Chapter 3 - Family Matters
I arrived in Bacchae City the next day, at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I was sort of overwhelmed by the size of the city, which was so much bigger then Echo Town. We first entered the city through a huge arch with "Welcome to Bacchae City" written in large, purple letters.
"Whew, we made it Ivy," I said with excitement. Ivy's petals had changed from a light, faded green to a bright orange.
" Dacian, I am so tired, we've got to go to the Pokecenter," She said to me, exhausted . So we both headed down the road towards the Pokecenter. The deeper I went into the city the more I was amazed by all the things in it. I had only been to a city once when I was ten, my older brother took me to the Zylae League Semi-finals on Pay-Terrae Island.
We found the Pokecenter behind a huge fountain, I could tell that the center was made to stand out, because of the huge Pokeball on the roof. We both entered the establishment through the mechanical doors, and saw a reception desk. At the reception desk was a plump women with bright orange hair, dressed in a nurse uniform. She was holding a small round Pokemon trying to keep it out of reach of a little girl.
"Gimme Nuni! I wanna Nuni!" Screamed the small squeaky voice of the little girl.
"I can't, he needs to be healed. I… where's your mother," Said the nurse in a ruff accent.
"Nuni mine! Give me Nuni bad lady!" the girl screamed at the top of her lungs, and started kicking the nurse's desk with ferocity. The nurse seemed helpless against the little girl's kicking and screaming. I didn't think it was a good idea to go near this scene, but I was curious to see what Pokemon they were fighting over. While the two fought over the Pokemon, a man in his forties approached the two.
"Lucinda, come on we'll go to the shop, and I can heal Nuni there, but we have to hurry, okay," The man said to the little girl.
"Sir, is this your child?" The nurse asked the man. He nodded and then took Nuni from the nurses hands. I was sitting on a couch trying to look like I was ignoring the scene. I took out my pokedex to find out what kind of Pokemon the girl's Nuni was. On the Pokedex's screen was what looked like a small green ball with a mouth. Out of the side of the ball-like Pokemon were six stubby little yellow legs.
"Setpedey, the Soil Bug Pokemon. Setpedey will spend most of it's life in elaborate underground communities of other Setpedey. They will usually only come to the surface to look for food or when they sense danger in their tunnels." The mechanical voice stated. I looked around the room to see a couple other trainers had pulled out their Pokedex's and were fiddling with them. By the time the Pokedex had finished explaining about Setepedy Lucinda and her father had left the pokecenter, so Ivy and I both went up to the desk to see if the nurse would heal her.
" Would you like to heal your Pokemon, Just give me your Pokemon and I'll heal them." The red-headed nurse said, almost mechanically. I let Ivy back into her ball and handed her to the nurse.
"It'll take a few minutes so wait here," She then left for the back room. After a few minutes she came back with Ivy's Pokeball.
"According to the information recorded by the Pokeball, you don't have your trainers license yet, so your going to have to sign some forms, and you'll have to wait in the City for an extra day," She explained, " Usually the trainers get their license as soon as they get their Pokemon," She then gave me some forms and I signed all the forms, and answered the questions, it was all very boring and I finally finished two hours later.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, your welcome to stay the night in one of the rooms up stairs," She then turned away from me to talk to a boy holding a Gulpin. I was about to walk out of the Pokecenters door when one of the Vid-Phones caught my eye. I thought to myself that I really needed to call my family, so I went to the Phone and dialed my number. On the screen appeared my grandmother looking straight at me.
"Ehh, it's you, go away, I don't want your dumb-dumb talk to rub off on me," She said.
"Grandma, is Mom their?" I asked, trying to ignore her remark.
"She dead!" My grandmother shrieked, then started to laugh hysterically.
"Wha…"
" Yeah she died in a big explosion. BOOM!" She shrieked again with laughter. I was starting to get nervous, but then I saw my mother pass by in the background.
"Mom, who are you talking…" My mother said as she came closer on the Vid-Phone screen and my grandmother just started to wander away as if she was bored.
"Dace, oh I was starting to get worried… how are you doing, did you catch any strong Pokemon?" she asked enthusiastically.
"No, I lost my empty Pokeball, and I lost my first battle against Noel…" I said not exactly proud of myself. Right then my grandmother popped right in front of my Mom.
"What? You a trainer? Ha! You suck! By then I had already gotten eight badges!" my grandmother screamed at me. She was so loud that it was starting to get attention from everyone else in the pokecenter.
I then saw my dad enter the room through the Vid-Phone's screen.
"Dad…" I started, but again my grandmother interrupted.
"Go away stupid your not wanted!" yelled my grandmother at my dad. She had always hated my father, but I couldn't see why.
"Honey, Dacian's on the phone," my mom called to him trying as hard as he could to ignore her mother, as he came closer to the screen
" Oh, son… ignore whatever your grandmother says, you'll… Ow!" My father started but, my grandmother had just hit him in the head.
" Shut up you stupid idiot!" She screamed pummeling another blow to my fathers head. The boy with a Gulpin I had seen earlier was slowly peering into my screen from behind me. Meanwhile, on the screen my mother tried to change the subject with asking me questions, but my grandma's fighting was just to distracting.
"I have half a mind to just kick you out," my grandmother argued with my dad, her face was red with rage.
"You can't kick me out!" My dad replied, his face almost as red as hers.
"Um…let's just…" My mother started again, but then her eyes opened wide as she stared to the ground and she began to breathe quickly.
"Mom.. you okay?" I asked slightly worried, as my grandmother shoved an entire plate of Jello into my dads face.
"I…Bu…Bug," She replied shaking allover. She then screamed extremely loud and jumped up onto the kitchen table causing many plates to fall on the floor. "Ewww! Get it out!" She was screaming to the point where she was almost crying. My father, still covered in gelatin was to busy arguing with my grandma to notice my mother's distress.
"Mom… please calm down… relax!" I tried to calm her. I knew my mom had an intense fear of bug Pokemon, and whatever had spooked her must have been one really big bug. The whole entire scene on the screen was pure pandemonium, my father and grandmother were now throwing food at each other and my mother was standing the table screaming about bugs.
"Everybody… please just calm down…" I pleaded, but everyone was to far into they're own insanity. Just when I thought the scene couldn't get anymore crazier a Bellossom appeared on the screen blocking my view of the pandemonium and started to slobber all over the screen. The Vid-phone then shut-off autonomously leaving a blank screen, and me with absolutely no idea what had just happened. I turned around to find every single person in the Pokecenter staring straight at me. That made me feel really awkward.
"Ummm…" I mumbled as I shuffled my way out of the center. The sad thing is that, that would be considered a normal day at my house. I had always felt that my family was just a little… you know, out there. They embarrass me almost every single waking moment, and I sometimes think that I'm the only normal one. And where the heck did the Bellossom come from?
I walked down the streets of Bacchae city wondering what to do now. I had a whole entire evening to kill. I had already let out Ivy, who was trotting by my side.
"So… What are we gonna do?" Ivy asked me. I shrugged, and just continued walking. We turned the corner and we saw a huge glass building, Ivy's eyes lit up at the sight of it.
"It's so…pretty," She said and then looked up at me, "Can we go in, can we…pleeeese?" She asked.
"Okay, let's go, we have nothing better to do." And so we both walked into the gigantic glass building. It turned out the huge structure was a gigantic mall, they didn't have a mall in Echo town, so I was pretty amazed by it. Their were stores of all kinds that populated the building, and people pushing carts trying to sell their goods.
" Ladies and Gentlemen… behold the future of technology!" yelled a voice from one of the carts. We turned to that cart to see the same man at the pokecenter who had come to get the little girl, who was also there holding the man's hand.. The cart had gathered a crowd so we went closer to the cart to see what the guy was talking about.
"I have here a device that will be able to connect all the Pokedex's in the world together, they'll be able to e-mail other pokedex's, take pictures, and even store Pokemon!" He rambled on about all these new features on the pokedex. Ivy lost interest and started harassing a trainers Jigglypuff, but I was really interested. After the presentation, the crowd drifted off to whatever they were going to do and so I decided to get some supplies at one of the Pokemarts.
We both entered the Pokemart and got all the supplies. "Dacian, I'm getting bored, could you challenge someone to a battle or something?" Ivy asked me as I shopped for potions, and got some extra pokeballs.
" Maybe… I guess you do need some practice…" We went up to the counter and a girl with light green hair and pig tails was at the counter reading a magazine with a Golduck on the front.
"Umm… can I get these Items?" I asked, trying to get her attention.
"No," She replied.
"Wha…What?" I said caught a little off guard.
"I'm just kidding, lighten up will ya' ?" She said after putting down her magazine. She started to ring up the items when she said, " Telling by these items I'd say you were a trainer, am I right?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, my shift is almost over, you wanna battle?" She asked as she rang up a Pokeball.
I looked down at Ivy, to see that she was just walking around the store trying to amuse herself. "Okay, sure." I gave her the money for the items then she left the counter.
"Great… follow me," She grabbed a pokeball from a back pack on the ground then lead me to a door in the back of the store, Ivy following behind us. " Maury!" She yelled.
"What!"
"Go to the counter!"
"Fine," He yelled back mumbling something under his breath. We went through the door into a short staircase to the bottom of the whole mall. It was dark and I could see many doors, probably leading to other shops in the mall.
"By the way, I'm Minnie… you are…" She looked at me expectantly. She was a little taller then me and was definitely one or two years older then me.
"I'm Dacian," I replied.
"Hmmm. Well Dacian, prepare to be beaten, go Kingston!" She threw a pokeball, and from the white light came a small green creature. It had stubby little legs, and beady black eyes. On it's head were short vines that looked like dreadlocks.
"Aspruuu!" It squeaked. It started to jump up and down ready to fight.
"Wow, what's that?" I said as I opened my Pokedex.
"Asprugi, the Vine swinging Pokemon. These Pokemon are home in the southern Jungles of Zylae. Using the extra elastic "vines" on their head they can swing easily from tree to tree. Be careful when approaching a angry Asprugi, their "vines" will whip around randomly, and can cause harm." My Pokedex ended it's explanation, and I was ready to fight, her Asprugi, Kingston.
"Okay Ivy, let's win this time!" I said, as Ivy ran in to battle the small green creature. "Ivy start out with a strong tackle attack right for that Asprugi!" I ordered. Ivy ran quickly towards Kingston.
"Kingston, block that tackle attack with a vine whip!" Minnie told her Pokemon. The Asprugi's eyes widened as the vines on his head extended forward to meet the running Petapur. The vines hit Ivy stopping her in her tracks.
"Shoot, Ivy distract Asprugi with a growl, then get him with a headbutt!" I ordered Ivy, as she recovered from the hit she took.
"Asprugi, hit it with another Vine whip" She said to Kingston. Ivy, trying her best to avoid the constant vines coming from Kingston's head. Ivy then growled at the small jungle creature, causing him to trip on his own vines. Seeing her chance she charged for Kingston causing great damage for him.
I saw this and got really excited, I might just win my first trainer battle! "Great job Ivy, Now use…" Unfortunately before I could utter out a attack, everything went black.