Acacia, Lickitung, and a Cool Pokémon Journey
Part 4
"Ow!"

"Ow!"

"Lick!"

Acacia, Manny, and Lickitung landed hard on their butts in a grassy field. They looked around for any signs of life. And they found some signs all right. To their left, there was a castle about as high as three Gyarados stacked on top of one another. And they were right in the middle of two armies, one of silver knights and the other of black knights, looking about ready to fight!

"What the?!" Acacia and Manny screamed together. They huddled together in the hopes of making the knights think they were nothing more than innocent bystanders.

Luckily, that's exactly what they looked like to the leader of the silver knights. He rode up to them on his Rapidash. The knight lifted his helmet to reveal a noble looking face with a bushy brown mustache and kind olive green eyes.

"Now, who are you strange looking people?" he said in a thick British accent.

"Doesn't matter who they are, they are not from here and must be taken away!" called the leader of the black knights in an accent just as British, but not at all as friendly.

"Kallard, this is the attitude that led to this war in the first place! Go ahead young ones, tell us your names," said the silver knight leader.

"I'm, uh, Acacia and these are my friends Manny and Lickitung," said Acacia shakily, gesturing to each, "We really have no idea how we got here and mean no harm,"

The silver knight smiled and said, "My name is King Lionel. I'm very glad to meet you, but as you can see, I'm about to start fighting with King Kallard's army over there, so I'll get Helen to take you to the castle. Helen!"

A woman in a roughly woven gray dress ran from the tent complex behind King Lionel's army towards the front. She bowed and said, "Yes your highness?"

"Helen, take these three to the castle, see that they are cleaned up and given a good meal," said Lionel. Helen bowed again and beckoned for Acacia, Manny, and Lickitung to follow her. They passed the tent complex and went straight for the castle.

"Excuse me for asking, but where are we?" asked Manny.

Helen looked at him like he was a lunatic, "You're in the land ruled over by the great King Lionel and you don't even know it? That's about as strange as the garments you are wearing," said Helen. She sounded Irish.

Acacia and Manny looked down to see that they still had their bloodstained and tattered togas from Pokemopolis on. They remembered Lola and all the Pokemopoltins for a moment before saying anything.

"Um, we're not from around here," said Acacia.

"With an accent like that, it's mighty obvious," said Helen. Before they could say anything, they were at the castle gates. Helen called to the guards and they let down the bridge that led across the moat.

They walked through the castle square, getting lots of stares. Helen led them to the indoors part of the castle. They four of them climbed many stairs and saw many refined looking people from this era of time. When Helen finally stopped, they were in what appeared to be a medieval bathroom. Acacia was taken by the hand over to a washbasin.

"I'm off to get some water for you to bathe in. Take off your clothes while you wait for me to come back from the well," said Helen, leaving them alone.

"Lickitungtung! (Not this problem again!)" groaned Lickitung. He was referring to when Acacia and Manny had to change in the same room back in Pokemopolis. Now, they were facing the same predicament.

"It's okay 'Cacia. I won't look," Manny told her. He turned around and covered his eyes to show he wasn't lying. Acacia told Lickitung to go with him, seeing as he was male as well, and reluctantly took off her clothes. Even though they weren't looking, Acacia was still a little sensitive about being naked in a place she didn't know, and grabbed a wool rug lying on the floor and wrapped it around herself.

Helen came back at that moment with a big wooden bucket full of water. She stared at Acacia in her throw rug and told her, "Take that thing off and get into the washbasin!"

She muttered to herself, "The things youths do..."

Helen bathed Acacia herself, rather roughly, but it got the job done. She handed Acacia some clothes after she was done and told her to put them on.

The clothing turned out to be a beautiful dress. It was made of fine red velvet and had a cross-stitched front with a scarlet red ribbon at the top, puffed sleeves, and a V neckline that stopped just above her breasts. Along with that, there were white stockings and a corset to go under the dress and a matching red ribbon to tie her hair with.

When Acacia finished dressing herself, along with Helen helping her with tying the corset, Manny was already half-way through his bath. He and Lickitung gawked at her when she came out of the other room with Helen. Acacia had covered her eyes before coming inside, but they could tell she was glaring at them, so they went back to what they were doing before.

After Manny was done, he left for another room as Acacia had done before. He came back looking like one of those dorky Shakespearean actors, silly tights and all! And his hair was combed down from its usual spike style! Still, he did look awfully cute. Acacia blushed at the thought of it.

"Man, these tights are embarrassing!" said Manny. Lickitung giggled. But as Lickitung turned around to hide his laughter, he looked out the window and saw the battle that was going on below them. He sighed sadly.

Lickitung's sigh brought Acacia, Manny, and Helen over to the window. There was terrible carnage raging on the battlefield. It is too horrible to describe here, but let's just say severed heads are involved.

"This is awful!" said Acacia, "What are they warring for?"

"I myself don't know, but it has something to do with land and ownership," said Helen.

Acacia looked down at her finery. She thought to herself, 'While I sit her safe and in fine clothes, brave people are out the dying in front of me. I can't just sit here! I've got to do something,'

She nodded to herself, grabbed her pokeball belt from her backpack, and stormed out the door. Manny, Helen, and Lickitung followed her.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" asked Manny.

"Lic! (Yeah!)"

"To stop this. If they have some disagreement, they should take it to some sort of court if they have anything like that, or resolve it themselves, but not like this! People who should have had nothing to do with this thing do now!" said Acacia.

Helen tried to stop her, but Manny put a hand on Helen's shoulder, and Lickitung did likewise with his tongue.

Manny said, "Don't even try. Once she's got her mind set on fixing something, there's no stopping her,"

Once Acacia was out of the castle, she could see the battlefield, and the battle on it. The field was almost entirely red now. But King Lionel and King Kallard were still fighting.

Acacia brought out all of her Pokemon out.

"Char-bokka!!"

"Growl! Growlithe!!"

"Frrrreeeee!!"

"Lugia!!

"Cuno! Artic!!"

"Bulbasaurus!!"

The Acacia herself called out. Her dress and skin had melted into hard gray armor. Her body, arms and legs were quite a few times their normal size and strength. Her nose had grown into a great drill horn. For a situation where armor would be required, Rhydon was the perfect choice!

But then, some other battle cries came from behind her.

"Jol!!"

"Zapdos dos!!"

"Mol! Mol!!"

"Slooooowbroooo!!"

"Shrew!!"

"Venomoth!! Venomoth!!"

"Omanyte!!"

"TUNG!!!!!"

Acacia smiled a Rhydon smile. She said to them in Rhydon language, "You came to help!"

Lickitung nodded and ran up to give Acacia/Rhydon a hug with his tongue. Manny came to her side and gave her a wink.

"My Vulpix and I will help as well," said Helen, running from the castle with a Vulpix running at her side.

"What do we do?" asked Manny, Acacia's Pokedex out for translation.

"With so many extra Pokemon to help, this plan will work out even better. We form a wall between the two armies, and if they don't back down, we hold them down. No actual attacks though, or else we'll be sinking to their level," Acacia said.

They all looked at her a little dumbfounded. Acacia said, "Hey, any of you got any ideas of what to do without hurting anyone?"

Everybody shook their heads no and they headed out to the battlefield. Once there, the bigger Pokemon and Acacia shoved all the knights back to their sides. Then all of them, human and Pokemon, joined hands, claws, paws, tails, tentacles and wings together to form a living wall.

Kallard came up to the wall and spoke to Manny and Helen, "What is the meaning of this! We are trying to have a war!"

"We're not moving until you tell us why the hell you're having a war in the first place!" shouted Manny.

Lionel came to the other side of their wall and said, "Whomever wins this war gets control of my kingdom!"

Manny asked, considerably calmer, "How did this little disagreement come to be?"

"Kallard just came up to me and said he wanted more land and wanted some of the farmland in mine. I said no, and him being a particularly non-forgiving man,"

"I resent that remark!" called Kallard from the other side.

Lionel continued, "Challenged me to a war. I accepted, because it is impolite to refuse a challenge,"

"You know," Helen butted in, "Lionel and Kallard have been having these arguments for 10 years now and there have been six wars as the result of it! And I am beginning to tire of it!"

"Rhydon don! Don don rhydon? (I agree! Why can't you guys just resolve your differences like civilized men?)"

"What did that Pokemon say?" asked Kallard.

Manny looked in the Pokedex and told him what she had said.

The arguing went on for the rest of the day. Both of the armies had either left or fallen asleep. But Kallard and Lionel finally reached a decision. No wars unless its something more important than a petty argument.

All the Pokemon were returned to their Pokeballs (save Lickitung and Vulpix) and Acacia became herself again out of sight of the knights and Helen.

But all too soon, the rainbow vortex appeared over top of Acacia, Manny and Lickitung's heads and they said goodbye to their medieval friends.