~ Meteor Mashed! ~
Oshawott, Lizzy, and the Tech Area 'mons were playing beach soccer when a shadow passed right by them. They looked up and saw that it was Pelipper the wandering postal carrier.
"Letter for Timburr of the Tech Area!" he called before dropping the correct letter out of his large beak. Timburr caught it and after hollering a "Thanks, Pelipper!" he read the letter.
He groaned. "Aww man, Conkeldurr needs me at the Train Depot right now," he told his Tech Area friends. "He wants Gurdurr and I to work on some project." He pouted. "I guess I'm gonna have to sit out the next match."
Lizzy glanced at Oshawott's bandaged toe and blurted out, "I'm not even sure there's going to be a next match." She regretted it the second she said it. There she goes again, leaping before looking first.
Oshawott looked as if he was about to protest, but luckily Golett and Roggenrola agreed with Lizzy. "Yeah, and besides, I promised Golurk I'd return soon," Golett added, looking apologetic. "And you should rest that foot, Oshawott. Looked as if you stubbed it pretty hard."
"It wasn't that hard," Oshawott protested, but he was already overruled.
The Tech Area Pokémon said their goodbyes to Oshawott and Lizzy (there was no need to say goodbye to Drilbur, since he'd taken his leave quite a while ago) and set off.
Oshawott and Lizzy were left standing on the beach, waving at the vanishing figures of Timburr, Golett, and Roggenrola. Well, at least Lizzy was waving; Oshawott seemed to be doing more complaining than waving.
"There's nothing wrong with my foot, for Arceus' sake," he grumbled under his breath. "And what are we supposed to do now? This Meteor Mash-up is supposed to end at dusk. Lopunny's not gonna like it if we return early. We can't play beach soccer, that's for sure, since there's only the two of us and Drilbur."
He turned to the mound of dirt into which Drilbur had disappeared into and sighed. "OK, no. Drilbur's taken his leave also."
"Well then, we won't play beach soccer," Lizzy answered in a matter-of-fact manner.
Oshawott frowned. "OK, but what can we do besides play beach soccer?"
Lizzy held up a finger in another watch-and-learn gesture. And then she rummaged even deeper into her fleece.
Oshawott was staring out at the afternoon horizon when Lizzy spoke up again. When he turned to her, she was holding up a pack of playing cards.
"How about this?" she asked.
Lizzy just pulled out a stack of cards from inside her fleece. How did she do that? Lopunny's beginning to think that she'd choose the fleece compartment over not looking fat. It's way more useful than she originally thought.
What are they going to do with the cards, hmm~? Is Lizzy going to do a trick with them, too? She's beginning to seem as if she has a lot of tricks up her fleece!
Meanwhile, inside Chandelure's tent, the Dance Inferno was just getting started. During the first few rounds, Lopunny played classical music, the kind of which Froslass liked. Froslass and Gremlin found it rather easy to literally dance their way into the later rounds (because Froslass seemed to know what she was doing and what they should be doing.)
"This is very fun," said Froslass, twirling. "Uh-uh," Gremlin commented shortly. He actually wished Lopunny would pick up the pace.
Suddenly, Lopunny did.
"OK, Chandelure! Let's kick it up a notch!"
Chandelure seemed to know perfectly what she meant, because the next song that played was a significantly faster song.
It was as if someone had lit Gremlin's fire.
"Finally!" he cheered, breaking into a frenzy of (weird-looking, it seemed to Froslass) dance moves. "C'mon, Froslass! This is fun!"
However, the Ice-type was just hovering there rigid.
Gremlin stopped. "Froslass? What's wrong?"
Froslass blinked blankly at the dancing pairs around her. "I... I cannot dance to this type of music!" she said.
Gremlin didn't see the difference between the previous kind of music and this one. "Uh, why not? Just do what you did earlier. As far as I could see, you were really good at dancing!"
"Yes. To that kind of music. You do understand that dancing also has a method, do you not? I happened to know how to dance the waltz, but I have not yet gained any knowledge on how to dance to this kind of music."
That was when Gremlin saw that Lopunny was staring at them. It was understandable – the other pairs were all dancing and they were the only ones who were staying still. Gremlin got the drift that if they didn't start dancing soon, Lopunny would eliminate them next. (And Lopunny was merciless – she'd already eliminated Dustox and Beautifly because they just fluttered around and didn't seem to have any clear dance moves.)
Froslass was just standing there when someone tapped her arm. When she looked down, Gremlin was holding out his hand.
"Here," he said. "Will you let me hold your hand?"
At first Froslass looked clueless as she stared at him, but then she seemed to snap out of her trance. Her face expression softened.
"Very well," she said quietly, taking his hand.
He flinched as soon as he touched it. "Yikes, your hand is really cold!"
Froslass' grip on his hand weakened. "I apologize. It slipped my mind how uncomfortable it is for people when you have no body warmth. Perhaps this is not such a good idea..."
"No, it's OK!" Gremlin said brightly, not letting go of her ice-cold hand. "C'mon, let's dance!"
"Very well," Froslass said again, letting the Sableye pull her to the center of the stage.
Lopunny is making a mental note as she fangirls. She classifies this under "The First Meteor Mash-up Romantic Hand-holding". Note that she has added the adjective "romantic", because she did see that Breloom was also holding Braixen's hand when he towed her unceremoniously to Haxorus' dojo. She narrows her eyes. She will pretend that she did not see that happening. At all.
OK, now let's go back to the Arcane Area, shall we? Last we checked, a lot of things were going on there, such as the fact that Krokorok was about to finish Storm off with a last Foul Play. Let's see how that turned out. (Oh, and Lopunny's still got her ears over her eyes, so do tell her when it's over.)
...
Things weren't looking good at all. Storm was on the ground, severely slowed down due to a lot of Scary Faces. Roselio had just recovered from confusion. Krokorok was coming in with another Foul Play. Storm braced herself for the knockout blow...
Suddenly, in a mere matter of seconds, something came between her and Krokorok. At first, she thought the group of Lotad had accidentally run in his path, but on seeing the specks of red and blue fly into the air, she realized that it was Roselio.
She hardly noticed when the Grass-type slammed onto the ground beside her painfully. In her mind, she was playing over and over again what he had just done. He had taken the hit.
"He took the hit," she thought. "What a foolish, reckless, stupid thing to do."
Yes, it was foolish, reckless, and stupid, but she couldn't help but acknowledge a foreign feeling buried deep somewhere inside.
Storm got another surprise when she snapped out of her reverie, because when she looked down, Roselio's vine was wrapped around her hand.
"Let's go!" he said urgently, grimacing. "Let's move before he attacks again." With that, he pulled her to her feet and they darted away from Krokorok just in time, because the next moment Krokorok used another Foul Play.
Both Storm and Roselio were panting now. We won't be able to withstand much more, Storm thought. Roselio seemed to read her mind. "I have a feeling we need to end this battle quick," he said. "Luckily, he's also almost fainted. We just need to land the knockout blow." He turned to Storm.
The Pikachu stared at him. "You do it."
"What?" Roselio couldn't believe his ears. He hadn't expected that at all. He thought the aggressive Pikachu would want to be the one who did it.
Storm was shaking her head. "I don't have any suitable moves. You do it."
Roselio blinked but finally shrugged and gave in. "OK," he said and ran towards Krokorok with a grin as petals began to swirl around him.
"Petal Dance!" he exclaimed, the petals enveloping Krokorok in a mad swirl of red and blue. When the dust cleared, Krokorok was lying stunned on the ground.
Meanwhile, Magmar, Glalie, and Bellsprout had just recovered. They took one look at their fallen boss, another at Storm and Roselio, and finally at one another.
"Let's get out of here!" they cried. Magmar and Glalie rushed over to their leader and simply dragged him away, while Bellsprout scurried behind them. They got smaller and smaller in the distance until they vanished from view.
Lopunny removes one of her ears from in front of her eyes, heaving a mighty sigh of relief. Whew! She's glad there was no bloodshed after all. Also, Pairing 9: Roselio x Storm can almost be adorable when they try.
She can't help but smile to herself. She has a feeling that both Storm and Roselio learned a lot of new things today. Right~?
...
Finally, the 5.00 PM Power Bash was about to start. Breloom and Braixen were showed to a kind of open terrace decorated in the same style as the rest of the dojo. Near the edge was a trapdoor. Here was where they were supposed to attack any Pokémon who appeared and drop any bombs by opening the trapdoor.
"OK, how are we going to do this?" Braixen asked. "I think we need a strategy."
Breloom huffed. "Now you're talking like Treecko. Strategy this and strategy that. Why won't people just wing it?"
"Because we need to beat Hariyama, that's why," Braixen said flatly. "I have an idea. How about if we take turns every few minutes or so? That way we won't get too tired."
"Whatever ya say," said Breloom.
"I'm counting on you, you know." Braixen stared at him. "You'd better not drop any Pokémon or punch any bombs or get attacked by any Pokémon or I'm gonna be really mad."
"Yeah yeah." Breloom rolled his eyes. "You'd better not mess up, too. You're the one who's suddenly really fired up for this whole thing."
"But it was your idea in the first place!"
Before Braixen could say anything else, Axew's voice blared over the loudspeakers announcing that the Power Bash was about to start. Both Braixen and Breloom were forced to quiet down.
"Well. Best of luck," Breloom said nonchalantly.
"You too." Braixen still had on that same determined expression. "Wait and see; we're going to beat Hariyama at his own game!"
Beating Hariyama at his own game sounds like a good plan. Just make sure you two are actually up for it, dear Braixen! With Roselio's and Storm's FANGS fiasco solved, I think Lopunny's had enough of excitement for one Meteor Mash-up.
...
When Cleffy came around, she was staring up right at the face of Darwynette de la Verde. Luckily for our dear Roserade, she had finally succeeded in cleaning up all of the lemon meringue mess.
Cleffy quickly sat up, wondering why the Roserade was here instead of Nile.
"Where's Nile?"
"Oh, he's gone out to find some berries for you. I saw you two when I went into this cave, you splayed out on the ground out cold. He asked me to look after you while he looked for the berries," Darwin said nonchalantly. "He said you'd fainted out of the blue like that. What happened, anyway? Everything was A-OK according to Nile, even throughout your battle with the horde of Swoobat. You only fainted after the battle was over. Care to explain that?"
Cleffy's face went red. "I... uh... I'm afraid of heights," Cleffy whispered as she played with her fingers, feeling pathetic.
"Ah." Darwin gave her an up-and-down look. "I can imagine that."
...
"I hope your Riolu friend returns soon," Darwin said after a while and Nile still hadn't returned. Cleffy noticed she was fidgeting impatiently.
"I'm sorry if I'm t-troubling you," Cleffy apologized. "D-d-do you have somewhere important to be?"
"Important, no." Darwin rolled her eyes. "I'm just going to look for Hypno before anything significant happens."
"Huh? L-look for Hypno? Why? Aren't you supposed to be with Tepig? And wh-what do you mean by 'something significant'...?" Cleffy stopped speaking when she realized that she could be probing too deep for Darwin's comfort. "Ah... I'm sorry. Of c-course it's none of my business."
"Nah, it's OK," Darwin replied with a dismissive wave of her red rose. "Unlike you little kids who apparently participated to solely 'meet new people', I of course had someone I was aiming for. I thought we were actually meant to be." Her tone was sarcastic.
"Ah." Cleffy nodded with understanding. "H-Hypno..."
Then she fiddled with her fingers and looked down at her lap. A red hue overtook her usually pale cheeks. The face of that certain someone she'd hoped to get paired up with appeared in her mind, and he was saying, "Hey, Clef!" in that voice she loved so much. Before she knew it, Cleffy was smiling.
Darwin had been watching Cleffy, so she witnessed the appearance of that sudden smile. Darwin's teenage madame love doctor kicked in. Blushing, finger-fiddling, silly smiling. It all added up to the fact that, Darwin was surprised to conclude, Cleffy was in love.
She turned away so it wouldn't seem as if she'd been watching her intently. Then the Roserade said coolly, nonchalantly, "What's with the huge grin, Cleffy?"
"H-h-huge g-g-grin?" Cleffy was alarmed. She tried to make it disappear from her face. "Wh-what huge g-grin?"
Darwin only laughed. "Dear Arceus, looks like I wasn't the only one who was hoping to get paired up with someone."
"N-no!" Cleffy tried to deny it.
Darwin leaned forward with a meaningful glint in her eyes. "So, who is it, Cleffy?" she asked in a singsong voice. "Who are you in love with, eh? Tell me!"
"N-n-no one!" Cleffy protested, but the second she said that, the silly smile she'd been planning to get rid of returned. Cleffy sighed. It was futile. She'd made the mistake of acting too lovey-dovey, and Darwin was the type of teen girl who never lets any detail about lovey-doveyness slip through her rose petals. She might as well just tell her.
OK, there's no delaying the inevitable. Here's where Lopunny will come clean. Although she's the one who runs the Meteor Mash-up, the one who supposedly knows about matters of love, she is so sorry to admit that she has no idea who Cleffy is in love with. (And the fact that Cleffy is bad at the art of subtlety makes everything worse.)
Dear reader, you can do better than Lopunny, right? Do you know who Cleffy is in love with? Think back to the time when she first met her friends in the beginning of the Meteor Mash-up...
Stay tuned on Wish Park FM, everyone!