PD: Just a heads up, this chapter is a bit longer than usual and has an optional theme: Pokemon Black 2 wild battle theme. When you see a "*" the theme is played and when you see "**" it's stopped. I don't own this song by the way.
Streetside Brawl
With not much to do around Fai's apartment, Mint and Fai have quite the heavy spell of boredom on the brain, and even though the TV displays a nice, entertaining comedy show, neither of them find it entertaining or funny one bit. Seems the whole mood of the apartment is just dull and boring as of right now. The sun has moved a fair bit towards the west and hangs a bit lower in the sky than before. With the winter solstice on the doorstep, time flies quickly and the sun rises and sets in the blink of an eye. Of course, this is only how it feels and the reality of it is the Unova region gets about 9 hours of sunlight on that day, so the closer it gets, the less daylight there is.
Does it stop the millions of people and Pokemon that live in Castelia City, no, they just keep going about their daily business as usual. Speaking of daily business, the boredom in the apartment is so high that Fai turns to Mint and proposes an idea. "I'm bored as fuck, wanna go out and find some trouble?"
He isn't quite sure of what she means by that and tilts his head curiously. She explains. "I don't mean actual trouble, I just wanna get out of here and do something that doesn't involve sitting down on a couch and watching humans fail to make me laugh through a screen."
He understands what she means now and nods. It does sound like a good idea to leave the apartment. Being cooped up for too long gets to you, and this is no exception, especially when you're bored to hell. Fai hops off the couch and runs off to her bedroom while Mint hops off and stretches himself out. After hearing about her story and thinking about it for a short while, he's come to the conclusion that despite the shit show life she's had, she managed to bounce back with Scott's help and has a good thing going for her. The story doesn't really help him however, he's still lost on his own issues and he was hoping her story would possibly make something go off in his head and make him understand why he's feeling the way he's feeling. He finally drops it, he's been dawdling on it for over 3 hours now and nothing's changed.
Fai comes out of her bedroom wearing a cute, little backpack on her back. He finds this odd, but then again, he IS wearing a pendant around his neck. She adjusts the straps and then winks. "Alright! You ready to go out and find some trouble?"
He nods and they both head to the front door. Mint goes for the knob with his left paw and so does Fai with her right hand and they both end up touching each other. He doesn't care but she blushes ever so slightly at this and takes ahold of his paw gently. He turns the doorknob and the door opens but because Fai is holding his paw, he doesn't go out just yet. He turns to her and motions for her to go first. She smiles and does so and as she goes through the doorway, he follows her. They walk down the steps together and make a right once they reach the sidewalk, heading towards the shopping district.
Mint's cheeks are a little red even though he's held hands with Fai 3 times in total, even then, he's super embarrassed about it. Fai looks at him and notices this. She squeezes his paw a little and he jumps ever so slightly. She finds this reaction somewhat cute, but she doesn't like how nervous he is once again. She speaks up. "You okay? Your cheeks are all red."
Her pointing it out makes his cheeks get redder and he averts his gaze to the oceanside, staying quiet. Her tone gets a little higher and she decides to tease him a bit. "Aww c'mon! You're embarrassed to hold hands with me?"
He stays silent and continues to look the opposite way from her. She giggles, realizing that it's true. "No way, you're totally embarrassed to hold hands with me!" she then teases him a in cutesy voice. "Aww, Mint is embarrassed to hold hands with a girl! How cute!"
Her teasing is annoying, but at least it's not hurtful. He smirks for a very brief moment and a quiet chuckle comes out from him. They continue to walk down the street, hand in hand. They take a right and enter the shopping district. Thanks to all the snow from last night, there isn't a massive crowd here and they're able to see it in all of its glory. They both take a look at all the stores that are available. Fai points one of them out. "You see that store all the way down there? I shop there all the time! Best place to buy food and stuff in the whole city, yet some Pokemon don't believe me until they realize they're getting ripped off at the shitty food store down the block."
He tries to read the sign for the store but it's a bit too far away for him. The thought of food does sound nice, the last time he ate was when he evolved and he didn't really eat that much because he was too worried about what would happen and how he would deal with it the next day. He decides to ask. A-are we gonna get food?"
"If you're good, perhaps we will…" she teases. He doesn't take too kindly to this and unknowingly gives her a rather nasty look which makes her instantly change her attitude. "I-I'm just kidding! Why do you think I asked if you wanted to go out and find trouble?"
His expression lightens up. "Good… I-I haven't had anything s-since I came here…"
She becomes a bit confused. "Huh? You haven't had anything at all?"
He nods. "I w-wasn't that hungry… I just r-ran over here…" he stops, watching what he says as to not raise her suspicion since revealing too much might make her ask for more.
She feels bad for him. "That's terrible! You must be starving then, I can only imagine how that feels!"
"I-it's fine… I-I'm used to it a-anyway…" he mutters under his breath, luckily, she doesn't hear him and instead wants to get shopping.
"We're not gonna be able to get anything unless we go in the store, so lets-" her voice is cut off by someone behind them yelling.
"HEY YOU!" their voice is gruff, deep, and sounds pissed off. Fai and Mint turn around to see who it is. "Yeah! I'm talking to you, you stupid bitch!" the Pokemon says, a Garbodor who seems quite angry at Fai for some reason.
"Oh, you again? I told you already, I can't fit that date into my schedule. I'm very busy and you should know that since I told you this 6 times already. Make that 7 since I just told you again!" she says, her tone being a bit defensive.
Behind the Garbodor walks out what can only be assumed to be his friends, two Krokorok. He crosses his arms. "But you said that you'd find a day for it! You mean to tell me in the last 2 weeks, you've had no time at all!?"
"You answered your own question! That is 100% true!" she says.
The Garbodor didn't notice it initially, but he does now, and seeing her holding hands with Mint makes him even more angry. "Oh, I SEE how it is… you don't have time for me, but the fucking scarf wearing bastard next to you, you have all the time in the world for! Holding hands? What the fuck is this, your way of telling me to piss off because I'm a fucking Poison type that gets a bad rep for what I'm made of? I never even get a chance with girls like you!"
She makes a sound of disgust. "It's not that, don't you hear what you sound like? You're a blubbering idiot! You're sooo pushy and I can't stand Pokemon like that!"
Beside all that's happening, Mint has a very bad feeling. This Garbodor and his friends don't seem like they're here for just a simple chit-chat that will end with "have a good day." He senses a bad conflict and the last time he ended up fighting anyone, he got a broken nose. He doesn't need a repeat of that or worse. A couple drops of sweat form on his head, he's nervous about how this entire thing will turn out. The Garbodor turns his attention to him and realizes that he's not a regular Cinccino and has mint-green fur. He scoffs at this. "What the fuck? You ain't no normal Cinccino! Mint-green fur? What an ugly fucking color!" he turns back to Fai. "You say this green slimeball is good enough for you but I'm not?"
A very bad insult, one that he's heard multiple times from Patricia and Rachel. The words make Mint have a frighteningly vivid relapse of that time when some of the children in the colony came over to him and started singing a humiliating song, jumping and hopping around him, paw-in-paw, circling him. "Mint is a stinky yucky green slimeball!" It causes him to twitch slightly in place a few times as the words of the children and this Garbodor echo in his mind. His paw also clenches up for a moment, squeezing Fai's hand hard.
She recoils and removes her grip. She shakes her hand a little. She'll ask him what that was about later, but for now, this Garbodor is really starting to piss her off. She yells at him, her tone and facial expression quite angry. "We're not even dating! He's new in the city and I'm showing him the ropes until he's able to find a place to stay!"
The Garbodor replies sarcastically. "You mean, use him for your own benefit and gain guilty pleasure from it while cucking out good Pokemon like me who're only looking for a simple date?" he laughs for half a second, then continues. "You teasing whore, I know your games and I've had about enough of them!" he whips his arms to his side and the two Krokorok step forward next to him.
Fai clenches her right hand into a fist. "You telling me you wanna go!? I'll fight you right here and now!" Being called a "whore" has only infuriated her even more and riled her up. She's not taking that sitting down, it hurts.
The Garbodor cockily smiles. "Your choice, but know that it's 3v2 and I've got the advantage. That disgusting green sewer rat of a Pokemon standing next to you can't help you for shit, so it might as well be a 3v1."
Mint's eyes shrink a little and the whites become visible. He gets another vivid relapse of the children singing that song, but this time, he also hears Rachel and Patricia calling him the same thing as well.
"Mint is a stinky icky yucky green sewer rat!"
"You're a fucking sewer rat! No Minccino in this colony has such a repulsive color of fur like you do, go crawl back to the sewers where you belong!"
"I'm surprised a filthy rodent with such an ugly fur color like you managed to survive and make it this far. Rodents tend to not live long enough to see the light of day, perhaps you should've died a long time ago too."
A very dark shadow falls over his entire face, he lowers his head a little, and the pendant around his neck grows dull. He shakes and he clenches his paws into tight fists. The insults this monster has thrown at him make him remember everything he ran away from. All the pain and suffering that he went through comes back to him in one shot and the world around him blurs a little. Everything begins to get muffled and words turn into white noise and unintelligible sounds. He smiles, not from happiness, but from how ironic it is. He never expected to hear those two very specific insults when he's so far away from home and yet, he's hit home with the bullying. He chuckles a couple of times before a few tears drop from his eyes and roll down his face. They reflect some of the sunlight and this grabs the Garbodor's attention.
He doesn't know Mint can't hear him, but he flaps his gums anyway. "Aww what's wrong? The big cry baby doesn't like the truth? If you can't handle the truth that you're a sewer rat, then why don't you just crawl back into the Castelia Sewers and stay there?"
Fai doesn't understand why he'd say Mint is crying. She looks at him and notices the dark shadow and almost nearly invisible tear streaks running down his face. She snaps back to the Garbodor. "You heartless piece of shit! Leave him out of this! He did nothing to you and doesn't deserve to be treated like that!" she clenches her teeth and her hands becomes fists. She takes up a fighting stance, ready to throw an attack at any moment.
The Garbodor spreads his arms wide. "Take the shot you bitch! Do it!" he's baiting her into a trap but she doesn't know it.
Fai takes it and takes a few steps forward. "You're gonna regret giving me that shot!" Many bolts of electricity come from her cheek pouches and a ball of electricity forms around her entire body. This move is called "Discharge" and she unleashes all of it at this Garbodor. The bolts of lightning fly at him but at the last second, one of the Krokoroks jump into the attack and takes it for him, completely negating any and all damage he would've taken. Fai has never faced a "Ground" type Pokemon in battle before and doesn't know that "Electric" type moves have no effect on them. She is taken aback by this, but thinks that the attack wasn't very effective so she tries "Discharge" once again but when it hits the Krokorok, he isn't electrified or even affected by it at all.
She growls and then yells at him. "Why aren't you getting hurt by my attack!?"
The Krokorok gives a sly smile. "Because you're a dumbass hoe and dumbass hoes can't hurt us."
She lowers her head a little, growling in frustration. The other Krokorok comes running at her from the right and she jumps into the air to avoid him and takes flight. The Garbodor takes this opportunity to grab a pretty decent sized stone from the ground and uses the move "Smack Down", throwing the stone at her with lightning speed. She sees this from the corner of her eye but it's too late and the stone hits her, causing her to be knocked out of the sky where she falls down about 30 feet in front of Mint.
The "Rock" type move hit Fai for super effective damage and while it wasn't very strong, it was much more than enough to weaken her quite a bit. She struggles to stand up slightly but manages to do so and before she can react, the Krokorok she tried to attack earlier comes up from the ground using the move "Dig" and hits her into the air. Because the move "Smack Down" makes a "Flying" type hit the ground, Fai isn't immune to ground moves for a little while and takes another super effective hit.
She flies through the air and hits the concrete head first. It hurts like hell and she lies there in a very weakened state. One more hit is enough to take her out for good. The Garbodor starts laughing loudly and this loud laughing snaps Mint back to reality. The shadow over his face disappears and the world around him comes back. He immediately notices The Krokoroks walking over to where Fai is. He can see that she's on the ground and isn't moving. He immediately pieces it together and while he was in that trance-like state, all of them started to fight. He shakes his head quickly to compose himself and goes to stop them but the Garbodor notices this and throws some of the trash on his body in the direction that Mint is running in. He abruptly stops and scrapes his feet on the concrete to avoid stepping in the filthy garbage. He looks up at the rancid fiend. "Leave Fai alone!" he yells.
The Garbodor simply waves his words off and instead warns him about what they'll do to him if he dares to interrupt. "If you get close, you'll end up just like her. Now, be a good Cinccino and worry about that garbage I threw and clean it up, trash collector."
Mint's eyes shoot wide open. He watches as the two Krokorok hold Fai up by her hands and feet. The Garbodor starts walking over to them, smiling devilishly as he looks at the somewhat incapacitated Emolga. He starts talking outloud to himself. "Oooh yess… Finally, I get to take a peak and maybe even have a little fun with you for once. You are a whore after all, and whores take it no matter what Pokemon it is they're doing it with because they find it to be fun too!"
Fai comes to and is a bit dazed but can tell what's going on. She notices the incoming monster and she yells at him weakly. "G-get away from me you creep!"
He keeps walking towards her and rubs his hands together. "I've been waiting 2 weeks for this moment… Nobody's gonna stop me and that stupid rat over there won't dare touch me otherwise he'll have to burn his own fur off." he then starts laughing as each step gets him closer and close to her.
She doesn't know what he's going to do and not only could it be dangerous, but it could be deadly and she tries to break loose from the grip of the two Krokorok. She struggles very hard, but in her weakened state, she tires out quickly. In a last ditch effort, she tries to shock them all using "Discharge" but the two Krokorok simply absorb the attack like it's nothing and all 3 of them laugh at her feeble attempt. The Garbodor even rubs it in. "You really are a stupid dumbass bitch! Don't you know that electric moves have no effect on a 'Ground' type Pokemon?"
Her eyes widen and she realizes that she has to get away from them now before this Garbodor does what he wants to do. She starts to struggle again and even begins yelling for help but the Krokoroks are fast on the draw and one of them punches her in the face and this is enough to completely knock her out. She's completely helpless and at the mercy of whatever this Garbodor is planning to do. Mint has seen all of this and despite the risk of being attacked, he runs around the garbage and goes for the Garbodor, yelling at him. "I said leave her alone!"
The Garbodor turns around and sees Mint. He stops about 15 feet in front of him and seems ready to fight but deep down, doesn't want to since he has bad memories of his last one. The Garbodor looks at his Krokoroks. "Spread her up, I want to be able to just slide right in once I finish this fucking abortion of a Pokemon." he then looks back at Mint with a cocky and confident smile. "She said to leave you out of this, but I guess you just couldn't handle being called a cry baby, huh?"
A very quick relapse of him being called a cry baby flashes in front of his eyes but he ignores it and through his clenched teeth, he angrily speaks. "I'm not gonna say it again! Leave her alone or else!"
"Or else what? What're YOU gonna do? You're a Cinccino, the only reason you exist is to clean the garbage and slop that others in this world create. You're a filthy mop, a cry baby, and a sewer rat. How about you go crawl back to the place you came from, huh? The shit and piss ridden sewers suit you much better than the city does. If you weren't here, I'd have gotten my way by now but no, you have to exist. You want to save her? Then put your dick where you balls are then." he then takes up a threatening stance, ready to fight.
Mint stays silent and once again, a dark shadow falls over his entire face. He stands there and does nothing. The Garbodor nods victoriously, giving a nasty smirk and a tone of superiority. "I thought so. All you cute Pokemon act tough up until they realize that they ain't shit. Go back home, there's garbage to be cleaned and I'm sure that someone will appreciate their maid returning."
Mint's mouth drops open and his eyes widen as well. Go back home? Everything stops with those three words. "Go back home." All time seems to slow to a crawl as these words infinitely echo in his mind, along with super fast relapses of his life back in the forest, but this time, he can see the Garbodor past it all, moving in for the kill to do whatever it is that he wants to do to Fai. Mint lowers his head and clenches his paws into fists tighter than ever before. "G-go… back home? Go... back…. Home…?" he says silently as his eyelids begin to twitch, and like that time when Mint yelled at Patricia and whacked Brian in the face, he begins to heat up and starts shaking a bit with pure, unbridled rage and fury. Not only was a nerve stuck with all those insults from earlier and with what was said to him a few moments before, but he can't stand what he allowed to have happen to Fai. "I-I can't let him do this…! I might not trust her fully, but Fai's been a good friend and has helped me out the moment I arrived in Castelia. I won't let you…! I won't! Whatever it is that you're going to do, I'm not gonna find out what it is because…. Because…" he says through his teeth quietly as his shaking becomes violent. The fur fluffs on his head start to turn red and glow, and so does his tail and scarf. The pendant around his neck also begins to glow an extremely bright color and begins radiating immense energy and lets loose powerful sparkles.
Mint takes a step forward, but this step is very different from a regular one because this one is audible and makes a cloud of dust appear. He yells at the Garbodor who is about to put his hands on Fai. "I said get the fuck away from her…. Right… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!" His scream echoes through the block, carrying a white-hot force with it and having an odd phenomenon where his voice seems to have another voice contained within that sounds lower than usual...
*The Garbodor looks back at him and notices that his face is darkened a bit by the shadow and he seems ready to attack at any moment. He's cocky and thinks that he won't do anything and he looks back at Fai and reaches for her. Mint sees this and with lightning speed, runs at the Garbodor, then jumps up, and uses "Tail Slap", whipping his tail around and whacking him in the face with so much force that it dislocates his jaw and makes him spit out a strange, purple liquid. The attack also sends him flying into a nearby storefront, destroying the window in the process, glass falling all around him with a couple shards almost impaling him.
Mint lands on the ground and then snaps his violent gaze over to the Krokoroks. They immediately drop Fai onto the ground and run at him together. Mint jumps a few feet back and prepares to grab both of them. They run into him and he stops them dead in their tracks, only sliding back a couple of feet while holding them at bay with his paws. He grabs ahold of their hands tightly and spins them around rapidly for a few seconds, then throws them down the block away from him. Their bodies bounce off the ground a few times, getting scraped in the process.
Mint tucks his ears in, inhales much more air than he should be capable of taking in, and then lets loose a scream that's so loud that it instantly shatters all the glass storefronts on the block. The massive sound wave is his "Hyper Voice" and his roaring scream nearly destroys the eardrums of his opponents, leaving them with their ears ringing and also causing significant damage to them. They cover their ears and duck to prevent themselves from getting hit by the glass shards that were sent into the air thanks to all of the windows breaking.
The attack ends and Mint runs at the closest Krokorok. He charges up his next move which is "Focus Blast" and a blue energy orb is created in the space between his paws held by his side as he closes the distance between him and his foe. The Krokorok tries to retaliate with "Rock Tomb" and hurls 5 large boulders at Mint. He simply looks at the incoming rocks and instead of dodging, he jumps over the first one and lands on the second one, then the third, fourth, and finally, the fifth one before jumping up into the air and hurling the blue energy blast at his target with insane speed with his left paw. The attack connects and the Krokorok is absolutely decimated by the intensely powerful "Fighting" type move thanks to being weak to it. The orb explodes on contact and a massive fiery cloud of blue and black is created as it instantly defeats them, sending their body flopping into the air before hitting the ground, limp and done for.
Mint lands on the ground and the other Krokorok rushes at him from behind while using the move "Brick Break" and as he's about to land the karate chop styled move with their right hand, Mint turns around with extreme speed and counters the attack with his red-hot "Tail Slap". The collision of these two moves causes a massive outflow of wind and any loose dust and debris on the ground is blown away. They stand with their attacks locked like this for a few seconds, then the Krokorok tries to use "Low sweep" and kick Mint off balance but his reaction time is miles above any normal Pokemon and he avoids the kick, flips around in the air, and whacks them across the face with his tail.
They're sent sliding back a fair distance but Mint's attack isn't over. He lands on the ground and in a fraction of a second, closes the distance between him and his opponent, and jumps up to their face. A gleam comes off his left eye and he lands 10 more extremely quick, painful slaps on the Krokorok. He ends his last slap with significantly more force and sends them flying into the air where they slam back first into one of the buildings nearby, causing spit to fly from their mouth. They fall to the ground, completely defeated and Mint's ears pick up the sound of glass being stepped on and broken. He turns to face the direction of the sound and he sees the Garbodor from earlier wasn't defeated in one hit.
The Garbodor angrily walks towards him and as he does, he whacks his jaw back into place using his right hand and growls. He cracks his knuckles and yells at him. "You're gonna wish you decided to go back home you asshole…"
Mint responds back. "This IS my home. Who are you to tell me where my home is when you look like you belong in a dumpster? Garbage bag..."
The Garbodor punches his hands together. "I've lived in this city for much longer than you, forest boy. You ain't got shit on me, you managed to land a lucky hit but that's the only one you're gonna get!" he runs for him upon ending his sentence and prepares to use "Sludge Bomb" and throws a ball of purple sludge at Mint, but he isn't gonna take any of that and counters it out by using "Iron Tail" at the right time and as he whips his tail and cuts the attack in half, it flies past him and explodes behind him, causing absolutely no damage to him. The explosion lights up the surrounding area for a moment, but causes Mint's entire body to become blacked out except for his pendant and the areas glowing red on his body during this brief moment.
The Garbodor continues to run at him and charges up a blue orb of energy in his hands, he's trying the move "Focus Blast". When the attack is fully charged, they stop running and hurl it at him. Mint stands there watching the attack fly at him and right before it hits him, he takes his right paw and simply swats it away, deflecting it without any issues. The attack flies into a nearby building and explodes on contact, making a crater in the side. The Garbodor is dumbfounded at this and his eyes widen a little at what he just saw.
Mint wipes his nose. "Now it's my turn…" He crouches down for a moment, then grabs the fluffs of fur on his back and pulls them but instead of them being pulled forward, he pulls out two strange red-hot looking boomerangs made of his own fur and as he strikes a cool pose, he shouts at the Garbodor and reveals a move he just made up on the spot. "Fluffs of fur be my power! Flufferang!" he then throws the one in his left hand. It flies at the Garbodor with insane speed and although he tries to avoid it, his large size makes this impossible and the attack rips right through his garbage ridden body, tearing through the front and coming out the back.
The Garbodor clenches his side as a strange purple fluid starts to ooze from his wound. He doesn't have time to understand what just happened because the other "Flufferang" comes at him and rips right through his lower body, making a similar wound and causing more fluid to come out. He screams in pain this time and his hands shake as he takes them off the small but deep, gaping holes in his body. Mint takes this opportunity to finish what he started and runs up to them. He jumps up at their face, and with a powerful, monstrous, echoing scream, he whacks the Garbodor across the face again with "Tail Slap" for the last and final time, dislocating his jaw once more and making a whole bunch of purple liquid fly.
**The Garbodor falls flat on his side, completely knocked out and defeated. Mint lands on the ground, his job is done and he pants as his tail, fur fluffs, and scarf return to their normal color, but as they do, he gets a painful, burning sensation coming from these areas and he goes to grab his scarf in response, only to BURN his paw, making him jerk away in response. He waves his paw and blows on it a few times. "What the hell!? My scarf's capable of cooking a berry just by itself!" He says to himself quietly but quickly forgets about this feeling as he realizes what he just did.
He looks at the defeated Garbodor in front of him. He doesn't have too much time before they wake up and come to, of course, they'll be easily defeated again since they'll be super weak, but he would rather avoid fighting again altogether. He looks around and sees Fai on the opposite end of the block. She's still knocked out and it doesn't seem like she'll be getting up anytime soon. He runs over to her on all fours and stands up when he gets to her. She's not as badly injured as the beasts he just defeated, but still injured nonetheless. He gently puts his paws under her body and carefully lifts her up. He looks around one last time to make sure nobody is gonna attack him. He remembers that there's a Pokemon Center near her apartment and since he's never healed someone in his life, his best option is to go there.
He makes haste. His friend is in need of healing and with his heart still pumping from the fast paced battle that felt like an eternity of fighting, he hopes that they didn't hurt her too bad. As he runs down the sidewalk, a few people that are there notice him holding his injured friend while running to his destination, and he starts to fondly remember what happened with his father and how if he didn't get beat up, he wouldn't have ended up in the hospital. The whole situation is way too close to what happened in the past and as a couple tears drop from his eyes, he starts to feel that this, too, was also his fault.
PD: Okay, Mint just went full badass mode and kicked those guys butts. The "Flufferang" is a pretty cool attack, isn't it? If you have any thoughts about this chapter, let me know, but as usual, nothing overtly critical please. Seeya in the next chapter!