contests last year, and I got top coordinator even though I messed up many, many times, in my opinion… Anyway, so I decided home was getting pretty monotonous and boring, and Devanie wanted to go on her first Pokémon journey so… We picked Sinnoh."
"Sinnoh?" Drew asked skeptically.
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, aren't you like, sensitive to cold weather or something?"
Lily knitted her eyebrows together and gave him a cold stare which told him he was right. "That doesn't matter! Besides, we got off topic somewhere. Since I will be gone for at least a year, Conway, this one's for you." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pokeball with 'C' written in magic marker on the top, and tossed it to him. He missed it lamely. When the ball clattered to the ground, a red light shot out of it and formed into a small, silvery bundle of metal, with shocking electric blue eyes. "This is Aron," she said, gesturing to the fledgling pokemon. "I caught it this morning." Conway crouched down to study the small pokemon, holding out his index finger to it. "I wouldn't do that if I were-"
"Arr arr!" The aron clamped down hard on Conway's finger, causing him to emit a high pitched squeal and wrench his appendage out of its grasp. Lily chuckled as Conway rocked back and forth, nursing his poor pointer finger. She then dug through her bag and withdrew a slightly classier looking pokeball, handing it to Drew.
"Zora's been a bit busy since the last time you saw her," Lily gestured up to the little blue bug fluttering around her head, "I spent all morning on the treadmill hatching that one."
Drew flicked open the pokeball and the red beam that formed from it hardened, and molded itself into the form of an infant surskit. The little thing looked honestly pathetic, and Drew was sure he'd release it as soon as he left the pokemon center. Nonetheless, "Great, thanks Lily."
She smiled and wished them both luck before leaving, Conway let out a humongous sigh. "Well," he said, "Looks like I'll be leaving, too."
"Following Dev?"
"Duh."
"Idiot."
"You'll feel the same way about a girl soon enough, Drew!" Conway said, and ushered Drew out of the room so he could pack.
Drew looked down at the infant surskit. "Well, it looks like we're releasing you now." He scooped up the ugly bug while it squirmed and cried and begged him to let it stay. Drew almost got to the door.
And then the hurricane hit.
Wow, I wrote most of this like two years ago, and I must say… I hate my old style very much. I would have edited it all, but I want this story up tonight. I'll probably fix it sometime later… The next chapter will probably be up tonight.
