Anonymous Review Replies!
LoneGarurumon: Hahah, yeah, he does seem to attract those kinds of situations, huh? Buuuut, let's see how *long* they'll manage to keep fooling him, we're not eaxctly dealing with Robotnik's IQ of 300 here, after all :p And yup, for Tails it's mostly just terrible situations for now, but I personally find them VERY entertaining. XD Thanks for your review, hope you like the new chapter! :D
Shadow: Well, for me to write a chapter like this, it's around...20-30h of work? Conceptualizing a plot with a lot of characters to make sure their story lines intersect at the correct points, researching the world you're writing in, writing a draft, re-writing it, re-reading it, tweaking it, thinking of jokes, quips, funny similes and metaphors, ways to spice descriptions up...takes time. Plus, there's like 7 other stories of mine on 3 different accounts, sooooo...yeah :p
Falconess: Hahah, actually, that's my fav storyline in this fic, too, I giggled like an idiot while writing some of those parts. XD There's more to come next chapter! :D
Guest: Thanks, will do!
tr: oh, they would! Though there's probably not gonna be much in the way of legendary pokemon, I've...mostly played gen 1, ahah.^^°
Shadow Huntress: aw, thank you for the thoughtful review! :D I'm so happy this story does work without knowledge of the pokemon universe, I tried my best!
DFTS: ah, true. I needed to change that on my profile.^^° But anyway, here you go!
Chapter 7: A Special Kind of Hospitality
"Your entire civilization...is built on Pokémon." To Oak's credit, the hedgehog right now was actually looking amazed.
"Well, yes," the scientist explained with a smile. "To figure out how to live together with them and research the amazing powers they possess is my life's work and that of many others. Here you go, by the way." He held up a small, tamagotchi-like plastic device, its white casing looking orange in the rays of the setting sun falling through the window. "I finished the portable version of the translator. We could attach it to you with a collar-"
"Or a wristband, doc," Sonic interjected pointedly.
"Ah, yes. Of course," the scientist cleared his throat embarrassedly. "It now also has a sending range of approximately twenty metres, so any...Mobians or humans standing in that perimeter around you should be able to understand each other perfectly."
"Cool, thanks!" Sonic smiled. When enquiring in this world about whether anyone here had seen his friends (or, perhaps more worryingly, whether anyone had seen Robotnik...) being able to talk to people would certainly help matters. True, he'd lost some time waiting for Oak to finish the gadget, but he had learned how this world was supposed to work...even if certain details were still puzzling him.
"But, er, so where exactly do all these travelling 10-year-olds get their money from agai-?"
"Hello, Professor Oak! Oh, who's this?!"
"Misty!" The older human broke into a bright smile at the orange-haired girl who had just poked her head through the door in the lab. "Great that you're back! Could you and Brock get all I needed from the Pokécenter?"
"Yes, we did." A darker-skinned, slightly older boy entering the lab behind the girl replied in her stead. "But hello, who have we here? Did you find a new Pokémon, Professor?" Both of them were now staring at Sonic with undisguised curiosity.
"Not quite. Misty, Brock, this is Sonic. He is a visitor from another world," the scientist said, now assuming a lecturing tone. "He may look like one, but he is not a Pokémon. Unfortunately, Ash already made that faulty assumption earlier," he added with a wince, indicating the unconscious boy on the medical bed with his head.
For some reason, at this statement the orange-haired girl's first reaction was to immediately face-palm.
"A visitor from another world?! And the first one he meets is Ash?! Oh no...!" She looked over at Sonic. "Listen, whatever he said or did, we're so sorry. He's one of the dumber humans alive."
"Er...it's fine..." Sonic tried, not sure whether he should laugh or try and be diplomatic here. "Listen, we only had a brief scrap, no harm done-"
"A brief...scrap?! ASH!" Now Misty had immediately whirled around to the hospital bed, where the black-haired boy seemed to be just regaining consciousness. "We have our first alien visitor, and you try to throw a Pokéball at his head! You idiot!" she shouted, now alarmingly having also lifted the groggy boy by his lapels and berating him into his face. The two males in the room, as well as curiously the yellow pet, were mainly wearing pained smiles.
"Uh, Misty, I don't think he's fully recovered yet...!" Oak tried to calm her, and Misty reacted by merely letting her victim slump back onto the covers.
"Ugh! Boys!" she groaned, before then whirling around at Sonic (who was by now actually considering the whole jumping-out-of-the-window-thing again, because apparently, most of the kid population of this planet seemed to be batshit insane) and smiling sweetly at him. "So yeah, sorry about him attacking you. He's an idiot. But welcome to Earth, I'm Misty!"
"Sonic. Thank you..." Sonic shook her hand cautiously, at the same time also shooting a surreptitious glance at the professor who was by now mostly rubbing the back of his head and smiling somewhat awkwardly, while the yellow mouse and the other boy (Brock?) were fussing over a slowly re-awakening Ash.
"So, you're from another world? How did you get here?" Misty asked cheerfully, and Sonic gave her a slightly embarrassed shrug, palms raised upwards.
"Er, accident really. Now I'm mostly trying to figure out whether my friends came here with me and if yes, how we are gonna get home."
"Your friends, huh?" Misty put a finger to her lips. "Do they look like you?"
"Kinda." Sonic scratched his head. "All about my size, and we're also all, uh, kinda furry compared to you. I'm looking for two more hedgehogs, one fox, and one knucklehead – I mean echidna. They probably don't speak your language."
"Hmm..." Misty ran a hand through her hair and looked at the ceiling. "I think in that case your best bet might be filing a report about your missing friends with officer Jenny. We should head to the police station in Viridian City tomorrow, don't you think, professor? Surely Sonic could spend the night here."
"Hm, yes, that sounds like a good idea," Oak agreed, currently packing the medical kit away again. "What do you think, Sonic? Shall we go there tomorrow?"
"To file a police report?" Sonic scratched his ear. "To be honest, doc, that's nice but I'm generally more of a DIY type of guy. I think I'll be good finding them on my own."
"Hm. Are you sure, though?" The older boy, Brock, had assumed a thoughtful expression (curiously still without opening his eyes. Sonic thought it was fascinating). "I mean, Ash mistook you for a Pokémon and tried to capture you. If the same happened to your friends, you'd have trouble finding them if a trainer got to them first."
"If any of his friends are like him, though, I'd worry more about the trainer," Oak gave a short laugh. "When Ash tried to capture Sonic, all he got was himself a concussion."
"Hm. True," Misty said, cocking her head. "Are all of your friends as powerful as you, Sonic?"
"Some of them, yeah," Sonic said, swallowing slightly. That was one thing he hadn't counted on. If they had come with him, Shadow and Knuckles would likely be fine, yeah, but Amy and Tails would be another matter entirely. True, none of them were weak, exactly, but...
"Well, the thing is, if any Pokémon is caught, the Pokéball sends a signal and it gets immediately registered in the national central database under the name of the trainer who has captured it. If someone should mistakenly catch one of your friends, and there is a police report attached to their description, then we'd be notified immediately. It honestly sounds like your best bet."
"Right," Sonic replied with a mild frown. He sincerely hoped none of the others would be captured – it reminded him way too much of the old days, when Robotnik still used to put Mobians in prison capsules and then either roboticize them to use them as soldiers, or put them in robots to act as power sources – but since this seemed to be common practice on this strange world, Sonic grimly supposed this was a risk he'd have to consider.
"If any of your trainers do...capture my friends, are they gonna hurt them?"
"What? Oh no, no decent trainer would ever abuse their Pokémon!" Misty assured him quickly. "And if any of your friends should get hurt by accident, there are excellent Pokémon centers for them to be healed."
"Hm." Sonic pulled a slight face. The thought of sitting around and not doing anything until morning didn't sit too well with him, but, on the other hand, he wasn't sure there was a much better option available – it was slowly starting to get dark, so looking for them wouldn't work that well, and he was also starting to feel tired; the Chaos Control and the fight with Pikachu hadn't gone past his body's energy reserves unnoticed. To catch a few hours shut-eye in a place where at least no-one will try to attack and imprison you in your sleep might not be the worst idea, Sonic had to admit unwillingly. When he caught the eyes of the three humans staring at his frowning expression questioningly, Sonic quickly brought himself to give them a small smile.
"Okay. Let's go there in the morning. Thanks for the offer."
"Alright!" Brock smiled back at him. "I wanted to check in with officer Jenny anyway."
"Great! That's sorted, then!" Misty clapped her hands. "So now, how about dinner? We stopped off at Ash's mum's place and brought pizza pies for everyone!"
"Did you...did you say pizza pies?!" Heads turned at the question, and Sonic's eye ridges rose slightly, but then again, he thought he shouldn't be surprised - after all, he had been caring for Tails for more than five years now, so a kid being wakened from a coma by the promise of fast food probably mostly proved that Ash was just a very normal boy after all.
xxx
When the door opened again, Daisy, oldest of the Sensational Sisters and leaders of the Azure city Gym, was the first to look up. The pink pokémon was emerging from the bathroom now, and also looking slightly awkward. Her feet were bare, one hand of hers clutching the soaked clothes and boots she had been wearing, the other protectively holding onto the comically large white towel she had wrapped herself in.
"Oh, wow, look, she's wrapped herself in that towel!" her youngest sister, Lily, turned to her with a squeal, fists curled in front of her grinning mouth. "She looks just like a little human, that's so CUTE!"
"Right..." Violet, ever the more reserved, mostly favoured her sisters with a confused frown. "Actually, she's really not acting like a normal Pokémon at all, is she?"
"Um..." At this, the Pokémon seemed actually be trying to actively get their attention, waving her soggy clothes at them, like she was hoping that maybe some sort of message would get across here. "Do you think you could dry them anywhere, please...? And...maybe...is there anything I could wear?" The pink Pokémon now sounded somehow hopeful, and was also slightly awkwardly tugging at the towel wrapped around her.
The sisters looked at the display.
"Huh. You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say she's asking us for more clothes," Lily finally ventured.
Violet raised an eye brow. "Hm. Well, if she's used to it...you think some old stuff of Misty's would fit?"
"You know, maybe that could work," Daisy replied. "I'll have a look. You, wait here," she said to the Pokémon, (also feeling slightly silly when making a 'Wait, please'- hand gesture like one would give to a human) and then disappeared from the room.
"Um. Let me...take that?" Lily asked then, following the cue of her sister and briefly making eye-contact with the (still lost-looking) Pokémon before she made a tentative reach for the wet clothes in her hand. It seemed to have worked, though, because the pink female at last released the dress and boots, giving a smile that still looked somewhat anxious, but was at least there.
"Here, that's the smallest outfit I could find of Misty's." Daisy had reappeared in the doorway again, turning to the Pokémon and holding up two clothing items for display. "Due to our little sister's non-existant fashion sense, it's basically completely horrible, but do you want it?"
The Pokémon at first blinked as she beheld the clothes, but then immediately nodded. The tan-furred hand that wasn't holding her towel up was extended, the clothes were taken with a grateful expression, and then the whole Pokémon promptly disappeared into the bathroom again.
The sisters looked at each other.
"Huh. Okay. Guess maybe she's a colourblind species...?"
Violet snorted. "She's got pink fur and was wearing a red dress. If you ask me, even Misty's clothes will probably be an improvement."
xxx
It is said that there are no atheists in a foxhole, but Tails (who, to be entirely fair, would have considered himself more of an agnostic, but still) by now would have very dearly liked to take whoever said that and make them hunt for a damn sneaker in one.
"No...get back here...please, I need it, this really isn't fair..." Tails was stumbling and crawling after his property, absolutely exhausted, as well as completely covered in earth and dirt. The cave entrance had soon branched off into an entire system of tunnels and nesting spaces, and chasing after the little fox creatures that had been playing a merry game of pass-the-parcel with Tails' shoe had been taking up the better part of two hours so far. Now, though, there was once again a melodic call of
"Ninetales!" from outside, and in response, the fox kits immediately dropped the sneaker and all started yipping and racing out of the cave.
Tails felt like collapsing right then and there.
"Urgh...stupid kits...I bet Sonic wouldn't have had trouble with getting his own frigging shoe back, ugh..." the two-tail grumbled as he then finally crawled over to his dropped sneaker and pulled it back on. Glad that this was the part of the cave where he at least could stand up, he then managed to shake himself and venture outside.
"Ninetales!" the large white fox greeted him cheerfully, and immediately bounded over to him, leaping over her other kits that were all busily tearing at something on the ground which Tails chose not to look at too closely.
"Uh..."
"Nine!" There was another enthusiastic bark, and then, with a small splat!, the large fox let something drop in front of him. Tails screamed when he realized that it was a little body.
"AGH!"
"Ninetales?" Now the fox mother blinked at him, apparently a bit taken aback at the smaller fox' reaction. "Ninetales, Ninetales," she said, and then to Tails' horror began nudging the bloody thing toward him as if that somehow could make it better.
"Oh...gods..."
"Ninetales." Now the large white fox was actually starting to look irritatedly down at Tails, in a very disturbing way her expression not too different from Sonic's when the hedgehog had often had some difficulties getting a four-year-old-Tails to eat his vegetables.
Except that in this case, the 'vegetables' were a badly mangled rabbit corpse.
Even worse was that somewhere at the back of his mind, a way more ancient part of him had started to insist that it didn't actually look that bad.
"Oh...gods. Oh...hm...are you...sure it's dead?" Tails finally ventured, gingerly bending over to examine the little creature in front of him. The really disturbing thing about it was that it looked like a very creepy middle-ground between a feral rabbit and a Mobian one, and Tails found himself praying to anyone who'd listen that it hadn't been a sapient creature. As it was, while its upper body was definitely that of a brown-furred rabbit, its lower half was essentially one big woolly poofy ball, giving the general impression of someone having tried to assemble a bunny, but then given up halfway through and decided to make it a sheep.
However, given that both halves were by now barely attached to each other, Tails could at least be sure that it was indeed very, very dead.
"Ninetales," the fox said again, now looking stern. Tails swallowed.
"Um, look, I dunno how to say this, but-"
It was at this point that his stomach then interrupted him by giving a very loud, very drawn-out growl.
Tails scowled down at it. "Traitor."
"Nine, nine," the white vixen was now again nudging the bunny corpse toward Tails, now definitely starting to sound like a mutinous German. Tails wondered whether not eating the mutilated bunny would mean getting sent back into the cave without dinner or whether the consequences would be more dire. And then there was the fact that despite himself, he actually was very hungry, and whenever that happened, the more feral instincts of his ancestors always started insisting that anything that had meat on it looked good...
There was another rumble from below and Tails sighed.
"Ugh. Alright, fine." It's not like it would magically come back to life again if I refused to eat it, anyway...
The white fox, apparently sensing that he had acquiesced to eat his dinner, then only watched him with curiosity as Tails went and gathered a few sticks from the edge of the clearing, setting them into a little pile in a carefully-cleaned spot and then also started rubbing two of them together.
"Man, Knuckles always makes this look so easy-" Tails was starting to sweat as still no smoke could be seen from his efforts to start a fire after a few minutes. But there was no way around it – sapient or not, there was no way he was eating a rabbit raw. To his annoyance, though, all of the fox kits now seemed to have finished their meal, and had crowded around him, poking their noses close to the two sticks he was rubbing together and blinking at him with large, perplexed eyes.
"Vulpix?" one of them seemed to ask its mother in puzzlement, who was also watching, though she appeared curiously amused by the spectacle.
"Ninetales. Nine, Ninetales," she replied calmly, which for some reason let the fox kits suddenly seem to burst into either a yipping that curiously sounded like laughing, or barks that somehow seemed to convey disbelief.
"Vulpix?!"
"Vul, vul, vulpix!" another one called and that seemed to let them all burst out into laughter anew. Somehow, Tails also couldn't help the impression that he was the reason for their merriment and was therefore starting to feel just slightly insulted.
"Excuse me, but could you go and...do your fox comedy or whatever it is somewhere else?!" he snapped. "Some of us are working to try and prepare their food here!"
The chastisement seemed to have worked. The fox kits immediately calmed down at his dressing-down and re-assembled in their circle around them, once more watching intently, sometimes briefly shooting a glance at their mother. After another (fruitless) minute had passed, one of them cocked his head and then looked at the larger fox inquiringly.
"Vulpix?" it asked. In reply, the large fox now only shook her head.
There was another moment, and now, Tails couldn't help but find that suddenly, most of them were looking at him with something that almost seemed to be pity. What-?
"Ninetales," the large white fox then said, gently, which caused the kit to immediately yip in excitement, leap over to stand over the dead bunny, inhale, and then blast the dead animal with fire.
When it was over, the little fox sat next to an actually delicious-smelling rabbit roast, fur burnt off more cleanly than should have been possible, and offered Tails the proudest-looking foxy grin the two-tail had ever seen.
Tails (only ever so slightly blackened at the tips of his tufts) stared.
"Vulpix!" the fox called out happily, its siblings now barking in what sounded like applause and even its mother offered it a proud smile.
"Ninetales." Then she gave Tails an expectant look. "Ninetales, Ninetales?"
"Uh," the little fox managed. "Thank...you?" he asked the little fox kit, which immediately barked and began to wag all of its six appendages happily. Tails at this point decided that he had had enough bizarreness for the day and, no matter what else was going to happen in the near future, he was going to eat his weird-ass dinner now.
To be continued...