Chapter Four: Pete Townshend Had a Point.
"To catch them is my real test, to hm-hmm is my caaause…" I sang, ambling back into Professor Elm's lab-office-thing. As I walked past the skinny intern guy I noticed him staring at my chest. Creepy and flattering, but it proved something I'd forgotten to ask Tommy Lee Help Button. The game system was interactive, so I could influence the characters and their behaviors. That explained the pervy intern and the weepy rocker rival kid. Armed with new information, I ignored the ogling intern and greeted Elm.
"What's up, doc?" Okay, I admit, that was terrible. But Elm didn't catch on.
"Mercedes! I've been meaning to talk with you all morning! How are you?" he beamed.
"Fantastic!" I smiled back. Maybe it was an overstatement, but everything felt too surreal to be taken seriously anyway.
"Excellent! Now, I need you to do an errand for me, and I'm going to give you one of these three pokémon in order to help you out on your miss-AUGH!"
I turned and let out a squeaky yelp myself. Stupid female vocal chords. I sounded like a chipmunk on helium. My unnamed crybaby rival busted through the window he was leering at before. Oh. Now it all made sense. Ha, ha.
"WHO AM I?!" Red, raging and emo ran over to the table with the three pokéballs on it and flipped it over. Geez, what a baby. Real teenagers go through identity crisis every day. What made this virtual one so special that it needed to be so theatrical?
It was only when he attempted to pick up the table and set his eyes for the professor I decided to react productively. Virtual or not, I didn't want to see a guy get his head bashed in with a mahogany table. At least not so early in the morning. I rushed over to one of the pokéballs that rolled to a corner made by a bookshelf and the wall on the right.
"Oh, so you want Chikorita, the leaf pokémon?" asked Elm in a slightly robotic voice from his fetal position on the floor. My rival dropped the table he was about to bludgeon the professor with and turned on me.
"Leaf pokémon?" I thought. In a sudden burst of memory I recalled how in red version, the grass guy Bulbasaur was easiest to beat the game with.
"Yes!" I shouted a little too loudly to the professor as I backed up from my rival's advance.
"Excellent!" he replied cheerily, still in his spot on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around his legs, head between his knees. His mood was unflappable.
"WHO. AM. I?!" Bellowed my unhappily unnamed rival, progressing towards me like Frankenstein's monster. Okay, quick thinking time. "Do I attack him with a pokémon," I deliberated, "Or just give him what he wants?" After all, it was my responsibility as the game's main character. In the old games I always went with the name "Gary" for my rival, like the TV show. This time I went with something more creative.
My infuriated rival backed me into the corner where I obtained my first pokémon before I made my decision.
"FLAVIUS!" I cried.
