You Win Some, You Lose Some
Rating: T, mostly for language, and for once I don't actually expect it to go up, but you never know.
Genre: Humor, Adventure, Romance, Friendship
Pairings: Original character pairings, Jasmine/Volkner, Morty/Sabrina.
Summery: Salem, a ghost type-crazed psychic, and Electra, Volkner's tomboy little sister, travel to the Johto league, looking for a journey full of fun and friends. They didn't expect to play mentors to Cherry, an airheaded 'cute-pokemon' fangirl and Aspen, a brooding, overly serious new trainer, but what's a journey without some surprises and a few hijinks?
Notes: And here we have a pokemon fic I've had in the works for a while. It's a mix of anime-verse and game-verse, though mostly the game-verse, in terms of characters and world. The battle set up is closer to the Anime-verse though, since I've always thought it was stupid that pokemon 'forget' attacks in the game. (If Slowking are so smart, supposedly as smart as humans, how come they still forget moves? It's a riddle for the ages...) This story has been plotted pretty far ahead, so mostly it's a matter of sitting down and writing the thing but my track record on updates is pretty terrible, so...eh. Cross your fingers. I'm trying to write much shorter chapters than I usually do. As in like half of the size. So hopefully that will help with update speed.
You Win Some, You Lose Some
by Noir Grimoir
Chapter One:
In Which There Is a Rescue. (Sort of, Not Really.)
[Morning, Route 29, just outside Newbark Town]
Salem had to wonder why every Pokemon Professor liked to set up their labs in nothing-towns out in the middle of nowhere. And not even interesting sorts of nowhere, like next to a volcano or in a rainforest. No, they seemed to like underpopulated villages surrounded by scenery that could only be described as so average and forgettable that they must have gone out of their way to even find such a place.
Additionally, the local fauna were equally as average and forgettable. Wandering around outside of Newbark Town while he waited for Electra to finish her phone call to her brother, Salem had only managed to see more Sentret than he had energy to count, a few low-level birds that looked like Johto's Starly equivalents, and some purple rats that seemed equally as generic. He knew that he'd promised Electra that he wouldn't do anything without her, but he'd have snuck some training in anyway if the Pokedex he'd received from Professor Elm hadn't named all the pokemon species to be normal types, not to mention so weak it would have been a pointless endeavor. As a ghost-type exclusive trainer, battling normal-types was a tricky affair.
Thankfully for his sanity, he was saved from a morning of complete boredom by a sudden scream. It was quite shrill and girly, and hearing it simultaneously annoyed and enlivened him into action. As a male, he had to be ready to leap to a female's rescue at any moment—it was biologically engrained into his Y chromosome whether he liked it or not—so that was what he did.
Darting off the road leading away from Newbark Town, Salem vaulted over a line of bushes, his sudden appearance sending a flock of frantic Pidgey airborne. Tall grass whipped around him as he ducked under some tree branches, leaving the path further behind him. Hearing another scream increased his pace until he finally burst into a clearing. According to his instincts, he was right where he needed to be to perform some heroics.
His sharp eyes analyzed the scene and...were incredibly disappointed.
A vein in his forehead twitched. "The hell are you doing?" he demanded of the damsel.
"Help!" the girl shouted. She looked a couple of years younger than him, her huge eyes wide and frightened. Her back was pressed against a tree as she shrank away, terrified of a Heracross curiously inching closer to her, it's head tilted in friendly fascination. When the beetle pokemon quirked it's head in the other direction, the girl wailed, throwing her arms up as if to protect herself. "Keep it away from me!" she shrieked.
He frowned. Hmm, perhaps 'damsel' wasn't the right word.
"But it's just standing there, it's not even threatening y—" Salem winced as the girl screamed again and made as if to somehow climb the tree with her eyes closed and still facing forward. Which would have been doubly interesting, as she was wearing a skirt.
The pokemon looked over at him innocently, saying, "Heracross~?" What am I doing wrong? Salem just shrugged in response to the pokemon's confusion, feeling embarrassed on the girl's behalf. The Heracross was just being amiable and here she was acting as if it had an infectious skin-eating disease.
The girl hastily felt around on her belt, producing a pokeball which she threw without looking and nearly pelted the horned-beetle in the face. "Save me!" she pleaded, possibly to whatever pokemon was housed within the ball.
Salem wasn't sure whether to feel disdain or sympathy. Actually, no, he just felt disdain.
The pokeball bounced off the ground, opening and emitting a red laser which materialized into a tough-looking Cubone.
"Cuuu~!" the pokemon said, slapping one end of it's bone club into the palm of it's claw.
The ground type cast a take-no-shit glare upon the scene, inspecting its surroundings for potential enemies. Noticing the girl, who screamed and stabbed an accusatory finger at her insect harasser, the Cubone immediately face-faulted into the same kind of that-better-not-be-what-you're-screaming-about expression that Salem had worn upon entering the clearing.
"Bones! Help me!" the girl commanded her pokemon, flapping her arms like a moron.
Bones promptly yawned and turned to laze against a nearby rock. And just to push home the fact that he really didn't give a shit, the Cubone began casually tossing it's bone club in the air and catching it with one claw without looking, just to fill the time as he thoroughly ignored his trainer.
The girl screamed again, louder.
Okay, Salem was just about at his limit on high-pitched, girlish screeching. He either needed to gag this kid or get the Heracross away from her, and since gagging felt too creepy-serial-killer, he'd have to go with the second option.
Salem looked at the Heracross. "I don't suppose you'd back off willingly, would you?" he asked it.
"Hera~!" Make me! the pokemon responded indignantly, taking an aggressive step towards him.
What a change of tune. The pokemon didn't seem to have any intention of leaving the girl alone until she passed out from lack of oxygen due to excessive screaming. Huh, maybe the Heracross wasn't all that innocent in this situation, after all?
Salem shrugged. Alright, it looked like he was about to have his first battle in the Johto region, and despite the circumstances he was excited.
Taking the only pokeball from his belt, he tossed it. "Come on out, Charisma!"
The ball arched through the air to land right next to the Heracross. The insect pokemon, sensing a challenger, jumped back and took a ready stance, a serious expression on its face as it waited for its foe to materialize. Meanwhile the girl continued to scream, though the Heracross was now completely ignoring her.
"Litwick~!" Salem's newly released pokemon declared, immediately in the game and ready for action. Spying the Heracross, the little candle pokemon's blue ghost flame flickered energetically and Charisma yelled, "Lit~!" calling out the other pokemon boldly despite the Heracross being over twice her size and almost twice her level.
It wasn't a perfect strategical match up, Salem knew, but he had faith in the little pokemon. Charisma was sired by two of his most treasured and loyal companions: the Lampent he'd caught and raised in Unova two years ago, and the Dusknoir he'd had since it was a Duskull, caught on his first journey in his homeland of Sinnoh. When choosing a young pokemon to take with him to Johto as his starter, there could be no other. Though their bond was strong, she was still inexperienced, which put her at a disadvantage with the larger and stronger Heracross. Luckily Ghost-types were resistant to Bug-type attacks and immune to any fighting ones, and Charisma's fire attacks would have the advantage. Either way, she was the only pokemon he had on him so far, and this would be good battling experience for her.
"Alright, Charisma, its our first battle in Johto, you ready?" he asked his Litwick.
"Lit~," she said with a determined nod.
Salem grinned as he called out, "Let's power up with Calm Mind!"
"Litwick~!" His pokemon complied by taking a deep breath, closing it's eyes and focusing until a bright aura expanded from her flame and the pokemon shone with power as her special attack and special defense rose.
The Heracross just watched the whole affair interestedly without attacking, instead shouting "Cross~!" and buckling down with Endure, ready for whatever the Litwick had in store. It was probably testing its opponent's strength, Salem suspected.
Once Charisma was powered up, Salem called out, "Alright, now lets get things started with a Smog and Astonish combo!"
"Lit~!" Charisma's blue flame flickered before a cloud of dark smoke fumed from it's tip and engulfed the Heracross in a foul miasma.
The enemy pokemon coughed and closed it's eyes against the poisonous vapors, unable to pay attention to its surroundings even if the bug could have seen them. Finally the Heracross unfurled its delicate wings, rapidly flapping them to disperse the smog before it could be affected by the gases.
"Cross~?" the bug pokemon said once it could see again. It's opponent was mysteriously absent from his view.
Suddenly the Heracross leaped back in fright as Salem's Litwick appeared as if from nowhere, pulling down her lower lids and sticking out her tongue in a face that was supposed to be scary but was mostly just cute. Whatever, it did it's job in startling the bejeezus out of the beetle pokemon.
"Good job, Charisma!" Salem said to his pokemon. "Let's keep up the pace!"
The Heracross recovered quickly. "Hera~cross~!" the pokemon shouted, annoyed, and then began to build up a glowing attack in one claw.
Salem grimaced. "Oh, shit." This was bad. Night Slash was a Dark-type move, and Ghosts-types were weak to Dark-type attacks. Not only that, but Litwick were not fast pokemon, dodging it was an impossibility. Salem felt like banging his head against a rock for being so dumb as to forget Heracross learned that move. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
"Confuse Ray, Charisma, quick!" he commanded and his pokemon was right with him.
"Wick~!" she affirmed.
The Heracross adopted a focused gaze, it's claw now shining with a dark, eerie light. As the ghost pokemon's flame flickered and split off into a bright orb, hurtling towards her attacker, the beetle continued it's stampede, raising it's claw to perform the Night Slash. The candle pokemon reacted like a seasoned battler, not even flinching as the huge beetle rushed to attack, hitting the Confuse Ray head on. The Heracross immediately went cross-eyed and stumbled in it's charge, sliding along the ground and kicking up gravel and weeds, justmissing the little ghost.
Salem sighed in relief. Was it silly to say his heart was beating out of his chest with nerves? Ugh, he felt like a parent taking their kid to their first day of kindergarten. Only, you know, the parent didn't usually expect the kids there to be twice their child's size and out to knock them unconscious. Or hopefully they didn't. That would sure be a scary kindergarten...
Only an instant later, the Heracross stood up from the ground, shaking it's head clear of the confusion.
"That was a close one there, Charisma, great job," Salem encouraged his pokemon, though he found the Heracross's recovery speed from the Confuse Ray to be incredibly unfair. "Now, before it turns around, give it an Ember attack!"
"Lit~wick~!" Charisma's little flame blazed up and spurted burning embers in all directions. The Heracross threw up it's arms to ward them off but was still badly burned.
"Cross~!" the Heracross shouted angrily. Beating its wings so fast they thrummed, it flew into the air. One moment it was hovering above the clearing, the next it dove on the Litwick from the sky, swooping in fast for an Aerial Ace.
Lightning quick, Salem considered the situation. As a flying-type move, Aerial Ace wasn't especially effective against his pokemon, but her low level meant every bit of fatigue or injury was crucial to avoid. She couldn't withstand this kind of brutal attack for long, even if she wasn't weak to it. "Another Ember attack, Charisma, try and keep it away from you!" he ordered.
Charisma complied, shaking glowing sparks into the air, but the Heracross continued it's line of attack, ignoring the embers wafting around the ghost in a protective haze. Embers flew up into the beetle's face, clearly doing damage, but it didn't slow down in the least.
"Wick..." his pokemon murmured nervously, her confidence beginning to wane.
"Charisma, quick, get out of the way!" Salem yelled frantically, but he knew she wouldn't be able to.
A cloud of dust kicked up from the attacking pokemon's velocity as it hurtled through the air, just above the ground. The Litwick made a desperate leap to the side as the Heracross sped towards her like a jet, but it wasn't enough to throw her clear completely. The Heracross winged the candle pokemon on the arm, throwing her across the clearing with it's formidable horn.
"Wi~ick~!" she cried out nursing her injuries and the bug looped up in it's swoop, away from her.
"Charisma!" Salem leaped to his pokemon's side immediately, for an instant fearing the worst. He was beginning to regret his decision to have her battle an obviously stronger opponent. "Are you okay?"
Charisma nodded but her face was tense as she gave the affirmative. Tears had filled the little pokemon's eyes from the pain of her injury but her expression became more determined than ever. She was hurting but it would take more than this to keep her out of the fight. His call for her to return died before it left his lips. There was no way he could stop her from finishing this battle.
Salem sighed. Okay, they could still do this.
"Cross~cross~!" the Heracross angrily taunted from the air.
If it thought it was safe up there, it was wrong. "Charisma, let's finish this. Give it a taste of your Fire Spin!" Salem commanded.
"Lit~!" she said and her ghost-flame flared up as she took a breath like an opening bellows and blew bright orange fire at the Heracrcoss. The opponent cried out from it's burns and flew higher in an attempt to get away from the whirlwind of fire. It dove and looped through the air, trying to escape, but Charisma sent her flames after it, not letting it get away until finally her breath ran out and she had to stop her fiery onslaught.
If the bug pokemon wasn't pissed before, it definitely was now. Salem could tell by the way it was stringing curses together in pokemon-speech and making some pretty vulgar suggestions that Salem could honestly say had never been said to him by a pokemon before. People, sure, but not pokemon.
"This thing really doesn't know when to give up, does it?" he said and Charisma gave a "Lit~!" of agreement.
"Cross~!" the insect called in frustration and flung out it's claw, preparing another Night Slash.
Damn, this was a pretty smart bug. It had known not to use any of it's normal or fighting-type attacks without even having to try them. Whatever else it was, the pokemon seemed to be an experienced battler. Salem bit his lip as he rapidly considered their options, though there really weren't any good ones. One hit from that attack and it would be all over for his brave little Litwick.
He commanded, "Charisma, it's trying to use Night Slash again, trap it with another Fire Spin!"
The candle pokemon gave a, "Lit~!" of understanding and as the Heracross began it's descent from the air to slash her, the ghost pokemon puffed up it's chest before releasing another bright ribbon of flames in the bug's direction.
But the Heracross was ready, and used it's speed to dodge the wreath of fire, coming at the other pokemon from the side. Salem yelled for Charisma to dodge, but it was clear the little ghost wouldn't have enough time. Instantly he felt horrible guilt. Salem should have known better than to bring the new pokemon out to battle a much stronger opponent, and Charisma was going to get badly hurt because of his miscalculation.
"Cuu~bone~!"
Salem frowned. Huh?
The screaming girl's Cubone, Bones, had suddenly appeared in front of the flinching Charisma, it's orange claw held out to casually block the bug pokemon's attack with ease.
The Heracross leaped back to glare down the skull-wearing pokemon, who was eying the beetle with haughty contempt.
"Bone~!" the Cubone accused it's opponent, who spat out, "Heracross~!" back.
Pointing it's bone club at the bug pokemon menacingly, Bones delivered a litany of 'Cubone~!'s that amounted to the promise of a beat-down with the club should the Heracross make a move.
"You do realize that Heracross is resistant to ground attacks, right?" Salem interjected between the battling pokemon's verbal argument.
Bones stabbed his club at the meddling trainer and angrily spat, "Bone~!" Shut up!
"Geez, fine," Salem grumbled and rolled his eyes. Apparently his assistance was unwanted. Not that the pokemon seemed to need it by the way it was handling the Heracross, but hey, he was a trainer—giving advice from the sidelines was kind of his job description.
The Heracross huffed, smoke practically coming out of it's ears as it rushed in with a glowing Horn Attack. The Cubone leveled it's club, aimed, and threw.
The bone zoomed end over end, pinwheeling directly into the bug pokemon, striking it with precision force directly in the center of it's forehead. The Heracross's eyes rolled up in their sockets and the pokemon fell from the air in a dead faint. The bone club swung back and Bones deftly caught it without even looking.
"Bone~!" he said with a definitive nod. And stay down!
Salem started an obnoxious slow clap that his Litwick joined a moment later.
"Cuu~bone~!" the Cubone whipped around to snap at the trainer, making a threatening move with his club.
Salem shrugged. "Hey, you expect me to be impressed? Charisma wore it down for you." Not that Salem wasn't grateful that the pokemon had stepped in when he did, but he wasn't digging the attitude.
"Lit~!" Charisma agreed with a nod, albeit it a bit more diplomatically, before wincing and holding her battered arm against her.
The Cubone stuck it's nose in the air. "Buh-bone~!" See if I ever help you again.
Salem ignored the grouchy pokemon and tended to his own. Walking over to kneel down next to his trooper and look her over, he found that the injury wasn't pretty but nothing that urgently needed a pokemon center. Some healing items and a good rest in her ball should do the trick.
"Oh man, I'm sorry Charisma. I'll give it a good spray of potion," he told her, rummaging in his satchel for the item. The ghost pokemon gave a, "Lit~!" that was possibly more pitiful than the wound warranted, and held out her arm for medication and sympathy.
"That was amazing!" Salem heard and looked up from his pokemon to see the girl he'd just...er, saved? She hadn't really been in any danger from that Heracross...and her Cubone ended up finishing it off so...eh, whatever, he wouldn't think too hard about it. A victory was a victory, after all.
Now that she wasn't making his ears bleed with gratuitous screaming, Salem took the time to examine her properly.
The girl was just a kid, thirteen or fourteen, with wild, strawberry-colored shoulder-length hair and the biggest, most naive pink eyes he'd ever seen. To be perfectly frank, she looked like an air-headed ditz, which meant there was either a complete genius hiding under the facade or she was exactly what she seemed. Salem wasn't one to judge (much), but the way she'd handled that Heracross lead him to suspect the latter. While she might just be completely phobic of Heracross, experience meeting a lot of different trainers told him that she knew jack-shit about pokemon, despite how well her Cubone performed. The girl was also wearing a skirt over calf-length black leggings and sandals, and while some girls were silly enough to go on pokemon journeys wearing skirts, most were at least smart enough to wear comfortable shoes. On that note, he was guessing this girl was a new trainer. If she'd been doing this very long she'd have purchased some new footwear by now.
"Yeah, Charisma did really well," he answered her, mostly for his pokemon's benefit. He gave Charisma's arm a good misting with the potion spray and the pokemon blew on it to ease the burning sensation as it healed her wounds.
"I wish I could battle like that," the girl said forlornly, looking down at her feet. Tears started pooling in the corners of her eyes and she sniffled. "Everyone thinks I'm dumb, that I can't do anything right, but I really want to be a trainer. I want to show everyone I can be strong, too!"
Salem's eyes widened in panic. Whoa, hold up. He had not signed on for this.
"No, uh...I'm sure you can be," he stuttered hastily, scratching his head. "I mean, look at your Cubone, he's pretty tough."
Bones said, "Cuu~!" and puffed out his chest.
The girl sniffled again. "He's—sniffle—not mine, he's my big sister's," she gurgled and then burst into full-fledged sobs.
Salem winced. Well, shit.
"Litwick~!" Charisma looked up at him and gave her trainer a glare of disapproval as if this were all his fault. Which it totally wasn't, but at least his pokemon was feeling better if it could make the effort to scold him.
"Well, uh..." Salem trailed off, trying to think of something to say. "Well, what's your name?" was the best he could come up with.
"Sniffle—it's Cherry—sniffle," the girl replied, rubbing at her eyes, still leaking tears.
Okay, they were making progress. Maybe. "So, uh, Cherry," Salem began, "I'm guessing you're a new trainer."
She nodded from behind her hands and answered with a watery sound that might have been a 'yes'. Salem sighed in relief. He had the perfect speech ready to plug up those waterworks.
"Hey, it takes time and experience to be a good battler," he explained to Cherry with a comforting hand on her shoulder, using the same voice he adopted to console the new junior trainers that were afraid they couldn't hack it, back when he was one himself in Hearthome City under Fantina. "You can't expect to be an expert at it on your first try. So don't worry about. I'm sure you'll catch on to it in no time."
Cherry perked up from behind her hands, giving him puffy but hope-filled eyes. "You—sniffle—really think so?" she asked him.
"Yeah, definitely," Salem assured her with a smile and an encouraging thumbs up.'No time' might have been an overstatement in Cherry's case, but he wanted her to stop crying. Lying was not beneath his dignity.
From next to Cherry, her sister's Cubone rolled it's eyes and spat, "Bone~!" It was definitely not a sound of agreement, but the girl seemed to take it that way. She gave a last sob and wiped her eyes, looking much happier. Since this was really all Salem cared about he didn't bother pointing out that her sister's Cubone thought she was an idiot.
"Thanks," she said with a bright smile, then held out her hand. "I'm Cherry." (Yeah, you said that already...)."I live in Newbark Town," she added as if this was supposed to matter to him.
Salem's lip twitched as he fought to hold his smile, which wanted to melt into a frown of exasperation. "I'm Salem, from Sunyshore, in Sinnoh," he told her, taking her offered hand. He tried to shake it properly but she wasn't helping at all, it just sat in his hand limp like a dead fish. Ugh.
At the word 'Sinnoh', Cherry gasped, her eyes glittering. "Ahh! They have Pachirisu in Sinnoh!" she squealed. "They are so cute. I really want one!"
A vein in Salem's forehead twitched. Oh God, not a 'cute pokemon' fan. He really hated that kind of superficial trainer.
She gasped again, and put her hands together excitedly. "Oh my goodness, you don't actually have one do you?!" she demanded to know. Her normally big eyes were now approximately the size of saucers. Big, sparkly, frightening saucers.
He was going to have to disappoint her, but at this point he wasn't sure if that was safe. "No, I'm a ghost-type specialist," Salem informed her, leaning away from the crazed pokemon fangirl like she had rabies. He was almost a head taller than her but that apparently wasn't enough to deter her from getting in his face on tip-toe.
Cherry sat back on her heels. "Oh," she said disappointingly. "Ghost pokemon aren't very cute."
Salem's polite smile abruptly snapped into a scowl. Oh, she did not just insult Ghost-type pokemon in front of him.
"Take that back!" he demanded vehemently. Scooping up the confused Charisma, he held her in front of him. "Ghost pokemon are extremely cute! Just look at Charisma, here!"
"Lit~!" Charisma agreed, preening.
"See? Fucking adorable as hell!"
Cherry blinked at the little ghost curiously. "I've never seen that type of pokemon before," she said and it didn't surprise him in the least. Hell, she'd probably never watched anything even remotely educational about pokemon on TV in her life, much less picked up a book on the subject. Probably wasting her time watching The Real Housewives of Celadon City or some useless shit like that.
She swung a heart-shaped mini backpack off her shoulder, stuck her hand inside, and pulled out a pokedex. Awkwardly pointing it like someone who wasn't used to using one and thought it was some super-complicated piece of equipment (which it wasn't), she pressed the scan button. A little light flashed and the top flipped open showing a picture of a Litwick on the screen.
"Litwick, the Candle Pokemon," Dexter said in a mechanical voice. "It shines a light that absorbs the life energy of people and Pokémon, which becomes the fuel that it burns."
Cherry's eyes widened in fright, eying the innocent little ghost pokemon's blue-purple flame. "Lit~! Lit~wick~!" Charisma said amiably. She liked making friends, even with air-headed ditzes, a behavior which he didn't really understand but until now hadn't minded.
"She's a soul burning machine," Salem told Cherry gravely. More because it was hilarious than because it was true. It wasn't as if Charisma was going to leach out the girl's energy right that moment.
"Um, oh," Cherry whispered timidly and slowly backed away. Charisma wilted, crying, "Wick~?" sadly at the rejection.
Salem rolled his eyes. "I'm kidding, she's harmless." Well, unless you pissed her off, but since Charisma loved everyone that was actually pretty difficult.
He hugged his Litwick, both to cheer her up and because he was just that insanely in love with Ghost-type pokemon. "Wiiick~!" Charisma said happily and rubbed his face with hers. So cute! Who the hell said Ghost pokemon were anything but completely adorable? Salem ought to drop kick this chick into a whole colony of hellaciously affectionate Heracross.
"Buh-bone~! Cuu~bone~! Bone~!" Bones complained. He didn't like anything remotely mushy. He also didn't like stupid humans wasting his time. Salem vaguely wondered if the pokemon actually had anything better to do.
"But anyways," Salem said, "what are you doing out here in the middle of the woods with your older sister's Cubone?"
Cherry looked down, ashamed at her incompetence. "She let me borrow him to catch a Sentret to be my starter pokemon," she said and held up a few unused pokeballs as proof.
He raised an eyebrow. "A Sentret? Really? That's the pokemon you want as a starter?" The thing about starter pokemon was that you could either supply your own or go through the starter program, in which case you got to choose from three pokemon which were different from league to league. It was a pretty good deal if you didn't have access to any pokemon that you liked better. The pokemon were rare and pretty powerful, not like a stupid Sentret (not that Sentret were stupid, they were just mediocre and abundant and not ghost type, so he wasn't interested). The hell kind of brain damage did this chick have?
Oblivious to his disapproval, Cherry nodded and clapped her hands together with a grin as she squealed. "They are so cute!"
Salem face-faulted. Oh, of course.
"Right...," Salem trailed off skeptically. He didn't think they were all that cute, but then there were a million of the things running around here. He suspected that they were probably considered nuisances by most people. And really, a Sentret? It was almost sad.
Cherry sighed and gave a sniffle as new tears sprouted in her eyes. "I guess it's just as well the Heracross showed up. I don't really know what I'm doing—sniff."
Oh hell no. There wouldn't be anymore waterworks if Salem had anything to say about it. It was annoying and unfair!
"Well that's easy enough to fix," Salem told her quickly. "I saw about twenty of those damn things scampering around back along the path that way. Grab Bones and I'll help you."
Cherry looked up, excited. "Really? You'd do that?"
"Sure, now let's go," he said, recalled his pokemon and grabbed Cherry by the wrist to drag her back towards the road before she thought up something else to cry about.
[Meanwhile, back on the outskirts of Newbark Town...]
Electra was pretty damn pissed. Salem had very specifically told her he'd be waiting just outside of the small town after she finished her phone call with her brother. Now her call was over, and she was waiting, right outside of town, just as they'd agreed, and he was nowhere to be seen!
"So typical...," she complained to herself. Knowing him, Salem probably thought he'd seen something that could, maybe, possibly, almost-have-been a ghost pokemon and taken off after it or something. She swore when it came to anything other than ghost types the guy's attention span was nonexistent these days.
The trainer paced in a circle, hoping her friend would magically pop up from behind a bush somehow. When nothing of the kind occurred she wasn't especially surprised but she was even more annoyed.
Electra stomped her foot angrily. Ugh! Some best friend he was, ditching her like this. This was supposed to be their adventure, together. Not another replay of 'See you, Electra, while I go off and have fun without you in Unova!'
She sighed, contemplating the ground that was so very lacking in Salem right now.
Electra remembered how lonely she'd felt the last few years. Sunyshore was a big city, but it had somehow seemed like there weren't a lot of kids around her age. Or at least none that understood her. She was a tomboy, electric-pokemon crazed and idolizing her big brother, Volkner, the Elite trainer and Gym leader, as well his best friend, Elite Four member Flint.
They were so cool, and she was just the tag-along kid who couldn't seem to fit in anywhere at the local elementary school. She didn't like playing dolls with the prissy girls and most of the boys didn't want a girl around while they banged Blastoise figures together and jumped in the mud. She was too hyperactive to sit down and read or doodle or any of those things with the quiet kids and she was too social to stick it out as a loner. Everyone else seemed to think she was stuck up because her brother was a Gym Leader. Kids could be cruel, not that they knew any better.
Enter Salem. He'd been two years older than her, which by default meant he should have been too cool to even look down his nose at someone her age, but for some reason he wasn't. It had made her really happy, that one day during recess, when he plopped in front of her and unilaterally decided that they were going to play-act as pokemon. She didn't even know him, but it didn't really matter because she was totally down with that idea. He could have been a Grimer and she'd have still leaped for it.
That day they ran around like idiots—her playing an arm-flapping Zapdos, him a bow-legged Alakazam. When he walked her home from school that afternoon, she was a not-very-scary-looking Electabuzz and he'd taken to saying "Hypno! Hypno!" while pretending to swing a pendulum. The rest was history.
She didn't know till later that he was 'The Weird Kid', not exactly a social outcast but enough of an oddball not to be paired off with any particular group of people. Most everyone liked him well enough, but no one was really very close. He was a psychic, like Saffron City's Sabrina, or Ecruteak's Morty, but listening to him you'd think it was nothing special. It was just a random skill he had, like being able to lick your elbow or burp the alphabet. It was just useful for him, since he wanted to be a pokemon trainer and being a little telepathic really helped in raising some pokemon, like Psychic and Ghost types. The whole Ghost-mania thing came later.
They'd been two peas in a pod ever since. Always at one-another's houses, they had each others' backs when the school bully came around, (Salem screamed like a girl while she kicked the kid in the shins, it was a real double-team). They supported each other in their dreams of pokemon fame, argued over the superiority of Electric vs. Ghost types (Electric were still the best, of course), and got told off by her brother for reeking havoc in his gym when he was trying to renovate it. Good times.
But then he just had to mess everything up by leaving! Fourteen, and he went and challenged the Sinnoh league without her, while she sat around in boring old Sunyshore, minus one best friend, trying to convince her father and older brother that she was old enough to be a trainer and travel the world, (apparently there was a downside to being "Daddy's baby girl."). Ten-year-olds got to go on pokemon journeys alone and she was twelve, plenty old enough, but try telling them that! Her dad, the former sea captain and current Port Commissioner, just frowned every time she brought it up and Volkner flat-out forbade her, (as if he had a right to tell her what to do!)
Meanwhile, Salem worked his way up the gym roster, gallivanting around with some people she didn't even know! Salem was going to forget about her, she just knew it. He'd be a great trainer, have all kinds of friends and cool pokemon and get famous and she'd be left with nothing. Even his visit to Sunyshore to challenge her brother (while using certified gym-level pokemon, it wasn't as if Salem could win against her brother if Volkner went all out) didn't reassure her. It really hit home that he was older than her and she didn't really have any business associating with him, she should be with kids her own age. It was just that none of the kids her age were Salem.
She watched his battles at the Sinnoh Conference, cheered for him, been really proud when he managed to place in the Top 16, but it wasn't the same as being there. She wanted to battle too, it just wasn't fair!
Another year, another league for Salem and another round of begging and pleading and crying and whining for her brother and father to let her be a trainer. Electra pulled out all the stops, she brought her mom in to work on her father (Mom was good for things like that), and got her brother's best friend Flint and his younger brother Buck in on the scheme. She even worked pranks she'd sworn to never pull again on pain of grounding for eternity, in protest of the inhumane treatment. It was a long, harsh battle, but eventually she got her way. Her father relented and her brother was made to deal with the decision. By the time the Unova Conference special played on the TV she was bouncing off the walls, fantasizing about her own journey.
Salem placed in the Top 16 again, representing Sunyshore well and promising to spend a year at home. Electra already had a vague idea that, even though he'd already done the Sinnoh league, he'd still travel with her somehow, but that ended up being a naive dream. Until this point Salem had used mixed pokemon teams that tended towards psychic, ghost and dark-types with the occasional oddball for good measure. He'd always praised ghost-types as his favorite but until he'd gotten back from Unova, being a specialist hadn't seemed to be on his radar. But not his first day back and his mind was made up. Electra started her journey, traveling with a group of kids she'd met at Professor Rowan's and Salem had been accepted as a junior trainer under Fantina, the Ghost gym leader in Hearthome, studying and taking care of Ghost-type pokemon.
It had been fun. She'd learned a lot, but it just wasn't the same. Something still wasn't right.
After the Sinnoh conference was over, she'd taken the early bus to Hearthome City, marched into the gym passed Fantina, who was practicing for a pokemon contest, ignored the, "Hey, Electra," from Daver, one of the other junior trainers for the gym, and kicked down the dormitory door like it was made of graham cracker.
"Salem Murkins! Get your ass out here!" she'd demanded, hands on her hips and determination in her eyes.
"Nuwah?" he mumbled wincing from the light before trying to burrow further beneath his covers. He was half asleep, still in his bunk at ten in the morning. Floating next to him above the bed, curled up in a sleeping position, his Gengar protested at the sudden intrusion.
"Gengar~Gengar~!" the pokemon complained. Electra had just woken him up apparently. She'd always considered the Gengar to be a bit sarcastic and snappish, even without Salem's occasional translations, and Electra suspected the ghost pokemon was cursing at her with the foulest language it knew. She wasn't psychic though, so she couldn't know for sure.
"Sorry, Fog," she apologized, but the Gengar didn't look like it had forgiven her. Whatever, she'd make it up to him later.
Salem sat up slowly in his bed and rubbed his face as Electra stalked into the room and glared down at her best friend, considering punching him in the shoulder just to wake him up faster.
"Hm? 'Lectra? Whatcha doin' here?" Salem said, blinking his eyes at her sleepily, speech slurred almost beyond comprehension.
"You are coming with me to the Johto league, whether you like it or not," she announced, tone leaving no room for argument, not that he was conscious enough to even know that he might want to argue.
Salem frowned and made a face. "The Johto-what?"
Electra rolled her eyes. "The Johto league? You know, one of those pokemon gym leagues neither of us has been to yet?"
Her friend made a face right back. "Yeah, I know what it is, I'm just confused..."
"Gar~! Gengar~!"Fog complained, hovering in the air on his side, propping his head up with a claw, and watching the conversation with a look of irritated boredom.
"Hey, shut up," Salem told his pokemon, wearing an alarmed expression. Electra didn't even want to know what he'd said.
Used to it, Electra ignored the bad-tempered ghoul and continued talking to Salem. "What's there to be confused about? We're going, you and me. Together."
"Well, for starters, what are you doing in my room?" he asked, then added, "Wait, we are still in Hearthome City, right? I've never really had a problem with teleporting in my sleep. Mostly because I suck at teleporting."
Electra considered smacking herself in the face, or maybe smacking Salem in the face, but his Gengar was on it and yelled various 'Gengar~!'s at it's trainer that didn't sound very complimentary.
"Ugh! Pay attention, Salem!" Electra said. "You're in Hearthome and this is Daver's and your room at the Gym, why would you teleport into a room that happened to look exactly like it, with your Gengar here?"
"That...is a good point," he answered between his Gengar pulling on his cheek as some sort of punishment.
Electra nodded to herself. "So, I just came to tell you that we're going, in one month."
Salem rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Johto, huh? Why there, isn't Kanto closer?"
"Because my brother is going there to see Jasmine while we'll be there," she explained. "Also because I really want a Mareep and a Chinchou."
Salem rolled his eyes. "You and Chinchou..."
Electra made a face. "They're cool!" she defended.
"They're, like...electric-type," Salem mused obtusely, and Electra suspected most of his brain was still asleep. "But also water-type. In one. But they're opposites. It shouldn't be possible."
Electra sighed and shook her head. Salem could be really smart but he could also be phenomenally dumb. "I'd ask if you're on drugs but you're always like this in the mornings. Besides, you have a Sableye, it's Ghost and Dark type, it's a complete contradiction."
Salem perked up at the mention of his Sableye and Electra immediately knew she'd made a mistake in bringing up ghost pokemon in even a tangential way. She'd never get him off the topic now.
"Ah, Jewel my Sableye, how I love you so..." he cued hugging an imaginary Sableye as he thought about the real pokemon which was probably somewhere in the building right this moment raising hell, as the trickster was wont to do. "Hey, did you know that I had to battle this prick from Hoenn to make him trade for her? He didn't know how to take care of a ghost-type properly at all!"
"I've heard the story like five times," she deadpanned.
"It's an epic story, right?"
Electra had sighed and walked out of his room. "Whatever. I'm going to watch Fantina practice until you wake up properly."
And the rest was recent history. Now they were both (supposed to be) on their first league journey together as traveling companions—but of course he wasn't around.
Ugh, if Electra had known Salem was going to ditch her the first chance he got, she would have put a leash on the guy as soon as they stepped off the ferry...
"Cherry!" she heard someone call out. A few seconds later the call was repeated, from closer. "Che-erry!"
The heck was going on? Electra looked behind her to spy a boy trotting along the path from town, worriedly calling out in all directions as if looking for someone. The boy saw Electra standing in the path and ran over.
"Hey, excuse me," he said, stopping in front of her and pausing to catch his breath, as she responded with with an interested, 'Yeah?'
The boy looked about fourteen and ready for some hard journeying. His hair was pale and kept back from his eyes by a sideways twisted black visor with the official pokemon league symbol on its bill. His clothes were layered and durable: a light long-sleeved T-shirt with a short sleeved button-up thrown over it, and those pants that had more pockets than anyone could possibly need with zippers to turn them into shorts. Electra was guessing he was a trainer, though how experienced she couldn't tell.
"Have you seen a pink-haired girl about my age around here?" the boy asked her.
Electra didn't even have to think about it. She'd seen no one and nothing but Sentret, Pidgey, and foliage since she'd left the town. Which was the problem, really.
"No, I haven't seen anybody," she told him with a shrug. "I'm actually waiting for a friend who was supposed to meet me here, but he still hasn't shown up either..."
The boy's expression became grim as he said, "Damn," and then frowned at the road in consideration. "Cherry and I both live in New Bark. She told me she was coming out here to catch a Sentret, but that was hours ago and she still hasn't come back. I was getting worried so I came to look for her," he explained.
Electra eyed the idyllic scenery with its quaint road, rolling meadows covered in wildflowers and bright, airy woods. Dangerous wilderness it was not. It certainly didn't look as dangerous as Eterna Forest or the Great Marsh back in Sinnoh, anyway. The various small pokemon who would ordinarily be nothing but snacks to larger ones in her experience, were openly traipsing around in the grass along the road, not a care in the world. If the pokemon who actually lived here didn't think the place had any hazardous creatures about then there was no reason she should. They were the ones that ought to know, after all. Their lives depended on it.
"I don't know the area," Electra confessed to the boy, "but it looks like mostly lower level pokemon tend to hang out on this route, so she's probably fine."
"Hopefully," the boy said, not sounding confident. Electra was a bit confused by this. Did he know something she didn't or was he just paranoid or over-protective? Was he the girl's brother? Or maybe her boyfriend?
Trying to reassure him, Electra said, "I wouldn't worry about her. I mean, what are the chances that some big, scary-something would pop out and attack an innocent traveler walking out of—"
Slink...rustle...rustle, rustle...slink...snap!
Electra whipped around, her senses alert. The boy flinched as well, eying their surroundings warily. Whatever they'd just heard moving around didn't sound like a Sentret or a Pidgey, but something bigger. Much bigger.
Scanning a copse of trees that suddenly looked a lot more sinister, she watched as a heavy branch shook and the foliage beneath them made way for something cloaked in shadows.
She stabbed a finger at the unidentified creature, slinking around in the shade of the trees."What the heck is that?" she demanded.
Her companion swallowed nervously as he squinted at whatever was being obscured by a dark shadow cast by the branches of a lopsided tree. "I'm not sure...," he said and pulled out a pokedex from one of his many pockets and pointed it at the huge swathe of darkness uncoiling from behind a tree trunk. The pokedex scanned the unidentified pokemon and made a ding! sound as it brought up a picture on the screen.
"Arbok, the Cobra Pokemon," the machine said, displaying a picture of a huge snake. "The pattern on its belly is for intimidation. It constricts foes when they are frozen in fear."
Electra had never met an Arbok in the wild, but she'd watched Professor Oak's highly informative television show on TPN, The Pokemon Network, enough to know that the results of such a meeting could be dangerous. As in anything that met it tended to become snake food.
Great. Just Perfect. She was about to be eaten by the biggest goddamn snake she'd ever seen in her life, and Salem wasn't even there to be eaten with her. If she lived through this, he was so getting a kick to the face...
Her eye twitched as the pokemon's serpentine purple tail—an appendage that was easily thicker than her waist—passed through a patch of sunlight, confirming the mystery animal's identity. An instant later, hungry, reflective red eyes materialized in the dark hollow.
"The hell is that doing here?" she whispered shrilly to her fellow prey, both of them transfixed by the glowing eyes, praying to God or Buddha or Arceus or whoever the hell that the giant snake would just slither on its way.
"I...I think it might have wandered over from Route 27, the road leading in the other direction from town. There are a lot of strong pokemon down that way," boy speculated, taking a slow, fearful step backwards without letting his eyes glance away from the hidden Arbok currently stalking them.
"I don't actually care where it came from, kid. I just have no idea what the heck we're supposed to do about this thing before it eats us."
The boy frowned. "My name is Aspen, not kid."
Electra rolled her eyes. They were about to die and he was annoyed that she'd called him 'kid'? What was up with this generation? Its priorities were all out of whack.
"Well, nice to meet you, I'm Electra," she told him sarcastically. "Got any ideas on how to stay alive, Aspen?"
They both watched as the Arbok slithered out from beneath the shade of the trees, uncoiling its massive body and splaying it's hood as it raised up on it's stomach to eye its surroundings.
Aspen looked over at her for help. "Uh...I don't suppose you have a pokemon strong enough to battle it, do you?"
"Yeah, but they're all back in Sinnoh," she answered, wishing it weren't the case. She didn't care how high of a level that Arbok was, against Echo, her Magneton back at home, this snake wouldn't stand a chance. "All I have with me is my Shinx and the egg my brother just transferred to me. You?"
Aspen looked sort of green as he admitted, "I just got my Totodile today. It hasn't even had a battle yet. Hell, I haven't even named it yet."
"Well, fuck." That was really all there was to say.
The giant snake spied them and its forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. "Sssha~! Sshaaar~bok~!" it hissed and opened its mouth to reveal fangs approximately the size of epidermic needles. Yeah, she wasn't liking the looks of that at all.
"And that's our cue to run," Electra said.
"Huh?"
Electra grabbed Aspen by the arm and yelled, "Run!" dragging him after her as she did the only thing she could think of that might possibly give them a chance.
Event Summery:
- Bones and Charisma defeated Heracross!
- Bones received experience!
- Salem's Charisma received experience!
- Salem's Charisma became level 12!
- Electra and Aspen encountered a Wild Arbok!