Disclaimer: As usual, I do not own pokemon. Ava is owned by Miaya-chan and Danny is owned by Nightshadegirl.
Mitsuko dragged them through the crowd. A lot of people had formed into smaller groups with pokemon battling each other in the middle. Others had started to panic, running around and screaming about the end of the world and that pokemon didn't exist. A few people wandered around from place to place, probably searching for someone to battle just as Mitsuko was doing.
After several minutes of dodging around people through the crowd, Mitsuko found her battle.
"I want to battle her!" Mitsuko said, she was pointing in the direction of a group, a bit bigger than the ones they had passed earlier. In the middle a pikachu was battling a kyogre that was at least twenty times bigger and casting a large shadow on the onlookers and making it rain heavily.
The pikachu was clutching the kyogre's back as it thrashed about and tried attacking what it could not see. A large volt of lightening came down from the sky, lighting up the whole street. Several people looked out of their windows, yelling obscenities and telling the trainers to battle somewhere else, while other trainers rushed to see what had happened in the battle. The kyogre was a smoking mass in the middle of the road and the pikachu was looking on at the audience in triumph.
The pikachu hopped away from the kyogre and jumped into the hands of a teenage girl slightly older than them while the beaten trainer took out their pokeball and returned their kyogre to it with a flash of light. The girl was praising the pikachu and petting it lovingly, Scarlet shifted the still unconscious Tekka self-consciously.
"Are you sure?" Ralph asked, "You've never battled here before, and it's completely different from the games."
Mitsuko shrugged off Ralph's warning, "It doesn't matter, I'm not battling to win."
Scarlet stared at Mitsuko, it was unusual for her to have said anything like that, Mitsuko always had battled to win in the games, it seemed out of character for her. Scarlet started to ask Mitsuko a question when the girl raced off, making a beeline for the girl holding the pikachu.
A few words seemed to have been exchanged by the time Scarlet and Ralph had caught up with her and both the girls looked ready to battle, with their pokeballs out.
"My name's Mitsuko, by the way."
The girl nodded, "Danny."
Both girls threw out their pokeballs. A combusken appeared and went into an immediate fighting stance; a large metal contraption was strapped to its back that looked like it slowed the pokemon's movements. Mitsuko's pokeball opened next, releasing a latias that Scarlet could remember battling once while the pokemon had still been in their games.
Scarlet whipped open her laptop that she had kept folded under her armpit next to Tekka. The screen came to life and posted both the pokemon's information. The combusken was level 45 and Mitsuko's latias was level 47. Scarlet doubted Mitsuko would win this part of the match, type advantage or not, she had just started training the latias only a few days ago and had never memorized a type chart, favoring a practice of randomly selecting attacks and learning through experience.
"Chaos, slash," Danny ordered her combusken.
Chaos ran awkwardly with the metal brace attached to him, and was slow enough to give time to Mitsuko to order her latias.
"Lati-chan," Mitsuko squealed appallingly, she barely even knew Japanese from what Scarlet could tell, "Do the wave."
Chaos had already gotten to Lati by the time Mitsuko had stopped talking and had given the latias a gaping wound. The latias shivered slightly and tears welled up in her eyes. The latias started crying like a baby as it flooded the whole road. A few battles nearby were half a foot in water and the group that had gathered around them was soaking wet up to their waists, Scarlet had had to hold her laptop higher up since she was afraid the water might get in it.
Chaos was still standing when the floods died down, but was damp and his movement was further restricted by the water up to his feet. Lati was still crying, but was still hovering slightly above the waves.
"Slash again, Chaos!" Danny yelled over the sound of rushing water that was disappearing into sewers.
Chaos readied himself to attack again as Lati started wailing loudly.
"Lati! Surf again!" Mitsuko all but begged. Her words were lost in Lati's wailing that was reaching an amazingly high pitch.
Chaos attacked and Lati slumped to the ground, creating a loud splash as she hit was remained of the water. Mitsuko sighed and returned Lati to her ball, "I guess you win."
Danny looked slightly surprised, "Don't you have any more pokemon?"
"I do, but I need to keep them from battling for a while," Mitsuko said, then she walked away before Danny could question her further.
"You could have beaten her pokemon, and you know it!" Scarlet said when Mitsuko came back to them.
Mitsuko shrugged, and stared back at Danny, who was being overwhelmed by requests and demands being made by trainers gathered around her. Chaos was right beside her with a few trainers that were looking at him in admiration with their pokemon.
"You know, I didn't even know Lati would be like that," Mitsuko said, "I always thought they would all be different."
"What do you mean?" Ralph asked, he looked worried. Mitsuko almost never said anything close to serious, even through the years Scarlet had known her.
"Well, I mean, they kinda acted different from what I thought they would. I mean, Syl's mute and Lati cries the first time I use her in battle. What will my other pokemon be like? I've got a few powerful enough to destroy a city in a day, and so have all these other people around me, and it could all depend on the pokemon's mood, they have a bad day, and you're dead," Mitsuko went silent after that, only replying by nodding and shaking her head.
Ralph sighed, "Let's go get lunch."
"Sure," Scarlet replied, she looked to Mitsuko expecting her to at least say 'yes'. Mitsuko just nodded her head silently and hugged Syl, who had moved from her usual post on Mitsuko's shoulders into Mitsuko's arms.
The group sat down quickly at an empty table. Over crowding was a big problem, lines stretched out for at least a block, and it was nearly impossible to find a seat, there were people sitting on the ground and eating. Even after getting a table, there were still problems from the previous occupants.
"Ew," Scarlet scrunched up her nose as her elbow landed in a puddle of ketchup.
Tekka hopped down from Scarlet's shoulder, grabbing a napkin from the food tray Ralph had set down, and handed it to Scarlet. As they had waited in the long line to order food Tekka had miraculously woken up without much memory of what Mitsuko had done to her, and was still trying to catch up to all the events that had occurred earlier.
Scarlet mopped the ketchup off her arm. Once it was gone she was still left with a sticky, unclean feeling, but she knew from looking at a long line to the bathroom that she wouldn't be able to wash it off anytime soon.
Mitsuko was dusting off a few bread crumbs on the other side of the table and speaking non-stop to Ralph, she seemed to have gone back to normal again, "And, you know, you could have waited for me before you had your first battle, I would have watched."
"It just all went so fast…" Ralph replied as soon as Mitsuko found that she had to take a breath before speaking further.
"But it's such a waste," Mitsuko slumped down into her chair, "I wanted to see you battle, I was sure you'd be good at it."
Ralph sat down next to her, "Don't worry, there are plenty of other battles, the first isn't always the most important."
Mitsuko looked satisfied with the answer, and she showed it by swapping saliva without a single thought to Scarlet, who was sitting next to them.
Scarlet looked away. Mitsuko never had learned common courtesy when it came to her friends, or to anyone really.
A girl passed by their table, she looked like she was in a daydream as she totted a small take-out bag and walked into the streets. A magnium that was wearing a large sombrero followed her and sounded like it was humming the Mexican Hat Dance loudly.
Scarlet took another glance at the two next to her to see if they had finished. They weren't, and to her astonishment she saw that Tekka was staring at the couple and chewing on chicken nuggets as though she were at a movie theater with popcorn.
"Tekka! What are you doing?" Scarlet cried out, and pulled Tekka off the table and into her lap.
"What? It was a good show," Tekka said.
Scarlet sighed, would all her pokemon be like this?
"Tekka, what's everyone else like?" Scarlet asked.
"Who?"
"Them," Scarlet pointed to her fanny pack.
"Oh, them. They're OK," Tekka said.
"No, I mean their personality, their habits, stuff like that," Scarlet said.
Tekka shrugged, "Well Wess always wears that pink dress…he won't take it off, that's how you two met too, he saw you wearing that dress when you were three and stole it when you changed clothes. Kawai, your cousin caught for you, and gave her to you, she's a weird one, and she likes using inline skates now too. Then there's Iron, he's another action replay created one, but he's not depressed, just overprotective. And Glide just loves chocolate, but you shouldn't give it to her. Whisp doesn't like you too much, you should stay away from her."
"Uh, yeah," Scarlet nodded, trying to memorize what Tekka had just said.
Scarlet stared out into the crowd for a moment, trying to think of something to do, Tekka was back to watching Mitsuko and Ralph, and Scarlet just didn't want to bother telling her to stop.
"I could ditch them," a fleeting thought came into her head, but was soon crushed as she saw the people streaming through the streets, she could get lost in there and then she would be alone.
A few words were being exchanged by the couple across the table that Scarlet could barely hear. Tekka's ears were swiveling around her head, no doubt trying to pick out a few phrases. She started humming a few songs from Phantom of the Opera, hoping that she would not hear anything.
The girl with the magnium passed by them again, this time pausing in her dream-like walk. She turned and stared directly at them. Scarlet squinted, she knew that girl from somewhere, and apparently the girl knew her too.
"Scarlet!" the girl said when she reached the table.
Scarlet smiled at the girl, "I can't believe you're here too!"
"Yeah, me neither, do you mind if I sit here? I've got only three of my pokemon, and I can't get to any PCs," the girl sat down next to Scarlet, ignoring the other two next to her that were still whispering to each other.
"This is Bloom," she nodded toward the magnium that had moved on to sing Under the Sea.
"Oh, yeah, that's Tekka," Scarlet poked her pichu, Tekka swatted Scarlet's hand away, but continued trying to hear the whispers.
Scarlet sighed, "She acts like it's a TV show or something."
The girl laughed, "You should see my pokemon, they're a lot weirder than yours."
Scarlet shrugged, "So, where are you going now Ava?"
Ava's eyes took on a bit of a dreamy look, "I've been thinking about settling down somewhere here, it would be like a fairytale if it weren't so crowded," she gazed off into the distance, through the crowds and somewhere over the horizons.
"We're going to have to stop somewhere, do you want to come with us for a while?" Scarlet snapped Ava out of her daydream.
"Hm? Sure, but we can't go camping yet, I still need a sleeping bag and the store was almost empty," Ava said.
"That's OK, I think we all forgot to pack sleeping bags too," Scarlet said.
A/N: Sorry this was a bit late; I couldn't log on for a while.