Chapter 2: Beethoven
[Route 101]
"So, um... What do we do after we get our first Pokemon?" Malik asked me as we stepped into the first patch of tall grass.
"I think... There's a league or something that we fight..." I responded. Buddy was standing on my shoulder. He was a little heavy, but I didn't mind. Flambo was standing
"Yip! Yip!" We heard from the grass. We both turned at the sound. Before us we saw a zigzagoon, smiling and wagging his tail.
"What... The FUCK is that?" Malik said, pointing at it.
"It's a zigzagoon. Do you not pay attention to anything I tell you?"
"Yip! Yip! Yip!"
"Should I... Fight it?" Malik asked, Flambo looking determined.
"Well, duh." I replied. "Or you could catch it."
"How... How do?"
"What? We had a fight just a couple minutes ago."
"But... It's wild!"
I sighed. "I'll catch it."
"Mudkip!" Buddy yelled, jumping from my shoulder to the ground.
"Alright, Buddy, tackle it!" Buddy did as he was asked. It seemed a bit fazed, but tackled us back. "Again!" Buddy tackled him again, and he returned the favor. I then threw a pokeball, and a bright, red beam of light engulfed the Pokemon as he was shrunk and sent into it. It shook a couple times, and finally popped with sparkles.
"Sparkles?" Malik questioned. "Not what I would've chosen."
"How do you know the Pokeball creator chose it?" I replied.
"But, then, what would cause the sparkles?" I thought about it for a second.
"Shut up."
"That's your response to literally everything I say."
"That's what friends do." I looked at the newly caught Pokemon in its Pokeball and decided on a nickname. "I'm gonna call it Beethoven."
"That's a weird name. Why that?"
"Becuase..." I didn't really think of a name. It kind of just... came to me. "Because why not?"
"Whatever. Well, how about that league then?"
"I think we have to go through some town up ahead, and to the left. Not sure where after that."
"Alrighty then, let's roll."
I sighed as he stepped further into the grass, Flambo looking angry perched on his shoulder. In the middle of the route, a kid who looked younger than I did screamed something at us about basics of training or something I don't know.
A couple wild encounters later, we came across a town. I wouldn't really call it a town, there was a big red building, a smaller, blue building, and a couple houses with some glasses-bearing guy near a way into a different route. A sign in the center read "Oldale Town" and some other words I couldn't see from the distance I was at. I was given the curse of near-sightedness, though not enough to give me glasses. Looking at the guy at the route entrance to the west, I'm glad I didn't get that.
Also standing outside of the blue building, which I assumed is a PokeMart, was a bald old man with an apron.
"So, uh... Where's the gym?" Malik asked ignorantly.
"I seriously believe that you don't listen to anything I say."
"Hey. There is a difference between not listening and not caring."
"Well, listen now. To the west is the town that the gym is. North is another basically useless route, I think."
"Okay. Left equals gym. Up equals nothing."
"Not necessarily nothing, but nothing of use to us as of yet."
"See, that's why I don't care about what you say."
"Whatever."
We both approached the west exit, Buddy and Flambo chatting to eachother from our shoulders. I was pretty sure Flambo was female, but I doubt Buddy was actually attracted to her. Not yet anyways, since they were both only level 6 or 7. I think too hard on things.
As we were about to step through to the route, the glasses guy, who I noticed was closely scanning some bootprints on the ground, screamed at us.
"STAAAAAAHP!" He said in his nerdy-sounding voice, running up to us. "I am studying Pokemon footprints."
"All I see are your footprints." Malik said quite rudely. "Are your glasses broken?"
"No, no... I am very sure that these footprints are Pokemon's."
"Do Pokemon usually have tread marks in their footprints?" I asked, trying to sound curious as to make him aware to his mistake. That was the difference between Malik and I; Malik is rude and will say what's on his mind whenever he wants to. I like to keep things low key, and I'm sort of introverted.
"Well, maybe it's a new one?" He responded, fixing his glasses back to his head.
"Well, maybe we'll come back later. Right, Malik?" I suggested, elbowing Malik in the gut. He made an audible 'oomf'.
"Fine." Malik said, displeased. Flambo shot some smoke from her nose in agreement.
We turned around and headed towards the Pokemon center. At first, we decided that our guys didn't need to heal since they hadn't battled much in the couple hundred feet from home we went.
As we were walking, the old man with the apron stopped us before we reached the door. When he approached us, he looked a little enthusiastic.
"Wow, three people in one day? Amazing!" I could hear him mutter to himself.
"Um, what did you want us for, Mister Apron?" Malik said.
"Well, since you guys are obviously novice trainers-" He started.
"AY! WHO GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO CALL US NOVICE? YOU EVEN HAVE A POKEMON, SON?" Malik outbursted.
"Uh, yes, but-"
"THEN LET'S GO, RIGHT NOW, ME AN' YOU, BITCH."
"No, sir, I didn't mean to offend you-"
"WELL GOOD FUCKING JOB ON YOUR PART, EH?" I was starting to get embarrassed. Malik was not one for being polite.
"Sir, please, just-"
"I COME HERE, WILLING TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT, AN' YOU STOP ME AN' TELL ME I'M FUCKIN' NOVICE?"
"Sir, the 'mart's over there-"
"I WAS GOING TO GO THERE EVENTUALLY!"
"Sir, I can give you a free samp-"
"GIVE ME DOUBLE."
"Sir, I don't think I'm allowed to do tha-"
"I SAID GIVE ME FUCKIN' DOUBLE."
"Alright, sir! Please, just, don't tell my boss?"
"I-A-DO WHAT I WANT-A-DO!"
"Sir, I could get fired!"
"GIVE ME TRIPLE."
"Sir, I can't-"
"Do you have any kids, bud?"
"Yes, I have three."
"Would they be sad, you think, if they never saw their father again?"
"Why, yes, sir, I uh- I think they would most definitely be sad. B-but, you wouldn't do that, would you sir?" He was sweating. God damn it, Malik. Guy's a fuckin' nut ball.
"Well, maybe if their father could realize when the customer is right, I wouldn't have to, eh?"
"Alright, sir! Whatever you want! Just, please! Don't hurt me!" He emptied his pockets full of potions and Malik stuffed most of them into his bag. I was not really surprised at Malik by now. I wasn't really worried he'd do something to othe rpeople, just worried he'd turn himself into what he wanted others to think he was - a thug.
As Malik confidently strolled into the Pokemon Center, the old man scurried back to his post. When he got there, he held his face in his hands. Then I decided to be a good samaritan. I went inside the Pokemon Center and saw Malik at the front desk.
I snuck up to him and very carefully took his bag form him. How he didn't notice, I have no idea. I mean, you'd think he would notice if his 3-pound bag was suddenly lifted off of him, right?
I took it back outside to the old man, and he obiously was afraid of me. I emptied Malik's bag of the potions into the man's hands. At first he looked confused, then thankful.
"I'm sorry for my friend, sir. He's just a little... I don't even know how to describe it." I said as I gave him the last of the potions.
"Th-thank you! I could've lost my job! Here, take this!" He said, giving me four of the potions.
"Uh, no, sir, I can't take these from you! I just gave them back!" I said, rubbing the back of my head.
"They're on the house. I was suppoed to give these to everyone who passes by, anyways! We don't get much travellers around here, if you haven't noticed."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's because of all these forests. But maybe being alone isn't so bad? I think it's peaceful out here."
"Not when you're running a business."
"Yeah... I gues... Anyway, I better get back to my friend before he notices that I-"
"JAAAAAAROOOOOOOD!" I heard Malik scream from inside the Pokemon Center.
"...Shit." I dashed into the Pokemart, and hid behind a shelf. A little girl came up to me. SHe looked maybe 5 or 6.
"What'cha doin, Mister?" She said, looking at me as I sat on the ground.
"Hiding. Please, be quite?" I whispered. I heard the 'ding-dong!' of the doors opening, and then loud footprints. It was Malik. I ran past him and out the door, flinging his bag to him as the door shut behind me.
He eventually caught me, since I'm not a very good runner. All he did was punch me a couple times, but it didn't hurt much. I could tell he wasn't really mad, since it was just a few potions.
I was laughing the entire time.
"All right, all right. Can we please get back to our main objective?" I said, huffing from running.
"Which is?"
"The Pokedex?"
"Man, we'll have plenty of time to do that after we're the Hoenn region champions!" He stood in a pose as he said this.
"You know only one of us can win, right?"
"...Once I'm the Hoenn region champion!" He said. He was obviously determined to get that rank.
"Well, since that glasses guy is still searching for his 'new Pokemon', we could go see if any new Pokemon appear on route whatever-the-fuck-it-is to the north." I said, still not knowing which route is which. "We need a fuckin' map."
We started to the north path, and saw it wasn't very long, and ended in a dead end. But at the end of the route was a girl, bttling away with a treecko. I didn't think much of her at the time, she was far away and hard to see. At first, I didn't even know it was a girl.
I threw out thougts of her and turned to Malik.
"Malik, dude. You are gonna get destroyed if you don't catch another Pokemon." I said.
"Well who wants some baby-Pokemon from these routes, man?" Just as he finished, a poochyena wooshed past me from the grass and tackled him onto his back. "HOLY FUCK!" He said as he thudded to the ground.
I was laughing my ass off.
"GET HIM THE FUCK OFF ME!" He screamed, the poochyena licking his face happily.
"No, no, I think it likes you, man!" I said, almost falling over in tears form laughing so hard.
"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?"
"Catch it!"
"Ugh... Fine." He reached into his bag and pulled out a Pokeball. The poochyena snathced it form his hands and threw it in the air, somehow having opened it with his mouth. When it came back down, he got zapped inside of it and it shook only once and sparkled.
"So... What's its name?" I asked, curious to see what he'd do given the situation he just went through.
"I'm thinkin..." He started, getting up. "I'm gonna call him 'Chase.'"
"Nice name." I replied. "Now, I wonder how the Pokedex registers that we-"
"Ding! New Pokemon Registered." I heard come from Malik and I's bag almost at the exact same time. We figured it was our Pokedexes, so we pulled them out, and sure enough, a new Pokemon was registered.
"Poochyena, the bite Pokemon. It savagely threatens foes with bared fangs. It chases after fleeing targets tenaciously. It turns tail and runs, however, if the foe strikes back." They said in unison.
"So I guess its bark is worse than its bite, huh?" I said.
"I think one of us should set our Pokedex to silent so it doesn't sound like some creepy echo everytime that happens." Malik said, tapping at his screen. "I'll do it."
"So I guess I should catch another one now, too?" I asked. I felt like Pokedex completion would be my thing, and Malik's would be... Being Malik.
"If you want. I don't care." He replied, tucking his Pokedex back into his bag. "Let's go see if anything interesting happens up there." He pointed int he direction of thr route.
"We should probably train some more, too." I added. "Especially if you want to get those 8 badges."
"Definitely." He started walking. "Let's go."
And with that, we entered route 103.
[End Chapter]
SOOOOOOOO sorry how late this is. Been busy, and forgetful, and stupid, and... The list could almost go on forever.
I just hope people are still reading my stories?