by Martial Arts Master
The original concept of Pokemon and all related characters copyrighted by Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures Inc., 4Kids, TV Tokyo, Satoshi Tajiri, and Wizards of the Coast. All characters I use as Pokewomen are copyrighted by their original creators and owners. I made up Rick, though. See the first chapter for the rules by which the Pokewomen world operates by. Now, on with the story.
***
After his adventure with A.J., Rick continued to walk along the path. He hoped he could get to the next city by lunchtime.
Yet again, he was whistling. And why not? After all, his journey had been going well so far, with the exception of that one loss to A.J.
But then, A.J. had never lost a battle either, and he'd battled a lot more times than Rick, so Rick couldn't really feel bad about losing to him.
He came across a rock, and someone was lying down on it.
He stopped walking and took a closer look.
There was a cute little pink dragon taking a nap there, with wings and yellow scales running down her back and a necklace with a badge around her neck.
Rick pointed his Pokedex at the little pink dragon.
As it turned out, the Pokedex had a lot to say about this one.
The Pokedex said, "Cassie. This character is from an Earth TV show called Dragon Tales, meant for little children. She is very loving and compassionate, and would make an excellent friend. She is shy, however, making it easy for others to take advantage of her. She sometimes suffers from lack of confidence, unable to speak up or stand up for herself, and the Dragon Badge around her neck glows whenever she is feeling confident. Although she is very young, she is also very smart. She is not good at breathing fire, but can become good at it under the guidance of a good trainer. She also can fly."
Cassie awoke when she heard the Pokedex talking.
"Who's there?" she asked, rubbing her eyes groggily. Then she saw Rick.
"Oh, another trainer. I'm sorry, but I already have one," Cassie said.
"Then what are you doing out here on this rock all alone?" Rick asked.
"My trainer's name is Damian, and he said he had to get some supplies, and that he'd come right back for me," Cassie said. "I took a nap to pass the time."
"Oh. Well, I hope he comes back soon," Rick said. "In the meantime, you can finish your nap."
Then, Rick continued walking on.
Eventually, he came to a Poke Center.
This was good. Rick was getting tired.
Rick went inside the Poke Center.
Once he got inside, he went to a table and sat down and rest.
He was aware that at the next table, there were quite a lot of boys.
They seemed to be listening to one boy in particular. This boy had blue hair, had goggles on his head, had dozens of Poke Balls on the table, and was speaking with a Cockney British accent. (Author's Note: I know I said he had an Australian accent in my "Life Attempts" fic, but that offended some Australian readers, who said it was Cockney British. So now in this fic I say he's speaking with a Cockney British accent, and I do NOT intend to offend British readers, who I'm sure are very nice people.)
"Look at all these Pokewomen I caught!" the boy boasted. "I just caught Pokewoman after Pokewoman after Pokewoman! It was easy!"
"Wow, that's pretty cool," one of the other boys said.
"Yo, Damian, didn't you have someone named Cassie, too?" someone asked the boy with goggles. Apparently the boy with goggles was called Damian.
Rick realized that the boaster was the same trainer Cassie had said she belonged to!
"Yeah, I did have Cassie once, but she was such a wimp!" Damian said. "She stinks in battle! She's so 'compassionate' that she never wants to hurt others. She can't even breathe fire very well!"
Now Rick was paying real close attention.
"I wanted her out of my life, so I deliberately treated her real badly," Damian continued. "But she never stood up for herself! I told you she was a wimp. So I decided to trick her by leaving her someplace, lying to her about where I'm going, and saying I'd be back. Now she's probably still waiting on that rock!"
Rick was shocked. According to his own words, Damian had abandoned Cassie!
Rick started to get up.
"Heh, bet ya 10 to 1 odds that Cassie's gonna be lunch meat by this evening," another boy said. "The wild Pokewomen around here are really mean. I'll bet they're gonna tear her apart like yesterday's old paper!"
"Yeah, for sure!" Damian said, chuckling.
That did it. Rick walked over to the next table, grabbed Damian by his shirt, and lifted him up into the air.
"Hey, what're you doing?!" Damian asked, visibly shocked.
"You treated her badly, you lied to her, and you abandoned her!" Rick shouted. "You don't even care if she dies, do you?!"
"Why should I? She's such a wimp!" Damian responded.
"And you're such an idiot!" Rick shouted. He was so angry at how Damian had treated Cassie that he threw him onto the floor.
"All right, that's it, you're going down!" Damian said.
"Break it up, break it up!" someone said.
Rick and Damian turned towards the new voice, and found a Nurse Joy standing right behind them.
"What's going on here, anyway?" she asked, having apparently just gotten there.
"He started it!" Rick and Damian both said at the same time, pointing towards each other.
"Well, maybe you two should separate," Nurse Joy said.
Both boys grumbled, but they walked away from each other, Damian walking away with the group of boys he'd been talking to.
Then something struck a chord in Rick's brain.
One boy had said the wild Pokewomen might tear Cassie to pieces.
It occured to Rick that Cassie was in danger.
Rick rushed out of the Poke Center.
It turned out Rick was right to do so. When he got back the rock Cassie had been sleeping on, he found Cassie being viciously attacked by a black lady with wings.
The lady kept shouting "Darkness Wave!" and sending out bats at Cassie. Cassie was able to fly away from them so far, but she was getting tired.
Rick pointed his Pokedex at the black lady.
The Pokedex said, "LadyDevimon. This character is from an Earth TV show and video games called Digimon. She is evil, can fly, and her attack is Darkness Wave, in which she sends bats at her opponents."
But Rick had wasted precious time finding out more about LadyDevimon.
One of the Darkness Waves caught up to Cassie, knocking her to the ground.
The bats had wounded her, and she was unconscious, bleeding.
"Inque, drive LadyDevimon away!" Rick said, sending out Inque.
Inque turned herself into an ink hammer, knocking LadyDevimon over the horizon.
Rick recalled Inque and picked up Cassie, taking her to the Poke Center.
When he got there, Nurse Joy saw a wounded, unconscious, and bleeding Cassie in Rick's arms, and gasped.
"What happened to her?" Nurse Joy asked.
"I'll explain later. Quickly, you've got to help her!" Rick added.
"I'll do my best," Nurse Joy said, bringing Cassie to the ER room.
Later...
Nurse Joy came out of the ER room.
"Cassie will be just fine," Nurse Joy said. "But how did she get like this? Did you battle a brutal trainer?"
"No, this is Damian's Pokewoman," Rick said, and then he went on to relate what Damian had said about treating Cassie badly, lying to her, and then abandoning her.
Nurse Joy shook her head sadly.
"It's always sad when trainers mistreat their Pokewomen just because they're not 'strong'," Nurse Joy said.
Nurse Joy chanced to look back inside the ER room and gasped.
"She's gone!" Nurse Joy said. "Cassie must have flown out the window as soon as she was well again!"
Rick wondered why Cassie would have done that, then realized that she must have gone back to the rock to wait for Damian.
Rick rushed out of the Poke Center.
When he got to the rock, sure enough, the little pink dragon was there, sitting this time instead of sleeping.
"What are you doing back here?" Rick asked rhetorically.
"I'm waiting for Damian," Cassie said.
"Is it true that he mistreats you?" Rick demanded.
"Not really," Cassie said. "He does yell at me a lot, but I'm sure he just wants what's best for me."
Then she looked sad.
"At least, I think," she said.
Then she brightened up.
"Yeah, he'll be back," she said. "He probably misses me already.
As the Pokedex had said, Cassie was being compassionate, trying to guess what Damian was feeling.
But in Rick's opinion, Cassie was a little too loving and compassionate. She needed to stand up for herself more often.
"Cassie, I got news for you," Rick began, preparing to explain to her the truth about Damian.
Then, an all too familiar Cockney British voice cut in, "So there you are, you orange-clad troublemaker!"
Rick spun around and saw Damian waiting, along with his whole gang.
"You shouldn't have messed with me," Damian said. "Now I'm going to have to hurt you."
Rick looked around and noticed Damian's gang gathering in a circle around him and Damian, leaving Cassie out of the circle.
Suddenly Damian pulled a knife.
He got ready to lunge at Rick, ready to hurt him really badly.
"No, don't hurt him!" Cassie shouted. "He didn't mean to offend you, really!"
"Shut up!" Damian screamed at her. "I don't let troublemakers mess with me and get away with it.
Damian rushed at Rick, but Cassie made up her mind.
She flew into the circle, standing between Damian and Rick.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?" Damian demanded.
"Look, I don't care how you treat me, 'cause I know you want what's best for me," Cassie said, "but I won't let you hurt someone else."
"I don't want what's best for you!" Damian screamed. "I never cared about a wimp like you! I treated you badly so you'd leave! For your information, I lied about coming back. I never would have come back! I abandoned you, you stupid dragon!"
Cassie gasped, eyes welling up with tears at knowing the truth.
But now Rick had taken advantage of Damian being busy yelling at Cassie.
Rick shoved Damian to get him off-balance, and then slapped the knife out of his hand, pinning it to the ground with his foot.
Now Damian, unarmed, was terrified.
"No, please don't hurt me!" he said.
"Why should I show you mercy, when you showed Cassie none?" Rick demanded. "I'll go ahead and show you mercy, but only because that makes me better than you."
Rick turned his back, and Damian ran away, his gang dispelling the circle and following him.
Rick and Cassie were left alone.
"He planned to leave me behind...maybe I really am a wimp," Cassie said.
"No Pokewoman is a wimp if trained well," Rick said. "You shouldn't listen to jerks like Damian."
Cassie thought this over.
Then she brightened and nodded.
"Yeah, you're right, I'm no wimp," Cassie said. Then the Dragon Badge around her neck started glowing.
Rick remembered how the Pokedex had said the Dragon Badge would glow whenever she felt confident.
"If you go back to the wild you'll be torn to pieces," Rick said, bringing out one of his empty Poke Balls, "so how about coming with me? I never yell at my Pokewomen, and I treat them as friends, not like servants."
Cassie nodded, looking happy. Apparently this was the first real kindness a trainer had ever shown her.
"Poke Ball, go!" Rick said, throwing the Poke Ball.
The Poke Ball zapped Cassie inside. This time, the ball didn't even rock back and forth, because Cassie wasn't even struggling to get out.
So now, Rick was feeling happy. He now had his fourth Pokewoman. All he needed was two more, and he'd have a full team of six...
To be continued...
***
You're probably thinking, "Oh no, not another new trainer fic that the author won't bother to finish!" Well, let me tell you, I hate those kinds of fics too, and let me tell you in advance that I DO plan on finishing this fic. I never start a fic that I don't intend to finish. In fact, if I'm lying about planning to finish the fic, may I get pounded by a madman. E-mail all questions and comments to bleifer@msn.com.