Author's note: Heyooo!
... You know, the more I rewatch Sinnoh episodes for fic research, the more I realise how much I hate Sinnoh. XD So why do I write for it, you ask? Am I a glutton for punishment?
Maybe. Though it's mostly to turn mediocre episodes into more entertaining ones. Like the one I'm currently covering in these last couple of chapters, for example! It's about as unmemorable as they come, despite having an ampharos powering a train and the first appearance of Looker.
What can you do, though.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter Four: Making Tracks
The group of four pokémon continued walking in comfortable silence. Well, it was silent except for the large footfalls of Ampharos, who was clearly much heavier than the other three.
Pikachu watched as Piplup strode down the dirt path in front, while Happiny merrily skipped along next to him.
"(Oh,)" Ampharos suddenly said from next to Pikachu, "(sorry about earlier, by the way.)"
Pikachu looked up at him, straining his neck, as his fellow electric-type was much taller than him. "(Huh?)" he replied.
"(When I hit the balloon with my Signal Beam. I was aiming it at the remote control, but the, uh... talking meowth moved it out of the way.)" He pulled a confused face.
Pikachu thought back to the commotion, where he hadn't been able to see what had been going on.
"(Ah, that makes sense.)" He smiled. "(It's okay! You rescued us, and everyone's fine, so it's fine, right?)"
"(Well...)"
"(Yep!)" Piplup agreed from in front.
"(Yeppers~!)" Happiny agreed from next to him.
Ampharos beamed. "(Well, if you say so!)" he replied. He paused. "(Though... I really wanna know why that meowth was speaking English...)"
Pikachu shrugged. "(Eh, he's a weird one, alright...)" he said.
"(Dang right he is!)" Piplup agreed.
"(Weirdo~!)" Happiny agreed.
Ampharos chuckled in response. Afterwards, the group fell into another comfortable silence.
It lasted for a short while, until Pikachu heard Piplup humming something. He listened for a few moments, curious about what the song was.
When he figured it out, his whole body stiffened in horror.
"(How... do you know that song?)" he slowly asked.
"(Huh?)" Piplup asked. He turned around to face him as he walked. "(You know it, too?)"
"(Uh, yeah...)"
"(Well, I heard it on TV last night! You know, when you and Ash were training out in the cold, and Brock was making candy flakes. Me and Dawn watched a music channel for a bit.)" He flailed around as he walked. "(And I haven't been able to get this stupid song out of my head since then!)" With a yelp, he tripped and landed on his stomach.
Everyone stopped walking.
"(Are you okay?)" Ampharos asked.
After a moment, Piplup pushed himself back to his feet, his flippers on his hips. "(Perfectly fine.)" Something rolled out from his feathery cape and landed on the floor.
"(Hmm?)" Ampharos pointed at it. "(What's that?)"
"(Huh?)" Piplup looked down and yelped. "(My everstone!)" He scrambled to pick it up, then held it to his chest. He'd been very protective of it ever since he'd gotten it, back in Sandalstraw Town. "(I need this to stay a piplup.)"
"(Yay!)" Happiny said. She pulled out the oval stone that she'd kept in her pouch since the day she'd hatched, way back at Cycling Road. "(Stone buddies!)" She held it up.
"(Yep. Stone buddies.)" Piplup tapped his stone against hers, then they both put them away again.
Ampharos chuckled in amusement. "(I see,)" he replied.
"(So what's the song?)" Happiny asked Piplup. "(I wanna hear it!)"
Piplup smiled at her. "(You wanna hear it?)" he asked.
"(Yeah, yeah!)"
Pikachu was too horrified to speak. Please, god, no...
"(Okay then!)" Piplup paused. "(... Well, I only really remember one line. The rest is kinda blurry...)" He smacked a flipper against his chest. "(But I know this one line really well!)"
"(Okay~!)"
Piplup paused again. "(... Actually! It was a duet, thinking about it... so you should sing along, too!)"
Pikachu felt his face pale. Oh god, no!
"(Duet~! Okay~!)"
"(Alright, it goes like this. First, I sing the line, then you sing it after me.)"
"(Kay, kay!)"
Piplup cleared his throat, then paused for dramatic effect. Every second was like torture to Pikachu, though he knew it would only get worse from here.
"(I got you, babe~!)"
Happiny waved her tiny arms in joy. "(I got you, babe~!)"
"(I got you, babe~!)"
"(I got you, babe~!)"
Pikachu wanted to die.
... Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but still. It was agony.
Ampharos chuckled. "(Aww, how cute,)" he said.
Pikachu forced on a smile. No. No, it wasn't cute at all...
They continued walking, with Piplup and Happiny still in front. Still singing that stupid song.
In his view, they couldn't reach the train fast enough...
"(I got you, babe~!)" Piplup sang.
"(I got you, babe~!)" Happiny sang back.
Urgh. Now Pikachu was getting flashbacks of his previous trainer and the one other pokémon she'd had. Two people that he'd tried to put behind him.
"(I got you, babe~!)!
"(I got you, babe~!)"
He huffed through his nostrils. Refocusing his thoughts, he tried to drown it out by filling his head with a different song. Any song.
There were plenty that he did like, after all. He just needed to think of them! Maybe he could even sing them over Piplup and Happiny. Or, even better, get the duo to sing along with him!
He strained his brain, trying hard to think over their singing.
... Argh. Nope. It was no use. His thoughts were filled with nothing but that song.
He huffed, half in exasperation, half in annoyance. There was no escaping that torture, was there?
He couldn't help remember, way back then, being told that he'd been a replacement for someone else. Some other pokémon that had - from what he'd heard - smashed his pokéball and run away. He couldn't say he blamed the guy, though. Not at all. He, too, had escaped that hell hole, though by different methods.
He shook his head. He really didn't want to think about all that, but it was proving difficult right now, what with the constant reminder nearby. Instead, he'd just have to try and tune it out. Maybe by focusing on something else, instead.
Hmm... well, there was still the matter of Buneary. Normally, he'd avoid the subject, but it was far preferable to listening to the song from hell.
Okay, well... she had a very blatant crush on him. Anybody with eyes could see that. Maybe even those without eyes could see it. She was about as subtle as a brick to the face.
Even on the day they'd met, she'd flirted pretty heavily with him and he hadn't had a single clue how to deal with it. How does one deal with a girl they'd never met suddenly flirting with them?
Sure, she'd saved him from being run over by a motorbike, and he was still very grateful for that, but even then. Being told that he was 'soooo handsome and cool and hot and great' - coupled with her dancing around like she'd been on a sugar high, and mumbling giddily into her fluff - had been rather overwhelming.
Dawn had only made it worse by pointing it out, and Brock had made it doubly worse by claiming it had been love when the two of them had barely interacted!
He'd been so confused, not knowing why a girl was crushing on him so out of the blue like that. It had never happened before, so why had it suddenly happened at the start of Ash's Sinnoh journey?
Since then, many months had passed, and much fun had been had at his expense over Buneary. Despite this, he liked to think that the two of them had become good friends. They hung out a lot, they played, they chatted, and she would always cheer him on in battles or praise him after a victory.
So the question he had to ask was: what did he think of her now?
Before he could think any more on this, Piplup and Happiny stopped in place in front of him, no longer singing. Oh, thank god. With a glance at one another, he and Ampharos walked over and stood by them.
Pikachu looked around him. There was a three-way fork in the road. Oh, great...
"(Uhhhh...)" he said, "(which way?)"
"(I... dunno,)" Ampharos replied.
"(Good thing I do!)" Piplup said, smacking a flipper on his chest. He walked down the middle path. "(Follow me!)"
Happiny followed after him. "(Okay!)" she replied.
"(Wow, really?)" Pikachu asked in pleasant surprise.
He had to admit, he was impressed. How had Piplup managed to keep track of where the balloon had come from?
He did his best to ignore the singing that had started up again, as the duo walked further down the path and into a darker part of the forest. After a few moments, the song halted and they came running back at light speed, a squealing Piplup dragging a giggling Happiny behind him. Pikachu watched as they dashed past him and Ampharos, ducking down the right-hand path.
What the heck?
Surprised, Pikachu looked back at the forest, only to see a flock of five angry-looking fearow soaring towards them.
Oh good lord. He was getting slight flashbacks to the gigantic flock of spearow that Ash had tried to save him from, at the start of his pokémon journey.
Not wanting a similar incident, he charged up a Thunderbolt and fired it. Next to him, Ampharos seemed to have had similar thoughts, as he fired off a Signal Beam.
Somehow, the flock of fearow managed to dodge both attacks, still flying at them at full-throttle. Pikachu yelped. That hadn't slowed them down at all!
With no time to charge any more attacks, he and Ampharos turned tail and ran.
Turning down the right-hand path, where Piplup and Happiny had gone, they continued to run. They only stopped when they were faced with a cliff. Pikachu looked down it in horror at the rapids below.
Nope. He was a decent swimmer, but he wasn't going to be able to manage that. Piplup was a water-type, but even the penguin looked horrified by the raging waters.
Their only saving grace seemed to be a ledge that was jutting out of the rock, though it looked rather tricky to grab onto. They looked behind them. The fearow were still following them, looking just as angry as before. Well, it looked like they had no other choice.
The group looked at one another, understanding in everyone's eyes. The three oldest pokémon nodded. Then, with Pikachu and Piplup grabbing a paw of Happiny's each, they all jumped off the cliff.
As the five fearow soared overhead, Ampharos quickly did a somersault in mid-air, leaving his tail in plain view of Pikachu. He and Piplup quickly grabbed onto the red ball on the end, as Ampharos twisted around and grabbed onto the rocky ledge.
Ow... The strain of holding onto Ampharos with one paw, and holding up Happiny with the other, with absolutely nothing to stand on, was murder on his arms.
There was a tense moment of silence as they waited. Then Pikachu heard a sigh of relief from Ampharos.
"(Okay, they're gone,)" he said. "(Is everyone okay?)"
"(Y... Yeah...)" Pikachu replied. The strain was unbearable, but he hung on.
"(Argh, let us up, let us uuuup!)" Piplup cried out in pain.
"(Yay!)" Happiny cried in joy. "(Again, again!)"
Piplup flailed around in annoyance. "(No!)"
Pikachu yelped as the entire flimsy structure wobbled. "(P-Please don't do that!)" he cried. "(Ampharos, please help us up!)"
"(Okay, okay, hang on a sec,)" Ampharos replied.
Eventually, after much careful shuffling around, the group of four were safely on the ledge that circled around the side of the cliff. Fortunately, it was wide enough and sturdy enough to hold them all.
"(Phew...)" Pikachu said, relieved. "(Okay, now what do we do?)"
"(Hmm...)" Ampharos replied, looking down at the river. "(Oh, hey!)" He pointed at it. "(We can follow the river!)"
"(Huh?)" Piplup asked.
"(We left the train by a river, right?)" He pointed to the other side of the river, where the water was flowing from. "(It probably comes from here...)" He trailed his paw down the river. "(And flows down the hill where the train is.)"
Pikachu perked up. "(Oh yeah!)" he replied. "(Good thinking!)"
Piplup was silent for a moment, then put his flippers on his hips. "(... I knew that,)" he said.
"(Yay, follow the river!)" Happiny said.
Ampharos smiled. "(Yeah, let's follow the river,)" he replied.
Turning around, he started walking. The other three followed after him. After a few moments, Happiny rushed forwards to start playing with the red ball on the end of Ampharos' tail. Pikachu was about to stop her, but the warm smile that Ampharos sent her said that he didn't mind, so Pikachu didn't bother.
... Actually, speaking of the large electric-type, he had a question for him.
"(Hey, Ampharos?)" he asked.
"(Yes?)" Ampharos replied.
"(You have Thunderbolt, right? So why did you use Signal Beam against those fearow?)"
Ampharos chuckled. "(Oh, right. Well, the Thunderbolt's mostly for powering the train. I've... never actually used it in battle. That's what Signal Beam and Thunder Punch are for!)"
Pikachu gave an awkward chuckle back. He couldn't imagine not ever using his own Thunderbolt for battle. "(Ah. Is that so?)"
"(Do you like your job?)" Piplup asked.
"(Oh, yeah, I love it!)" Ampharos replied. "(Helping my trainer drive the train is...)" He blinked, then snorted to himself in amusement. "(Helping my trainer drive the train is pretty fun!)"
Pikachu chuckled. What a silly pun.
The group fell back into comfortable silence as they walked. Beside them, a bit lower down, the river was still raging. Happiny was still playing with Ampharos' tail, while Pikachu walked alongside Piplup.
... Well, since he had some time, maybe he should start thinking about Buneary again.
Okay, so... since he knew she liked him, and wanted to date him - as embarrassing as that was to admit to himself - he had to ask himself one simple question. A question he'd avoided thinking about for so long. That question was: did he want to date her?
Well... he wasn't sure. If he did date her, then he just knew that everyone would laugh at him about it. Maybe the teasing would even increase. That was rather unappealing by itself.
... Still, though. She was a great friend and he did enjoy hanging out with her. So maybe? What would it even be like, dating her?
He tried to picture it. Holding paws, going on dates and... absolutely not saying sappy things to each other. That was way too embarrassing, and would get a lot of laughs, he was sure. So no.
The rest of it sounded pleasant, though. Honestly, he'd been avoiding the idea of a girlfriend for a long time, but... would it be so bad? He'd been wondering that, as of late.
... Heck, maybe Piplup and Pachirisu would even tease him less, since there'd be less to fluster him over. One would hope, anyway.
... Did he want to date Buneary, though? After all, he wasn't even sure if he felt that way about her or not, so...
Argh, he was running himself in circles. Unless he wanted to bury his head in the sand again, he needed to think about this seriously.
Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd be able to figure it out by the time he got back to the train.
