[*Narrator voice* Here we are again with our three heroes all running toward a mid-evening boat that will be leaving in a half-hour.]
"Hey, guys! *Pant* We're almost there! And with nearly a half hour to spare!" Gütter said, getting a little tired of running.
"Then why *grunt* are we still *stumble* running?!" Bailey said, who never really was much of a runner.
"What?" Gütter said as he bumped into someone running from a different direction.
"OOF!" They both said as they ran into each other.
Bailey collapsed, she was slightly glad to see Gütter bump into someone if it stopped him from running.
"Agh. Hey wait a minute! Three pikachu! What luck! Go, cyndaquil!"
"Cynda!"
"Wha-? Nonono! Wait! You got it all wrong!"
"Hey, that pikachu is talking."
"Wait a minute… I know you! It's you, Dillard!"
"Hey, how did you know my name?"
"Dillard, listen. Look into my eyes, and you answer that question yourself."
Dillard crouched down and looked for a few seconds. "Nope, don't know ya'."
"Ugh, what happened to three years of friendship." Gütter pulled out his pokédex. "Dexter, tell him."
"Gütter Tuben; pokémon trainer, software tester, computer support, and comedian. Currently has one pokémon, a pikachu."
Pikachu walked up the Dillard's cyndaquil. "Pika, pikachu. Pika pika pipika pika."
"Cyndaquil. Cynda cynDAquil."
"Pika, pika."
The two pokémon smiled and shook (what they have closest to) hands.
"Pikachu seems to make friends quite easily. I sometimes think he says something funny and they become friends from then on." Gütter said still wondering what they're saying.
"That's how WE became friends…" Dillard said now remembering who he is.
Bailey got up, finally conscious again. "Gütter, who this?"
"Bailey this is Dillard, he and I have been best friends since we met in kindergarden."
"Gütter, why are you pikachu?" Dillard asked
"Oh, right. Uhh… Dexter, do you remember?" Gütter said, looking at the screen again.
"I have a video." His screen flashed and a video came on showing what happened.
"Hey dexter, if you were in my pocket the whole time, how do you have this video?"
"I have my ways…"
Gütter closed up his pokédex and put it back into his hat.
"Ah, okay. Oh, and happy birthday! I would have brought a present, but we ran into each other by mistake. So I had no plans."
"Hey thanks, I guess you can remember something that lasted three years for at least two years."
Bailey rolled her eyes.
"Hey, I was just on my way to the Orange Islands. You wanna come with us?"
"Wynaut! Maybe I can participate in the Orange League too!"
Gütter chuckled, knowing he intentionally added in that pun. "Well, then let's get on, we still have… about twenty minutes left."
"No more running! Please…" Bailey said tears starting.
"Don't worry, it's right there. We can walk." Gütter said trying to make her feel better. "In fact, how about you jump onto Dillard's shoulder?"
"Hey, what?" Dillard said as Bailey climbed up and stopped on his shoulder. "Actually this feels quite nice."
"C'mon, let's go catch that boat." The four of them walked onward to the dock, once they got there they saw some huge ships, ferries, and a cruise ship.
Dillard asked a man wearing a sailor's hat "Excuse me, but could you please tell me which one of these are headed for the Orange Islands?"
The man smiled and said with a strong Scottish accent "The boat your looking for would be mine, that beauty right there." He pointed to the cruise.
"But that's a cruise!" Bailey said, feeling both confused and exited.
"Ah, you probably heard about it being free, haven't you? Well, as a kid I always loved riding these here things, every summer my parents would get us tickets to ride one. Now, every time I get just enough spare money, I get out this cruise and set the price to free so everyone could see what it's like to be on one."
"Wow! That's so cool!" Gütter said.
"Climb aboard kids, we're about to leave anyway." The man said, leading them onboard. As they were going up the stairs to the deck, he turned around and said "By the way, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Carl Berdenstien, but please do feel free to just call me captain."
"Nice to meet you, my name is Dillard, over here is my good friend Gütter."
Gütter smiled and waved his hand.
"And there's his pikachu."
"Pika pika!" The pikachu said raising it's hand.
"And here is… What was your name again?"
Bailey sighed, she feels like she has been left out and forgotten entirely all day. "My name's Bailey. It's Bailey."
"Right…"
"Mm hm. Now, do tell me… what do you mean by 'his pikachu'?" The captain questioned.
"Allow my pokédex to do the explaining."
[One flashback on a screen later…]
"And now here I am telling you how I am, and can have a pikachu."
"Gütter, you do know you didn't have to show the entire day to him…"
"Yeah, well it took the writer weeks to put this story together, I'm not gonna let a good plot like this dissipate into nothing…"
"What? Story? Plot? What are you talking about?"
"You know, I'm not sure…" Gütter then started questioning himself again. Whenever he's near Dillard he tends to have a lot of spontaneous actions, followed by self-questioning.
"Clearly you ARE good friends with Dillard here. I know an ADHD when I see one, and we got a fine example standing right by us. Studies have shown ADHD can be contagious within a short range if the two are very good friends." The captain said, sounding quite knowledgeable.
" 'ADHD'?" Bailey asked.
Gütter and Dillard said in perfect sync "ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." Dillard stopped and let Gütter add "Basically he has trouble focusing, staying still, stuff like that. But he sure will keep things interesting when you give him the right moment."
"Nice job. Now follow me so I can show you around." He moved his arm to let them know to follow. "Over here is our fine breakfast, lunch, and desert bar. We skip dinner and repeat lunch instead."
Gütter smiled, this is how he normally thought of a typical day. He was also keeping a sharp eye on that rice pudding.
"Over here is the mall area, every shop one could typically put into a mall."
Bailey widened her eyes, raised her ears, and moved her tail around as she thought about all the shopping shed could do here.
"Remember, the ride is free, but you still gotta pay for things with a price tag." The captain added, noticing her anticipation. "Moving on, here we have a public pool. Using the finest of water filter technology we have been successful at making a polished crystal clear pool that is so clear you can even keep your eyes open the whole time and not have any trouble seeing or burning."
Gütter's smile grew larger, he absolutely loved swimming. And he thought it would be awesome to be in one you can see in.
"Over here is our museum. Made up entirely out of donation expecting only to give back knowledge that everyone could enjoy it from then on."
Every looked in all directions, they all started to forget they were even on a boat.
"Nothing much is really left to show but two more areas, over there is your normal, but very portable-sized pokémon center. And here is where you'll be sleeping." He opened a door revealing a ton a bunk beds with what appeared to be rather expensive beds. "We wanted to keep the luxurious comfort of our wonderful mareep wool beds, but to make room for everything else, we made luxury bunk beds."
"Three words meant to be together." Gütter said almost ready to just jump into bed for the feel of it. "Hey, wait a minute… Isn't this stuff like top… TOP dollar material?"
The captain chuckled "Well, I suppose that's one way to put it. But you see, my brother and I both care for a large flock of mareep, we save a little for ourselves as it truly is the softest thing ever, but the rest is actually how I can even dream of doing this out of extra money." A blue light was shining by his ear, and he stopped for a moment. "Well, looks like I have to go up and take this thing to the Orange Islands now. It was nice meeting all of you. See you sometime tomorrow."
"Okay, we will." Gütter said, ready to see what else they had here.
[Screen effect]
Gütter stepped down from the ATM. "Okay, here's some shopping money for you Bailey, and Dillard, go find something interesting out there too. I'll meet you guys back here in at least ten minutes. 'Kay?"
"Alright!" The two of them said, ready to go.
"Hey pikachu, wanna go check out that desert bar?"
"Pika pika…" Said pikachu, thinking back on all that food it saw earlier.
As soon as they were there Gütter said "*Sigh* Looks like we came a bit too late…"
Pikachu sighed, it really wanted to try that bowl of assorted "Pika…"
"Hey! Look pikachu, they still got a bunch of stuff at the fruit bar!"
Pikachu was still disappointed about dessert, that bowl was once filled with assorted pokéblock, but pikachu was still up for some nice fruit.
"Let's see… We got apples, pears, a lime… some kiwi? Oh! Jackpot!" Gütter smiled as he pulled out a well-sized container of pineapple rings. Gütter and pikachu both loved pineapple so much.
"Pika!" Pikachu said, feeling like it just won the city lottery.
Gütter put it up on a table and said "C'mon pikachu let's dig in!"
"Pika!"
The two of them peacefully ate their pineapple rings, one at a time, taking their time to enjoy the flavor.
A young girl in a yellow dress walked by and took a picture. "How cute!"
"Pika?" Pikachu said.
Gütter tried to keep himself from talking, he decided he would pretend to just be a normal pikachu and he used his pikachu voice "Pika, pika pi pika pika." Gütter pretended to reply. He got up close to pikachu and whispered "Just play along, I don't wanna scare her with a talking pikachu."
"Pika, pikachu pi pipika?"
"Pika, pi pika pika pikachu piKA! Pi, pi pikachu."
"Pikaaa."
"Pikachu, pika, pikapika pi."
"Pika… Pikachu- chupika!"
Pikachu nodded and decided the conversation was over by giving a thumbs up.
"Aw, I just adore pikachu. But, I know you two gotta belong to SOMEone here. So I'll just leave you two where you are." The girl walked on, looking at the adorable photo she took of the two pikachu eating.
"Shall we continue?" Gütter asked after she left hearing range.
"Pika." Pikachu said, nodding it's head.
They kept on eating. Filling themselves with pineapple rather than some sugary rice pudding or pokéblock. (They were both quite bland anyway…)
[Screen effect]
"Hm, Dillard, what do you think? Red… or green?" Bailey said, holding up two shirts.
"Why are we even doing this? You'll only be like this for a couple weeks or so, and you'll grow out of them by then… In fact, they don't even have anything your size."
"Yeah, but I always wanna look my best even when I'm not a person. Besides, what if I turn back and I'm not wearing any clothes?!" She said, beginning to panic.
"Oh come on, don't you think Gütter would have already thought through things like this?"
She then began to tremble in fear.
"…Point taken, but you really should try having a little more trust every now and then." He saw a lady who worked there walk by. "Excuse me, miss? Are you sure you don't have anything like this in babies size 1?"
She looked over, noticing Bailey, she smiled. "Hm." she took the pink shirt and put it into a washer… a very LOUD washer… that eventually went 'ding'. She took it out again and put it onto Bailey. Perfect fit.
"Wow, this isn't even dry clean only…" Dillard said, not actually knowing that much about clothes other than 'wear'.
"We love pokémon here as much as anyone else, so for free of charge we resize clothes in these machines to let all the smaller ones have some clothes of their own." The woman said.
"What do you say B- pikachu?"
Bailey thought for a moment, she didn't want to scare this kind lady, or anyone else. She then tried and used her best pikachu impression. (Which wasn't quite as good as Gütter's, but still not that bad.) "Pika, pipikachu!"
"How nice. You know what, that shirt looks SO perfect on that pikachu! Maybe just this once I'll let that one go. Keep it!" She pulled out a device and removed the electronic tag. "I'll pay for that one. Is there anything else you were looking for here."
Dillard thought about it for a moment, it was getting close to the beginning of October [no, this story is not going to be anywhere near the current date…] so he thought everyone could use something to help keep them warm, it was the right thing to do. "Got anything with Pixelmon on it?"
"Ah, I know EXACTLY what you're look for." She led them to a large-scale display toward the middle of the store "Whenever you're running a clothing shop you've GOT to have Pixelmon somewhere here."
Dillard picked up the last two sweaters in front of the display, one with the Pixelmon logo, the other with a Pixelmon poster design. Dillard and Gütter used to play Pixelmon on their computers a couple years back, he thought Gütter might like one two. He looked closer at the jacket adjustment straps, they were earbuds. "Perfect. I'll take these two, please."
"Excellent choice, would your pikachu like a sweater too?" She looked over at Bailey.
She had already started looking, she stopped as she saw a nice light-blue sweater with a squirtle on it. "Pika! Pikachu!"
"I see your pikachu likes that one, an unusual choice I can honestly say, but still a nice one." She picked it up and put it into the washing machine like the last one.
Bailey took it and put it on "Pika pika!" She said with glee.
Dillard was counting the money he had in his pocket, then handed a certain amount to her, and said "I'm sure that will cover it."
She flipped through them, noticing he was caring money around only in one-dollar bills, she handed him one dollar, and two pennies.
"Alright, I think Gütter's waiting for us now, we should get going."
"Okay. I hope to see you and your pikachu again sometime."
The two of them left the mall area, now with food supplies, and some extra clothing for the upcoming fall and winter. Dillard looked over and saw an arcade, he noticed he still had a few extra dollars. "You wouldn't mind goin' to the arcade would ya'?"
"What? You think just because I'm a girl I don't like the arcade?" She said, crossing her arms.
"Well, sorRY for asking a simple and honest question… C'mon let's go!"
They went inside, got some tokens, Dillard played all the racing games, while Bailey was beating everyone at the Retro Arcade Championship. She still kept the fact she could talk hidden, of course.
"What? I was beat… by a pikachu?!" One kid said after losing. When he looked to his friends they looked away, clearly not wanting to even look at him.
"Pika, pika." Bailey said, patting him on the back.
He jerked away and left the arcade with his head down.
The arcade intercom turned on. "Gamers, it's down to the last two contestants of the R.A.C. and our finalists are… Jason, our main champion for five years straight!"
"Time to add another trophy to my collection." Said a guy about the age of 15 or so. He sat down in the finalist's chair on the left side.
"And a newcomer who has made all the way here to the final round… Bailey… the… pikachu."
"Pika, pipika." She said, climbing into the finalist's chair on the right side, after adding a booster seat.
"I don't know how you made it this far, but it's as far as you're gonna get!" Jason said, grabbing the controls.
"Pika!" She said angrily.
Everyone watched the larger screen in between them showing both sides at once. Dillard finished up his game quickly and came to watch it. The two gamers seemed to be truly concentrated, Bailey sometimes made use of her tail to press the buttons.
"Is her using her tail to play legal?" One of the workers whispered.
"There's no rule against it. There are stories of a guy who had an invisible third arm who used it to play his game." The other whispered back.
It nearly seemed as though neither of them even had arms eventually, they were all moving so quickly that the only thing that anyone even heard was the sound of button clicks. The in-game timer was down to five seconds and Bailey was in the lead by a few points.
"Oh no you don't!" Shouted Jason. He then was just about to make his move when suddenly the timer ran out. "Wha- wha?"
"Looks like the winner is Bailey! Our new champion!"
She looked around and saw everyone cheering for her, she also saw Jason was still in shock. She decided she would just express herself by imitating Ash's pikachu. She held up a peace sign shouting "Pi-pikachu!"
Everyone cheered even more. Dillard went over to Bailey and said "Well done Bailey. Here, have something to eat." He pulled a small yellow container with a lightning bolt engraved in it.
She opened it up only to see some normal-looking pokemon food, but she was to happy to be worried about anything, so she ate it, and loved it.
"And here is your trophy!" The man brought a pacman-shaped trophy with Bailey's name inscribed on the plaque of the stand.
She set her food aside for a second so she could hold her trophy, she held it up in the air for all to see and everyone cheered louder one last time.
Dillard set Bailey onto his should while she was holding her food, he picked up her trophy and waved to everyone as they left the arcade.
"Now let's go and see what Gütter's doing."
"Okay." Bailey said after checking to see no one was watching.
They both figured Gütter wouldn't have remembered to show up, so they went to the cafeteria to see Gütter and pikachu sleeping on the table both satisfied with pineapple.
"Typical Gütter…" Bailey said shaking her head. She climbed up on the table to wake them both up. She used both arms to gently nudge them.
Gütter groaned and quietly said "Pikachu… use thunderbolt…"
Bailey became nervous again, she slowly turned her head to pikachu, who was building up electricity. She tried moving her hands of but they were both a bit sticky from the pineapple. She sighed in acceptance and said "Yep… Typical Gütter…" She said holding both of them up by the fur.
"CHUU!" Pikachu shouted, still asleep.
The electricity traveled through Bailey and into Gütter, waking him up… mostly… "Ugh, five more… forevers?" Gütter was instinctively searching for the alarm clock to knock off the counter. Instead he ended up hitting Bailey in the back of the head causing all three of them to fall off the table. when she tried to strike back, she realized that now they were both awake, and they had stuck together in a ball of pineapple-scented pikachu.
"Oh boy…" Dillard said with a face palm. He picked them up with one hand and went for the nearest sink. He washed them all up, getting rid of the pineapple smell as well.
Gütter asked "What happened?"
"Well, you see… We w-" Dillard started.
Bailey cut in and said "We went shopping, you were eating. We went gaming, you were sleeping. We came looking, and now we're washing."
"Bailey; as simple as you get." Gütter joked.
Bailey pretended she didn't hear that.
"Yeah… It's getting late anyway, we should be at our first island by tomorrow morning."
"Okay. I guess I'll get into bed." Gütter said, ready to go right back to sleep.
"Pi-ika." Pikachu agreed.
Bailey yawned and followed as everyone else went to bed. When they got there, pikachu and Gütter climbed into the bottom bunk, while Dillard took the top one, Bailey walked and looked around.
When they got there Gütter said "Well, they sure don't price this material the way they do for nothing. In fact i-" he was cut short by a sleep attack.
"Pi-" The same for pikachu.
"There aren't any available beds Dillard." Said bailey, walking back.
Dillard yawned "You can sleep down there and make that bunk for all the pikachu, or you can come up here and make this a two person each bunk."
Bailey thought about it for a moment, when she was done she decided it would be a little less awkward being with her own kind.
Dillard said "That's your decision." He lied down and to sleep.
Bailey slept on the far end of the bed, not to close but not to far from Gütter and pikachu. Slowly, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
[*British voice* I say, what an astounding day our heroes have had today. Gütter has reunited with and old friend, and Bailey the new champion of a contest. What could await them as they approach their first orange island? What else is there to know about our less-talkative Bailey chappete? What could Jason be thinking of his loss to a pikachu? And why wasn't the narrator able to make it to his post in between the brackets? Find out next time in the next exiting CHAPter, I say. Until then!]
