Slowly waking up to the sound of rustling leaves (as always these days), a young child of ten and a half with dirty red hair began to stir on the first day of the next chapter in his life. One of adventure and absol-utely no puns or cliches. What could possibly go wrong, hmm?
Time to find out.
As the boy woke up, he realized that he still had almost an hour 'till had to get up and run to Professor Oak's today. He didn't want to get up, but something was nagging him to get up in the back of his mind. What is today…? Oh. OH. He smiled softly, almost dreaming about how many strategies there were based on exactly which starter he hoped for, already beginning to analyze the validity of each in their own right, trying to find combinations and solutions to possible counters.
After realizing that I'd wasted a good twenty minutes thinking about what I could do, I wanted to get up and reach the Professor's lab as early as possible.
After getting dressed, eating and triple checking that I had all of my supplies packed, I saw that there were another ten minutes until I had to be there. Figuring that I had nothing to lose by waiting in front of his lab instead of at the house, I began the short walk there at a relaxed pace.
Once I reached the lab, I remembered my mistake and very thoroughly regretted my decision to get here early. Gary and Ash were bickering, poor Ash couldn't even respond intelligently to the horde of insults, and Leaf was looking like she wanted to tear her hair out listening to the onslaught.
Acting calmly, I slipped past Ash and Gary's notice, Gary was too into coming up with every way in the book to rile up "Ashy boy" and Ash was… being Ash I suppose. He wasn't all that smart, but he was emotional enough that he could probably train pokemon decently enough.
Too bad. He thought. Gary would be good, certainly, and Ash would be okay, but they could be so much more if they would only focus on the potential of what they could do.
Leaf shook him out of his reverie when she poked him and incredulously asked, "How can you stand there and not wither and die about how sad this is?"
"I don't care about what they do right now" I replied with barely concealed excitement.
"Of course you don't" She grumbled, looking at the doors to the lab. "When is he gonna be here anyway? It feels like we've been waiting forever."
As if on cue, the doors creaked open as the Professor walked out, a small smile on his face that morphed into a sigh as he beheld Gary and Ash. "Now now Gary, this is no time to be mean. Today is the day that you all start your journeys!"
Now sporting matching wild grins, Ash and Gary rushed in, pushing and shoving their way along.
Leaf walked behind them, sighing in defeat, and I trailed behind, not feeling like talking. I made sure to school my features, not betraying anything or giving any weakness to be exploited, just like the type I was going to train.
While the other three accepted their starters, with Ash choosing Charmander, Gary Squirtle, and Leaf Bulbasaur, as expected, my mind whispered, I walked over to Professor Oak, his eye gleaming, and with a quiet flourish, he pulled out a pokeball. "Thank you Professor" I said quietly.
"It's no problem Testa, now, would any of you four like to nickname your pokemon? You should also probably let them out and get to know them instead of gawking at the pokeballs." He said with no small amount of mirth.
Ash was the first to get over his awe and let out his pokemon, a bright red Charmander who looked to be quite excited.
"Hi there Charmander! Would you like to be my friend? We could be the strongest in the region, my goal is to be a pokemon master!" Ash would be Ash, straight to the point at least.
Charmander seemed to fit Ash if his toothy little grin and excited-was he dancing?- erm, actions were anything to go by.
In the meantime, Gary had already let out his Squirtle and they were both smirking confidently at each other, nodding to one another as they quietly communicated, Leaf was sitting on the floor, gently petting Bulbasaur and murmuring quietly to it, so I decided to finally let out the pokemon in the ball.
As the light faded, Gary looked on in confusion and began to laugh, Leaf didn't seem to know what it was and, Ash was, well, "Oh awesome! What kind of pokemon is that?" Yep, still being Ash.
"This is a Gligar," Professor Oak seamlessly went from nostalgic old man to teacher in the blink of an eye, "a ground and flying type pokemon from the Johto region."
"Yeah, and it'll go down to a little water gun too! Of all three starters, we have the best matchup against it."
"That's theory Gary. In theory, theory and practice are the same of course. In practice, they are not." I let a small smirk slide across my face, "Or have you forgotten who beat you in every calss simulation?"
Gary went a bit red, and I sighed internally when he didn't realize I'd actually given him an opening in what I said-that being that even though the simulations were as realistic as possible, they were still just that. Simulations (and therefore still technically theory). He was too wrapped up in his own perfect bubble being burst, as was expected.
"Hello Gligar," I said quietly as I crouched down, "Do you want to join me and be a ground type master?"
The response I got was interesting, considering he tilted his head and seemed to be sizing me up, almost a challenging gaze staring straight into my eyes, piercing into the depths of what defines me. I met it with an impassive stare of my own, and after a moment that seemed to stretch into hours, Gligar broke the gaze with a small grunt and nodded, apparently satisfied in his assessment.
"It seems like Gligar approves of how well grounded you are today Testa. And before I forget, here are your pokedexes, when you scan your pokemon you can view their current moves and moves they can have the potential to learn as well as much more, now who's giving nicknames?"
After the four of us finished groaning at the pun, Ash decided to not nickname Charmander, Gary didn't nickname Squirtle, Leaf actually did nickname her Bulbasaur, choosing Herba as his name, and I, after far too much time in deliberation (and both scanning Gligar and getting his approval), chose Sting.
"What kind of name is Sting? You might as well just call him 'Poison Sting' at that point."
Not one to take insults to others lightly, I snarked back. "And maybe you'll figure out why his name is Sting when you know what Gligar can do in battle, as your poor Squirtle goes down that is."
"Wanna Testa that one?" He smirked arrogantly.
"Sure. The only questions that remain are when and where," I said a bit haughtily I hate that pun, I growled mentally, turning towards the older Oak to ask, "Any ideas Professor?"
"If you must, there is a courtyard right in the back." He sighed good naturedly. As I'm sure you know Testa. His dry smile and look seemed to convey.
"In that case, let's go right now! You should be the ref Gramps." Gary nearly yelled, but I could tell he was being a bit quieter since there was a decent echo within the lab.
As we walked-or waddled, in Gligar's case-outside, I could see Ash grinning and asking Professor Oak what Gligar could do, Gary was running up in front of all of us, Leaf was hanging back a bit and talking to Herba, and suddenly I realized that ASH of all people was making the right choice, but the sign of the end of the world was not my concern at that moment. There was a battle to win.
Grinning with a thirst for blood (or victory, whichever,) I told murmured quietly to Gligar, trusting his large ears to catch what I said. By the end, our matching grins were visibly unnerving Gary and Squirtle.
Now all we had to do was wait for Professor Oak to-"Begin!"
"Now Sting!" I shouted dramatically flaring out my arm in front of me, drawing everybody's attention for a second.
It was all he needed.
Before Squirtle could react, Gligar was to the left of him with Quick Attack and both clamped onto Squirtle's tail and with just a little difficulty, flipped his tail around to use poison sting into the turtle's arm. If he didn't have armor there, it was a huge weakness to be exploited. Falling back, Sting rushed towards the tree overhead to escape Squirtle's superior defenses potentially slamming into him and becoming tough offense. I knew that Sting wouldn't win in a straight fight, but who told anyone that fights had to be won fairly?
"Squirtle! After 'em with Water Gun!" It was also good for riling Gary up and seeing him make the worst decision he could make. Having Squirtle strain his body to catch up with Sting as the poison from his arm began to course through his body.
After only one or two shots of water while Squirtle ran, it was clear he couldn't aim while moving. At this point it was only a matter of time bef- "Stand still and use Water Gun, aim for the top of the tree!"
Wondering at what Gary was trying to pull off, I simply frowned and watched for a bit, not able to form a counter without realizing what was happening.
"Now spray the whole trunk!"
Why would he get the tree wet? It would… oh. Alright, so he wanted Sting to slip down.
"Sting, change of plans." I called out, "Time to glide to victory, harden first to toughen your claws."
There was no better satisfaction that whole day that seeing Gary's face contort into confusion and instantly transform into horrified realization once he saw Sting silently glide right above Squirtle and take the tired blue turtle down in one swipe of his claw, catching it in the head and causing the tired water type to topple over into unconsciousness.
"Still sure you want to test that theory Gary?" I asked with a bloodthirsty grin splitting my face in two. Seeing his face turn that shade of red was just the cherry on top, spurring me on. "Maybe you should-"
"Now now, Testa that seems to be enough" The Professor cut in. "Gary, let this be a lesson not to insult everything you see. Perhaps you could evaluate things for what they can do before looking down upon them." He said disapprovingly. "And Testa," I turned my head with a sheepish grin on my face. "Even if you get into the heat of the moment, don't go too deep okay? A little grinning and taunting is fine. But nothing more, you hear me?"
"Yes Professor."
"Yeah, alright Gramps,"
We both said a little sullenly,
Realizing he was still gliding around, I called Sting over. "Good job there Sting. I figure with battling like that, they don't stand a chance!" seeing him grin delightedly, I grinned myself and we walk back to the lab to heal up Sting and Squirtle.
In all honesty, I should've seen that coming, I thought to myself, If that were a stronger pokemon firing water into the tree, that strategy would have done jack. I frowned, knowing from Gligar's moveset that while he could learn quite a few moves, from what I recalled none would really help at long range, which was a big problem since Sting was unable to fly, only glide. And if the enemy was faster and had any form of ranged attack, well, that was the battle.
Writing myself a note in the pokedex, I quickly shut it and asked Sting if he wanted to be recalled now that we were back to the lab. He looked a little tired from all the walking, since he hadn't taken any damage in the fight.
He shook his head and yawned, quickly clinging to my pants and hauling himself up to lay around my shoulders, and while the weight was a bit awkward, he wasn't that light either. As Gary began laughing at my buckling knees, I got a bit… frustrated with Gary and put Sting on Gary's head with a loud heave.
Sting was not happy with this development, and in quick succession promptly clamped on Gary's nose, hopped off of his head and onto my shoulders again. Considering that he weighed more than one hundred pounds, I'd say I was doing pretty good. Collapsing on the floor was fine because Sting was not getting up.
Realizing there was nothing I could do, I smiled lightly decided to simply wait, because apparently, I could relax knowing we were in this together.
After getting bored and sliding over to lean against one of the walls, I apparently dozed off.
I knew this because when I groggily opened my eyes there was a heavy Gligar on my head, lightly poking my face and Leaf sitting in front of me, probably waiting for me to get up.
"Ye-" Coughing dryly, I slowly pulled myself up as Sting slid off my head, "-es?"
"You've been asleep for almost an hour," She murmured with a small smile that grew as she said, "Ash and Gary ate all of your food from lunch."
After taking a second for my groggy mind to catch up, I realized two things. One, my stomach was growling for food. I also realized that Leaf had probably missed lunch herself to watch over me. When I vocalized this, she laughed it away and said that we could have lunch right now at the Diner.
"Sure, I'm paying this time though, this one is my fault." I never liked it when someone else gave something up for me to have it, it never felt right.
Seeming to sense my slight melancholy mood, Sting grunted at me and I shook myself out of my reverie. "Thanks Sting, I needed that." I said with a thin smile that morphed into a small grin, "Now how about we grab some food?"
With seeing Sting, Leaf and Herba all cheer, I felt my heart lift a little, a wave of gratitude was there too, "Thanks for staying by me, Leaf." I said quietly.
"I'd rather not be the one to deal with Gary being a sore loser again you know," she said dryly, "it's really no fun for anyone."
I came this close to saying 'except me,' but I held back since that might make me seem a bit callous. Instead I brought up what moves Herba knows, and what Leaf plans to do as a trainer.
"Hmm, well Herba knows vine whip, poison powder, tackle, and has grassy terrain from a parent, since it can't normally learn it. Beyond being good, I really don't know what I want to do as a trainer. Maybe I'll figure it out later."
I shrugged, "Give it some time, it'll work out."
I thought I heard her mumble something about 'the wrong person' but beyond that I couldn't hear anything specific, so I let it drop. Sting's snickering like a jester was odd and distracting, but nothing serious as he waddled along beside me.
"So what would you like to do? You always were the quiet kid in class," She asked, curious as a meowth.
Leaping to the topic like a buneary, I quickly got deep into a spiel about how I wanted to train ground types, "And no one thinks about them, but they have the power to change everything around us, even though other pokemon can change the landscape, none have the fluid control over the earth itself as ground types, like Giovanni's Rhydon and Dugtrio, oh they can do amazing things! Based on the weight of the challenger and how the ground is pressed down by that weight, they can cause the dirt to collapse around the opponent, or if the challenger is too light they can choose to cripple their speed by making the whole field into a jagged mess that seems solid but can also collapse at the will of the pokemon manipulating it." Coughing embarrassedly, I calmed down quite a bit after hearing my own voice rise and tried to bring my face back to a mostly blank slate.
If the snickering loud enough to sound like a bunch of sand falling into a palm from Sting was any indicator, I might not have done that very well.
As we walked up to the diner, in the southeast of Pallet and only about 50 yards away from Oak's lab, a twinge of regret flashed across my face as I realized I wouldn't be back here for the same lunch that I had everyday. I'll be back here to visit, it'll be fine. I reassured myself quickly. It's Pallet town, what could possibly go wrong?
Sufficiently relaxed, I quickly returned Sting and walked through the doorway, a grin snaking its way across my face as I realized Ash and Gary were here as well. All in all not super surprising seeing as their stomachs were each thrice the size of a normal person's.
There was just about the whole population tucked away into the small diner for the lunch rush, which was to say, there were a whole 12 other people sitting at the counter waiting on food.
"Hey there guys." I waved lazily, making a peace sign with my hand and putting my signature lazy smirk on my face.
"Hey Tefff'a!"
"Hey Testa," Gary said at a normal volume, not wanting Ms. Ketchum mad at him. Then he'd get no lunch from her.
"Ash please chew before you talk," Leaf said sighing, not wanting to deal with this issue all over again.
I just laughed and pulled everyone into a conversation over lunch once Ms. Ketchum noticed us standing around and chatting as usual.
"Y'know," I began slowly, making sure to give Ash a look when he tried to talk with his mouth full (I certainly didn't wait until he took a large bite to start talking… wherever would anybody get such an idea), "we could actually travel together as four for a while, split up the work of getting water, gathering firewood, setting up camp, making sure Ash doesn't die, there is a lot to do." I said teasingly.
With Leaf giggling and Gary grinning, I knew I had their attention, as Ash wiped his mouth and looked at the three of us oddly, asking "What's so funny guys? I wasn't listening."
"Don't worry about it Ashy-boy," he snickered, "it's nothing too important."
"He means you don't need to worry about it, it is important, right Gary?" Leaf quietly ground out, making even Gary sweat bullets for a moment.
"Y-yeah, what she said." he replied with no small amount of fear in his voice. He wasn't making the same mistake as last time.
"Oh. Okay." Ash shrugged lightly, at least trusting Leaf if not Gary. "So what are we planning to do anyway?"
"As I was saying," I continued quickly, knowing Ash wouldn't pay attention for long, "we could all four travel together for at least a while, maybe until we're used to traveling and we can also try and come up with plans to meet up in spots along the journey to make sure we stay in touch if we do split up. As you four well know, whatever happens, I'm not lettin' you get away from being my friend at least, eh?"
"Sounds like a plan to me!" Ash exclaimed,
"It could work," Leaf said thoughtfully,
"Maybe if you want to take it easy you can do that." Gary said a bit abruptly, "I can escort you three to Viridian, but then I'm off on my own! I don't need another gramps making sure nothing ever happens to me. Meeting up… meeting up is fine, just make it specific enough that I can be there on time and still do other things." He ended quietly at least… I thought rolling my eyes. Meh, that's about as good of a 'yes' as any of us could ever get out of Gary. Close enough.
"So it's unanimous!" I declared in a faux deep voice with an accent that bespoke of grandeur, pointing at each of them as I spoke, "It is hereby decreed that the- one, two, three,-oh my, a whole, FOUR children shall meet every so often as to know of and make sure that the others are not deceased by any means possible other than this poor lad's cranial capacity, for it is already dearly departed." I said sorrowfully.
Unable to hold back anymore, all four of us burst out laughing as hard as we could, simply enjoying ourselves in a quiet little town for a time.
As the laughter began to wind down, heedless of the small grins and whispers from everyone else in the restaurant, we thanked Ms. Ketchum (and cleaned up our plates for her in the back) and left, all four of us walking in a bit of a line, shoulder to shoulder after exiting the door.
"I think we should all go back and make sure that we have all of our supplies," Leaf began, ever the voice of reason.
I only realized I had mumbled the last part when Leaf turned to me putting her hands on her hips and, her eye obviously twitching, yelled, "Well SOMEONE has to, between you three you'd get stuck in a three person battle, lose track of Ash, meet up with a criminal or something ridiculous and get carried off!" She huffed, finally stopping her shadow from ominously looming behind her.
Ah. I might have forgotten to mention that part huh. Whelp, no avoiding it now I suppose… with my, stature, most people were taller and quite literally looked down on me (I would later attribute my wanting to be a ground type master to this fact, though I never did remember if that was really it). Including Leaf. With Gary being the tallest (I still say it's his plainly bizarre hair), Ash being a close second and Leaf being a whole 2 inches below Ash I was… shorter. Four inches shorter than Leaf. It was truly a joy being four foot two-even though somehow I was older than all three of them-oh what a joy it was.
By now, we had all walked to our homes and made sure we gathered all that we would need to at least reach viridian, it was almost a full two and a half days of travel away.
Walking back into the house, I sighed deeply, knowing I would have to wait at least half an hour for Ash to get his things together and with my quadruple checking my supplies the night before, I was pretty darn sure I would be bored for a while.
And alone.
"Nope. Nope, nope nope nope NOPE! So much nope." I quoted- I noticed I was prone to doing that when I was panicking actually- with a mildly deranged smile at the memory, "not doing this." I said quietly. "Waaaaaaait a second." I then proceeded to do several things, and, in order, felt a lot of regret, facepalmed, let Sting out of his pokeball on the floor, and flopped onto the couch, feeling a bit drained.
He looked up at me in confusion and let out a small sound, and judging by his face I could tell he was confused. I frowned, "You don't always need to battle when you're let out you know. Sometimes we all need to relax a little. If you want you can sit up here." I said, patting the cushion beside me.
Sting seemed all too happy to do just that, and after laying down for a moment, began to get up and search around the whole house. Is he scenting? I wondered, would he find anything that was left?
No, there isn't anything that'd carry a scent for that long anyway… I thought slowly. I'll just nap.
" 'ey Sting," I slurred, "wake me up when Ash 'n Gary come knockin' 'kay?"
Waiting until I heard him grunt (hopefully an affirmative), I blearily nodded to him and nodded off.
Feeling a poke on my face from a two pronged, something, I rolled over. And promptly yelled as I hit the floor. "Wonderful" I grumbled. "Wh-" I yawned loudly, tears pricking my eyes, "-at?" I finished, finally opening my eyes to see what was happening.
I heard a knock at the door, saw Sting staring at me in curiosity from on top of the back of the couch like a meowth would, and-suddenly wide awake-realized, this may not end well.
"Be right there!" I shouted with a surge of adrenaline, hoping I hadn't held the other three up.
Rushing to get my bag and get to the door, calling Sting over with me as I slid to a halt in front of the door and opened it to find-"Professor? What are you doing here? Oh no, was I asleep for too long, did they leave without me? Ooohhh no, we didn't even set up when to meet where, oh I've ruined everything haven't I," I despaired.
The old Oak just chuckled lightly, as if picturing someone else. "Nothing so terrible, they were worried that you had second thoughts since you were shut in and not answering." He said calmly. It helped a lot.
I breathed out a big sigh of relief upon hearing the news. "So nothing bad, good." I smiled bright as the sun for a moment before it slowly slid away from my face. "Do you really think I can do this?" I asked lowly, hoping he'd get the hint.
"If I doubted you, then what kind of teacher would I be to send you away? It's not about knowing exactly what will happen, it's about having fun along the way. You don't need to know every outcome and strategy to make quick choices, and I know that you four can all go far." He smiled encouragingly. "Just because people move on and grow up doesn't mean that they can't make jokes or have escapes, I teach because I find it fun and rewarding for my soul. Now let's get you over to where they're waiting, no reason to be even later right?"
"Right." I attempted to grin back, probably looking more like a grimace judging by the Professor's small wince.
"Let's stick with your neutral face for now." He shrugged apologetically, "You may be a good actor but you're terrible at hiding your emotions."
"I've gotta give you guys something to work off of don't I?" I said with a ghost of a smirk.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night Testa." He grinned right back. "Ah there they are, right up ahead." He said as he came to a stop in front of me near the edge of Pallet.
Looking for myself, I saw that all their parents had left already, knowing full well the kids of Pallet wouldn't be able to escape the teary 'goodbyes' and 'see you soons' with their families. I also noticed Ash looking restlessly around in the trees, Gary telling him he'd find a pokemon first, and Leaf both waving me over insistently and yelling at the other two to get back there.
Smiling weakly at the prospect of the unknown, I jogged over the last bit of distance as Ash and Gary trudged back over from the other direction.
"So what held you up?" Gary inquired, surprisingly serious (I would almost say he sounded concerned were it anyone else) for once.
"I just fell asleep, nothing big." I replied meekly, turning my head left and scratching my neck with my right hand.
"It's fine to relax you know." Ash spoke softly, "We can wait a while for a friend." He said with the sun's light seeming to spill from his face despite it being late in the afternoon.
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind." I said gratefully, if a little ashamed about making others wait on me. "You guys ready to go?"
"Thought you'd never ask!" Leaf gleefully exclaimed pointing, "Let's go!"
After day one, I was really appreciating that nap I'd taken, seeing the others at the moment, exhausted and unable to do anything but breath and relax with their burning muscles after chasing one another too much.
Sighing good naturedly, I resigned myself to doing nearly all of the camp prep myself. Seeing them like this was worth it.
"You guys are still setting up the rocks for the campfire!" I shouted as I left them. They'd be fine, nothing that could hurt them lived around Pallet for miles off of the path, Professor Oak had made sure of that when he established Pallet and let his Charizard loose to do whatever he pleased provided no one got hurt. Needless to say, wild pokemon that had the potential to do harm to people quickly left.
Releasing Sting to help me, the job went quickly. We saw a few pidgey, but I already had Sting so I didn't need another flying type, least of all at the moment.
Continuing along, I noticed a loudly gurgling stream along the way back to the campsite with the wood, and heard something like distant chirping from it. I distractedly brought the firewood back to camp and told the trio that I'd be right back, not listening to their replies.
Coming back to investigate the stream that was blaring in my ears by now, I cautiously crept my way down to the stream bank, not wanting to alert whatever was there to my presence, seeing as the small chirps were getting louder and more-insistent? Something sounded off about the cry somehow. Shaking off my unease, I also signaled for Sting to climb up a tree in case something went wrong, so he could either glide directly in to the rescue or get help from the other three if needed.
Reaching the very edge of the foliage, I glanced up to make sure Sting was there, and with his coloration he wasn't well hidden, but I had to look for him, and if no one knew what to look for then it would be fine.
Gathering up courage and taking a calming breath to steady myself, I completely relaxed for a moment. Satisfied, I turned the corner.
I should've prepared more.
There was a still body of a blue and green Gastrodon tipped on it's side, appearing to have been eaten stomach first based on the bite marks, I idly remarked while trying not to throw up.
The real wonder though was the small green and blue Shellos, broken eggshell just ten feet away from where the body lay, hidden under a large bush, the only reason I could see it was the small trail made by the small Shellos who was crying for the dead parent.
Shellos and Gastrodon were biologically interesting pokemon in that while they had bodies perfectly capable of adapting based on their diet and surroundings, they were actually almost always either bright pink or green and blue, unless something was extraordinarily wrong with the environment. While they were mainly sea dwelling pokemon they were also quite sturdy and capable of staying on land for as long as they stayed dry, and Gastrodon effectively ceased to have this problem due to their secretion of a very thin purple mucus to sustain themselves for up to a week at a time on land, and a sufficiently powerful one could just use water type moves to keep themselves cool and hydrated. In addition. If their backs were damaged, they could generally regenerate a significant portion of their bodies, assuming that there was no major internal damage.
Upon realizing what I thought, my eyes grew wider than a Snorlax and I took a sharp breath. How long has this Shellos been on land?
"Hey, Shellos?" I crooned quietly as I crouched down, "You might need to get in the water, aren't you a bit dry?"
The Shellos turned to me sharply, eyes full of hurt and confusion, and I almost broke. A freshly hatched baby shouldn't need to deal with a parent leaving them. It wasn't fair, especially to the poor creature. Shellos just turned back and kept crooning, knowing full well the futility, but not caring.
Resigning myself to likely getting hit with a water gun or at least having mucus all over, I quietly called Sting down to tell the other's I'd be a while and made my way over to the Shellos, slowly picking it up and carrying it over to the water, regretting that I was the reason the cries got louder and yet preferring that Shellos would survive given that the parent sacrificed themself. It was the least I could do, but it was something.
After holding Shellos in the water for about ten minutes to make sure there would be no drying out for quite a while, I let the distraught Shellos inch back over to the, mother? Almost smacking myself in the head for not thinking things through, I whipped out my pokedex and scanned both pokemon. Shellos was female, and the Gastrodon was as well.
There was something nagging me, as if I'd forgotten some important detail. Pacing back and forth, I began to list what happened. "Shellos is not going to dry out, Sting told the other's I'd be back in a while I think… how would he do that anyway? I'll deal with that in a sec, but wh-" A chill ran down my spine as I froze and turned towards the Gastrodon with a horrific thought. What exactly could kill and eat a Gastrodon so easily? And what is that thing doing near Pallet?
That thought also planted a seed of worry about my and Shellos' safety, especially when Sting was gone and no one else was here to even get help should something happen.
Not liking my chances against a pokemon that could kill a Gastrodon, I saw two choices in front of me. One, go back to camp and leave Shellos here for now, but that would raise the issue of how we would move the whole camp in such a short time and how we would probably also be at risk were it some pokemon with a lot of stealth or just plainly too powerful for us. Option two… I didn't like the thought of option two but it essentially would be catching Shellos and releasing later, perhaps back into the ocean, after Professor Oak found out what killed the Gastrodon.
Filled with indecision and distress, hearing someone show up from the bushes behind made me whirl around in near panic until I saw Gary's confused face. Face turning somber, I gestured to be quiet and showed him what was wrong. His face fell, then I told him about the obviously dangerous pokemon lurking around and my two options.
At this point he just sighed, "Catch it and we can deal with this later, we can send it back to gramps if something goes wrong. But we can only do that if we're alive." He stressed. "Let's get back to camp," he said solemnly.
"I'll be there in like 5 minutes, send Sting back will ya?"
He just gave me a thumbs up as he walked back, but I was a little grateful he'd come to check up on me and helped with the decision.
With a bitter smile and a quick mumble, "Guess their competition for who catches a pokemon first is over," I walked over to Shellos and pressed the ball against it, which easily caught the small pokemon considering how tired it must have been by now. She would be in stasis until I let her out so while it could rest up a tiny bit there would be no major changes.
Hesitating, I checked to see if the pokedex had a camera function. Unfortunately, it did. Sighing at the Professor's forethought, I walked around to get a better angle for the picture, making sure to note what looked like the small incision marks before it was torn open.
Shuddering, I made my way back to camp, noticing Sting gliding around overhead. At least he was having a bit of fun.
Seeing Ash's face, I could instantly tell that Gary had told them. "Hey guys," I said tiredly, trying to give a small smile "what's up?"
Thankfully Leaf caught on to what I was trying to do, "Oh nothing, just talking about how you could make sure our teeth were ground into nubs by the time we're done."
"Ah puns, they really are the best of earthly pleasures hmm?"
"Still too much arrogance for you to stay grounded Gary." I said with a smirk. "But seriously, we should hurry and reach Viridian. Whatever killed that Gastrodon could easily go for us next." I somberly pronounced.
"And if the thing comes for us at night?" Gary asked quietly, "What then, are we chopped liver?"
"Probably." I said casually, as if I was mentioning there was a 'Bug Catcher' nearby. "We have literally no chance if this thing can outpace us." Considering many of even the slower pokemon had speed rivaling the some of the fastest people (and those that weren't naturally fast could use moves to catch up or block us), this was not very likely that we would escape.
Seeing everyone else pale as they too remembered this, I shuffled guiltily and felt a tinge of bitterness. "Sorry. I didn't mean to… well, be too pessimistic. Again."
"It's… it's almost necessary this time," Leaf shivered, shrinking in on herself. "This isn't pure theory anymore. Being a bit mad at you is better than dying."
I noticed right then from what few trees I could see past that the sky was a deep red and it was nearly dusk, so after we finished setting up camp we tucked into our sleeping bags, making sure to release our pokemon and tell them to wake us up if something was off.
Waking up and realizing I wasn't dead or dying, and no one around me was screaming in pain, I had three thoughts; Cool I'm not dead yet, ow, and why is it so cold?! Biting back a yelp by the barest of margins, I sat up to laughter. Feeling something positively freezing on my head, I reached up and touched something squishy. Feeling my eyes narrow and twitch, I put both hands on whatever was up there and held it at arm's length in front of me.
Eye still twitching, I stood still for a moment and tried to equate the distraught Shellos from the day before to the childlike, carefree one in my hands. When I was inevitably unable to do so, I just looked at the other three without an expression and tilted my head to the side, "Eh?"
Seeing the three-four with Shellos- laugh themselves to Weezing on their knees, I chuckled despite not being quite sure what was happening. If they were enjoying themselves, it would be fine.
Grinning like an old grandfather telling bad jokes, I questioned the blue ball of joy, "So was this your idea you little trickster?"
Shellos just grinned back and chirped loudly.
Still grinning, I just hung my head still grinning and began to cradle Shellos and put her back on my head so she could see the world from a new perspective. Quickly cooking and eating a breakfast of decent rations, we all set out to complete our tasks before we could leave.
Wondering where Sting went, I quickly called out to him and told him to stick around with me in case things went south. The other three had recovered from their tragic collapses and began to clean up camp, since I'd been tasked with making sure we had more water every morning when we decided who had what jobs yesterday.
Not knowing of a different stream and not confident I could find another in a reasonable amount of time, I called to Shellos that I'd let her back out in a bit and made my way over to the stream. Making sure to go upstream of the body, I quickly gathered our water in bottles and left, not liking the ominous feeling surrounding the area.
Back at the camp everyone else was packed up. It was just my sleeping bag laying on the ground that I quickly crouched down to roll up and placed it in the sma type of bag all trainers carried, since it used the same technology as early pokeballs and could store MASSIVE amounts of supplies of pretty much any kind.
"Everybody ready?" I asked straightening up.
"Yeah! We're all set to go on our journey!"
"Yes"
"Took you long enough," Gary grumbled, getting up from the fallen log he was sitting on.
Satisfied that Gary and Leaf would have made sure we'd gotten everything, I turned and began the walk to Viridian once more.
Gary and Ash each caught a pidgey along the way, but other than a few more puns and letting Shellos back onto my head the day was entirely uneventful.
That was, until we reached Viridian with sweat pouring down our backs at the ominous feeling growing progressively stronger with each minute as we came nearer and nearer to the town so bad that we recalled our pokemon, not wanting something to assault their comparatively hypersensitive senses (and not wanting to see Shellos scared).
When the dread came to a peak, we all shuddered and then watched in awe and a little fear as a large series of stone pillars appeared to ruthlessly punch a large Golbat and Arbok out of the pokemon center, with a Rhydon that roared furiously and spun it's drill as it came through the pokemon center wall that looked to have been blasted open by the voltorb laying around on the ground.
"Rhydon, finish them off with Stone Edge version one." A sharp voice resounded, one oddly familiar to me. At this point the man the voice had come from was in clear light and turned out to be a tall man with very short, dark hair and a grey suit. Obviously, seeing as I wanted to be a Ground type master, I knew the man on sight.
"It's Giovanni!" I cried in complete awe, vividly remembering watching a gym battle last year on a field trip to Viridian, and being the only one who cheered for Giovanni and probably the only one who understood (at least some of) the complexity of his ground type techniques that I saw.
When the other three turned to me like I was crazy and all told me to shush, I was just a little embarrassed. It's not every day that someone gets the chance to meet their idol after all.
By the time we'd all turned back to the 'fight,' if you could really call it that, it was over. The Arbok and Weezing were lying on the ground, obviously unconscious and Giovanni was just recalling Rhydon in a flash of red light. He'd also apparently noticed us standing there if his appraising stare was anything to go by.
As the two groups walked towards one another, the other three shivered for some reason, and though I noticed it I didn't comment, I'd seen this before. Most people got some kind of eerie vibe from Giovanni, I didn't understand it but that was just their gut feeling I suppose.
Schooling my face into it's normal blank slate, I carefully analyzed what Giovanni's face would reveal. Growing up there wasn't much to do (other than study about pokemon and play with the trio obviously), and sometimes I got bored. I decided one day - somehow, - that I wanted to be able to read facial tells. I wasn't exactly a master, but I could tell most of the basics.
It worked on most people, but Giovanni gave away nothing in his face, though it would only made sense for a man of his stature to be unpredictable, otherwise he wouldn't be such a renowned and feared gym leader if he was that easy to read, I reasoned.
Seeing as the other three weren't going to say anything, I took the lead. "Hello Giovanni, is the pokemon center too damaged for people to stay in it right now?" I had a feeling Giovanni would have been able to stop damage before they reached the top floor of the pokemon center, but maybe team rocket could have reached up there. Maybe they had jet packs, or the very item they were named after.
Even if Giovanni's Rhydon was notorious for being his least subtle pokemon-relying on brute force most of the time-it could certainly still tell exactly where things were on the ground.
Giovanni's eyebrow rose and he looked right at me as I spoke, a miniscule nod going my way as within my head I sang a symphony over an easily ignored ominous feeling, like a single spectator in a crowd with plans to murder a singer. It wasn't exactly the likely scenario, but that was why people had bodyguards; the possibility of death was there.
"The rooms are fine, but I must ask, why are you four here in Viridian?"
I'm not sure I would have been able to give a decent response, and I was quite appreciative when Ash spoke up at this. "W-we're here because we just left from Pallet a few days ago and we needed to pass through."
Giovanni blinked in obvious surprise at Ash answering his question, but quickly recovered his mask and told us to do as we pleased and to stay out of trouble. We walked into the pokemon center and immediately I remembered and reminded Gary that he needed to call the professor about the rogue pokemon roaming around Pallet. An idea popped into my head that I quickly wrote down within one of the note pages that the pokedex held and slipped it into my pocket for later. Now was dinner time.
Tired and hungry, we released our pokemon and began to chow down ASAP, not minding that we probably all looked gross and were multitudes messier than normal.
After gorging on food we patted our bellies for a moment and dragged ourselves upstairs to get some rest. There were big plans for tomorrow.
Waking up early for once, with a squishy Shellos sitting comfortably on my head, I remembered that I had written down a note in my pokedex.
My eyes widening at what I found, I carefully pulled shellos off of my head and into the tank located within the room, rushing to put on my clothes and warn Professor Oak.
As his face appeared on screen, he seemed worried and surprised by my disheveled appearance. I didn't care. "Professor, you need to get Charizard back now, before he finds what's out there if I'm right."
"This is obviously a rogue pokemon right? But what if it's the rogue pokemon." I said urgently as the professor rapidly paled and sent for Alakazam to find Charizard before he was taken down. The rogue pokemon is in fact Crawdaunt, and there are two very important facts that everyone must remember when dealing with Crawdaunt. 1.) You do not attempt to fight them one on one. 2.) You don't ever under any circumstance, fight then with a type and or terrain disadvantage unless you had Lance's level of strength.
The main problem with Crawdaunt is that when they became agitated enough (even though normally they hated any other pokemon within even their own ponds), they could be pushed far enough to get help from fellow Crawdaunt. A lot of help. As in about eight others waiting in the bushes to potshot you. And since Charizard would have no chance of flying around furing the battle with the trees blocking the way in addition to the stream the Crawdaunt would be near, even the professor's impressive Charizard likely wouldn't stand a chance in a one v nine.
"Thank you for the warning Testa." He nodded quickly his mouth setting into a thin line, and his face seemed to sharpen as he closed the connection.
Wracked with worry that I could do nothing about, I began looking through the pokedex while waiting for the others after grabbing breakfast.
Eventually my worry gave way to an ocean of curiosity of information, specifically what moves Gligar and Gliscor could learn and how to use those moves, though I looked at a few other learnsets as well.
At this point I learned just how much of a morning person I was when it came to getting things done, since I had to wait almost four hours until the others got up.
When Ash finally finished his breakfast-I had decided to omit the call with the ancient Oak, seeing as they didn't need to know and I didn't want them to worry about it-I quickly asked them about a plan before we left for Viridian forest.
"You want what? Are you insane Testa?" Gary asked incredulously.
"You heard me," I said with a raised eyebrow. "I want Squirtle to try target practice and defense training on Sting this morning."
"What brought this on?" Leaf asked, confusion obvious in her voice.
"My thought process is that if Sting can tank hits from Squirtle, then nothing else can really get past his armor at this point, and he also needs to work on evasion. It'll also help Squirtle with his aim and power y'know?"
"I'm just not sure how keen Gligar will be on that one Testa," Gary said with a nervous grin.
"I've convinced him that this is a good idea already." I waved away his concerns, knowing Sting couldn't resist getting more oran berries, he thought they were the best things in the world. I quickly noted in the pokedex to never let him have sitrus berries, or else I'd be broke within a week knowing Sting.
"Either way, before anything else happens we need to see if you agree or not, so what do ya' say Gary?"
As he let Squirtle out and they mulled over the idea, I turned to Ash and saw him intently looking the pokedex. Leaning over to see what he was doing, I saw him searching for what moves learned by Charmander and Charizard.
Shrugging since I'd done that earlier, I turned back to Gary who was just looking at me with a raised eyebrow by now, he just sighed and said that it sounded like a good choice to him and Squirtle.
"Great!" I exclaimed, "Let's begin right about now."
Rushing outside and releasing Sting, he groaned seeing where we were and sighed when I grinned and nodded to him as we waited a moment for Gary to catch up.
"We should start with physical attacks, since Squirtle needs to work on those and Sting can quickly improve him armor from hit and run to a brawling style." They couldn't fire off vollies of projectiles if Sting was right in front of them after all.
Quickly turning to Ash, I asked him if he'd be up for training as well.
Once he gave his obvious response, I quickly told him that Charmander would be an excellent opponent for Shellos, since water types were the most common of all pokemon and Charmander would need to be able to combat them effectively, and it would be good for Shellos to get battle experience.
Pokemon knew how to use basic moves like tackling or scratching the opponent and almost always had some kind of other moves right out of the egg, like how a charmander would obviously be able to use ember and throw small flames at the opponent, the difference was that with time and consistent use, the pokemon would rapidly become more proficient in using said moves. There was also the matter of learning to strafe and dodge well, but that was not a huge issue for Gastrodon due to their tough hides and regenerative capabilities.
Shellos had either old or powerful parents based on her 'egg moves,'-moves inherited from the parents-of Mud Bomb, Mud-slap, Water Pulse and Acid Armor. The moves themselves were quite common and could usually be learned naturally, moves could only become egg moves with near mastery by the parent, and acid armor in itself was uncommon among Gastrodon.
Pleasantly surprised by this information, I quickly began a mock battle between the two, being lax enough that we wouldn't need Leaf to referee. I glanced back at Sting to see how he was doing, and seeing him and Squirtle competitively slugging each other out to toughen up, I smiled faintly. Guess rivalries run deep huh?
Shaking my head in amusement, I quickly turned back to Shellos and Charmander squaring off, and seeing Charmander begin to pace back and forth as Shellos stared on without fear.
"Shellos," I said quietly," your job is to stay in one place and use Water Pulse to hit Charmander, he's too fast to catch, so try and hit him when he goes in. You can also try to use Water Gun to stop his Ember from hitting you."
Ash had mentioned something to Charmander as I talked, but I wasn't paying much attention by now, so I didn't know what his plan was. It wasn't important either, since Shellos and Gastrodon were terrifying opponents for any pokemon in the Charizard line. Even if they could learn Thunderpunch to deal with most water types, Gastrodon was immune to it and was far too squishy for moves like Slash to deal much damage, claws would just slide through for the most part, and ranged combat was fine for the Shellos line since they could fire off water pulses and cover the field in water to recover some damage, since Gastrodon's biology was overwhelmingly water and they could recover in battle by absorbing water through their skin, meaning a battle of attrition would be the worst idea possible. Gastrodon were however more water based than Shellos, so Shellos had a very difficult time pulling off this in battle regeneration.
Shaking my head, I left Sting to his own devices for a moment as I focused a bit more on Shellos, seeing as Charmander was rapidly throwing Embers at Shellos, however ineffective it may have been. Seeing that Shellos was going fine at this steady pace, I noticed the opposing fire type was getting slightly faster, an epiphany and slight worry flashing through my mind.
I had forgotten that Charmander, along with most fire types, were nearly immune to overheating, and that meant that often they could outlast opponents in a battle of attrition if it was a battle of projectiles everywhere, since their muscle fibers didn't overheat and break down from this, it simply made them move faster as their muscles warmed.
Thinking quickly, I had a rough idea of what Ash was trying to do, if I was in his shoes then I'd want to make charmander faster and goes for a hit and run strategy. That… could actually beat Shellos at this point. The best way to beat hit and run would be…
"Alright Shellos," I said with a grin, "do you trust me?"
After a nod, I relaxed for a moment and told her, "Good, now let's charge in."
Tensing for just a second, Shellos sluggishly made her way towards Charmander. Ash just grinned and shouted "Now Charmander, get close and use scratch, then get back out before Shellos can hit you!"
Fighting back a grin, I waited until Charmander was headed straight for Shellos and beginning to leap at her, probably trying to flip over and keep going before she could retaliate.
"Acid Armor and duck!" I cried victoriously. "Then use Water Pulse while it's above you!" Part of the Charizard line it may be, there were no wings on it's back quite yet, which meant no way to maneuver mid-air. Or so I thought.
"Charmander!" Ash cried in-wait joy? "Use Ember as fast as you can to push yourself through the air!"
Seeing a scaled face grin in surprise before blowing a flame behind to make himself speed up just enough to escape the Water Pulse, I was both pleasantly surprised and mildly disappointed, for Ash Charmander and for myself and Shellos respectively.
Charmander was too fast at this point, and as the battle began to drag on with Shellos unable to landa hit while being slowly worn down, I called the match.
"All right, I'll give, where in the world did you come up with that idea Ash? Especially in the split second when you realized what my plan was." I asked bewildered.
"Well, the idea just popped into my head right as I realized what you were trying to do to be honest," He said scratching the back of his head and chuckling nervously.
"So you just, thought of it, in a split second, and found a way out of an impossible situation." I summed up slowly.
"Uhh…" Ash drawled intelligently. "I guess so, yeah." He shrugged. Shrugged, about having a mind practically built for battling, regardless of the situation he was faced with.
"That mind of yours is your greatest tool Ash, there's no doubt about it." I said clapping him on the shoulder, heedless of his protests, thinking he was just being modest or perhaps hadn't realized the full extent of his ability within a battle.
"Anyway," I said before he could interrupt, "I think that the rest of the day today should just be getting more used to moves and spamming the most powerful ones for endurance training, then we can set off for the forest tomorrow. What'd you think?" I gave him a sidelong glance, waiting for a response.
"Sounds good to me."
And so we did.
Setting off for Viridian forest as the day truly began, with people bustling to get to their business' and pokemon letting off cries ranging from majestic to lazy to annoyingly buzzing in greeting, we began the march to an infamous maze, only matched by the Dark Tunnel to the east from what I'd heard on TV.
After all of the training, we rested and slept well, getting up quickly and grabbing breakfast on the way out, ready to get through the bug type haven quickly.
With hugely tall trees looming above us, we put on our game faces and entered with a quiet rustle of the bushes beginning to obscure the main path.
By this point our quartet could hear a faint buzzing in the background, putting us on edge and began grating on our nerves.
As we trudged on through the thick plant life, the buzzing truly faded into the background, with hundreds of other small chirps and hums and louder, higher pitched buzzing as well.
"Oh joy, I really love this place, don't you three?"
"No need to get snappy about it you know, we can make it through this place easily if we work together, right Charmander?"
"I'm going to go with Gary on this one guys,"
"Guys…"
"Wha… but with Charmander we can beat any bug type that shows up!"
"Ash stop talking before the universe hears you and sends more of these things" I hissed in fear and worry.
As the other three turned to me, or rather, what was behind me, they all paled as one and began to quietly back away. What did they see you ask? Imagine for a moment, that you have been travelling through a forest with constant noise, random noise, and even banterous noise. Now think about what would happen as tensions run high, and people start yelling as you run past a Scolipede's nest.
This is what you would call a bad idea. The good part of this situation was that the other three immediately shut up. The getting-worse-by-the-second part was that as we crept away, an egg began to shake from the nest right in front of us. The nest that was directly in between us and the deadly killing machines who could reach us in less than a second, meaning they'd see us when they woke up.
We all started sweating bullets as I frantically signaled to get down and crawl away before their eyes opened, hoping beyond all hope that the Scolipede would be too preoccupied with the egg hatching to pay attention to us.
With the fear of suddenly seeing six inch horns sprout out of my chest and my heart pounding like a drum in my ears, I crawled away as quietly as I could manage while making decent progress in getting away from those things.
The big issue with my split second plan became abundantly clear when I realized two facts. One, I had no idea where the other three were. And, more importantly, I had no idea where the winding main path was, so I couldn't get help if they were lost in the forest, I was lost in the forest.
Releasing Sting after walking just a bit farther away from where the nest had been, I asked if he could climb up a tree and see which way was out of here. That really didn't pan out well when he apparently stumbled upon and into an Ariados web, though fortunately there were only a few small spinarak that we had to fight off to escape.
Without knowing the way out or which way the others had gone, I chose a direction and began to march. Through brush and shrubbery that I had to crane my neck and take three steps back just to glance at the top, trees with dense leaves thicker than maple syrup, and damp soil that all together gave a feeling of being unexplored or seen by people, which made sense since being off the path was a terrible idea.
All of a sudden, Sting seemed to stumble as three sets of small pinching claws attached to pale purple and blue limbs appeared from underneath Sting, as both of us froze for a moment. Sting looked confused by how weak the claws were pinching him, as if they weren't meant for piercing flesh as most were. It was then that I realized what I was looking at, it was a Skorupi. Skorupi were infamous for being extremely weak-even among their own type since they grew slower than most other pokemon, let alone other bug types-and relied on both ambushing their prey as well as injecting them with a potent poison as they clung to the victim and slowly whittled them down before the pokemon knew what was happening. Seeing as Gligar were generally quite tough, Sting even more so after tanking hits from Gary's Squirtle, that was almost a moot point from a physically weak pokemon like Skorupi, but what really sealed the deal for the poor Skorupi was Sting had the ability Immunity, one of the most amazing examples of rapid 'total evolution' within a species ever documented by today's scientists.
Immunity didn't actually exist within the Gligar population when scientists first started researching them, but was instead a reaction to a both a virus and a natural weakness to being whittled down, being tough predators that relied on whittling down an opponent, they were doomed to die if they expended all of their energy in one fight just to be finished off by poisoning shortly after. So, they evolved to become immune to poison while at the same time strengthening their own poisons, since they could now actually handle more venom within their bodies. This was actually theorised to be the main catalyst for how quickly the whole population gained the particular trait, their bodies slowly began exposing themselves to their own poison and building up Immunity similar to how a vaccine works.
As an unintended side effect of Immunity and one of the reasons that Gliscor was the amazingly defensive powerful pokemon that it is, was when Gligar with Immunity evolved, their immunity to their own poison was effectively eliminated, and something entirely different happened. Their entire bloodstream became filled with their poison in small doses all over the body, and when there was an injury of some sort the poison would quickly clot at exactly that spot, but only when there was a wound that drew blood. Amazingly enough, and according to scientists a Gliscor's unconscious brain actually controlled how much poison was in their bloodstream at one time, almost like how the heart works. It's literally an automated defense system near unmatched by most other pokemon, and the blood containing poison was toxic to enemies that touched it as well, rare that it was having a Poison Heal Gliscor bleed.
Once again shaking myself out of my daydreams about what Sting would be able to pull off in the future (assuming all went according to keikaku*), I realized that Sting had in fact defeated the Skorupi in my absence. Looking closer, the Skorupi was definitely under about a month old, almost younger than most left their parents, but Drapion were also not known to be the most caring parents in the world so that was probably not a huge surprise, no the surprise was the small shriveled patch of exoskeleton on one of his legs that would likely keep him from being too fast, which was a shame since Drapion were actually naturally well armored and quite fast, a very rare combination to be sure.
Screw it, might as well. I thought without much care as I threw a pokeball at the unconscious bug type. Not like my chances of getting out of the forest were all that great anyway, might as well try and give the caring and mischievous Sting a sturdy new friend for the rest of his life (maybe create a rivalry between them?), perhaps Shellos would make that a perfect trio of friends. That'd be better than a quartet…
Stumbling over to a log, I lied down, covered my eyes with my arm and began to laugh at myself. Hehehehehehehehehe, I'm laughing and giving up before it's even been a day. Looks like he was right. My arms stiffened. Was he right…? Shivering, I lolled my head to see to whatever was poking me in the arm.
"Eh?" What did he want…? "What is it" I croaked out, not wanting to deal with anything at the moment.
Sting was looking at me in worry, apparently not liking how I looked to be delirious by now. It wasn't like it was a big deal was it? I could just lie here and no one would know, I was quite tired by now. Relaxed by the sounds of the forest, I was out before Sting could make another sound.
End Chap one.
A/N Whelp, hopefully this is something decent enough for anyone who reads it, I'm just a fan of quite a few other stories but I've always been pretty bad at writing so, here's to hoping.
Er, I probably can't update too often but I'll see what I can pull off if you guys want more, but I would also like to hear what you think I should add to make the story better.
tHat'N'Clogs