--

In the face of the imposing Viridian Forest, one boy took his stand. Fidgeting with a backpack he had overloaded with potions and the occasional antidote, Mason felt he could survive whatever the forest could dish out with its big, bug-infested fists. Thankfully he hadn't encountered any other wandering newbie trainers, though he had a sinking feeling that would change soon.

He looked back at his two companions, who were currently freed of their pokeballs and walking/flying along with him; one smiling cheerily, the other staring up at him warily. The Rattata he had captured the other day was not entirely trusting of him, which was not an entirely unexpected turn of events, but he had still been futilely hoping he wouldn't have had to spend a majority of his time this morning coercing it to stop gnawing on his ankles, running away, or running away with his gnawed-off ankles. Kneeling down to give the disgruntled-looking rat a pat on the head to hopefully calm its nerves, he gulped, then turned around and prepared to enter the danger zone.

Somewhere in the background, the Mortal Kombat theme played.

SOME TIME LATER

"YOU'RE NOT WEARING SHORTS!" the bug catching kid roared at Mason with an accusing finger as his squishy-looking Caterpie popped out of its pokeball and reared back for battle. He was red in the face with his teeth gritted ferociously, obviously infuriated by this apparent fashion disaster.

"Oh, for the love of…" the now-longpants-clad Mason sighed as he sat in a thankfully grassless clearing next to an exhausted Rattata. He had recalled Viola to her pokeball after soon learning that her life-draining attacks were less useful against the bugs in comparison to Rattata's vicious gnawing in addition to her tendency to get distracted by any number of things in the forest, which resulted in him relying on Rattata to viciously chew his way through the hordes of angry caterpillars. Mason cast a glance back towards the trail of twitching bugs lying behind him. He could have caught one, he knew, but he refused to become associated with one of the shorts-wearing, net-wielding smucks who had been assaulting him all throughout the forest. "Um, Randy," he began, using the name his sister bequeathed the purple rodent with. "There's another trainer here…with a Caterpie."

At least his teeth are getting nice and sharp, Mason thought tiredly as he received a sharp bite on the arm for trying to get the exhausted rat to fight another battle. Looking up into the face of the Caterpie-wielding loser, he sighed in resignation before getting up swapping out Randy for Viola, once again referring to her by her "nickname" of Zoobutt.

"Finally…" she grumped, stretching her wings from the long period spent inside the ball, somewhat irritable from her lack of action and foresty escapades. Then she noticed the large caterpillar standing in front of her, glaring intently with its huge eyes.

"Are you going to fight me?" she asked, flatly.
"Um," the Caterpie stuttered, taken aback somewhat by his opponent's bluntness before rearing up in a prideful fashion. "Yes, yes I am."
"Are you going to stab me with large poisonous stingers?" she continued. The Caterpie cocked its head confusedly.
"…..no, that's Weedle. They're the other caterpillar poke-"
"Okay, good." Viola cut him off with a smile before lunging forward and sinking her fangs deep into the Caterpie's body as Mason belatedly called for Leech Life.

Some seconds later, a drained, stunned Caterpie was left lying on the ground as a refreshed and perky Viola fluttered behind Mason, who took his prize money with a smarmy grin and wandered off into the brush once again in the vague direction of what he thought was the exit. After roughly shoving his way through the bushes, followed by a happy bat, he found himself once again in a lengthy stretch of tall grass, this time so tall it came up to his armpits. He looked ahead in surprise-the trees were so thickly shoved together, it was impossible to squeeze through them, but they were spaced in a way that caused them to frame the grass and result in surprisingly neat (yet grassy) natural path through the forest, as the canopy finally parted and the sun's rays broke through, giving the once-gloomy and dark forest a relaxing air of warmth. As he waded through the grass, Mason was surprised to see that instead of immediately assaulting him, the Weedles and Caterpies were climbing the trees, gnawing on berries, or staring at their cocoon forms in awe. It was as if the whole forest had suddenly relaxed.

Mason couldn't help but feel a little guilty, watching as Viola was happily flitting about overhead, taking in the sights and generally having a good time. Randy had been fighting for life and limb throughout the forest earlier, but Zoobutt here was floating down the forest equivalent of easy street. He stared down at the pokeball containing the exhausted Rattata, and realized that he needed to get Zubat some actual training. He stopped to look around and size up potential opponents as Viola obliviously flew overhead, and noticed a smallish group of Caterpie who were currently engaging in some form of horseplay at the base of the trees. They would be easy enough opponents. They wouldn't have a stinger attack, and might not have a powerful enough string shot.

But dammit all, they just looked so happy.

Tearing his eyes away, he noticed Viola was obliviously flying away without him.
"Hey, hey! Come back!" he called out with a hint of panic. Obediently, she did, turning back to look at him before flying back, still a few feet overhead. Mason looked up at her. He was feeling a bit awkward from never having to really converse with small bats before, but didn't let that divert him. "Come down here, I've got something to tell you." She descended down to level with his face, looking at him as inquisitively

"Okay, so this is how it is," He explained in a hushed tone of voice. "Randy; you know, the purple rat we caught who you beat up the other day…" Viola nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, he's been doing a lot of fighting and training and such. Which is good, because he's been getting stronger and stuff." Viola smiled. Mason, however, slumped a bit and sighed. "But, see, we haven't been training you, like, at all. Which is bad, because soon we'll be fighting a 30-foot-long snake made out of boulders. Do you think we're ready to fight a 30-foot-long snake made out of boulders?" he finished with a skeptical glance.

Viola suddenly didn't look so chipper anymore. Shaking her head vigorously, she looked as though she'd been told the apocalypse was coming. Mason sighed, feeling depressed again. "Yeah. We're going to need to either train a lot or catch some sort of water or grass pokemon somehow in order to stand a chance. So we need you to fight or somehow build up your strength. Have any ideas?" he finished, giving her a hopeful glance.
Viola held a wing up to her chin thoughtfully, which is an impressive feat when you're flying.

A few moments later, a Metapod dropped from a branch and landed at the base of the treeline, making a muffled thumping sound which was immediately picked up on by Viola's ultra-sensitive magical supersonic bat ears. Swooping over to investigate with Mason following behind, she came to rest by the cocoon pokemon, staring at it inquisitively and trying to formulate as Mason crouched down across from the two. The apathetic-looking cocoon looked the two over slowly, then sent shiny waves of silk across its body, hardening to increase its defenses in case the two interlopers decided to try something.

Then an idea struck Viola. Looking at the prone Pokemon, she realized that if maybe she gnawed on it enough, she might get really strong jaw muscles! So strong she might even be able to chip away at the stony body of the dreaded gigantic rock demon! Having realized this could maybe work, she began telling Mason of this genius immediately.

He frowned. "Sorry to say this Zoobutt, but I don't understand what you're saying. All hear is a bunch of crazy bat speak." Viola pouted up at him. "Um, maybe you just like, do some gestures and such to get the message across?" He offered apologetically with a wave of his hands.

Smiling again, Viola clamped down on the Metapod with her teeth, growling and gnawing as best she could as the Metapod simply gave her another slow glance. Mason raised an eyebrow quizzically. "You're going to use the Metapod as like some sort of muscle trainer thingy for your mouth?" Viola stopped gnawing to smile and nod before returning to her vicious assault on the cocoon's defenses. Mason continued to look at the scene with embarrassed confusion. "I guess that could work…and maybe we could take it with us and eventually have a new partner…." He trailed off, looking back towards the path before picking up the Metapod and its would-be assailant and tromping off.

Almost as though the forest itself had decided to swallow him, a few steps in Mason suddenly found himself engulfed in darkness, the massive canopy almost entirely blocking out all light as the thick trunks sprouted all around him, leaving no sort of path or indication of where to go. Viola seemed to visibly relax in the darkness, stopping her gnawing of the Metapod and simply slumped over on it as the silent companion closed its eyes, apparently going to sleep. Mason shrugged this off, bravely trekking through the forest, paying no heed to the sudden change of scenery.

SOME TIME LATER

……

AGAIN

"Okay, I think we're certifiably lost now," Mason moaned, slumping over a log next to a hidden pond in a clearing of the forest teeming with merrily leaping Dratini. Mason continously mentally cursed his lack of foresight to bring any pokeballs. Not like it'd matter, since they'd just wipe the floor with me anyway, his mind added after a moment.
Tired of the company of the sickeningly happy dragonspawn, he turned around and about-faced back into the woods, Viola awakening from her nap on top of his head (Mason was too tired to bother shooing her off again) as he did so. Curiously, she leaned over to peer into his eyes. Mason stopped to tiredly return her gaze. "Oh, hi bat. We're going to starve to death in this forest now because of how stupidly lost we are," slowly trailed out of his mouth, accompanied by a dry, tired smirk. "Unless you or Randy somehow know the way out of this forest, I think our days as a team are over…"

Viola frowned at her trainer's unhappiness. This seemed to be becoming a recurring theme, she noticed. Leaning out of his face, she peered hard into the inscrutable mass of trees. The forest was so dense, dark and huge, being in the center of it all was almost like being blind.

Finally, the connection between blindness, bats, being a bat and being technically blind hit her, and she finally developed the obvious solution of "Use your echolocation you dumbass."

Sending out a small sonic wave, she listened carefully as it ricocheted off the trees, monitoring its direction, the distances it traveled before bouncing off each tree, and how far it was from there current location with a combination of acute hearing and complicated weird bat brain functions too complex for the human mind to comprehend. Slouching boredly as she heard the sonar bounce off of tree after tree after tree, she began to wonder if maybe they really would be trapped in this hellhole forever. Suddenly however, she noticed that something had changed-the sound of the sonic wave had disappeared.

It had made it out of the forest. Or it had simply been muffled out by hitting a bear or something, but either way it was better than nothing as Viola excitedly worked out the exact location of where the soundwave disappeared at in her tiny, furry little head.

"That way!" she cried merrily, thrusting a wing in its direction. Mason glanced up, then in the direction she indicated before slowly speaking.

"Are you sure-"

"YES," She insistently cut him off, pointing more forcefully in the vague direction. With a sort of limp shrug he wandered off in the direction Viola had pointed. After a bit, he looked up, noticing something different…and then his slump quickly perked up into a walk, and then burst into a full run, as light once more began to filter through the trees, casting a lively greenish glow on the plants and floor, as Viola dropped off his head and fluttered after him rapidly. The light continued to grow until it burst through the treetops as a pure golden light, gleaming like the holy aura of Hercules before Sora threw a barrel into his face so he could bash him with a giant key.

Seriously, what the hell was with that?

With a joyous laugh, he leapt over a hollow log, bursting completely free of the grasp of the evil forest and onto the open, sunny path leading up to Pewter city, the grey stone buildings easily visible from where he was standing. Filled with glee for their conquest over the evil wood, Mason attempted high-fiving Viola, which really just amounted to smacking her in the face. But the message got across clear enough, and Viola joined in his revelry, happy to have finally gained some amount of trust from her trainer.

Then they stopped upon noticing a pair of eyes staring at them. Turning to finally look beside them, they saw a small boy with a set of pokeballs clipped to his belt staring at them; but what stood out most was the huge, clear, SAFE path through the forest he had apparently came from. They stared at each other blankly for a while.

The other boy, too foolish to know what he was asking, blurted out "Wanna battle?"

Five seconds later he was on the ground bleeding from his nose, Mason shaking his fist in incomprehensible rage as he tromped off to the pokemon center, Viola gliding behind him worriedly.

A long meandering day of rest in Pewter city ensued, what with calling his mom, getting his pokemon to administer beatdowns on various birds, nearly giving his own brand of beatdown on any trainers that were wishing to try and beat him down, and watching a failed attempt at reviving the pokemon fossils at the museum via necromancy.

It was all rather unremarkable, apart from what occurred at the gym.

Peering in through the window of the gym when noone else was around outside, Mason was trying to catch a glimpse of what he would have to face eventually in the hopes of getting some form of preparation. Viola was curious as well and had coerced Randy into watching, too, and soon all three had their faces awkwardly smushed up against the glass in a way that would almost certainly lead them to acquiring a lot of negative attention. Fortunately, neither the gym leader – who looked a lot older than he was depicted, Mason noticed – or the twerpy little bow-tie wearing challenger seemed to notice.

Whilst the disembodied levitating rock head with arms (aka Geodude) was admittedly scary enough to make him silently cheer when it got knocked the fuck out by the little dweeb's Bellsprout, all elation immediately disappeared when Onix materialized with a massive roar, glaring down at the tiny weed. The plant cocked its head, either unfazed by the rock-type's size or just intensely stupid, and immediately found itself caught tight in the binds of Onix. Its small, swaying stem spared it from being crushed, prompting it to start lashing out with its vines, smacking all over the snake's body-

And Onix, enraged from pain, grabbed Bellsprouts head in its mouth, pulled it out of its own coils and whipped it into the wall, not even allowing it to fall back down before finally viciously slamming its tail into the plant, knocking it out instantly.

Whimpering in fear, the child ran onto the battlefield, retrieving his unfortunate plant buddy before running out of the gym with a cry as the Onix roared triumphantly.

A chill ran up Mason's spine. Bellsprout was lucky; its body structure helped it hold its own and survive against the massive serpent's attacks…

But what would happen to a pair of small rodents in the same situation?
--

A few moments later, a still somewhat stunned Mason sat on the bed of his room, watching as Randy, snapping his teeth, chased a low-flying, still-happy Viola. He cast a glance at the stoic Metapod propped up at the foot of the bed, watching the events unfold with its calm, half-lidded eyes. At times like this he wished he could understand what was going on better.

"Okay, guys, settle down," he commanded, though it came out as more of an insecure plea. Nonetheless, the two rodents stopped and looked up at him. "We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow. We have to figure out some way we can beat that….thing," he said, trailing off as he thought back once more to the brutality Onix displayed towards the tiny sprout. He shook his head before stuttering out a goodnight, climbing under the covers and clicking off the light. The Metapod slowly shut its eyes and clunked to the floor as Viola affixed herself to a protrusion in the ceiling, watching as Randy circled tentatively to find a place to sleep. Viola wasn't intending on going to sleep anytime soon herself, but rest was always appreciated as she tucked her head into her wings and lapsed into a semi-conscious state.

About two hours later, a scratching sound at the window floated into Viola's ears, followed by a gentle nighttime breeze. Realizing someone or something had opened the window, she immediately snapped her head back out to look around.

Randy had somehow opened the window, and was standing on the edge looking out, a wide grin on his face that immediately dropped into a surprised scowl upon hearing Viola call out his name.
Whipping around as she floated down in front of him, he growled out "I thought you were asleep!" which only elicited a cocked head and a bemused smirk from Viola.

"Obviously you don't know anything about bats. Care to tell me what you're doing though?" she asked, her face snapping back to innocent curiosity as the purple rodent backed up a bit before snapping out.

"What does it look like? I'm escaping!"

Viola frowned and cocked her head again. "Why? You've got a trainer now and we're gonna go on an adventure and-"

"And get my spine ruptured by a homocidal Onix? And get sent into battle against thousands of overpowered opponents? And walk all over the place entrusting my safety with freaking awkward McChubbo here? Hell no."

Viola was taken aback and left in silence by the Rattata's words, who took it to mean that the conversation was over and turned back to the open window, savoring his escape to freedom.

"…he trusts you, you know…." A soft voice wafted from behind him. He turned back to Viola, more baffled than annoyed this time. "He was relying on your strength to get him through the forest, and you did. I….got beaten down by one of those Weedle things in my first battle." She added, looking away a bit as Randy made a snorting laugh, then turned back to face him again with a serious expression.

"He may not believe much in me, but I'll be willing to believe in him, even though I've only known him for three days. You've only been with him for one day and you're already giving up on him?" Randy turned his head aside, leering in some other direction.

"He did kind of break my ribs, you know."

"Actually, that was technically you. Yeah, you were confused, but you were still the one who ran into a cliff face like a dumbass." Randy growled and leered at Viola again, who only stared at him with a stony face.

"This is only the beginning, you know. There's still a long ways to go, and a lot of good times we could have spreading out ahead, if you're just willing to trust in him. But if you really don't believe, I don't know what I can do for you…." She said softly. Randy's expression softened a bit as he glanced between her, the open window, and the sleeping Mason.

When Mason woke up the next morning, he was surprised to see Randy not only already up, but huffing up a sweat as he did what looked like four-legged pushups with the colossal weight (by his standards) of Metapod resting on his back, with Viola topping it off by clinging to the Metapod and chewing, battering, and chomping on it viciously, creating the image of a strange, demented trifecta of exercise. Mason was shocked to see them displaying such inexplicable gung-ho, but upon seeing him staring, Viola did nothing but wave cheerily as Randy simply cracked a grin at him with his huge teeth.

Mason sat stunned, but soon gave a smile of his own.

--

A/N: SEE THEY SORT OF TRUST EACH OTHER NOW. IT TOTALLY WASN'T POINTLESS FILLER AT ALL. headdesk
UGH, I'm so, SO sorry for the month-long wait leading up to nothing but this awkward-assed filler shit. I honestly hadn't had anything in mind for the Viridian Forest, but after the ultra-dramatic ending to the last one I felt somehow required to do so to fill in a bit of space before the epic battle with the dreaded abomination that is Onix. Hopefully I managed to make it at least a little amusing with the comical bits...

Ironically, I had created this fic with the intention of not being a typical LOLADVENTURE fic and focusing more on friendship (though it won't go on for endless chapters, I actually think I have the plot set out somewhat well for this and am intending it to be sort of short), but I'm kind of afraid I may wind up melding it into one if I'm not careful. Once again, any kind of reviews are welcome.

I can't promise that the next one will come any sooner, but I can promise its contents will contain a good 70 percent more epic.