Author's Note: In the Pokemon world, there are TV shows just like in our world, the difference being that they all include Pokemon. There are even Pokemon in the kitchen on cooking channels, Jynx wearing pearl necklaces that vendors want you to buy on the Kanto Shopping Network,, and the meteorologist on Noctowl News has a Weezing with him all the time, and people laugh when the Weezing uses smog on him every time he says there will be clear skies that day.
The following is from a TV show that people watch in the Pokemon world. It is not broadcast by the station in Jubilife City, or there would be Sinnoh Pokemon in it. Sinnoh does have its own version of this TV show, but this is the one more likely to be viewed in Kanto and Johto.
So enjoy this rare peak at a TV show from the Pokemon world. This is not the format for which TV shows are typically transpired, but some Magnemite interfered with transmission, and so all we have from it is this format. So sit back and relax, and remember, it's not whether you are viewing it on a Rotom or a man-made TV set that matters. What matters is that you are getting it at all.
The Pokepeople
Chapter One
Barry scampered up the embankment as he heard a too-oft familiar voice call out his name for the third time in a row.
"Will she never leave me alone?" he muttered under his breath.
He tripped over an extended root from a true. He tried to get up but something tackled him.
"Got you now, Barry," a honey-sweet voice whispered in his ear.
"Let me go," he said.
"But I haven't even given you a lick," she said. He felt her transform though he couldn't see it. And her big flappy tongue lopped him on the ear, the cheek, and the neck all at once.
Before he could grab her tongue and twist it, he felt her transform again. She was human now and butted him in the back with her knee.
"Now, go with me to the Tuppersha Dance."
"I…uh…what's the Tuppersha Dance?' Barry asked. He knew the answer to that. Girls asking guys, tradition, blah blah blah. Of course, girls could ask guys to any dance, but this dance specifically was for girls asking guys.
The thing was, Barry already had a girl he was hoping would ask him. He knew it was a long shot. Seadra-girls did not date Muk-boys. That was common knowledge. A Muk-boy was lucky if he could garner the attentions of an Exeggcute-girl.
A Lickitung-girl like Miranda was one step above an Exeggcute-girl. And Miranda wasn't bad-looking if you got past her protuberant eyes and her fondoness for Howdy Glameow. But she wasn't sophisticated like Kara, the Seadra-girl.
"The dance where girls ask guys," Miranda said. "And so I'm asking you."
"I'm not sure I—well, you see…I might not be the best dance partner…"
"Oh, I don't care about that, silly. I just want you to be my date. We don't have to dance or anything."
"I have a project in my thermodynamics class coming up…I might need that night to work on it."
"Has a Kakuna-girl already asked you or something?"
"What?" Barry asked, taken aback.
"I heard Kakuna-girls make good matches with Muk-boys."
"I don't know any Kakuna-girls," Barry said.
"I should hope not. I would hate to lose you," Miranda said.
Well, you never had me in the first place, so it's a little hard to lose me, Barry thought.
The Pokemon you could transform into more or less determined what kind of Pokeperson you could date. It was worse than being divided economically. At least with money, people who don't have it early in life can earn it and pass it down to their kids. So their kids don't have to have the same rotten experience they did.
But when you're divided based on what kind of Pokemon you were born to transform into, you can't do anything about it. Muk-boys can date Kakuna-girls and Exeggcute-girls. Maybe Koffing-girls, though they can be pretty undesirable. Barry should have considered himself lucky that a Lickitung-girl would deign to give him the time of day. Lickitung-girls could date Yanma-boys or Pineco-boys or even the occasional Onix-boy. (Though Onix-boys were usually three tiers above Lickitung-girls, the temperament of an Onix-boy made them not care who their partner was sometimes, so long as they were good in bed.) There was tale of one Lickitung-girl whose Onix-boyfriend had passed her off to his Graveler-cousin. Graveler-boys were even higher on the scale than Onix-boys, so that is a huge climb for a Lickitung-girl.
Barry could hope that Miranda would find her own Graveler-boy. Because the only person he himself wanted, was Kara.
Barry decided to transform into Muk and slime away. He scrunched up his face and concentrated hard on changing his molecules into Pokemon-form.
He was Muk now. He could get between Miranda's fingers. She couldn't keep her grasp on him in this body.
But he was wrong. She had put something on her hands that made it easy to keep Muk's slimy body in check. Suction cups or something. It wouldn't matter how far he went now; she could cling to him. This was one Lickitung-girl that it would be hard to throw off.
Barry transformed back. "Why are you holding on to me?"
"Because I don't want to let you go, silly."
"I kinda figured that much."
"Go with me."
"I don't want to fail thermodynamics."
"You have a 4.0, Barry. You're not gonna fail if you go dancing for one night."
"I—hey, is that Mellona Fimjik with Klare Korniss?"
"Where?" Miranda asked. She was still sitting on his back, even as she craned her neck forward.
"Nowhere. Just thought I saw them."
Mellona Fimjik and Klare Korniss were two famous singers from rival record companies who had run away together. Melloa was a Bellossom-girl and Klare a Rapidash-gal. They were called Team Firegrass by fans, and anyone who spotted them was faced with the moral decision of letting two people be free or turning them in to the paparazzi to get a big payoff.
Barry would never turn them in, because he believed they were in love and he didn't care for money. But the way Miranda was sitting on him now, leaning forward as if deciding whether it was better to chance a possible sigting of a duo or keep her crush in her clutches, made Barry think that she'd turn in Team Firegrass in an instant.
"I'm not one to miss a chance spotting celebrities," Miranda said. "But you'd best think about being one night away from your thermodynamics work and come dancing."
She didn't wait for an answer but dashed off, searching for Mellona and Klare.
Barry's muscles ached from being under Miranda for so long. But one thing was certain. He would only be attending that dance if Kara went with him.