Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.
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Well, author's first story here. Hope you like it.
The Storm
Tangrowth took very deep breaths. He had finally outsmarted his enemy, managing to kill one of his comrade's shooters. It had taken him so long to get here, with numerous sacrifices. He wasn't about to give up now. He was so close. He could almost taste the victory.
It's okay. Just leap up from behind the barrel, find your opponent, and then pull the trigger, thought Tangrowth. You can do this. There's just one guy left.
He waited, planning to surprise the enemy by waiting a really long time, then jumping out and catching him unprepared. He loaded his gun. A tense fifteen seconds went by, as his internal clock slowly counted down.
3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Now! Tangrowth ran to the right from behind the barrel, held up his gun and looked around for his target, when there was an ear shattering bang, and Tangrowth crumpled to the floor like a rag-doll. A red translucent screen silently popped up and filled the entire screen, with white letters neatly covering up blood and a gruesome death.
"Boom! Headshot!" Bisharp yelled in triumph from the couch, raising his hand to hi-five Gliscor and Floatzel, who were sitting on the floor.
Tangrowth, meanwhile, glared at the red kill screen. You died! The white letters sat there, forever taunting him. It was like a little kid had announced those two words jeeringly, and he just wanted to punch it in its stupid face. But there was no kid around here that he could punch.
Scratch that. "Hah! And you were so close! I guess that I'm still the Champion of Close Combat 3!" Bisharp smirked. Tangrowth slowly turned to Bisharp, putting on his best happy "everything is fine for me" face. Of course, no one could see it through his vines, so all they saw were two very wide eyes.
"Nice, bro. I bet that you couldn't beat me if I was with Gliscor," said Floatzel, potato chip in one hand, bag in the other.
"What about we play something that doesn't involve all the blood and gore and violence in this game?" Tangrowth suggested, trying to switch into a game that he could actually win at.
Bisharp looked at him in confusion. "There are game with no violence?" Tangrowth walked over to the bookshelf, where he revealed an orderly stack of video game disks behind the books. He picked one of the game disks, which showed a cuddly yellow Pikachu giving a peace sign.
"Really? Pokémon Crossing? That's the best you could come up with?" Floatzel then walked over and picked out another disk, one which showed a variety Pokémon all staring and smiling at the camera. "What about Super Smash Poke-brawl? It's a fun game, and I don't think that there's any big violence in there," he continued, holding it up for everyone to see.
"Oh yeah, I tried that one out! It was pretty cool, but I still can't unlock that Darmanitan, though. Man, that Zen Mode was overpowered on the prequel. The graphics are decent, though," replied Bisharp, raising his hand in agreement.
"What about this?" Gliscor hovered over to the bookshelf and pull out a regular tan disk. "We never played this before. I bet it's a great game."
Silence. "What?"Gliscor asked his friends.
"Gliscor, that's an HM. Those are for moves for battling, and other stuff. In real life. You might want to put that back." Tangrowth answered, slightly pitying the confused Pokémon. But then he remembered that one time how Gliscor had beaten him with only a Smoke Grenade and a deer trap, and his remorse faded.
"Speaking of battling, when's Rotom gonna be done?" Floatzel then looked at the clock, and then paled. Tangrowth also looked at the clock and his eyes widened. "Oh no," he whispered to himself.
Bisharp sighed. "We're gonna be late picking him up, aren't we?" The company nodded simultaneously. "Great. I'll go get the guy." He mumbled to himself, something about "freaking job", "moldy socks", "burning buildings", and maybe something about an "electronic trash can", and grabbed the keys to his car from the dinner table.
[-] [-] [-]
Everyone had thought that when Rotom had gotten a job in sports, and they had all immediately assumed that he used to be an expert college athlete in hiding. He didn't deny it. It was understandable. A lot of expert college players were revealed to be prodigies, got really famous quick, and wanted to hide from the paparazzi, and run away from all the attention (Many referred it to X's Syndrome, due to similarities to the Pokemon Adventures' Trainer X). The players with alternate forms were lucky, escaping the fans using their different other appearances. The ones who didn't have any were not.
But by "job", Rotom had meant a laundry job. Yes, Rotom, formerly one of the great battlers and athletes from his college days, was hired to wash the clothing and uniforms of other players. But maybe he should have mentioned that before the company had bought extremely expensive quantities of beer, invited as much people and friends as they could cram in a house, then got really hung-over to the point where they had to be nursed of in their own rooms because of an extreme case of the flu. They didn't even know who they were nursed by. They were too sick to remember. They even said that Gliscor's brain was still scrambled because of that huge party.
You could imagine the expressions on their faces when he explained that he only had a very, very minor role in the whole sports shebang. Of course, he softened the blow by saying that the party was worth it and he thought "Why the heck not?" and just went with it. Then he accused Gliscor of dragging him to get beverages before he could explain. But Gliscor was too engrossed in looking at a fake painting depicting purple grapes to care.
[-] [-] [-]
Always, always, always he had to wait. Bisharp and Tangrowth were the only ones with a car, and Tangrowth had to use his to visit some old college friends. That left Bisharp to give him a route home, and he would always be late picking him up. So then that meant more waiting then one would normally have to wait.
And Rotom was restless when it came to waiting.
The restless thing was what had come with the microwave, too. Not too long ago, he had to heat up some Tot Pockets for himself because he was SO FRICKIN' HUNGRY. Anyways, Rotom could inhabit several forms, right? But every single electronic that he inhabited had a different nature. You could get the gist of it: Fire was impatient and explosive, Water was relaxed and cool, Grass was laid-back and careful, Ice was a bit uncaring and cold, and Flying was a bit talkative. It's pretty predictable.
Then Rotom wondered what would happen if he went inside a phone. It would probably give him some private wi-fi connection. That would be cool, he thought.
When Bisharp had arrived thirty-seven minutes and fifty-two minutes late, Rotom had just about given up and was about to decide whether or not to knock himself out by banging his head on the metal bar in the bleachers. He wasn't feeling right, the boredom slowly affecting his sanity. Rotom decided that there would be no time for chitchat, since he couldn't wait to get onto his ride home. As soon as Bisharp walked through that door, Rotom lunged at him, Thiefed his car keys, and ran off towards the front doors without saying a word. Bisharp was quick on his tail, yelling "Hey!", or "Stop!" before putting on a burst of speed and Thiefing the keys back from Rotom.
Rotom grinned, bending down to catch his breath. "You got me there. I...uh...never ran track."
"What's the matter with you?" Bisharp asked between pants. He shook his head, and then thought for a bit. "Wait… didn't we tell you to forget that move a while ago? You know, because of that one time that you stole that thing?"
Rotom grinned, still panting. "I was bored. I still have fun stealing from the janitor's closet. It's very handy for pick-pocketing. And didn't we do the same about you? You know, with the whole intervention thing?"
Bisharp snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah! I forgot about that." He turned to Rotom. "How about we make a deal? If we both don't tell on each other about Thief, then we're good. But if one side swings first, it's full-on Armageddon. Deal?" He held out his hand.
Rotom thought for a second, and then shook it. "Deal." They started toward the front door.
Then two things started to happen. The first thing was thunder. It had snapped suddenly and violently outside, frightening a poor Shuckle who just happened to be outside, back into his shell. Then it started raining outside. "Great! Just my luck, and I just happened to be in a microwave."
Bisharp paused in his tracks. "Can't you just change forms? Or get out? Also, I thought you were an oven."
Rotom rolled his eyes. "Look around you, genius. We're in a closed facility. Well, except the front door. That part's my job. But pretty much everything else is locked up, stashed away so I wouldn't and couldn't wreck havoc on this place, except for the microwave. They said that I could keep it so that I wouldn't get hungry. Besides, I still got some Tot Pockets that are cooking in here. If I got out now, it might lose its power." He was also thinking about the fact that how they lied, and said he was a microwave. He wasn't an ordinary microwave! He was a super microwave oven! Rotom smiled at that thought.
"Oh." Bisharp looked around. The place where they had chased each other from was a darkly lit stadium that was structured like a crater, and the place they were at now was a marble hallway that was at least two stories high, with decorated with the photos of various teams and players. "Well, this shouldn't be a bad place to wait out the storm."
Rotom,forehead resting on his head, squinted at Bisharp as if he were stupid. "Not a bad place to… ugh!" He breathed and counted to ten, keeping his temper in check. "Bisharp. Do you see a television?"
Bisharp looked around once more. As he had guessed, there were no televisions in sight. "Oh yeah. Good Point." He thought about how this situation could turn out. Either they could take their risks, go back home, and get to play more games, or they could go out there where Rotom could potentially die in the rain. His mind was leaning towards the wiser choice.
After a long silence, he spoke. "Yeah...let's go home." Hey, it's wouldn't be his fault that Rotom chose to be a microwave today, because he could have chosen to starve rather than die.
Rotom sighed. "Thank God." He took a deep breath, then ran into the rain.
Bisharp reminded himself to take pictures as Rotom flailed in a puddle.