31. The worst decisions come from misunderstandings
In his dreams, Danny was back in the champions room. Marcel stood against him, but this time Venusaur didn't know any of the crazy moves as before and Charizard beat the giant Grass type with a single Flamethrower.
"Let's go!" Danny shouted enthusiastically.
"This is not the end," Marcel commented angry.
"Yes it is," a familiar female voice said.
Danny turned around and saw the girl and her Hypno again.
"Hello Danny."
"Who are you?" Marcel asked.
The girl just looked annoyed at her Hypno. The psychic type blinked with its eyes and a black hole appeared underneath Marcel, sucking the trainer in.
Danny had no idea how to respond.
"Well, now that irritating brat is gone, let's get down to businesses, shouldn't we?"
"I don't even know who you are! What are you doing in my dreams." Danny shouted.
"Well if you call this dreams I don't want to be in your nightmares." The woman joked. "On second note, I would love to."
"Leave me alone."
"I can't. You want to know who I am? Fine. My name is Gayla. I am researching the human brain. The only way to do that is to go into people's dreams," Gayla said.
"I don't believe you," Danny responded.
"You don't have to. All I need is to be in your dreams." The woman turned around and left the room, followed by her Hypno.
With a shock, Danny woke up.
He was in his tent, next to him Richard was sleeping.
The next morning, Danny opened his eyes, not that he had slept anymore since the nightmare, but he had tried to.
"My god, you look terrible," Janine said.
"Thanks a lot," Danny responded.
"I don't mean it offensive, but you've looked better. Didn't you get any sleep last night?" She asked.
"I did, but I had woken up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep."
"We can stay if you want," Richard suggested.
"No, I'll feel better if were back on the road," Danny responded.
Richard nodded and they started packing their stuff. Charmeleon looked with a worried look towards his trainer, who was trying to figure out how to pack his sleeping bag.
Meanwhile, Danny kept thinking about the mysterious woman in his dreams. She had introduces herself as Gayla. That probably explains why Richard eventually took the sleeping bag out of Danny's hands and did it for him.
"No way that she investigates dreams. She is some kind of villain."
When they had all finished packing, with Danny barely contributing, and ate some breakfast, they went back to the path. They had camped a little bit into the forest to make sure an unwanted visitor wouldn't sneak in.
"Man, you know what could get me up and running? A good battle. I haven't battled properly since Erika," Danny said out of nowhere.
"We could do some friendlies later," Janine replied.
Danny looked towards Charmeleon and could read the thoughts of his starter.
"Charmeleon would prefer to beat up some Pokémon he doesn't know," the trainer answered.
Janine looked at Charmeleon. "If you would ask me I would say Charmeleon doesn't prefer anything."
"That's because you are not his trainer," Danny laughed. "You'll need a special connection if you want to know what your Pokémon is feeling."
"I guess," Janine scratched her head. She couldn't read the minds of any of her Pokémon. Or maybe Danny is just joking, she thought.
But Danny wasn't joking. Charmeleon and he had a kind of connection that is common among trainers. Richard and Squirtle had the exact same thing. And, without knowing it, Janine and Venonat did as well.
On the horizon, the shape of a human appeared.
"Hey, maybe you can battle that person," Richard said.
Danny looked up, he was so tired he had almost fallen asleep while walking.
"Hopefully."
The person came closer and it turned out to be a young girl, around the same age as Danny and Richard. Her expression wasn't too happy.
"Hi there!" Richard greeted.
"Oh, hello," the girl responded.
"Is everything okay?" Janine asked.
"Yeah sure."
"Well, my friend Danny is looking for someone to battle against," Richard explained.
"Huh, what..?" Danny had dozed off again.
"Sure why not?" The girl took a Pokéball and let out a Psyduck. Charmeleon let out a disappointed sigh. He was sure he could beat the Psyduck, but with the type disadvantage there was no way Danny would let him try.
Danny was awake within seconds.
"Great! Bellsprout… I mean Weepinbell, I know you want this one."
Weepinbell came out. Even though a lot had changed due to his evolution, one thing hadn't: His fighting spirit.
"Psyduck, Confusion!"
"Weepinbell, dodge it."
Psyduck's eyes became blue and Weepinbell was lifted into the air. Weepinbell didn't seem to be afraid at all, rather annoyed by the Psyduck.
It let out a pair of vines and smacked Psyduck away, making it drop Weepinbell mid-air.
Psyduck got up and looked at its trainer, meanwhile Weepinbell didn't have the patience to wait for Danny to react. It used it's vines to lift Psyduck up and threw the water-type away. The cheer of his new powers were readable in his eyes.
Psyduck decided enough was enough and stayed down. Weepinbell on the other hand hadn't had enough and charged again.
"Danny!" Richard shook his best friend awake.
"Oh, right." Danny took Weepinbell's Pokéball and returned the grass type.
"I'm sorry, I had a nightmare so I barely slept." Danny explained.
The girl returned her Psyduck. "Well it happens to all of us. That's one strong Weepinbell you got there. I would battle with my other Pokémon, but frankly I can't get them to battle."
"Why don't they want to battle?" Janine asked.
"Oh they want to battle, just not for me," the girl responded. "I'm Maisie by the way."
The trio introduced themselves, but neither understood what the girl mend when she said 'just not for me.' They also didn't want to be rude and ask.
"I'm on my way to Celadon City, my uncle lives there. I want to check up on him after the entire Rocket business that went down and to get another badge." Maisie explained.
"You are not going to believe this, but this guy actually saved the city," Janine said.
"No way. Than you must be that Danny. Wow, it's an honor to meet you," Maisie reacted enthusiastically.
Danny nodded politely. "I really wasn't to big of a deal."
"Yeah it was! You and your team took down the Rocket boss without even one of your team members fainting, no wonder I couldn't beat you."
"Wait what?" Janine asked.
"Rumors go big," Richard laughed.
"That's not how it really happened," and Danny told Maisie the story of how it really happened. Afterwards, she didn't seem any less impressed.
"Well that's still pretty awesome! Maybe you can help me with a problem I've been having," she wondered out loud.
Danny nodded. "Sure, if you can keep me awake while were at it."
Maisie started to laugh. "You see, aside from Psyduck, my Pokémon think I'm an worthless trainer. I did capture them, but they quickly decided they didn't want to be trained by me."
"Wow, that's rough," Danny scratched his chin.
Maisie took three Pokéballs from her belt and let all three Pokémon out.
"Guys, this is Ponyta, Gastly and Mankey."
All three Pokémon just walked away to a nearby fallen tree. Mankey sat own on it, Ponyta laid before it and Gastly just floated above it. But neither of the three had any intention to go near their trainer.
"Observe," Maisie said to the three trainers. "Guys time to train!"
Ponyta looked at its trainer and then laid back down again, the other two didn't even look, instead they seemed to have a pleasant conversation between themselves.
"If I would attack them, would they battle?" Danny ask.
Maisie thought about this for a second, but came to the conclusion they probably would.
Danny turned around. "Charmeleon, wanna give it a try?"
Charmeleon nodded enthusiastically. Finally something to battle.
"Great! Use Flamethrower on the Mankey."
Charmeleon ran towards the trio of relaxing Pokémon. He inhaled and released a big stream of fire onto the Mankey. The latter fell of the tree and was completely shook. Gastly and Ponyta got into battle position quickly, ready to defend their friend.
"Ponyta, use Ember. Gastly, Shadow Ball!" Maisie ordered.
Instead, Ponyta ran forward and Gastly released a small, purple ball towards Charmeleon.
"Dodge both!" Danny ordered. Charmeleon jumped up and avoided Ponyta's charge, the small ball Gastly had released missed Charmeleon as well and hit Ponyta. The Fire type couldn't walk straight due to the Confuse Ray.
"Another Flamethrower." While ordering, Danny pointed towards their next target, Gastly.
The next stream of fire blasted Gastly away, just as it had done with Mankey.
"Ponyta, please listen to me! Use Take Down," Maisie exclaimed desperately.
Refusing, Ponyta let out a small ember towards Charmeleon.
Charmeleon just stepped aside and let the ember fall onto the grass. He quickly stepped onto it to avoid anything burning.
"It's no use," Maisie sighed.
Mankey had gotten up and was ready to fight, but Danny signaled Charmeleon it was enough.
"The only Pokémon that still listens to my command is Psyduck. I just hope he won't stop listening to me."
Danny had heard of disobedient Pokémon before, but this was next level.
"My dad had a disobedient Pokémon once. It was a Rhydon. It didn't warm up to him until my dad tried to save it."
"Well unless you can create some kind of danger, these three don't need saving," Janine responded.
Maisie sighed. "I'm afraid I just have to release them, might be for the best." She sat down on the ground in desperation.
"No way, you can't give up on them." Janine responded, Danny nodded in agreement.
"Maybe that is the right thing to do," Richard said to everyone's surprise.
"Richard!?" Danny said in shock.
"Let's face it. If those three don't respect you, for whatever reason that may be, they won't help you and you can't help them. Might be best to just split ways."
Maisie swallowed but seemed to realize it might be the only option. Still, she didn't like to let go of her entire team, aside Psyduck that is.
"Wait," Danny said. "We haven't tried everything yet. Maybe we can figure out why they don't respect you and we work off that."
Janine nodded in agreement. "Yeah. And if all of that doesn't work out, you can always release them."
Richard took a step back. "Fine, but you guys remember Machoke right? That didn't work out at all."
Danny sat down next to Maisie.
"Maybe we can think of a way to endanger them. Have all our Pokémon charge at them or something."
"I doubt that will work," Richard responded. "They'll know it will be us who sent them and they'll never buy it."
"Why are you so negative?" Janine asked.
"I'm not," Richard answered. "I'm just being realistic. I've been through this before, some Pokémon just don't want to be with you." Richard turned around and walked away.
"You'll have to excuse him, he had to release his Machoke a while back," Janine explained.
"Well, that's only more reason to find a way to make them obey." Maisie sounded hopeful, but in her mind she wasn't hopeful at all. Just praying that she wouldn't become like Richard after inevitably releasing her Pokémon.
Meanwhile, Richard just kept walking back. He had no idea where he was going, he just needed to get away from the entire scene.
"Dammit, why did we have to run into her?" he murmured. "Just was a I got over the fact I had to release one of my Pokémon."
All of a sudden, he heard a rustle in the bushes. Luckily for him, Squirtle had followed him. The Water-type heard it to and went into battle position.
"Let's see if we can release these emotions too." Richard said with a fake smirk.
Back to the others, Danny thought he had the brilliant idea to stop the three Pokémon from being disobedient.
"No. You can't be serious," Janine responded. Her eyes showed how bad the idea really was.
Maisie looked at Danny with that same look. "I've gotta agree with Janine here, there's no way that will work."
Danny pulled out what seemed like a mask out of his bag. "I bought this in Vermillion City. If I run into the woods, put this one and appear behind them, they will get the scare of a lifetime. That's when you jump in and save the day."
"Really, really bad idea, even for you."
"Do you have a better idea?" Danny responded slightly annoyed, which made Janine sigh.
"Okay fine, go ahead."
Danny looked at Maisie, who also nodded.
He took the mask and ran into the forest.
"Is he always like this?" Maisie wondered.
"Yeah he is."
"Must be fun to travel with."
Janine looked at the girl to find any trace of sarcasm, but Maisie seemed to be honest.
"That'll go," she responded, as deadpan as she managed.
"Look, there he is." Maisie whispered to the poison trainer.
Janine turned around and saw Danny with the monster mask appear behind them. She had to admit, the mask was quite freaky. The eyes were pitch black and the face was white with black lines over it. The lack of a mouth made it complete.
The three Pokémon were not suspecting anything, until Danny decided to roar.
All three turned around. Gastly and Mankey seemed to enjoy the show while Ponyta charged and hit Danny quite hard. The mask flew off and Danny fell to the ground.
Janine started to laugh. "Well so much for that plan."
Danny had to run as Ponyta kept on chasing him.
Maisie quickly reacted and returned the Fire Horse Pokémon to its Pokéball. Mankey and Gastly were still laughing.
"I'm sorry, it didn't work." Danny explained.
Janine started to laugh. "No kidding."
While Danny had failed to scare Maisie's Pokémon, the thing in the bushes did a better job making Richard and Squirtle nervous.
"Squirtle, what do you think? Attack it or wait for it?"
Squirtle pointed towards the bushes as to show he thought they should battle. He even let out a bubble towards the plants.
"Okay, use BubbleBeam, let's see what comes out." Richard commanded.
Squirtle nodded, but before he could act something came walking out. It was a semi-large Pokémon, walked on two feet and was very familiar for Richard.
"Machoke?" Out of all the things that could have wandered out, Machoke was the last thing Richard expected to see.
Machoke walked towards Richard and stopped right in front of him.
"What are you doing here?" Richard asked. "I released you over a week ago."
Machoke pointed towards Richard's belt with Pokéballs, than showed the trainer what he held in his hand. It was the Great Ball Richard had used to capture Machoke in.
Richard was speechless, but Squirtle seemed to understand. He happily walked towards Machoke and reached out to shake hands, something Machoke obliged in.
Than it struck Richard as by lighting.
"I don't believe that a Pokémon can be bad. It's trainer might be, but the Pokémon itself isn't. They just follow orders." Erika explained.
"You thought I ordered you to go, didn't you?" Richard said and he saw Machoke confirm what he said by nodding.
"Oh my …" Richard felt terrible and relieved at the same time. Machoke thought that Richard ordered him to go.
He walked towards Machoke and hugged him.
"And all that time I thought you didn't like me. That's why I send you away, because I thought you would like it more in the wild."
For the first time, Machoke showed some kind of emotion. After following Richard and hoping he would find him someday, he had finally found his trainer again. It was enough for him to engage into the hug as well.
When Richard broke the hug, he took Machoke's Great Ball and clicked it onto his belt. "Welcome back to the team." He said with a lump in his throat, as his emotions overwhelmed him.
"Let's get back to the others." Richard said to both Machoke and Squirtle.
"I'm sorry." Danny said.
The three trainers had come to the conclusion that none of them knew how to solve the problem and Maisie decided to release them.
Maisie nodded and walked towards the Mankey and Gastly. Once there she let Ponyta back out.
"Listen up. You three clearly don't want me to be your trainer, so I release you." She said with a lump in her throat.
The tree didn't seem to care. Mankey was the first to turn his back to her and walk into the forest when out of a sudden, a Machoke came storming towards them. He looked furious and was heading straight for the three Pokémon.
Without realizing this was the chance she had been waiting for, Maisie jumped between the raging Machoke and the three other Pokémon.
"Stop!" She screamed, but the Machoke didn't stop running.
Maisie took a Pokéball and let Psyduck out.
"Psyduck, use Confusion!"
Psyduck's eyes started to glow blue again and Machoke was stopped in his tracks.
"Throw it away."
Psyduck let Machoke fly up. The fighting type fell to the ground and stayed there.
"Good job Psyduck!"
Janine and Danny ran towards Maisie. "Are you alright?" Janine asked.
"Wait, does that Machoke seem familiar to you too?" Danny asked.
"I better hope so." Richard said as he came walking out of the forest.
"Is that…" Janine asked, but Richard interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.
"Yes. This is my Machoke. Long story, but apparently he followed us all the way from Celadon. I ordered him to pretend he was attacking you, I hope it worked," Richard said as he pointed towards the three.
Meanwhile, Psyduck started glowing. He got larger and his legs became bigger and more muscular as well. Four spikes emerged from his head and his usually flat beak became pointy.
When the lights disappeared, the small, yellow-colored Psyduck had grown into a big, blue-colored Golduck.
Maisie's mouth dropped.
"Oh my God!" She ran forward to hug with her newly evolved Golduck. The water-type was quite found of its new form and engaged in the hug.
Machoke had gotten up from the ground and walked towards Richard and his trainer's friends.
"Brilliant side-effect." Richard laughed.
Meanwhile, Mankey, Gastly and Ponyta had seen everything and walked up to their trainer.
"It really did work," Janine said. "Good work you guys."
But instead of looking to Maisie, they looked at Golduck with eyes filled with jealousy. Golduck saw it as well and started to show off.
Maisie started to laugh. "If you guys want I can help you evolve as well."
The three didn't knew how quick they had to start begging for Maisie to take them back.
"It's all fine guys. You can stay," she said with a smile from ear to ear.
Later
"Thanks again for all your help," Maisie said. "Time to get to Celadon City. I guess I'll see you again in the Pokémon League." She winked towards Danny.
"Yeah, maybe we'll even get to battle each other."
Maisie took out a piece of paper and a pen out of her pocket and started writing something down, she then handed it to Danny.
"This is my phone number. Give me a call sometimes." She smiled and waved goodbye.
"Crap," Danny said. "We need to get to Fuchsia quick, I don't have a phone."
All of them, aside from Danny, started to laugh. Even Machoke let out a small smile.
"Laugh all you want, I didn't see her giving you guys her phone number."
"If I take it from you she did," Janine said with a mean look as she tried to grab the piece of paper, but Danny was too quick and started running. Janine directly followed her, followed by Charmeleon who wanted to protect his trainer.
"You can still turn back," Richard said with a smile. Machoke didn't react, now learned that not everything his trainer said was an order.
Together with Squirtle, they started following the others, on the way towards Fuchsia City.