Hello everyone! I'm Hope2be, and this is my first ever story posted. Okay, enough formal introductions...

I need to put a Thank-you-very-much out there to Aqua059 for helping me out! Woo!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. I own some potatoes, but not Pokemon.


Nail Polish

Ayden is a free Sneasel who lives in the hustle and bustle of Viridian City. Actually, he lives everywhere in Viridian City. Alleyways, abandoned houses, garages, rooftops, anywhere where humans couldn't find him. He hated them with a passion. Well, maybe not all of them. Just those annoying trainers.

"Oh my Gosh! A Sneasel! It'll be a great use to my team! I think I'll catch it!" Riiiight. Like he was going to let that happen. Being used to win competitions was on the bottom of his List To Do While Living. Oh, and how he hated trainers' pokemon. All primped and ready to fight useless battles. He hated one in particular.

Merete. The self-absorbed female Kirlia who lived with her trainer in the heart of the city. The whole deal of girly-ness, you know, make-up and junk. What kind of pokemon wears make-up?

She personally went out of her own way to pester him. To try his sanity, it felt like, to see when he would crack. She always wanted to paint his claws, because they were so dang long. She carried her suitcase full of nail polish with her too, every time. He was a guy, for God's sake! Why would he want to put on nail polish, especially in all of those girly colors? Sheesh.


"Aww, dang! What does she want now?" Ayden groaned. "Right in the middle of the night, too."

While he was sleeping in a random old man's garage, a note out of nowhere appeared out of thin air. In a bottle, on his stomach. And, he was sleeping on a narrow shelf. As soon as he felt cold glass on his skin, he fell off. Crash. He'd landed on the floor, right on his head-feather. The shattered remains of the bottle were a few feet from him. He was lucky it didn't wake the old man.

Glass was everywhere, the note right in the middle of the tiny sharp slivers. He knew who it was from, because there was pink lacy ribbon strewn around with the glass. That, and it appeared out of nowhere. Merete.

"Stupid psychics." He mumbled as he reached carefully out to grab the note. He held it so his long claws wouldn't tear it, which was nearly impossible. He unfurled it with his teeth, and begun to read. Lucky him the he could read. Or not. If he couldn't, he wouldn't have to read this.

It went –

Ayden,

'I was hoping we could make a controversy. If you agree to this, I might not bother you anymore. Hey, I'm serious! I know your laughing right now! 'Yah right', you say. Well, it's true. Meet me in the alleyway by, say, Tuffete's Shoe Store. Right now.

Merete.'

Dang psychics. He had been laughing at the first few lines that he struggled to read. But now he belived her. Then again, it seemed too good to be true. Then again, she might not bother him again. Ever. It was good enough for him.

He was off. Hopping over roof tops until he came to Tuffete's Shoe Store. All the while, he was thinking. 'I'm not gonna see her ugly mug again! Ha-ha! In your face, life!'

He hopped down to the stone sidewalks of Viridian City. There wasn't a person or pokemon in sight. He turned to face the shop for a second, to ponder over the deal. He could see his reflection in the glass by streetlight. He was grinning like a maniac. He turned again, then walked down the sidewalk, and turned the corner into an old alleyway that was covered in shadow. He walked slowly into it.

"Oi, Merete! Where are y-ACKF!" Ayden got cut short. A hot-pink suitcase came whistling out of the shadows, and hit him square in the jaw. The blow from said suitcase pummeled him to the ground, and the suitcase wielder jumped out of the shadows and bashed him in the head one or two more times for good measure.

A Kirlia was the attacker, with her suitcase still in one hand. She stood on tip-toe, and had a light pink scarf on. It was Merete, the beauty queen herself. She stood over him, and had a light smile on her face. He was skewed on the ground, face down, and three glowing red lump marks stood out on his head.

Merete giggled. "Ah, I told you we'd make a compromise! Just not in the way you'd expected it, Ayden." She kneeled down, and opened her suitcase. It was filled with nail polish in all sorts of colors, neatly ordered into rows. She looked carefully at the colors, and selected a sky-blue shade.

"I get to paint your nails! I get to paint your nails!" She said in a singsong voice to the unconscious Ayden. She unscrewed the bottle's neck, and dipped the attached brush into the paint. She then got to work on painting his very long claws.


"Oh lord, my head!" Ayden groaned. He was on the ground, and his head hurt. A lot. He reached up and felt his head, and hastily retracted his hands when his head started to hurt even more. "Dang it, what happened?..."

Ayden took a double take at his claws. "What the…MERETE!"

Each and every one of his claws was a different color. Hot-pink, Orange, Sky-blue, Neon green, Glittery silver, and more girly colors that he didn't even know the exact name of. And on each and every one, there was a pattern. The hot-pink claw was dotted with tiny hearts. The sky-blue claw had purple tulips spiraling up to the sharp tip. The orange one had yellow stripes.

Ayden screamed bloody murder. He tried to scrap off the paint by scratching at his claws, but none came off. It seemed to be….permanent?

"CURSE YOU MERETE! CURSE YOU TO HECK!"

Ayden glared up at the sky, which was bright with the morning sun. He was so going to ring her neck, and-

"Lookit! A Sneasel! I'll capture it for my team!" Came a voice from the street. Great. His screams of bloody murder had brought a trainer. Ayden quickly hid his claws behind his back, and glared at the annoying trainer. He wasn't going to get captured by this pipsqueak!

"Bring it, brat!" Ayden screamed at the trainer. The trainer grabbed a pokeball from his belt and tossed it in the air.

"Go! Raticate!" The trainer said. The pokeball landed, and it was glowing bright light, a Raticate was drawn out. 'Ew, a pokeball! I never want to be stuck in one of those!' Ayden thought.

The Raticate bared its teeth and hissed at him. "You're going down!" Raticate hissed. Ayden smirked, and retracted his claws from behind his back and pointed them menacingly at the Raticate. "I don't think so." Ayden said straight back. He had totally forgotten about his embarrassing claw-painting.

The Raticate got a funny look on his face, like he was holding in a laugh. Its trainer immediately burst out laughing, doubling over and holding his stomach. Hearing this, the Raticate burst into laughter too. It flopped over onto its back, and continued cracking up.

"Ho-holy crud!" The Raticate said in between gasps for air, and bursts of laughter. "F-flowers! Hearts? Wh-what kind of pokemon a-are you?" It stammered, wheezing and gasping.

Ayden's face contorted in anger. He did not like to be made fun of. "A ticked-off one!" He shouted, and dove forward, toward the laughing Raticate. His pretty claws were out in front of him, poised to strike. Ayden jumped slightly above the Raticate, and raked his claws acrossed its stomach at high speed. Ayden kept at it too. Scratch, scratch, scratching away at the laughing Raticate, who didn't really notice it was being attacked until it was too late.

It fainted. It stopped laughing, and closed its eyes. It was clearly knocked out. Ayden stopped raking his claws across the motionless Raticate and then jumped backwards further into the alley, a smirk on his face. The trainer's laugh turned into a scream.

"No! My poor Raticate! Ahh!!!" The trainer screamed. The trainer fumbled for his pokeball, and quickly called the Raticate back into it by a red beam. The trainer fixed the pokeball onto his belt, then ran away, screaming like a little girl.

"That'll teach you to attack the injured! Punk!" Ayden screamed after him. He then plopped down onto the ground with his smirk still on his face. He put his claws in front of his face, and stared at them.

"Heh. Maybe this paint job isn't so bad after all. In fact, it sorta gives me an advantage."


Hoorah! Credit goes to my 5-year-old cousin, who inspired this by painting my nails pretty colors.

Well, as some authors say, Read and Review please!