A Pallet Pair #2:
Eevee's Eevees
Joey Remshaw - better known to everyone as "Remmy" - woke up to trees, and an odd, growlish sound.
He stared up at the trees calmly, the corners of his mouth turned up in what wasn't quite a smile. He listened lazily to the sound of Pidgeys chirping, of Caterpies squeaking, of Beedrills buzzing far away, Spearows arguing among themselves much closer by, and Nuisance, Ivonar's Psyduck, snoring softly to himself. Those gentle sounds, and that odd, growlish noise, were all there was to disturb him.
No Mom, to rush him out of bed and rush him around the house and rush, rush, rush. No Dad to rush, and rush, and rush, and generally ignore his son. No, there was no rush here. Just the sounds of Pokémon in early morning.
The day before hadn't been so bad. He'd raced after Ivonar most of the morning, probably scaring her with how fast he was. It came with having parents who rushed so much. He had to keep up with them. That wasn't what he said, of course.
Actually, he hadn't had to say anything, because she hadn't asked.
The two of them had kind of taken turns catching the Pokémon they found: he'd given the first Pidgey to her, and then she'd insisted he get the second. They each caught a Spearow at the same time, by having Manx, Char, and his Bulbasaur - who he had yet to name - team up on them, three to three. One of the Spearows had gotten away, but the other two were theirs. There'd been some argument about who got to keep the Caterpie: Ivonar had seen it first, but it was the Bulbasaur's Vine Whip that finally caught it. Ivonar insisted that he should keep it, because his Pokémon won: he insisted that she had seen it first, and besides, he wasn't really interested in this. She thought she'd finally won by saying that, if he didn't take it, he may as well let it go.
He said okay, and did.
In the end, Ivonar had the Caterpie.
He looked around without getting up. To his left, on the other side of the smoldering ash that remained of last night's fire, he could see Ivonar's back. Nuisance lay on his stomach across her feet: Remmy could see his head resting on his side of Ivonar; a small bubble of spit inflated and deflated with Nuisance's snores. "Psy…" he inhaled, his tone going up, like a question. "Psy…" he exhaled, like a sigh. Over and over, a gentle, slightly nasal whine. Remmy smiled in spite of himself.
Looking the other way, he was a little startled to see that Manx was out of his pokéball. He lay on his stomach, too, but, unlike Nuisance or Ivonar, he was as awake as Remmy was. His back looked… crooked. He glanced at Remmy, then returned to rasping his harsh, sandpaper-like tongue against his forepaw. The growl-like sound was a rough purr coming from the Persian's throat.
"You sound proud of yourself," he said to the tailless Persian.
Manx looked at him again, pausing his toiletry once more. His purr stuttered. The corners of his mouth seemed to turn up just slightly, the same way Remmy's mouth was turned up - something vaguely like a smile, but not really one. He lifted the other paw, just slightly.
A little purple nose stuck out. It wiggled, trying to free itself, but Manx put his paw back down.
With a little groan, Remmy slid out of his sleeping bag. He went around the dead fire and shook Ivonar's shoulder. "Eevee?"
"Oh, you're up?" She turned her head to look at him. "Didn't realize. I didn't want to wake Nuisance by rolling over."
"Oh." He looked back toward the Persian. "Manx is out."
"I let him out before I fell asleep."
"Oh," he said again. Then he added, "He caught something."
"He did?" Ivonar kicked one of her feet slightly, rolling Nuisance off her feet. He rolled onto his back, totally oblivious. She slipped out of her sleeping bag and hurried over to where Manx was. "I was hoping you'd go home," she told him bluntly.
"Jir?" he replied in a vague sneer, as if to say, Yeah, so?
"What've you got there?" she demanded, crossing her arms.
His purr stumbled to a halt. With a pout and a sharp snort, he lifted himself off the ground, then put his front paws heavily on the tail of what he'd caught.
The Rattata glared at him. "Rattata!" it hissed angrily.
"Per-sian!" he snarled back. It cowered, using its little white paws to push its purple ears over its bright red eyes.
Ivonar looked at Manx, surprised. "You caught a Rattata for me?" Manx snorted again. He nudged her hand with his nose. She tickled him behind the ears. "You're in a good mood this morning." She looked at Remmy. "Want a Rattata?"
He shook his head. "Manx caught it."
She rolled her eyes. "Not this again." She looked at him with a little more annoyance. "I'm up to my six. I don't need anymore right now."
He shook his head again. "Manx would've given it to me if he wanted to." Manx made an odd, schnuff sound out his nose, nodding in agreement.
She sighed. "Fine. Fine! I'll send your Caterpie to Dr. Oak." She dredged her Pokédex out of her pocket. "I guess this thing'll have some uses," she muttered to herself, tapping a few keys to transfer the Pokémon. There was a brief flash of light in her backpack. She wandered back to it, taking out an empty pokéball. She also took out the belt she'd made over last summer - one with six small pouches sewn onto it. Taking her five occupied pokéballs, she put them into the pouches - first Char's, then Nuisance's, then Manx's, then Pidge's (as she'd decided to name her Pidgey "Pidge"), then Ro's (as she'd decided to name her Spearow "Ro") - leaving the last empty for-
"Come 'ere, Ratzy!" she shouted, hurling the ball across the fire. Remmy stepped slightly backwards (entirely unnecessarily, but just in case), and Manx reared on his hind legs to get out of the way. After spending half a night under a heavy Persian, the newly christened "Ratzy" was only too happy to go into a nice, safe pokéball.
"Happy now?" Ivonar asked Remmy bitterly.
"What?" he asked, confused.
She shrugged slightly. "I dunno. It just doesn't seem right."
"Ratzy. Cute name."
She shrugged a little. "They just come to me. Except Nuisance's, of course. My brother named him."
"What would you have named him?"
She shrugged. "I didn't have to, did I? Besides, he seems to like it." She looked at him and shook her head a little. He was still snoring, the spit bubble getting bigger and smaller as he breathed in and out, going "Psy… psy… psy… psy…" "Come on, Nuisance," she said, digging his pokéball out of its pouch. "You can sleep on the way." He didn't even notice as he returned to his pokéball. "You too, Manx." Manx stared at her, growling softly under his breath. He sat down with his shoulders hunched up, looking hurt. "Fine. Since you caught Ratzy, you can stay out, but you have to stay with me, understand?" He sat up straight, but otherwise didn't do anything. "You are so hopeless." He sneezed. She rolled her eyes, then returned to her side of the fire to roll up her sleeping bag.
*
After a quick breakfast of bagels for the two humans and milk for them and Manx (they planned to finish the milk at lunch, so it wouldn't go bad; Remmy's mother had packed it, though neither of them could figure out what she'd been thinking, exactly), they set off again. Ivonar was on her bike, going more slowly this time so that Remmy had to jog easily, instead of sprint, after her, on one side, while Manx kept up a steady trot on her other side. They went on for about an hour without incident, or much talking. Unlike the day before, the woods seemed void of visible Pokémon. They passed a nest of Pidgeys, but since they both already had one, they didn't bother stopping for them.
About an hour later, the route became a little less scenic and a little more treacherous. Ruts and ditches made biking harder. "It feels like an earthquake," Ivonar said, her voice shaking as she went in and out of shallow ditches as she swerved to avoid other, deeper ditches.
"It'd probably just be easiest if you walked," Remmy pointed out, keeping up easily now, even though he was walking.
"I gue- ahh!" she began, when her luck ran out, and her front tire caught against an upraised, deeply rooted rock. She pitched forward, over her handlebars. Her head smashed against another rock. "Oww…" she whimpered.
Remmy crouched down beside her. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"Thank goodness for helmets," she replied shakily. She removed hers, to rub her head. "I'll just have a bump instead of a hole." Then she stopped moving entirely. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" he asked softly, freezing too. He held his breath.
Manx tilted his ears forward, then a little to the right. He heard what his trainer did, too. He licked his lips, then stalked into the bushes.
"Manx, stop!" Ivonar snapped at him, but it was no use. His tailless backend disappeared. With a growl she followed him on her hands and knees. A little confused, Remmy crawled after her.
The sound became more clear as the three crawled through the bushes. It was a high pitched cry of several tiny, tinny voices, sad, pitiful little cries for help.
"Eevee!" they cried. "Eevee!"
Recognizing the call, Ivonar shoved Manx's tailless end with her hand. "Hurry up!" she hissed at him. He stopped, turning his head to look at her, and hissed in return. Then he continued on, even slower, to spite her. She grumbled under her breath.
"I didn't think there were Eevees in Viridian Forest," Remmy whispered.
"There shouldn't be," Ivonar replied. "But those are definitely Eevees."
"Definitely," he agreed.
Finally, Manx stopped. He pawed at a dugout hole in the ground. "Stop it, Manx!" Ivonar snapped at him. "Move over!" She shoved him aside, looking into the hole.
"Ooh!" she crooned.
Inside, in a mixed-up bundle of little legs and big ears and fluffy tails, four young Eevees tumbled and mewed over each other. "Eevee!" they cried mournfully, sometimes alone, sometimes together.
"Where's their mother?" Remmy whispered, shoving against a bush to make room near the mouth of the den so he could look, too.
"I don't know," Ivonar said, frowning. "She should be here. The poor things are shouting so much." She picked one up, then gasped. "It's skin and bones!"
"Eeeeveeeee!" the Eevee in her hands mewed pitifully. It had full-grown ears and paws, giving it a somewhat comical appearance, but where its body should have been pudgy and cute in its youth, its ribs were easily visible.
"These guys are barely weaned," Remmy said, picking another one up. "Where is their mother?"
"The poor things are starving," Ivonar said softly. She held the one she'd picked up close to her body. "And cold." She ran a soft hand against its knobby back. "The poor things…"
Manx snorted, sniffing the air. He growled slightly. "What is it?" Ivonar asked him. He cowered slightly in reply. His ears flattened to his skull. "What's wrong?" He flared his nose, and his ears flattened even more. He bared his teeth a little. Then he ducked his head into the den, pulled a third little Eevee out, and started cleaning its head and ears. It mewed at him. The last one in the den started crying even louder, afraid to be alone.
Remmy took the last Eevee out of the den, holding it with its sibling in one arm while he tickled their ears simultaneously. "What's wrong with Manx?"
"I think he smells something bad," Ivonar replied. She put the Eevee she was holding down, then crawled passed the den, out of the bushes. She sniffed. Yes, there was something slightly rotten to the air. She followed the scent as best she could, into another bush not far away.
She screamed, getting out of the bush as fast as she could.
She hurried back, then knelt next to the den.
"What's wrong?" Remmy asked. "Why'd you yell?"
Picking up the Eevee she'd been holding, and the one whose ears Manx had cleaned, Ivonar scowled. "Let's go."
"What?" Remmy asked, confused. "We can't just take them!"
Ivonar nodded. "We have to."
"Why? What's wrong?"
Ivonar swallowed heavily, trying not to cry. "They'll starve if we don't."
"What about their mother? Ivonar, we can't just-"
"I found their mother, all right?" she snapped at him. "And she-" She choked. She covered it by bringing one of the little Eevees up to her mouth and kissing it on the top of the head. "She can't take care of them anymore," she said softly. Tucking both Eevees in the crook of her left arm, she crawled, one-handed, away from the abandoned den.
*
Needless to say, the half-starved young Eevees didn't let the milk last until lunch. Between the four, every drop was lapped up in less than a minute. Surprisingly, Manx didn't begrudge them their treat. Instead, he sat a short distance away, watching them closely.
"Don't look now," Remmy told Ivonar quietly, "but I think Manx's a little attached."
Ivonar grinned. "Isn't it great? He's adopted them already."
Manx glanced at them, snorted a little, then returned to watching the Eevees.
"Or maybe he just wanted the milk," she said, shrugging a little.
Remmy grinned. "I've been wondering," he said, "why do people call you 'Eevee'?"
"Well, a couple reasons," Ivonar replied, wrapping an index finger in her shoulder-length brown hair. "When I was little - like, five or six - Eevee was my favorite Pokémon. Because of that, and because of my hair color, my mom started calling me her little Eevee. And, ever since, Eevee has stuck."
"When you were five or six? What's your favorite Pokémon now?"
She grinned. "You have to ask?" She patted the second pouch on her belt. "Nuisance, of course!"
Manx snorted.
"Oh, like you ever did anything to endear yourself," she retorted to his wordless comment.
The Eevees started mewing again, less urgently this time. One jumped on another, and the two tumbled a few feet before coming to a stop, the tackled one on top. They started to play around, seeing who could pounce on who. Manx watched the two carefully, even as he reached out with one paw, snagged one of the other two, and pulled it closer, to where he could start cleaning splashed milk off of its face and oversized ears. The fourth jumped on the one who had tackled the first one, nipping its tail. "Eee!" the bitten one squeaked in surprise. The first took advantage of its sibling's distraction to tackle it.
"They're going to be a handful," Remmy said, grinning. "But can we really put them into pokéballs?"
"I wouldn't want to," Ivonar said. "They're awful young - we can't battle them. And they're so cute! I don't want to send them home to Professor Oak." She knelt down, pulling one of the three wrestlers out of the game. She hugged it close, rubbing her chin against its head.
"Eevee!" it grumbled, struggling a little, then calmed down. It closed its eyes and purred a little when Ivonar started tickling it under the chin.
"What are they?" Remmy asked. A spontaneous, two-minute game of tag gave an even count: two males, and two females. Remmy grinned. "You're the one with the gift," he said. "What are the Eevee's names, Eevee?"
"You be quiet," she scolded him, then hugged the Eevee she was holding. Then she held him out in front of her. She giggled. "Look at your tail!" she laughed. Remmy laughed, too - it was bushed straight out, the fur stiff and bristly. "You be Static." She looked down at two who were wrestling - the other male, and the bigger female. The other male, unlike his brother and sisters - in fact, unlike any Eevee Remmy had ever seen - had black fur instead of cream-colored fur on the end of his tail. The female had thick, soft fur, and a bushy, soft-furred tail. "Cole for the male, and… umm… Fluffball!"
Remmy burst out laughing. "Fluffball?"
The bushy female pinned her brother, then looked up at both of them. "Eevee!" she cried happily.
Remmy shrugged, still grinning. "Okay! Guess she's Fluffball!"
The last one - the smallest of them, with slightly darker fur than the others - mewed softly. Finally clean to Manx's standards, she rubbed against Ivonar's ankle. Ivonar picked her up, and she started purring her odd, Eevee purr - a strange, sort of growl-like sound, but much too high and not at all threatening, a sound kind of like "yeeyeeyee!" "Aww," Ivonar crooned, rubbing her chin against the little Eevee's soft cheek.
Remmy grinned. "You two match." Ivonar glanced at him, not understanding. "Her fur matches your hair."
She chuckled, tickling the Eevee's ears. The little Eevee purred her strange little "yeeyeeyee!" purr even louder. "You're such a sweetie!" she told her. The Eevee just kept purring.
And so the Eevees were named Static, Cole, Fluffball, and Sweetie.
*
It immediately became apparent that marching through Viridian Forest with four young Eevees was not exactly the easiest thing to do.
Cole and Fluffball kept tackling one another, rolling off into bushes, and making the others wait up for them. Static was jumpy, running off at the slightest strange noise; Manx started carrying him by the scruff of the neck. Sweetie refused to walk by herself; she cried and mewed until someone picked her up, and even then carried on for awhile, scaring off any new Pokémon that might turn up. Finally, Ivonar convinced her to try riding on her shoulder, which Sweetie found acceptable - although she sometimes lost her balance and tumbled off, only to burst out crying again.
"You be quiet," Ivonar muttered testily at her, the fourth time she fell off and the fourteenth time she started crying, "or I'll change your name from 'Sweetie' to 'Crybaby'." She scratched half-heartedly at the little Eevee's chin. Remmy sighed as he carried Cole under one arm, Fluffball under the other, trying to keep them far enough apart that they weren't tempted to try pawing each other across his chest. At one point he'd tried carrying Fluffball forwards, Cole backwards, but that was an immediate failure: the Eevees made a game of catching and biting each others' tails. "They're worse than Toby and me," Ivonar said at one point. Remmy shrugged a little as he turned Cole around again; he had no frame of reference. His brother was two, his sister less than a year. They were two of the many reasons why his parents rushed so much.
"You okay carrying those two?" Ivonar asked.
"They're both handfuls," he replied. "It's a good thing I have two hands."
"You can put them in the bike baskets," Ivonar said. She patted the handlebar she held in her left hand, with her left hand. What made carrying the Eevees so difficult was that Ivonar still had to wheel her bike along, and that took two hands. "Take a break."
"Actually, we can all kind of take a break that way," he said. They stopped. First, he picked up the blanket on one wire basket, and put Cole under it; then he walked around the bike, picked up the blanket covering that side, and put Fluffball under that. He then reached for Static: Manx gave him up, and spit out the fur that had accumulated in his mouth. Finally, he took Sweetie and put them both in the basket on the handlebars. Sweetie immediately started crying.
"Oh, would you please be quiet?" Ivonar pleaded, rubbing her between the ears. Sweetie started whimpering, but stopped crying. "Good thinking, Remmy."
"I had inspiration," he grinned.
"Oh, yeah? What inspiration?"
"I didn't want to have to carry them much farther. Sweetie may be clumsy, but she doesn't struggle constantly."
"That's true." They came to an opening in the trees. Manx yowled. "What's wrong?" Ivonar asked him, surprised.
Whimpering, Manx sat down quickly and started biting at the bottom of his right front foot. "Let me see," Ivonar said, her tone more demanding than questioning. She handed her handlebars over to Remmy, then took hold of Manx's foot. "It's a thorn." She grimaced. "Gotta watch where you walk, silly." She managed to grip the base of the thorn with three fingers, and pulled quickly. Manx hissed as the two-inch long thorn slipped cleanly out from between his toes. "Ow!" Ivonar said, wincing in sympathy. "This is one nasty thorn." She tossed it into a bush. Manx started licking his wound. The Eevees mewed from their assigned baskets. Static bit Sweetie's ear playfully; Sweetie misunderstood and started crying again. Static immediately started licking off her ear to apologize, but she didn't stop crying until Ivonar gave her a hug. When she was returned to the basket, she immediately bit Static in the ear, then began licking it.
Finally, the Eevees settled down - Cole and Fluffball dozing in their baskets, Static watching little moths and flies with fascination, and Sweetie simply sitting quietly for once. Manx walked with a minor limp, his foot taped up with a little of the medical tape Mrs. Marain had given to Ivonar, so dirt wouldn't get into the hole in his foot.
But, halfway across the clearing, they were stopped again.
"Halt!"
The three walkers stopped. Static looked around worriedly, his fur puffing up a little. "Huh?" Ivonar said.
A figure - a young boy, dressed in some sort of ancient suit of armor - leaped out of a tree on the far side of the clearing. "You shall halt!" he called.
"Why?" Remshaw called back, frowning a little.
"I am Samurai!" the boy crowed, standing up straight. He pulled a long, ceremonial-looking sword out of a scabbard attached to his belt. "Are either of you a trainer from Pallet Town?"
They looked at each other. "We both are," Ivonar replied.
"Her more than me, though," Remmy added. "I'm not really into this."
"Thanks a lot," Ivonar hissed. "Telling the guy with the sword that I'm more interested than you?"
"Relax," Remmy assured her quietly. "It's fake."
"Really?"
"I'm trying to be optimistic."
"Oh. Thanks."
"Anytime."
Samurai slid into a fighting stance, his sword held at ready. "Then I challenge you both!" he cried. "I challenge each of you to a Pokémon battle. One Pokémon each."
"Why?" Remmy asked.
"Why? Why?" Samurai stood up straight again. He pushed the visor up on his helmet. "Why?"
"Yeah," Remmy said, nodding. "Why?"
Samurai frowned a little. "What do you mean, why?"
"I mean, why? Why do you challenge each of us to a Pokémon battle with one Pokémon each?"
Samurai scowled a little. "Well…" He sheathed his sword. "Well, see, I heard that a bunch of trainers were coming out of Pallet Town," he said. "I figured that, if I could beat them, I could consider signing up for the Pokémon League battles in a few months."
"And if you don't?" Remmy asked.
Samurai shrugged a little. "It just means I have to keep training, that's all."
"Why only one Pokémon each?"
Samurai blushed a little. "Well… I kind of only have two Pokémon."
Remmy nodded. "Makes sense." He looked at Ivonar. "Want to?"
Ivonar shrugged. "I guess so. You want to go first, or should I?"
Remmy shrugged. "You're holding the bike. Guess I'll go."
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
Remmy stepped forward. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the three Pokéballs there - his Bulbasaur, Pidgey, and Spearow. "I choose Saurus!" he said, throwing out one of the balls. With a flash of red light, his Bulbasaur became real.
"Saurus," Ivonar echoed, nodding. "Cool name."
"Just came to me," Remmy replied honestly.
"Since you are the less dedicated trainer," Samurai proclaimed, drawing his sword and regaining his original theatrics, "I choose… Caterpie!" He, too, threw a pokéball. There was another flare of red light, and the little insect appeared. It squeaked, looking at the Bulbasaur.
"Saur?" Saurus sounded skeptical. After all, he'd already defeated one Caterpie. What was so different about this one?
"Caterpie, string shot!" Samurai commanded. Immediately, the Caterpie began spitting a thin, web-like material in Saurus's eyes, a material that quickly hardened.
Saurus shook his head, blinded. "Bulba!" he shouted angrily. He pawed at his face, trying to get the hardened stuff out of his eyes. "Bulbasaur!"
"Saurus, use your vines to break it!" Remmy commanded crisply.
At once, two vines sprouted from the bulb on Saurus's back, vines that were meant to attack other creatures, but did just as well at cracking the hardened shell on Saurus's face.
"Great!" Ivonar cheered. She would have clapped, if dropping the bike didn't mean possibly injuring the young Eevees. "Good one, Remmy!"
"Now, Vine Whip!" he commanded, not paying the slightest bit of attention to her.
Saurus, remembering the last battle against a Caterpie, obeyed immediately. Once the last of the shell fell from his face, he turned the vines to their natural function - bashing enemies. In less than two seconds, he'd given the Caterpie three quick strikes, then wrapped it up, immobilizing it.
With a squeak, the Caterpie threw its head back, and started spraying thread into the air. The thread fell back down on it, and on Saurus's vines. Not wanting to get in the same trouble, Saurus dropped the Caterpie. Still, the Caterpie kept its head thrown back, throwing thread into the air, letting it fall on itself, like a small fountain.
"What is it doing?" Remmy asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
Samurai thrust his sword proudly in the air. "Yes!" he crowed. "At long last - my Caterpie is evolving into Metapod!"
He was right. In a few moments, it was impossible to see the Caterpie anymore; it was covered completely with its own hardening thread. With a short burst of dull white light and a soft, crackling sound, the thread hardened, the Caterpie changed, and it became Metapod.
"Congratulations," Ivonar said.
Samurai bowed. "Thank you." Then he looked at Remmy. "And thank you, and your Bulbasaur, for providing my Caterpie the energy it needed to evolve."
"You're welcome," Remmy replied. "Are we done?"
"Hardly." Samurai took up a new fighting stance. "Shall we continue?"
"If we have to." Saurus looked back at Remmy, waiting for further instructions. "Saurus," he said, "tackle attack!"
"Metapod, harden!" Samurai snapped. With a vague flash of light… well, the Metapod didn't seem to do anything.
With a leap, Saurus rammed into the Metapod - and fell backwards. "Bulba!" he grunted. He rubbed his forehead with one stubby forepaw. "Bulbasaur?" he said, confused. Why should his head hurt if all he'd run into was a Metapod? He tried again; this time, he managed to knock the upright Metapod over. The two tumbled a little. The Bulbasaur got up; the Metapod remained knocked over.
Remmy frowned. "How do we know if I won?" He looked at Ivonar for help. She shrugged. She didn't know either. He sighed. "Saurus, Vine Whip again. Wrap it tight."
The Saurus looked at the knocked down Metapod. Could he really hit something when it was down? Shrugging to himself - since it is very hard to see a Bulbasaur shrug unless you watch very closely - he wrapped the Metapod up as tightly as he could. Still, the Metapod did nothing.
"So?" Ivonar called to Samurai.
Samurai lowered his sword. His shoulders slumped a little. "All a Metapod can do is harden," he said. "I guess you win." He picked up his pokéball. "Metapod, return."
"You too, Saurus," Remmy said. He waited for the Bulbasaur to return to his pokéball before going to get it.
"Now, you!" Samurai shouted, pointing his sword at Ivonar. "What Pokémon shall you use, honorable opponent?"
"Hang on, hang on," Ivonar told him. She waited for Remmy to take the handlebars. She glanced at Manx, to see if he was willing. With another schnuff sound, he lay down, and peeled off the medical tape with his teeth to start licking at his wound again. "Great," she muttered. She reached into the first pouch, and paused. Should she use Char? She slipped her fingers out of the first pouch, and into the second. Then she slid them out again. She hadn't taught Nuisance anything besides Tail Whip yet, and his tail wasn't really good at whipping much of anything. Instead of Tail Whip, it looked more like Nuisance was dancing, or hulahooping, as he twisted his hips from side to side. She skipped over the third pouch; that was Manx's pouch. Her Pidgey, or Spearow? They'd be good if Samurai used another bug Pokémon, but she wasn't sure: she was pretty sure her Pidgey had been burned when Char attacked him, and her Spearow hadn't listened to a word she said when she set her after the Caterpie. "I choose Char," she said finally, reaching into the first pouch again. She held out the ball, letting the Charmander come out on her own, then put the ball back in its little pouch.
"And I will choose… Pinsir!" Samurai threw another Pokéball. This time, a far larger Pokémon - but still, a bug Pokémon - was released. It clacked the sharp, spine-covered pincers it had been named for together eagerly.
"Char, Flame-thrower!"
"Pinsir, Tackle!"
The Pinsir lunged forward - right into a blast of searing-hot flame. "PINSIR!" it screamed, running behind Samurai.
"Char, stop!" Ivonar shouted, but it was too late - Samurai was blasted, too. "Char, stop it!"
Char stopped, then turned to look at her, scowling slightly. "Char-er?" she said, seeming to ask, what? What'd I do?
Ivonar shook her head. "Nevermind," she said, as Samurai fell over. "You okay?" she called over to him as she dug Char's pokéball out of its pouch. Sulkily, not exactly sure why she'd been yelled at, Char allowed herself to return to her pokéball.
"Fine," he called back weakly. He coughed, expelling a puff of smoke.
"Sorry about that."
"S'okay."
Ivonar smiled at Remmy. He grinned back. "We done here?"
He shrugged a little, scratching one of Static's ears. "I guess so."
"S'okay," Samurai said again, to no one in particular. His Pinsir groaned as it flopped in the grass next to him.
"Let's go." She took the handlebars from Remmy, and started walking the bike again. Manx yawned, then jogged a few steps to catch up. He didn't limp at all. "Scaredy Cat," she accused him. He merely snorted in reply.
Samurai forced himself to sit up. "Wait!"
They stopped. "What?" Remmy asked.
"How many more trainers are coming?"
"Two more," Ivonar replied. "A brown-haired self-absorbed annoyance, and a black-haired air-head."
Samurai nodded, then pointed in the direction they were going. "If you go that way," he said, his voice serious, not at all dramatic now, "go quietly. There's an enormous Beedrill nest that goes right next to the path."
Ivonar's eyes lit up. "Where?" she asked, grinning.
*
"You're crazy," Remmy whispered to her, taking the handlebars.
"Stop telling what I already know, and go on," she told him quietly. "I'll catch up. Manx, you stay with him." Manx snorted, scowling. Then he stood on his hind legs, and used one of his forepaws to push Cole's head back into his basket. Falling back on all fours, he glared disapprovingly at Ivonar. "Oh, stop it, you. Mom didn't send you to mother me. You can mother the Eevees. Go on, Remmy. See you later."
He put her helmet on his own head. It was a little big, and cracked where it had hit the rock earlier that day, but it was better than nothing. "Just remember two things."
"What?"
"One - if they see you, run faster than I do." She smiled. "And two - you're crazy."
"I'll remember," she promised. She shoved Cole's head down into his basket again. "See you."
"I hope so." With one more grimace, he started peddling down the path, with no greater sound than the wheels against the dirt. With one last glare at her, Manx followed him, his feet silent.
Grimacing to herself, Ivonar walked down the path on her own, as quietly as she could. Her sneakers were quiet, but not as quiet as the bike, or Manx's naturally silent feet. She cringed, and froze, as she stepped on a twig.
There was no change in the one other sound - the heavy hum of many, many, very big, very fast wings.
Biting her lip, Ivonar continued forward, hunching down lower. She peered through a small bush.
On the other side, a huge tree loomed above her. Beedrills dove and wove in and out of the branches, tending the Kakunas hanging from thin tendrils. Weedles munched leaves higher in the tree. Ivonar set her mouth in a grim line: the lower branches. Those would be her only chances. She waited until she noticed a pattern in the flights of the Beedrills - every forty seconds or so, none of them faced her direction. A split second before she counted silently to forty the fourth time, she sprinted to the base of the tree, hiding in its shadow.
Directly under the tree, the surveillance wasn't as strong: the Beedrills weren't watching for anything to get through. But their silence, and the silence of the Kakunas and Weedles, made it clear that they were listening. Ivonar slowed her breathing as much as she could, and kept counting to forty in her head. She had to keep in mind when she could run back. Finally, when she was sure the Beedrills hadn't noticed her, she gripped the lowermost branch and hauled herself into the tree. As quickly, but silently, as she could, she climbed until she was hidden by the leaves of the tree, and stopped again. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty… she counted silently. So far, it had been about five minutes, if her counting was right. She looked up; she needed to find the quickest, safest path to the nearest Kakuna.
She smiled a little, thinking about how her brother and the other boys back in Pallet Town would react when they learned she single-handedly raided a Beedrill's nest, without getting caught.
It took her a few moments to spot a Kakuna nearby. She crept up three more branches, then edged out as far as she dared. Then she backed closer to the trunk again. It was too far out. Looking around again, she saw another one that looked a lot more promising. She climbed a little higher, then walked carefully four branches over, then, gripping the branch she was standing on, swung her legs out. For a moment she hung in thin air, before she managed to touch the nearest branch below her with her foot. For a scary moment, her foot slipped off, jostling both that branch and the one she hung on, but the Beedrills seemed oblivious. She managed to get both feet on the branch on the second try, then, hugging the trunk, side-stepped one more branch over. She sat on the branch, then slipped to the much wider branch below. She ducked a low branch, then boosted herself onto another one. Then she looked a little upward - and smiled.
The Kakuna looked back warily.
Ivonar froze. Beedrills, she knew, attacked things that moved. It was assumed that Kakunas had a hard time seeing things that didn't move, too. She kept her smile plastered to her face, forcing herself not to blink. She held her breath. Finally, when it felt like her lungs would burst, the Kakuna's eyes shifted in another direction.
Quietly, she reached up, twisting it sharply. It made an odd, gear-like sound as the tendril suspending it snapped.
Again, Ivonar froze, holding the Kakuna above her head, as four Beedrills came to investigate. The Kakuna continued making the odd, gear-like sound.
Then it cracked.
Ivonar grimaced as first a needle-like stinger, then another, pierced the skin of the Kakuna. Then the insect head broke free. Slowly, so slowly, the new Beedrill emerged from the Kakuna.
Immediately, it glared at her.
"Uh-oh," Ivonar breathed. Dropping the evolving Kakuna, she spun around, dropped down a branch, ducked a low branch, jumped from one branch to another, and leaped to grab onto yet another. She jumped again, panic helping to perfect her aim as she grabbed a branch just out of her reach. She boosted herself onto it, then ran across the three branches next to it. She dropped down a branch, then another.
Wait, her brain told her.
Wait?! Her panic shouted back at her brain. Wait?! There's a hundred Beedrills after me!
You're back where you started, you numbskull! her brain pointed out.
Looking around quickly, Ivonar saw that her brain was telling the truth. Right on this branch…
Doing her best to put the hum of the wings after her, or the danger those wings represented, out of her mind, Ivonar sprinted out onto the branch, making it bow dangerously. Finally, it became too vertical, and too narrow, to run on; her foot slipped off. She lashed out with her left hand, snagging it, then swung herself forward.
Yes!
Just before she let go with her left hand, she wrapped her right arm around the Kakuna right in front of her. "Please don't hatch!" she cried as she let go of the branch, letting her weight brake the tendril suspending the Kakuna ten feet in the air. She wrapped her left arm around it, too, as both of them fell.
She landed hard, rolling. Leaping to her feet again, she ran.
Faster than she thought possible - faster even, she was sure, than Remmy - she ran.
Two things became clear pretty quickly, though.
No matter how fast she ran, the Beedrills were faster.
And, no matter how much she dodged, the Beedrills were getting better aim.
Ivonar clenched her eyes shut, squeezing the Kakuna to her chest. No! No! This wasn't how it was supposed to be! "Help me!" she screamed to no one.
"Persian!" a voice snarled. The nearest hum ended in a crash.
Whirling, surprised, Ivonar stared.
Manx snarled, wordlessly, at, at the least, twenty Beedrills, his fangs bared, his ears straight back. He pressed his forepaws hard against the forelegs of the Beedrill he had pinned, while his back legs both pressed down its stinger. The Beedrill's wings were crushed beneath it. Manx snarled even louder at the other Beedrills.
Come and get me, he seemed to be saying.
Come on. Come and get me.
What's a matter? Come and get me!
A few of the Beedrills, impressed, veered off.
But not enough.
Not any where near enough.
"Char?" Ivonar whispered.
With a flash of red light, Char appeared, just in front of her. Char looked up at the swarm, and her chin dropped. "Charmander?" she squeaked.
"Ro?" Ivonar mumbled. "Pidge? Nuisance? Ratzy?" Four flashes of light, and the three birds and one rodent appeared. All of them stared soundlessly at the twenty - thirty - maybe even forty - huge bugs.
Then Ro opened her beak.
"Spearow!" she screamed, a single word of challenge.
"Persian!" Manx roared in agreement.
Stepping forward, regaining her courage, Char threw a hot blast of fire into the air at the nearest Beedrill. It went down hard, its wings aflame. "Charmander!" she shouted, firing another shot at the second nearest Beedrill. This one managed to dodge her attack, and flew off.
"Pidgey!" Pidge cried, getting caught up in the moment. Ignoring the burn on his left wing, he flew high into the air. "Pidgepidgepidgepidgepidgepidgepidgepidge!" he shouted, beating his wings as hard as he could. The Gust attack threw four Beedrills to the ground, where Ro pecked at one of their exoskeletons, her strong beak ripping right through it, and where Ratzy bit into another one, his sharp incisors doing the same. Manx threw himself on one of them, tearing off a wing with his teeth. Char blasted the fourth point-blank with a strong Flame-thrower. Even Nuisance tried to get involved, sitting on the one Manx had already weakened, keeping it from getting up. When it managed to knock him off and started to pull itself to its feet, he panicked, and whacked it in the face with his tail in his pathetic Tail Whip attack. However, since the Beedrill was already dazed and weak, it passed out completely. Nuisance stared at it, too stunned to have won to know what to do.
Ivonar watched, equally stunned, as her six (well, five, anyway…) Pokémon came together. Pidge blasted Beedrills out of the sky with his Gust attacks, and helped Ro tear into them with his blunt, but strong, beak. Ro did well enough on her own, bringing her sharp claws into the battle along with her beak, tearing and biting and occasionally squawking "Spearow!" in challenge. Char helped Pidge take the Beedrills down, and when she missed a few in the air, she turned her attacks to those that had been brought to the ground. Manx leaped from Beedrill to Beedrill, his claws and teeth shredding wings and taking off stingers. Ratzy avoided stings when he could, taking them when he couldn't with nothing more than winces, and bit anything that came close enough. Nuisance finally managed to convince himself that the Beedrill he'd Tail Whipped wasn't getting up, and danced around a little, then squawked as a Beedrill Pidge had Gusted landed right on top of him.
"Nuisance!" Ivonar cried. This wasn't worth a stupid Kakuna! Ratzy was slowing down; he must have been poisoned. Pidge was tiring out; his Gust attacks were becoming weaker, and his aim was getting worse. Char, too, was tiring; one Flame-thrower would have singed Manx if it had anything near the power of her earlier attacks, which it didn't. Only Ro and Manx didn't seem affected - Ro, in fact, seemed to be having fun, stabbing Beedrills with her sharp beak and sharper claws, beating them with her small wings and screaming at them. Manx was unrecognizable, his teeth bared, snarling wordlessly, leaping from one insect to another, clawing, biting, tearing them apart.
Slowly, unnaturally, the Beedrill on top of Nuisance started to get up. Its wings were still; it looked startled, if not terrified. Ivonar watched, her jaw slowly dropping; Manx paused in his attacks, looking; Pidge landed, exhausted, then turned to stare; Ratzy limped under a bush, too weak to keep his eyes opened; Ro pulled away from a Beedrill she'd just pecked into debris, and turned bright white.
From beneath the Beedrill, Nuisance stood up, his eyes glowing an unnatural blue. Without a sound, he stared, unblinking, at the Beedrill; it rose, higher, higher. Then, he blinked - and the Beedrill slammed into the ground, in the place where he no longer was.
"What attack was that?" Ivonar breathed, staring. She hugged the Kakuna in her arms even tighter.
She looked around dazedly.
Twenty - if not thirty - Beedrills lay scattered, some buzzing weakly, some not even doing that much. She saw Ratzy resting under a bush; Pidge was near him. Manx limped up to Ivonar, and sat heavily beside her, out of breath. He started licking his right forepaw, as if nothing had happened. And Ro-
Ivonar gasped as, where she had seen Ro last, the much larger bird spread its long, powerful wings and screamed a challenge into the cooling, evening air.
"Fearow!"
The Beedrills that could - which were very few, since their opponents had mostly gone after their fragile wings - flew away. The others that were still conscious, which did not outnumber those able to fly by a great many, limped away, using their foreleg stingers as extra legs. Even without them, the number of Beedrills that were unconscious, or worse, were over twenty.
How many had her six taken on?
"Come on, everybody," Ivonar sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. For the first time since deciding to raid the Beedrill's nest - in fact, for the first time since her first battle, with Samurai - she ran out of adrenaline. All she wanted to do was sleep. "Great job. All of you." Pidge and Ratzy were only too glad to return to their pokéballs. Char, too, went without protest. Ivonar considered returning Manx, but decided against it. He'd more than earned another night out. Nuisance returned on his own, even though she hadn't planned on putting him back. And Ro…
She stared at the evolved bird. No wonder Ro hadn't listened to her: she was too powerful for a new trainer like her. "Please, Ro," she said, hoping that asking would be enough. "Will you come back?"
"Fear. Ro. Fearow," Ro replied, her voice deeper, crueler. She bowed her head to the ground. "Ro fear, Fearow ro ro."
Ivonar was momentarily confused… when suddenly she understood. "You're… welcome."
Ro met her gaze, her furious eyes smoldering, then dissolved in a flash of red light.
*
As evening grew closer to night, Remmy grew more worried… and aggravated.
"Come on, Sweetie, please," he begged, tickling her tummy, then her ears, then her chin, then her tummy again, but it was no use: she kept crying. Manx had wandered off; Remmy was still sure they were too close to the Beedrill's nest to shout after him. He decided to trust the tailless Persian to know what he was doing.
Saurus was keeping the other three Eevees busy by waving his Vine Whips in the air and letting them try to catch them, but he, too, was running out of patience - not to mention energy. Fluffball had already bitten his vines four times; Cole had bitten them seven. Static had settled for a snooze in the space between Saurus's short neck and the bulb on his back, which, for Saurus, was very uncomfortable. He understood that Remmy had already tried convincing the Eevees to play with Pi, his Pidgey, and Nasty, the Spearow. He also understood that Pi had lost half his tail feathers when Cole and Fluffball decided to tackle him at the same time (conking their heads together in the process), and Nasty had gotten his name because he'd tried to eat Sweetie. He understood that those reasons left him as the only other possible choice to help Remmy out. (The second fact was also why the smallest Eevee refused to stop crying.) Still, the Bulbasaur was wearing out. He'd already had more exercise than he was used to in his battle with the evolving Caterpie, but now he was pulling babysitting duty. He was bushed. He'd had enough - more than enough.
Suddenly, Static was lifted from his back. He looked over his shoulder, surprised, then smiled as he saw Manx lie down, and start cleaning the fur between the Eevee's long ears with his rough tongue. He was surprised to see the scratches that covered the tailless Persian's once sleek, ivory hide, but, since the Persian offered no comment, he made none of his own. He merely winced as Fluffball bit one of his vines for the fifth time.
"Hey, Remmy." With an exhausted sigh, an equally exhausted Ivonar fell to the ground.
"Please, make her stop," he begged, handing Sweetie to her.
Ivonar sighed. "You big crybaby," she muttered. She scratched the Eevee between the ears, then down her back. She stopped crying, and merely whimpered. She settled in Ivonar's lap, cowering. "What happened?"
"Nothing major. I tried introducing my Bulbasaur, Pidgey, and Spearow to the wonders of babysitting."
"And?"
"Well, Saurus is doing pretty good, even though he's tired, but Pi found that it cost too much in tail feathers, and Nasty got his name from trying to eat one of the babies."
"Oh." Ivonar sighed, still hugging the Kakuna.
"So, you got one, huh?"
"It wasn't worth it. It was the stupidest thing I have ever done."
"What happened?"
"To keep it short? Ratzy's poisoned, Char's exhausted, Pidge's burn's infected, Ro evolved, Nuisance has some sort of attack I can't name, and Manx here saved my life." She rubbed the Persian's head gently. He purred vaguely as he started cleaning the grumblingly protesting Static's back.
"Wow." Silently, Remmy thanked himself for trusting the Persian. Then, not knowing what else to say, he said "Wow" again.
"Yeah. Wow." Ivonar turned the Kakuna to face her. "After all this, you'd better be worth it," she warned it. It stared silently back.
Remmy looked at the dozing Eevee in her lap. "You know, we're going to have to decide what to do with these guys," he pointed out.
"What do you mean?" Ivonar asked him, yawning. After all the excitement, she wasn't even hungry: all she wanted to do was sleep. She got up to get her sleeping bag from the back of her bike. She woke Sweetie up, and put her back on her shoulder.
"I don't think we should split them up."
"Of course not!" She dropped the bag to the ground, pulling the elastics off, and pushed it, letting it unroll itself. She sat down to tug off her sneakers and socks.
"So… I think you should keep them."
"What?" Ivonar looked at him sharply. She was halfway into her sleeping bag. "You think I should keep them?" She laughed. "You think I should keep everything!"
He shrugged a little. "Well, I don't-"
"Yeah, yeah, you don't really want to do this. But you really have talent!" She lay down, but perched herself up on one elbow. "I did see you today, against Samurai. Using Saurus's Vine Whips on himself to get rid of the hardened thread? It was genius!"
"Bulba!" Saurus agreed. After all, he hadn't thought of it.
Remmy shrugged it off, then grinned. "I think it's decided for us, anyway."
As they were talking, Sweetie had crept into Ivonar's sleeping bag, then lay right in the perfect "hug me" position. She jumped right out of it, though, as Fluffball and Cole ran into the tunnel-like space, at home in the warm place, which reminded them of their den. They wrestled for awhile inside the bag, making Ivonar cringe every once in a while, giggle others, depending on whether it was tiny claws, or bushy tails, that touched the sensitive bottoms of her feet, before finally curling up together in a corner by her toes. When Ivonar said "talent", Nuisance let himself out of his pokéball and flopped on his stomach over Ivonar's feet. There was a soft squeak from inside the sleeping bag as his bill fell on one of the hidden Eevee's tails, and some shuffling of position as they found someplace without a Psyduck to lay down again. Nuisance was almost immediately snoring. When Saurus voiced his agreement, Static stalked up to the sleeping bag, sniffed it cautiously, then marched up the lump that was Ivonar's legs, and curled up on Nuisance's back with his tail covering his nose, even as Sweetie returned to her "hug me" position next to Ivonar.
Ivonar looked down at Sweetie. "I can't keep all four," she said doubtfully.
Remmy sighed. "Look, if you feel bad about it…" He thought about it. "I'll trade you Ratzy for my pair."
"Huh?"
He shrugged a little. "Hey, a fighting Rattata for a couple of young Eevees? I think it's fair, technically."
"Remmy, Ratzy's poisoned."
"He'll be okay when we get to Viridian City. Don't worry."
Ivonar bit her lip. "I don't know."
He got up to get his own sleeping bag. "Think about it. If you feel bad about keeping all four Eevees, I'll take Ratzy. If you don't want to give me Ratzy, that's fine too. It's totally your choice."
Ivonar reached in the last pouch in her belt, feeling the pokéball there. Ratzy had fought so hard for her. He'd fought so well with the others, too.
Still, Remmy was right… the Eevees really shouldn't be separated…
"I'll decide when we get to Viridian City."
Remmy unrolled his sleeping bag. "Okay," he agreed.
Ivonar lay her head down, resting her arm over Sweetie. She'd tucked the Kakuna behind her, in the bag, and just hoped it wouldn't hatch. It was quiet; once Remmy lay down, there were no sounds beyond Nuisance's soft snoring, and four beautifully harmonious, "yeeyeeyee!"-like purrs.
Smiling a little, she drifted immediately to sleep.