Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Nintendo does, however. Not that you don't know this, of course. If I owned pokemon, there would be more legendaries, pokemon would be easier to catch, you would not have to go to a special pokemon party in Japan to get Mew, and the pokemon would be either total crack, stupid-looking, or look so cool they actually looked idiotic. Anyway, let's get to what you really came here for.
"Look!" said Tom. "These are pokeballs! Let's battle using these!"
Elliot started to stammer something out, but Tom said over him, "Eh…? Which one do you want then?"
Casting a nervous glance at the two pokemon that had surrounded them, letting out little growls, Elliot leaned down and grabbed the rightmost pokeball and threw it. It burst open and a blue pokemon, also somewhat birdlike, jumped out, letting out a cry Elliot couldn't quite make out. It had an even larger round head than the starly and tiny, clearly useless wings, perhaps because it was a baby. Elliot wasn't sure, though. He didn't recognize what kind of pokemon it was, although it seemed young.
"Uh…pokemon! Use pound!" Elliot said. The blue pokemon jumped up and pounded the starly with one stubby wing-arm, sending her tumbling with the force. The starly flapped her wings to right herself then growled fiercely, and Elliot's pokemon looked a little scared, taking a step back nervously. Elliot told it to use pound again, and it did so but hesitated and hit somewhat less forcefully. The starly growled again.
Despite her small growls, the starly looked battered, and had clearly taken a lot of damage from those two hits. "Use pound again, Pokemon! This should knock it out!" Elliot's pokemon pounded the starly again, but far less powerfully, and she didn't faint. The growls must have weakened its attacks a great deal. Still, she didn't look like she could hold out much longer. She finally tried to tackle the blue pokemon protecting Elliot, but bounced off its deceptively frail looking body, causing barely any damage. Elliot's pokemon used pound one more time, and the starly fainted. Elliot looked around, and saw Tom had finished off his starly, as well. Elliot didn't recognize Tom's pokemon, either. It looked like a green turtle, but had a tiny branch on top of its head with two leaves attached to either side. It looked a bit worse than Elliot's pokemon after the battle, but was still in okay condition.
The pokemon by his feet chirped a more understandable "Piplup!" at him. So that was what it was. Looking more closely at the piplup, Elliot decided it was a male. Elliot grinned. He felt happy that it was a boy, like him.
"Fwaaah! Your piplup totally rocked! But my turtwig was way tougher than yours! …They were other people's pokemon, though…but we had to use them…they won't mind, will they?" said Tom.
Elliot put the piplup back in the pokeball regretfully. He'd forgotten that it wasn't really his for a moment.
"I hope not," Elliot said.
Dawn came rushing towards them, and looked at the briefcase.
"Oh! There's the briefcase! The professor would have been furious if I'd lost it!" she said. She looked in the briefcase, seeing the missing pokeballs.
"Huh? Oh, no!" Dawn turned to Tom and Elliot.
"Did you…did you use the pokemon in here?" she said frantically. Tom and Elliot nodded their heads guiltily.
"You did?! Oh my gosh! What's the professor going to say…? …This is so not good…I'll take the briefcase for now." Dawn scooped up the briefcase and ran off into the trees again.
"What was that all about?" Tom said. "I don't know what's going on. Elliot, let's get out of here. My pokemon got hurt from that battle. If we get attacked by another pokemon, we might be in trouble."
"Mine didn't get hurt much, but…yeah, we should go back." Elliot replied.
Tom and Elliot went back through the opening in the trees and back down Route 201.
"You go up ahead…" Tom said. "…I know we have to return these pokemon. They're not ours. But I want to spend just a little more time with this little guy…" Tom opened up his pokeball and looked at Turtwig sadly. The pokemon seemed to noticed he was worried, and walked up to him, crying, "Turtwig!" Elliot let his piplup out as well. They did look awfully cute. Elliot wished he could keep his. But still, they needed to be returned…
"All right, then. Let's see if we can catch up with those people." Elliot said, recalling Piplup.
"Yeah," Tom said, recalling his turtwig as well.
Despite what they said, the two found themselves walking a lot more slowly back than they had come.
When they got close to the entrance to Twinleaf Town, they saw that the professor and Dawn were standing on the path ahead of them, talking. As Tom and Elliot approached, they noticed and stopped abruptly, turning to Tom and Elliot.
"Hey, it's those people! Is that old guy staring at us?" Tom whispered to Elliot.
"Shhh! Quiet!" Elliot whispered back.
The "old guy" walked up to them.
"Hmm…I heard from Dawn you used our pokemon?" he said.
"Uh…yeah…" Elliot said hesitantly.
"Let me see them, please."
Elliot and Tom hesitantly handed over their pokeballs. The professor opened them. The pokemon looked at him, then Elliot and Tom, looking confused. The professor looked down at the pokemon.
"Hm…piplup and turtwig…hmm…I see…that's how it is…" he mumbled.
"Huh? What do you mean?" asked Elliot.
"Dawn!" shouted the professor, ignoring him. "I'm going back to my lab!"
He recalled the pokemon and handed them back to Elliot and Tom, who were still confused from his strange mutterings. The professor then walked over to the right side of the path.
"Um…Yes! Professor, please wait for me!" Dawn called. She quickly turned to Elliot and Tom. "I think you should visit our lab later. Okay, see you!" She waved at them, then ran toward the professor.
"What was all that craziness about? I mean, if he was angry, he could've just yelled at us, or whatever…and didn't he want their pokemon back?" Tom said quizzically. Elliot shrugged.
"I didn't understand anything, either…does this mean we get to keep our pokemon?" he said.
"I guess…" Tom said. "Let's go home, Elliot." Elliot nodded and walked toward Twinleaf.
Author's Note: Compared to the last chapter, this is pretty short, but I thought this would be a good place to end the chapter. I'll try to catch up to where I am in the game (Floarama Town) so I'll try to get chapter three and four up as soon as possible. Good merf to you :)
