AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey. Remember me? Probably not. Here's something I've been working on for a while, and it's been going better than I expected it would, so I decided what the hey, let's upload to Fanfiction. Enjoy.
CHAPTER 1: Into The Selectively Unknowable
Two silhouettes, standing alone in the forest at night, overlooks a smaller figure sprawled out on the ground.
"Are you sure you can just leave him like this?"
"He'll be fine. He always ends up fine!"
"This can't be the only way! I don't want to give him up!"
"He's nothing but a major headache. I've given him enough chances, but he fails us every single time."
"But out here? In the wilderness...?"
"He'll be a burden to anybody. We can't give him to someone else."
"..."
"Now let's get out of here before he wakes up."
One of the two figures disappears. The other lingers.
"I can't leave you here alone..."
The remaining figure sets upon the lying figure a small round object, then follows the first out of the forest...
The sun rose, as it always does, greeting the ten-year-old kid that slept underneath it. The kid, sunshine hitting his face, slowly stirred. He rose, yawning and stretching his limbs. He reached beside him for his orange cap, which he always wore over his rather unkempt shoulder-length hair. The hair was dyed with streaks of orange and purple, a sign that no ten-year-old should be in charge of their own hairstyle. As tired as he was the previous night, he had chosen to sleep in his day clothes: an orange vest and matching black undershirt and pants.
This boy's name was Robert Sladfigy; but he much preferred plain old Bob.
When Bob finally opened his sleep-heavy eyes, he saw something that startled him - an excess amount of green, rather than the orangish wallpaper adorning the walls of his room. He blinked a few times. "What... am I still dreaming?" he wondered aloud, even though there was nobody around to hear.
He got to his feet, and as he did so, there was a soft plop as a small object fell off of his lap and onto the grass. He bent over to pick it up, and identified it as a Pokeball.
He fired up his mental cylinders, trying to remember. His tenth birthday had come recently, but he didn't want to get a Pokemon and travel like other kids his age, despite how eager his parents seemed to have him out of the house. He just wanted to stay home, and maybe "pursue a career in architecture", which was his way of saying he just wanted to watch TV and play games all day. Nobody bought it though. "So what am I doing here anyway...?" he asked himself. To him, the possibility of being carried out here by his own parents was absolutely absurd.
Bob was still quick to jump to conclusions, though. "Oh man... I must've been kidnapped," he deduced. "But halfway through they decided I wasn't worth it and dropped me here. This Pokeball must've fallen out of one of the snatchers' pockets or something. Well... that'll teach you! Let's see what the finder gets to keep..."
He tossed the Pokeball into the air. It opened, and in a flash of red light, a Buizel appeared on the ground in front of him, which stretched its limbs somewhat gratefully. "Buizel..." it sighed with a hint of annoyance, after examining Bob.
Bob looked down at the sea weasel Pokemon that he now possessed, and a smile slowly crept across his face. "Ha!" Bob shouted. "One of my favorite Pokemon, too. This is my lucky day!" He bent over again, getting to eye level with his new companion. "Hi! What's your name? Whoops, that doesn't matter because you're mine now!"
The Buizel shook his head, muttering something under his breath. Not that Bob would be able to understand him. The Pokemon's reaction made Bob scratch his head. "Huh, I'm getting the weirdest feeling of Deja Vu..."
Suddenly, it dawned on him. This Buizel was no kidnapper's Pokemon. He had actually belonged to his mother! "Oh right, I remember now..." he said aloud. "You're that one Buizel that my mom caught a few years ago... but what was your name again...?"
"Bui," droned the unamused Buizel.
"No, no, that wasn't it..." Bob replied, his hand on his chin as he tried to remember. "Ah, right!" he yelled, "Your name is Franz!"
The Buizel allegedly known as Franz's eyes closed and tightened, performing a gesture that remarkably resembled a facepalm. That wasn't it, that wasn't even close. But there was no way he could convey the correct name, so he nodded, surrendering. He'd have to deal with that name from now on.
"Hmm... so..." thought Bob, pacing back and forth, his head bowed, "come to think of it, kidnapping both me and Franz sounds silly... so what exactly happened?" Using all of his vast reserves of brainpower, which by everyone else's standards would be the equivalent of an ill self-doubting gerbil on a rusty exercise wheel, he tried to piece together how he ended up in the middle of a forest. But before he could come up with yet another conclusion, his pacing went off-track and he crashed into a tree. Franz winced.
As Bob hit the ground, another object landed next to him. Bob weakly pivoted his head. It was a Burmy, squirming and fidgeting frantically trying to get its cloak of leaves back together and get the heck away from that scary-looking human. Bob's eyes widened, and his grin followed suit with childlike wonder. He sprang to his feet again and pointed out the Bug-type.
"Yes! That's it!" he cried excitedly. "Our first battle! Come on Franz, let's soak this sucker!" The volume of Bob's words made the Burmy jump, scattering a few of the leaves again. The Pokemon was looking a little pale. Franz looked down at the Burmy curiously. "Well what are you waiting for?" shouted Bob. "Do the watery thing! The one where you win!"
The Burmy shifted his attention to the Buizel now, who looked significantly less intimidating but admittedly just as dangerous as the human was. "Burmy! Burmy!" pleaded the shaking Bug-type to the only other creature nearby who could understand it. Franz just shook his head. "Buizel," he replied. "Buizel bui." Without further warning, Franz opened his mouth as a distinct watery ball began to form in the back of his throat, which let loose all at once at the haphazard opponent. Burmy never stood a chance against the torrent of water that engulfed it, and when the Water Gun calmed down, the bagworm was nowhere to be seen, completely blown away by the Buizel's force.
Bob, the entire time, was jumping up and down repeatedly. "Yeah! Yeah!" he chimed enthusiastically. "That was one fluid battle! We are natural-born champions!"
Franz turned and stared at Bob. That was no battle, that was cleaning the gutter. This was like one of those fishing tales where the fisherman always adds a yard or two to the size of the one that got away. Bob couldn't really be blamed; this may have been his first rodeo, but it certainly wasn't Franz's! Nevertheless, Franz managed an awkward, half-hearted smile.
Bob scratched his head. He had calmed down already, as he continued his train of thought before it had crashed horrendously... how did he end up in this forest? Where were his parents? And why did he have his mom's Buizel? "Say..." began Bob, "You wouldn't happen to know where we are or what we're doing here... would you? Because if you did, that would be super."
It would indeed have been super, as Franz knew a lot more than Bob did about the situation... but Bob seemed to forget about the communication connondrum between the two species. "Buiiiiiizel," he sighed, knowing the meaning would be lost in the medium.
"Yeah... I know you're a Buizel," replied Bob, a little frustrated, "I asked where we are."
"Buizel," Franz replied, humoring him.
"I'm with a Buizel, I got that already," said Bob, his tone becoming more and more tense. "Are we anywhere near a town, or..."
Franz gave up trying to speak and stuck out his arm to the northwest; the vague direction of the second nearest town to where they stood. He dared not direct him to the nearest one for reasons that Bob didn't and could not understand at this time.
Bob twisted his head around at where his Buizel pointed him. All he could see were trees and plantlife, and a few sparse Pokemon skittering about. "But that's just more forest..." whined Bob, a bit too literal to imagine more than 50 feet beyond himself.
Franz facepalmed again, and began to walk in the direction he indicated, beckoning Bob to follow.
"Uh... where are you going?" said Bob, quite confused, "Candyland isn't over there, just trees made of inedible wood." He followed the orange Pokemon, mostly making sure that nothing happened to it... a Pokemon without a trainer is like dental floss without the box thingy that it comes in! As a result, Bob was being led to civilization whether he knew it or not.