The Great Koko-mon Communicator: Part 1
"And who are you," Professor Cerise asked the magenta haired boy with the orange jacket, white face paint and blue jean shorts.
"Koko," he answered.
"And what can we help you with today?"
"Ru, zaza-zarude."
"Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying."
"'Ru, zaza-zarude,'" he repeats as Goh's Fletchling that was perched on the booth behind him flew up and grabbed a pen and notebook from Ren's desk and gave it to him. Koko smiled at it affectionately and it trilled in kind.
"Fascinating," Cerise said as Koko worked furtively in his newly acquired notebook, "it's like you can speak directly to pokémon. Are you two taking notes of this?"
"Yes, sir, professor," Ren and Chrysa replied.
Koko then turns his notebook around and shows the professor a rough, but instantly identifiable sketch of a certain research fellow which he identified (out loud) as "fur-hend."
"Okay, so you know other words. Anyway, he's upstairs with my other researcher fellow. Fletchling would you," but it flew off before he could finish his request.
A few seconds later, they hear a loud, sharp "Fletch-LIIIING" coming from upstairs followed by a loud thud.
"Ugh, Fedchling," Ash said groggily as he lied splayed out on the floor. "Bregfist ishun for anudder hour."
"FLET-chling," it insisted.
"Yeah, cuhback den," its trainer said pulling the covers over him tighter.
"5...4…3…," Professor Cerise counted down, joined by Ren and Chrysa at which point a frustrated Fletching flew downstairs, down the hallway and returned a second later with a flock of other small Flying-types.
They grab a startled Ash by his pajamas, lift him high above the railing and drop the screaming Research Fellow into the foyer, where he landed with a loud CRASH before shouting "I'm okay."
"Okay, okay," Goh said, recoiling anxiously as the flock turned their heads towards him disapprovingly. "I'm coming! I'm coming," as he hurriedly got dressed.
"It's like this every morning," Ren explained.
"Zarude," he deadpanned, causing the pokémon in the room to laugh. A second later, Pikachu came into the lab, shouted its' name excitedly and jumped up on Koko's shoulder.
"I guess you really are a 'friend' of his," Cerise noted as the boy scratched under the electric mouse's chin affectionately.
"Peeeka-Peekaaaa," it cooed, clearly enjoying the attention.
"Oh," a fully dressed Ash said entering the lab, "there you are, pi… Koko? What are you doing here?"
"Ash," he said with a cheesy smile as he showed off his artwork.
"Oh, is that me? Cool. That's a really good likeness. Oh, right, I take it you've already met the professor, Ren and Chrysa?"
"Ahem," Goh said appearing in the doorway. "Aren't you forgetting someone?"
"Oh right… and, I think you know my partner, Pikachu."
"Pika-pii," he said with a slight laugh as the electric mouse jumped back onto Ash's shoulder.
"You're still forgetting someone."
"Of course, and these are Ratatta, Sentret and the one by the door is Cinderace. This is my friend Koko."
All of them greet their visitor excitedly… but their trainer was starting to lose patience.
"Oh, for Golett's sake, I'm standing right here!"
"Um, Goh, when did you get here? More importantly, when did you catch a Golett?"
"You know what I mean… though I probably should have caught one BEFORE I caught Golurk, but, augh, whatever, my point stands! You introduced my pokémon before me!"
"Zaza-RUDE," he said as the surrounding pokémon laughed.
"Am I being made fun of?!"
Koko got quiet, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling piously as a beam of sunlight fell on his magenta hair, highlighting his white face paint.
"Wait," Goh asked. "Was that… Sunny Day?"
"Nope," Professor Cerise observed, "just the Morning Sun peeking through the clouds over our skylight. Impressive timing nonetheless. Now, Ash, I believe you were in the middle of introducing your fellow researcher."
"Oh right, Koko, this is-"
"Ru-zaru," he corrected cutting him off.
"So, um, 'roozaroo'… What," Goh asked as the room fell dead silent, save for a gasp from Pikachu and Cinderace. Whereas Sentret was fanning Ratatta, who had fainted dramatically.
"PIKAH-PI," the electric mouse scolded as Koko looked at the offending researcher crossly.
"I think you offended him," Ren said gently.
"What?! B-but I was just-"
"Interrupting him while he was talking to Ash," Chrysa suggested.
"She's right," Professor Cerise opined. "It's not often we get to learn about Pokémon grammar firsthand."
"THIS ISN'T AN ACADEMIC EXERCISE!"
"More of a pedantic one," Ren said cheekily. "I mean, ahem, please continue..."
"Thank you," Goh said indignantly.
"Actually, I was, um, talking to Koko."
Koko closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before repeating himself, making sure to subtly gesture towards Ash while he was talking and then pointed his finger from Ash to Goh.
"Okay, I think… I hope I got this. Ko-koko… Sob-bell."
"Now, you're just being a jerk."
"I wasn't done yet," Ash said throwing his arms around Goh's shoulder. "'…And his partner Goh.' Okay, fine, Cinderace is his BATTLE partner – his 'ace' if you will."
"Cin-Cinder 'ACE,'" it said flexing proudly.
"…But Sobble here is his buddy," Ash continued. "They curl up and cry together every night."
"AAAASSH, why would you tell him that? What else did you tell him about me?"
"I don't think we need to get into that here," Ash said.
"I agree," Cerise said. "I think you three can discuss this further outside…"
The Great Koko-mon Ko-municater: Part 2
Ash, Goh, Cinderace and Koko walked down the hill towards the waterfront.
"So, if you can speak pokémon, but not, um, human," Goh asked. "Then how are you able to understand me right now… what? It's an honest question. I'm a researcher, asking questions is literally in my job descript-"
"Goh, stop," Ash said to the rest of the group's agreement.
"Are you saying I can't ask questions?!"
"No," Ash explained as Koko pulled Goh back onto the sidewalk. "I said 'stop!' You nearly walked into the middle of traffic."
"Oh, right," Goh blushed as a car zipped past him. "Hehe, sorry about that. You (Ash) can understand your pokémon – far more than most trainers in fact – and they can understand you, but…"
"Go," Ash said.
"Now what?"
"I said 'GO,'" Ash said as Cinderace nudged its trainer off the sidewalk, "the signal changed. We can cross now."
"I keep doing that, don't I?"
Koko and Cinderace look at each other and laugh quietly for a moment before suddenly stopping and smiling innocently when Goh turned around which made them laugh again just to stop as Goh turned around again.
"Anyway," Goh said stepping up onto the sidewalk. "You have yet to answer my brilliant and perfectly valid question: How can your pokémon understand you if you don't fully understand them, and how can Koko communicate with pokémon but not the two of us?"
"Did you just say this boy can talk with pokémon," a female passerby asked excitedly.
"Well, um, yeah," Goh said anxiously. "But his English(*) is kind of…"
"A work in progress," Ash said diplomatically.
"I was going to say 'non-existent,' but I guess that works too."
"Well, if he can talk to pokémon," the woman replied, "then it doesn't matter what language he speaks."
"'Talks to pokémon?' Bah," an old man scoffed as a crowd slowly gathered around the boys, "if you believe that nonsense, then I got a-"
Koko turned to him with a confident look and made a gesture with his hand as if throwing an imaginary Poke Ball in the air. However, before the skeptic could react, a Patrat comes running toward them, oblivious to the crowd.
"ZAAARUDE," he shouted, clearing the humans out of the way before catching the distressed pokémon in his arms, its momentum pushing them back nearly into the back of the crowd.
"Was that Hyper Voice," Goh whispered.
"Not loud enough," Ash replied noting Koko's slight head shake. "Either Boombu…"
"Zah," he said giving a thumbs up to Ash (it was just a shout, but he wasn't about to argue with a cool sounding move) while patting the distressed pokemon's head softly. "Za…za…ruhday."
Koko then stands it up again and they converse gently for a moment before a male trainer in his early teens showed up.
"Patrat, there you… who are you? Why are all these people here?"
"His name is Koko, and he's-"
"A what," the trainer asked threateningly. He tries to take a step forward, but Cinderace stopped him. "I'm not going to harm it, geez. I just want to find out what's gotten into it."
"As I was about to say, he can talk to pokémon... and only pokémon."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"His English," Goh explained somewhat embarrassedly. "It's a bit… um… limited at the moment."
"Pat patrat-rat," it shouted to its trainer.
"Ru," he said stroking its head to calm it down a bit. "Zaa, zarude?"
"Rat, rat-patrat!"
Koko looks at its trainer sharply, and the crowd following his lead looks at him suspiciously.
"I didn't do anything wrong! I was just doing some special training with it – same way any other trainer does – when it ran off like a little-"
Koko looks at him irritably, puts his hand to his mouth and makes a "zip-it" gesture to the somewhat bewildered trainer. He then nods to Cinderace who pushes the speechless trainer onto his knees, and then signals over towards Goh.
"What me?"
Koko shakes his head, moves his finger slightly to the right and down as if pointing to his shoulder.
"Nah," Ash said, "I think he wants-"
"SOBBLE," the two boys shouted simultaneously as Goh rummages through his backpack hurriedly as the tiny water lizard jumped off Goh's shoulder panickedly.
"Take this, put them on," he said tossing a pair of goggles to Koko.
"Rude, za-za rude," Koko asked Patrat (after putting on the goggles).
"Did he just ask 'how his special training makes it feel,'" Goh interpreted, which Koko (without taking his eyes off Patrat) gave a "sorta" hand gesture to. "Ha, I think I'm finally getting the hang of this!"
"Rat, rat patraaaaat," it cried, causing Sobble (now standing next to it) to cry as well.
"W-was I t-too harsh on you? I didn't m-mean to hurt you. I just w-want to make you stronger. I-is that wrong? If I'm pushing you too h-hard, I'm s-s-sorry."
Patrat, still crying walked over to its trainer and hugged him as they both cried for a moment or so before his trainer asked "so, does t-this mean y-you're not mad at me anymore?"
"Paatrat."
"I have no idea how to thank you," he said getting up and recalling his pokémon to its ball, but Koko dismissed him. He turns around and begins to walk away with his Patrat.
"Wait, I know," he said stopping suddenly. "My father taught English in another country for a few years, he might be able to help your, um, HIS language barrier."
"Great," Ash said as the crowd suddenly mobbed Koko for advice with their pokémon. "If you give us his address, we'll pass it onto him."
"One at a time," Goh shouted in a losing attempt at crowd control. "Augh, I said 'ONE at a…' AAAASSH, a little HELP over here!"
"Sorry," Ash said with a laugh. "It looks like we could be here for a while…"
"Bah," the old man said, his head bubble poking his through the fade to black. "I still don't believe it."
"I'm okay," a trampled Goh said, holding his finger up weakly in the still open speech bo