Wait! What's this? An... An update? Yes, that's right everyone. After three and a half weeks, I have finally updated. So much for updating every Friday, huh? This chapter was really hard to write; writers block wise and also not enough time because of end of the year schoolwork wise. But fortunately, there are 13 more days left in school! Anyway, I have some news on the bottom I'd like you to read, but let's get to the chapter first.
But wait! Before you go on, I'd like to give a shout out to Souldragon! She's making a really awesome fanfic about a Lucario and a girl, and it's really good. So stop by sometime and read it!
Arc 2- Tag, We're IT
Chapter 12: It's Official:
Everything was shaking. Papers were flying through the air; the walls were shaking, the desk actually rattling against the ground, the Wigglytuff figurine was vibrating against the floor as if it were having a kind of seizure, and to me, everything looked like it was jumping up and down.
Eventually the shaking settled down and I was finally able to make sense of everything around me. I was lying on the ground, I realized, just like Water Gun. Though unlike him, I was wishing that I had listened to Jay's advice of covering my ears, which were ringing. Loudly. That dreaded Wigglytuff figurine was lying in between the two of us and completely in one piece. I planned to fix that.
I picked myself up, despite my throbbing headache and shot nerves, and walked over to the tiny Wigglytuff. I brought up my fist as I smiled at the idea of the destruction of my temporary bane of existence. Making sure I would do as much damage as possible, I cocked back my fist a little more and then, I released...
"Red Fire, no!" Jay, who was laying flat down on the desk, jumped up and reached out as if to stop me, but it, was too late. My fist was gliding down and a sadistic grin was etched upon my face. And then... my fist smashed into the Wigglytuff figurine's face at full force.
To my surprise and displeasure, the Wigglytuff didn't break into a million pieces. In fact, the only thing that probably did break was my throbbing fist. I stared at my fist as a seemingly yearlong hushed silence covered the room. All too soon, the silence was broken, by the Wigglytuff figurine no less. It was rattling against the ground, similar too the way it had when it "yomtah'd" before. I grinned a little; I guess I did break it. No more "yomtah's" from that stup-
"YOMTAH!" We all jumped and shouted in surprise as the ground shook fiercely for a small moment. ...Heh-heh, guess I didn't completely incompletely break it.
"YOMTAH! YOMTAH! YOMTAH! YOMTAH!" the Wigglytuff figurine played it over and over like a broken record, causing ear-splitting tremors that erratically shook the whole floor.
After a while (when the walls started to crack and after we had begun grappling the desk for our dear lives), Jay, using the table as support, carefully walked over to the figurine. Muttering something about taking energy, he raised his paw into the air. I watched in amazement as his fist took on a bright and shiny white aura. He then preceded to sweep his hand over the Wigglytuff, letting only the white aura touch it. It didn't do anything at first, but after a moment, the sound coming from the figurine began to slowly die down until it completely stopped.
"Whoa!" shouted Water Gun with his eyes lit up; guess he was as amazed as I was. "How'd you do that?"
Jay turned around to face us, well really just to face me. His face was back in that annoyed and hateful glare that he had earlier. Funny, it almost seemed he was starting to like me. "That was False Swipe. You're lucky it worked, Charmander, we can easily charge you for destruction of property and endangerment of others. Honestly, if this is how you will act, I feel there will be a need to reconsider your membership." I gulped, whenever anyone started to yell at me with long words, I'd know that I was in trouble one way or another.
"Oh, don't be so tense." said a new voice. We looked behind Jay and at the door where Tawny stood with a birdish smile on her face. "Nobody got hurt, and nothing was destroyed besides Wiggy, right?"
"But, it could hav-!"
"But, it didn't, did it?" Tawny interrupted. Seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere, Jay folded his arms and grunted as he looked away in disinterest. Tawny walked further into the room until she was in front of us, which meant she was also standing next to Jay.
"Why did you come?" Jay asked.
"Well, imagine my surprise when the whole Rescue Base began shaking, AFTER the official registration yomtah. When I began hearing yomtah in short Intervals, I put two and two together and figured out that must've been malfunctioning. Besides, should I really have an excuse to see how you're doing my part of the job?"
"Whatever…" Jay mumbled.
"So," she began, "did Jay give you two your rescue emblems yet?" Our curious looks seemed to answer her question since she smiled knowingly. "Okay then! Jay, I'll take over from here, I'm sure you have other things you'd like to do." without a word, Jay sighed and walked out of the room, closing the open door behind him.
Tawny walked over to the giant desk and began opening a couple of the drawers. I absently wondered how she could do that with wings. She gave up looking through the drawers and reached for the bottom of the desk, which made her tail feathers the only visible part of her to us. When she came up again, she brought up a medium sized plain treasure chest with her. "Okay! I have every thing you'll need right here, so I'll give you both the basic run down of each item and it's use." she said as she opened the chest. She then began taking out various items from the chest and setting them on the desk. After everything was taken out of the chest and Water Gun and I were standing in front of the desk once again, Tawny began to tell us about the items.
"This here," she began, pointing at yet another ivy green and white egg with yellowish ribbons, "is a general Ivy Town Rescue Base emblem. If you're wondering, green and white are our Rescue Base's colors. If you ever want to, you can get a custom-made emblem to fit you're team. Besides being fashion statements, these emblems are extremely helpful to use rescuers in a lot of ways, but the most important is that they get in and out of dungeons.
"Now this," Tawny said as she set down our new rescue emblems and picked up a brownish messenger bag that had a smaller green and white emblem pinned on the flap. I noticed that there was another bag just like it on the table. It probably meant that there was one for both of us. "is one of your treasure bags. You can put whatever you want in it. Use it to stock up for a mission or for temporary storage in a dungeon."
She handed our new emblems and treasure bags to us. As we put on the treasure bags and placed our emblems in one of their many pockets, Tawny picked up two more items. "This," she said as she indicated to a rolled up scroll, "is your Wonder Map. It shows all of the mystery dungeons in Ivy Town's general vicinity; and this," this time indicating to a stone emblem that was slightly bigger than our normal ones. There was a white flag displaying a green and white emblem right next to the statuette "is a Rescue statuette, which you'll put on your house or team base to let others know that you are a rescue team" Seeing Water Gun reach for the map, I grabbed the statuette and its flag and put it in my treasure bag.
"…and before I forget; along with all of this, you've gained an account at Meowth's Bank, a storage area at Mamma Kangashkan's Storage, and a subscription for Delibird's Mail for your newsletters and for missions that personally request you."
"Wow" Water Gun took the words right out of mouth. It was just so much to take in at once. We were actually a Rescue Team. Mind you, it wasn't like I wanted to be a rescuer, there just isn't anything better to do and, just in case there was something true in that dream I had, becoming a rescuer would be a great means for self-preservation. Water Gun had nothing to do with it at all. Nope! Not. At. All.
"Okay!" Tawny slid back into the giant seat and made an odd chirping noise before continuing. "Now that your team—"
"WaterBlaze;" interrupted Water Gun, "we're Team WaterBlaze."
"That's a nice team name." Tawny smiled sweetly at us. "Okay, now that Team WaterBlaze is registered, you'll be IT for a while—"
"It?" Water Gun interrupted again. "You mean like tag? We're going to play games?" Water Gun can be such an idiot sometimes. IT obviously stands for Interrogation and Torture. Looks like being a rescuer will be fun after all. Or...does that mean we will be interrogated and tortured?
Tawny chuckled slightly as she slowly shook her head in amusement. "No Wafer Gun. IT stands for 'in training'. After a Rescue Team is registered, we put them in our training program. We wouldn't dare put a rookie team in a dungeon straight of the bat without them knowing what to do. So then follow me and I'll introduce you two to the Pokemon in charge of our dojo and our IT program: Sensei Hariyama!"
"Wah? Here? As in, right now?" Asked Water Gun.
"Of course," replied Tawny. "Why wouldn't we?"
"It's just...Well, this is happening so fast. We just became a Rescue Team!" I had to agree with him. So much was happening all at once, well that and my treasure bag was getting heavy.
"That's what they all say" Tawny said with her birdish grin.
After leaving the registration room, Water Gun and I followed Tawny down the Main Hall way. It was a short walk, but we talked about a lot of things— most of which I doubt I'll remember. One of the things I do remember though is info about that training program. In that training program, we had to complete a total of 10 missions before we could be an 'actual' Rescue Team. 1 exploration, 4 rescues, 4 escorts, and 1 outlaw capture. Sounds easy, right? Well, if you've ever lived in the wild, you'll learn that everything that sounds easy has a catch; and this is it: if we ever fail a mission, the number of missions in that mission category is doubled. Don't worry, I didn't get it at first either.
Here's the example Tawny gave us: "Let's say you have 2 more rescues to complete before you finish the training course; you take one mission but end up failing it. Now you have 4 more rescue missions that you have to complete. This repeats over and over again until you actually complete the course." …wow, I can't believe I was actually able to remember that word for word… Anyway, after that she started talking about a bunch of other stuff like how "you can never fail an exploration" or how "most recruits fail their first outlaw mission", but I didn't really pay attention to most of it.
After Tawny finished talking, we finally arrived to the place she called the "dojo". Great timing on her part.
Ivy Town Dojo
The dojo… it was pretty creepy. There weren't many of those weird purple candles around, making the place almost as dark as that area with the slide. Despite the darkness, I could tell that the room was pretty spacious, mostly because anything that made a sound echoed. I felt like something was there, watching us. But, that was probably just that paranoia I get when I'm in dark, creepy places that I've never been to.
Tawny continued to lead us pretty far into the darkness before she stopped. She stood there for a few moments, simply staring off into the darkness. When Water Gun and I were about to question her, we were cut off by a dark chuckle.
"Red Fire, did you hear that? I could've sworn I heard someone laughing… And what's wrong with Tawny?"
"How would I know? I can barely see anything around me."
"Mwa heh heh... Welcome, I've been...waiting for you." A deep voice said. About five feet above us, I could see gleaming eyes peering down on us. Water Gun and I were both looking apprehensively at them as a set of sharp teeth grinned sadistically at us.
Suddenly, two small bonfires were lit at the end of one of the walls. Shortly after, lines of candles at the top of the room were flared, which practically lit up the whole room. Finally, a gigantic bond fire, bigger and in the middle of those other two bond fires, was brought ablaze, giving me comforting waves of heat. I took a quick look around before giving that thing with the creepy smile and deep voice my full attention. There wasn't much around; dirt ground, sod walls, and one of those green and white eggs with ribbons above the big Bon fire.
I took a look at the Pokemon that was in front of me. It was big, obviously, and round. To tell you the truth, he looked like he was wearing a pansy bellossm's dress and decided that he would wear giant matching amber gloves. And his face... Was completely normal, asides from the freakish smile on his face.
"I am Sensei Hariyama! My dojo, I welcome you to her!" He proclaimed in a horribly happy voice.
"It's nice to se you again Sensei," Tawny said with a feint smile on her face. "These are the new recruits: Team Water Blaze!"
"No, it's WaterBlaze." corrected Water Gun.
"That's… what I said…" Tawny answered confusedly.
"Never mind..." I sighed. I have a feeling that this is going to be a common mistake.
"Ah, Team WaterBlaze! I welcome her!" the Hariyama bellowed. He had a sorta deep voice, but at the same time, it got strangely high. And his face was practically gleaming with joy. Was this seriously the Pokemon that scared us?
"But..." began Water Gun in confusion. "We're guys..." The weird giant Pokemon continued, ignoring Water Gun— or maybe he just didn't hear because he was so high up?
"The signal, as soon as we heard her, we began preparing for ceremony. But alas! We no have enough supplies for her! Today," —a this point the Hariyama was scooting us forward, towards the fire and away from Tawny and the exit.—"you meet other teams, but the ceremony, tomorrow we will do her!" like Rai, it looks like this Sensei guy talks weird— not that that's a bad thing, of course! —being weird is okay! —Every Pokemon is different! Eh heh heh... Man, I really hope she was not listening…
"Other teams?" I questioned. I guess I never really thought there would be other teams doing this while we were. It made sense I guess.
"That's right," said Tawny. "There will be other teams participating in this while you are. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that on the way here." She looked at me with her birdish grin as I mumbled something incoherent to even me. I had a feeling that she knows that I wasn't paying attention to her while she was talking. Well, if she didn't then she sure as Mew knows now; stupid mind readers…—not that they're stupid or anything!
"Yes, yes! The other teams! You shall meet them!" the Hariyama said ecstatically. No sooner than after he said that, did we start to hear voices and see silhouettes around the two bond fires.
"Humph. the'yre the new recruits? They don't look tough to me." An annoying scratchy voice said. Who ever it was they were already on my list to beat up. The silhouette of this voice walked towards us to reveal himself as a Nidorino. Yup, I'm definitely going to beat him up; I can't stand those things.
"That not saying much, coming from you." another silhouette, from the other bon fire, moved towards us. I can't say I recognized the Pokemon. She looked vaguely like that zangoose thong, with having long claws and all. The only thing different was the darkish purple fur, shorter and skinnier body, and what looked like a... feather... attached to her head?
"What was that?" the Nidorino snapped back.
"Yeah! What was that?" Two voices, near the nidorino chimed together. Two silhouettes came out and revealed themselves as a mankey and a sparrow. Oh great; the prick has a posse.
"I said: 'That isn't much—" the strange Pokemon said before being cut off by a teddiursa that revealed herself from the fire.
"Diyari, no! Skid isn't worth it!" I guess the weird Pokemon's name was Diyari, and the prick's was Skid. Good to know.
"Why don't we just focus on new team?" Of all things, a poliwag stepped out of his silhouette and stood next to the teddiursa. I felt sorry for him. Being on a team with all girls kinda sucked.
"Yeah, that's right! The newbies" the Nidorino, Skid, said before walking down to us, of course, with his posse of a team following him close behind. The other team, following the weird Pokemon, made their way down to us as well. "So, what'd you name yourselves anyway? Team Losers?" the Nidorino snickered as if he had just said the funniest thing in the world. I wonder if he would think my fist in his face would be funny.
"No," Water Gun replied in irritation. I guess he was as annoyed by the prick as I was. "We're Team WaterBlaze."
"Team WaterBlaze? Eh heh heh ha! Wow that sounds so stupid!" Oh Mew! Even his laugh was annoying! Oh so help me, if I don't destroy something soon... You know what? I don't care any more. It's jerk mode time, and for the record, I don't dance.
"Erg... I kinda like it…" the sparrow said ashamedly.
The Nidorino turned to his posse member and stared at him blankly.
"Shut up." he said. Then, turning around to face us again, he continued his hilarious insults. "So, why did you wimpy lose—" Unfortunately, the 'poor' poison Pokemon wasn't able to finish his sentence. Why? Because I punched him straight on the snout! Right on his sniffer! The prick was flipped over, unconscious, two feet away from everyone, and with his head was lying in a small puddle of blood. I smirked at him and looked at my blood-covered fist. Taking a long whiff, I sighed deeply. That felt really good.
It was then that I realized something. I just punched the daylights out of someone, and nobody was saying anything, they were just... Looking at me blankly. "Isn't anyone going to um...?" I really did not know what to say.
Tawny and the other team just shrugged their shoulders and said simultaneously, "He had it coming to him." I smirked widely, I like this place already.
And there we have it! Hoped you liked it. It was longer than the normal length of my chapters, so I hope that makes up for the wait.
Now, about that news I was talking about. Well, first I'd like to announce I have officially started the WaterBlaze comic. I'm still going to have to modify a lot of sprites to accommodate all of the places I've made up. You be surprised by what just adding trees to a scene does. What was once a mountainous, hilly landscape, is now a Gigantic forest. Anyway, I'm just going to do Arc 1 on it for now and start arc two once I finish it here. Now, you might be wondering, where is it? Heh, it's on my Deviant Art. Just click on the homepage link on my profile. And that brings us to our next subject. I'll be drawing different pictures of characters and objects on deviant art, so check it frequently. Thats all I have to say for now, so see yah next time.