"Tag! You're it!"
A delighted titter as the Pikachu raced into the underbrush.
"ChuChu! You gotta be it now! You can't cheat!"
Another loud titter.
"ChuChu!"
It was going to be like that.
A small, wiry, blonde girl put her hands on her hips, making a face at her small Pokemon friend. Her tongue stuck out, blowing a raspberry as the Pikachu wiggled in the thicket. In moments, the Pikachu burst out with thorns covering their rear.
"That's what cheaters get, uh huh! ChuChu!"
The mouse bolted towards a nearby stream, jumping around to loosen up the thorns. Right away, the child sucked her tongue back in and hurried over there to help. One pat behind the ears calmed the Pokemon right away as she worked to remove the thorns.
"Stay still, ChuChu! I'll get 'em! Okay, time-out, everyone! ChuChu is hurt!"
Like an explosion, all the participating Pokemon burst from their hiding spots. Weedles and Caterpies squirmed out of tree trunks. Pidgeys flew down from the top branches. Oddish popped up from their camouflaged bushes.
"Is ChuChu going to be okay?"
"Can we help?!"
"Does this mean we can't play no more?"
"Yucky." The girl commented, pulling out a large and nasty thorn, "ChuChu, no more runnin'! You better take it easy!"
A whine, "Sorry!"
Finally, the last thorn was pulled out, and the girl swept her arms up big, motioning towards the gentle breeze through the leaves. All the Pokemons' chatter ceased, becoming still as the girl's call echoed throughout the forest.
"Mother Forest! Help ChuChu!"
Around the young child's heels, bright blue flowers bloomed. Soft, sweet whispers caressed the budding petals, encouraging them to grow faster. Long stems filled with nourishing love and food as the beauty unfolded right before her.
In minutes, the child picked two mature flowers and stuffed them in the Pikachu's mouth.
"Chew on those while I fix you!"
ChuChu obeyed, chomping away as the girl ran her hands over the injuries. After a few pets, the wounds closed over and heal. The Pokemon felt more relaxed as the combination of medicinal plants and magical healing worked together.
Ten minutes passed, but the powers did the trick. ChuChu was all better.
"You better stay outta trouble, 'cause Mother Forest don't want me to get tired!" The girl picked her scolding back up, "You better say thank you or Mother Forest will make you trip on her roots!"
The mouse nodded, "Thank you, Mother Forest!"
Leaves rustled again. A nod of the head and the two got back up together. All the other Pokemon waited anxiously before the child clapped her hands together.
"We can play now!"
However, a call came upon the forest clearing, "Amarillo! Amarillo Del Bosque Verde! Your lessons!"
Her jaw dropped before she threw her arms up at the woods again, "Aw! Mother Forest! I was playin'! Do I hafta? I did 'em last week!"
Low rumbling. Lurching sounds of bending bark and snapping twigs. The girl could feel long branches hover above her head, barely sliding through her hair as if to reassure her. She slumped a little.
"Okay, Mother Forest…"
The Pokemon scattered, knowing it was time for lessons. Most unfun. They would rather wait and play later.
x
"Yellow! Good to see ya!"
"Hi, Uncle Wilton!"
A pudgy, older man with thick jowl lines huddled under a makeshift tent, sitting cross-legged as the forest child plopped down in front of him. A set of angler poles laid next to him, tied off with fishing wire and bobbers.
In front of him was a hard board with a pencil and paper. Every week, Yellow hoped he would forget and she could be let out of lessons early. It hadn't happened yet, but she kept hoping.
Yellow had known Wilton for about two years now, as he had been teaching her every week for lessons. While she did not appreciate them, she still enjoyed the company. Wilton also let her use the best poles to teach her how to fish and properly care for catching Pokemon.
Wilton was the only human she had ever known personally. Mother Forest said he had a warm, pure heart, so Yellow believed her.
"How is ChuChu? Doin' good?"
"Yes! She got thorns in her butt!"
Children. Wilton had a soft spot for them and Yellow was no different: blabbermouth, repeat everything, brutally honest, and no filter. Sweet girl, though. Always caring for all of her Pokemon friends and helping lost travelers.
Even for a child of the forest, she had a knack for saying the silliest and most ridiculous things. But it still touched the old fisherman's heart.
"Yellow. Don't say 'butt'. It's rude."
"Why? She got 'em in her butt! I pulled 'em out!"
This was going to be a new thing. Wilton could already feel it. Yellow was on a delicate balance of "precocious" and "juvenile". While the child was often soft-spoken in the presence of her mother, Yellow had a habit of over sharing.
However, he understood. It was hard for her; she had no other children around and her playmates were Pokemon. Having antisocial behaviors was par for the course and since the Mother Forest refused to let her leave…
Wilton knew he would have to bring up the same old topics that would only incur Yellow's petulance: Filthy clothes, lack of shoes, dirty hair and skin. Even her teeth weren't being taken care of.
This was out of his expertise, even if the Mother Forest had guessed all humans knew this stuff.
He brought her clean clothes, new shoes, and hygiene products every week. By the next time, Yellow had mud covering the front of her shirt and rips in her pants. Her shoes disappeared into thin air. Sometimes, birds or bugs made a nest of her blonde hair.
At least Wilton had convinced her to pull it back in a ponytail. That helped tremendously. Now he was working on getting her to brush her teeth every morning and night, which came with its own slew of problems.
The calm before the storm. Yellow was in a cheerful mood and not yet inundated with academics. He could go through it fast.
"Did you take a bath today?"
"Nope!"
"Did you brush your teeth?"
"Nope!"
"Yellow…"
"I was playin'! Pokemon don't brush teeth or take baths! ChuChu said she never had a bath! Not even when she was born!"
Wilton sighed, "You are a young lady. Take baths and brush your teeths. You are not a Pokemon."
"Uncle, I don't wanna! And if I smell different, it'll be easier to catch me during Hide-N-Seek!"
Yellow was a hippie naturalist at the tender age of seven. Wilton could only suffer another sigh before pulling out a book. Maybe this time, she'll keep her clothes clean and wear her shoes. The shopkeeper was already getting suspicious.
Wilton never quite questioned why Mother Forest entrusted him to teach the prodigy. One day, he was fishing near the mouth of the river and fell in by accident. The next day, he woke up to a curious child surrounded by Pokemon denizens of the wood.
Deep down, he knew it had saved him from being swept downriver by some mysterious force. Something plucked him right out of the jaws of death and placed him back into the land of the living.
The Mother Forest, Yellow called it. And since he was indebted to the invisible goddess, Wilton became entwined in this girl's upbringing. Driven to keep outsiders from knowing about her and teaching her about the world.
Amarillo Del Bosque Verde. Yellow, as her Pokemon friends nicknamed her. A forest princess that went barefoot in the mud and wore a crown of twigs. A real stickler and legend in her own right; travelers rambled on about a fairy who guided them out of the puzzling forest.
Wilton did his best to deter the stories. Dehydration. Starvation. Heat exhaustion. An errant pollen spray by a Butterfree. But he worried about the future; even a clever girl like Yellow, who knew all the hiding spots, could not escape the world's bureaucracy for long.
"Alright, Yellow," His gruff voice made her quiet, "Let's get started. You remember last week?"
She nodded, "Math!"
"Yes. Good. What is two plus seven?"
"Eight!"
"Good! What is three minus one?"
"Two!"
"Alright. One more and I'll give you a Leppa Berry. How about twenty-two plus thirty-five?"
Yellow stared at him as if he grew three heads. Wilton waited a few minutes before he acknowledged she wasn't going to ever get it.
"Remember how I showed you? You write out the numbers and add them together." He reminded her, tapping with her pencil to the sheet of paper, "You put one number on top and-"
"But nobody can add them together!" Yellow insisted, her ponytail bobbing up and down, "It's too big!"
"Here, I'll show you." Wilton leaned over, scratching out the numbers, "Twenty...two...plus...thirty...five. Like this. You carry—"
Yellow buried her face in her palms. This was not fun. She'd rather learn anything else than this. When was she ever going to need math? All the Pokemon shared food with her so there was no need to add or subtract.
After some struggle, Wilton moved on.
"Did you read your book?"
"Yes."
"What was it about?"
"It was about a Caterpie…"
"And?"
"I didn't like it."
Wilton felt like he lost all air by sighing now. This felt so out of his league. A child like her needed a professional. Yellow was learning concepts they taught to most children in kindergarten. She could speak, she could read to a first grade level, and she could do some math, but it wasn't enough.
Poor girl. If she ever left this forest, it would be a harsh and cruel world.
"Well," He put on his best airs, "Let's go over it together."
x
The radio was strapped on too tight.
"Hey. Hey. Asshole. This is a scouting mission, not the fuckin' bomb squad."
"You wanna tell that to Captain Durant? I'm sure he'll be real interested, right before he gives your ass a lead tattoo."
He couldn't move his arm. Radio was too tight. Why not give him one thing and these grunts can be a total bastard later? How was he supposed to dash through the forest if he couldn't use a limb?
It was creepy how the Viridian Forest seemed to look at him, even from being a mile away. A million eyes hidden in thousands of leaves, all staring and watching for a wrong move. People talked about the forest being a labyrinth to those with evil in their hearts, confusing and maddening the doomed travelers.
Well, he didn't have evil in his heart. Just greed. And maybe a lust for power. Still. Maybe he shouldn't have passed that agility test so well.
"Alright. The girl—"
"I got it. She's good as found."
"We'll see about that."