The Pacifidlog Incident
Hello everyone! I'm back, and for anyone who cares in the slightest, I am now in significantly better mental condition, probably due to the surgical removal of this stupid plot bunny from my brain. Seriously! This thing has been begging to be written for ages now, and finally I just couldn't take it.
If you've been following my other fic, 17 Plates and 7 Geos, (Probably not, but who knows?) then I would like to tell you that this takes place about a year and a half before then. That's one of the reasons Kate is a little more immature than she is in Geos, as well as the fact that she still has Triki around and is in her own universe. Apart from that, there's really nothing else to say but the disclaimer, so here it is.
Hey, guess what? I don't own Pokemon.
Enjoy!
"Brendan, c'mon! Seriously, we go through all this trouble to sail the whole way from Mossdeep, past Sootopolis, just to visit the famous Pacifidlog City, only to explore for a couple of hours and then turn in? What is wrong with you!"
Brendan only sighed. His rival, or partner, however you chose to look at it, Kate could get really annoying at times. They had been traveling together ever since she'd bumped into him outside of Fourtree City, and had made plans to make an attempt at the Mossdeep Gym Badge, which only was winnable in a double battle. That had worked to both their advantages, as Kate only had her starter Pokemon, a Sceptile named Triki to fight with, and Brendan found that it was much easier to fight when he only had to worry about one of his Pokemon on the field.
They had won by the skin of their teeth, and both Trainers were given their seventh Gym Badge, almost enough to qualify them for the championship, with the eighth Badge waiting for them in Sootopolis City. It was then that Kate had told him she wanted to go to Pacifidlog and train for a bit longer, and then that Brendan had grudgingly agreed, seeing as it was the Championships that they were practicing for. That was three weeks ago.
Brendan had the only surfing Pokemon, a female Swampert named Fen, and carrying two people had slowed her down quite a bit. To top that, no less than three storms had hit them while they sailed, and when they had finally entered Pacifidlog that evening, it was with soaking, windswept clothing, no supplies, and some nasty salt sores all over.
The second they got onto dry land, Kate had loudly announced that she was a Trainer, and that she was looking for the strongest fighter in the area. Brendan could've punched her then and there.
"Kate, your definition and my definition of 'exploring' differ quite a bit." He had told her this about twenty times already, once for every time she'd asked him in the last five minutes.
"How?" On a different day, Brendan might have stopped to wonder exactly how Kate said this with a straight face. Right now though, all he wanted to do was flop down on his cheap, Pokemon Center bed, and sleep the rest of the day away, without any snarky remarks being aimed at him every second or so. Even so, he answered, knowing that she would never shut up otherwise.
"Your 'exploration' usually involves training, and neither Fen nor I are in the mood right now." Kate jumped up off her bed and opened her mouth to protest, but Brendan quickly shushed her before she could finish.
"Also, you enjoy starting battles wherever you go, and I'm not going to help out with any of the collateral damage this time. I know for a fact that you have less than one thousand Poke on you."
Kate flushed indignantly. "I do too." She muttered, trying to reclaim just a little bit of her lost pride, instead sounding like she was still in third grade.
At least, this time he knew how to shut her up. "Exactly how much?"
She fell silent, refusing to say another word.
He sighed for the second time in as many minutes. Clearly, any sort of rest he wanted to get was going to be impossible. "Look, I just want to know. It's not going to kill you, so just for once can you cooperate?"
She muttered something under her breath. Brendan chose to take this as a good sign. "Just a little louder, please?"
"One thousand two hundred." She said, glowering angrily, and staring down at the bedspread. "And Triki has an Amulet Coin with him." Suddenly her tone seemed a little bit lighter. Brendan barely resisted an urge to roll his eyes. Of course it did. Kate loved that Sceptile as much as it was humanly possible to love a Pokemon. Sometimes he even wondered if Triki meant more to her than the actual humans in her life.
"At least, I think he still has it. Do you, Trik?"
The great lizard was leaning up against a wall, as usual, liberated of his Pokeball. Kate almost never kept him in there, to be honest actually, the sea voyage over was the first time Brendan had ever seen her without him, and that was only because Fen couldn't carry all three of them on her back.
The Sceptile stretched momentarily, like a lazy cat, and padded over to his Trainer, sitting awkwardly on the bed next to her and holding out a small purple ribbon with a tiny golden charm attached to it, long, finger-like claws delicately looped around it. Kate gently took the charm from him and presented it to Brendan, grinning like a maniac.
"See? It's one of those things that Meowth always have with them. They're actually pretty valuable, if you wanted to price it. And we've never caused that much trouble before, have we?" She asked, still grinning.
Brendan was too mature to point out that they never caused too much trouble because both he and Triki were smart enough not to start any. Their combined ability to politely drag Kate away from whatever she was doing to excite said trouble helped matters along a bit as well. For a couple of seconds, there was silence.
"Look," She suddenly said, and Brendan was momentarily, if not shocked, then at least surprised to hear a serious note to her voice. "All I really want to do is head down into the common room downstairs, and talk training with some other people before I hit the hay. I'm not going to start anything or be disruptive, all I want to do is check out the scene for a little bit."
Brendan yawned involuntarily, but Kate didn't take it the wrong way. "If you don't want to go, then just stay here and chill out for a bit. God knows you need it. You look worse than that guy who got accidentally hit by other guy's Raichu during that one Gym Battle."
She snickered slightly, and despite his footweariness, even Brendan had to grin a little bit. The two of them had been at his house in Littleroot, sharing a pizza and watching the latest footage from a fight in Lavaridge Gym, when an attack from the challenger's Raichu had, due to a dense smokescreen, misfired and fried his Trainer to a crisp. Unsurprisingly, it had become an Internet sensation, with hundreds of clips of it on PorygonPost and other video websites like it.
"Well," He said, only half-jokingly. "I don't think I look quite that bad, but you do have a point." He pounded his pillow into a comfier shape, and stretched out on his small bed. "Have a good time, but don't be surprised if I'm asleep when you get back."
Kate flashed him a thumbs-up, already shrugging into her coat and re-tying her bandanna. "No problem. I should be back in about an hour anyways, so, see ya!"
With that, she sauntered out the door, Triki following obediently behind her, closing the aforementioned door with a soft click after his bushy tail was clear. Brendan shifted around atop the covers, trying to get comfortable, but nothing he did seemed to ease the knot of tension in his belly. Call it a premonition. As drowsiness pulled him under, he remembered wondering to himself if this was really such a good idea.
As a rule, during the evening, the ground floor of any Pokemon Center is usually pretty packed, and Pacifidlog was no exception. As Kate strutted (For she does.) downstairs, she and Triki were greeted by a fairly packed throng of people, a few Trainers like herself, but mostly just regular townsfolk and younger people that had time to spare on a Friday night. Or at least, Kate thought it was a Friday. It was hard to tell when your life mostly consisted of traveling through wilderness without a calendar.
Given her rather obvious entrance (Granted though, that's what happens when you travel with your starter outside of his Pokeball.), a few heads turned in Kate's direction, but these were quickly repulsed with a swift glare from Triki, the room's bright lighting highlighting the points of his long nails and thin, dagger-like tail spines. Kate remained blissfully oblivious to this curious phenomenon, which replayed itself every time she entered a public area, and sauntered over to a knot of Trainer-looking people who were standing in a corner. One of the older girls, an elegant figure with black hair and a classy air, remembered the pair from a tournament they'd placed in, and started asking about her training techniques, which prompted questions from the rest of the group.
This, Brendan thought in hindsight, was where things started to go wrong. Kate, despite the amount of hyperness she showed him on a daily basis, wasn't a people person, and it showed. Add to that the fact that she'd been traveling with him for almost half a month on little sleep and fewer rations, and you got someone who could very easily be overwhelmed by any sort of situation.
Of course, even if he had reasoned this out beforehand, he probably wouldn't have objected anyways, figuring that the worst that could happen was Kate acting a little weirder than normal, which was annoying, but not intolerable. Plus, there was the side benefit of him not having to put up with it. However, as it sometimes turns out, fate has an odd way of putting a couple little details together to turn a harmless situation into something worse.
Still chatting happily away, Kate and a few of the other girls had moved over to the Center equivalent of a bar, and were currently ordering a round of drinks. This was the first little thing that helped to kick off the disaster that the night would contain, but it would've been impossible for anyone to notice it without knowing how everything else fit in. This didn't, however, happen like you might think it would.
Kate, realizing that she was underage and at risk of getting her Trainer's License revoked, as well as being a bit of a loser, had actually ordered a non-alcoholic cocktail, basically glorified fruit juice with a shiny thingie on the top to look at. It might also be worthwhile to mention that she had bought Triki one of these as well, which prompted the man working the shift to look at her strangely before realizing that she was serious. The aforementioned Sceptile had simply shrugged noncommittally and began preening his tail spines, trying to look inconspicuous. It didn't work.
This left the barman in a bit of a difficult position. What this weird girl and her Pokemon had ordered was made out of practically pure Sitrus juice, which he was actually almost out of. There was really only enough left for a half a glass, but he couldn't stiff the girl either. Not only had she already paid, but from the amount of collected Gym Badges she was carefully displaying to a curious onlooker showed that he really didn't want to mess with her, and that sentiment was only backed up by her thrawn and battle-scarred Sceptile, whose eyes were burning a hole in the back of his head in an unblinking, reptilian gaze. No, he was going to give these two just what they wanted, and hope they left after.
Several other orders were piling up. This was getting ridiculous. The man opened up a miniature fridge set into the front of the counter, quickly pulled out a box of ice, finally deciding just to go half-and-half and take his chances, when he saw it. In a small carton, nearly hidden at the back of the fridge, there was the colorful label that adorned undiluted Ipapa juice. He pulled that out too. Whatever. They were both sour, no one except the Pokemon would notice a difference, and he couldn't complain about it.
This was, as anyone on the mainland would know, not quite correct. Sitrus, while sour, is moderated out with several other flavors which prevent it from becoming too overpowering. It's often used as a base for healing items such as Potions, or simply eaten on its own. Ipapa, while sharing some of these characteristics, is a good deal stronger, and can, in strong doses under specific circumstances, act as an extremely potent hallucinogenic agent. These circumstances are more-or-less determined by genetics, with people from the southern end of Hoenn, namely the towns of Petalburg, Oldale, and Littleroot, being extremely susceptible to it. Three guesses as to exactly where Kate came from.
Our barman, being blissfully unaware of this interesting bit of trivia, fixed the drinks and briskly tapped a little, hotel-style bell to signal that the round was up. Various people walked up to claim their beverages, and Kate spun unnecessarily flashily around in her swiveling chair to take hers, before turning back around to continue listening to a story one of the girls was relating, something about a Shiny Mightyena. Triki too, took his drink and stared moodily at a corner, occasionally taking, little, delicate sips, like this was a glass of tea. It tasted okay to him, but an ominous feeling was starting to chew around his gut and it wouldn't go away, no matter how much he tried to ignore it.
In sharp contrast, as the case often seemed to be, his Trainer was still having a great time, tiredness momentarily forgotten. She grinned like an idiot and continued to listen, asking questions, making comments and generally just being social for once. Who would've guessed?
In fact, she was in such a genial mood that, upon the story's conclusion, she raised her glass and proposed a toast, a wicked grin on her face.
"To how freakin' hard Shinys are to catch!"
Glasses clinked loudly as everyone repeated the toast and drank, Kate taking hers and swilling down the entire thing. That wasn't exactly an achievement, mind you, as the glass in and of itself was only a bit bigger than a shot glass. She then placed it back down on the table, flushing slightly with embarrassment. Someone playfully punched her on the arm, and she grinned back, immediately launching into some random story, Triki just barely catching the words 'frying pan', 'ninjas' and 'stupid Torchics' spaced in every interval. He rolled his yellow eyes and idly kicked out at the counter, setting his stool spinning slowly. Being down here was really starting to try his patience.
After stopping the spinning with one hooked foot and placing his empty glass on the bar to be collected, Triki calmly alighted from his perch and made towards the stairs, catching his Trainer's (And everyone else's) eye as he did so. She understood, and nodded quickly, bobbing her head like a stork. With that, Triki swept elegantly out of the room, everyone watching. Whatever. Kate could take care of herself for five minutes, and it would probably do her more good in the morning if he was well-rested and ready for whatever torture, ahem, sorry training that she would contrive for them.
Walking out, he again felt that tiny prick of foreboding, a sixth sense if you will, that he really shouldn't be doing this. After a second of consideration though, he decided to ignore it and continue on his way. It was probably just that cocktail he had drunk. Ipapa, he finally deduced that it was, had never really agreed with him anyways.
After making his way upstairs, Triki curled up on one of the unused, too-small beds, drifting off to sleep instantly beside the snoring Brendan. Apparently, both of them were extremely tired. This was proven when Triki only twitched slightly at the sound of a painfully loud crash from directly beneath them, with Brendan completely ignoring several shrill screams and panicked yells of "Oh God, it's happened again!" and one, furious-sounding "WHERE THE F*CK ARE MY CHEETOS!" from the same vicinity. The sounds of a fistfight rang through the night air, and several ominous explosions rocked the building before a throughly stoned-looking and heavily-bleeding Kate pelted out the front doors of the center, smacking into the walls once or twice before finally succeeding in leaving the building... only to fall flat into the water outside.
For several hours, all was quiet. Triki and Brendan slept on peacefully, until...
"Guys.. Wake up. We need to leave, now." Brendan blearily half-opened his eyes, to find that the world was still dark out, upon which he tried to close his eyes. He was, however, interrupted before he could do this.
Kate, her now-bloodsoaked bandanna tied around a gash in her arm, crouched beside his bed. She was dripping like a wet dog onto the cheap carpet, there were cuts and bruises all along her body, and she had a slightly glazed, maniacal look in her eyes. Brendan, deciding that this time he just didn't want to know, buried his face back into his pillow, muttering as he did.
"We're not training right now. Go back to bed already." The enunciation was somewhat muffled by a layer of Pidgey feathers and cotton, but the meaning was still clear.
"No!" Kate hissed desperately, grabbing Brendan and pulling him up into a sitting position, forcing him to awaken fully. "We need to leave, NOW. Before anyone else wakes up and sees us."
Jerked into the waking world, Brendan suddenly became acutely aware of his partner's panicked appearance. He stared at her for a second, anger turning into disbelief turning into tiredness. He could already feel his hair turning grey.
"Do I want to know what's happened right now?" His voice cracked in the middle. Only Kate would be able to have something like this happen in a city just over a hundred people living in it.
"No." She said, quickly turning to wake Triki. As he pulled on a coat over his pyjamas, he could vaguely hear her babbling on about something, as if from a great distance.
"I left money for the room on the dresser, and we're leaving through the window. The currents should carry us right back to Slateport, so Fen won't have to do any hard swimming..." She kept talking, cursing to herself and apologizing to Brendan. He tuned most of that out, though. Instead, as they climbed though the carefully removed windowpane, and moved silently through the docks of Pacifidlog, he tried to take in as much of the sight as possible. Depending on exactly what his partner had done, there was a good chance that he was never going to be allowed to come here again.
Later, during Kate's odd disappearance on Mt. Coronet, thinking back to the event, he realized that he'd never actually been given the whole story as to what exactly had happened that evening. Kate had an odd habit of starting training fights or going mysteriously deaf whenever it was mentioned, and eventually, Brendan just let it go, referring to it only as:
'The Pacifidlog Incident'
Good? Bad? Complete and utter crack? There's a little button below you that lets you tell me what you think. Please use it! Bonus points and a Sceptile plushie for anyone who cares to have a crack at describing what, exactly was going on downstairs while certain Trainers and Grass-Type starters were sleeping!