"Lorcan, we may be lost, but uh...yeah, we're lost," I finished lamely.
Lorcan scowled at me, his long tail twisting forward.
"What? You think that's the way out...that's ridiculous, Lorcan. We already went that way, that's the way we're trying to get away from...huh? You think there's no way I'll get us to the way we need to go? See, that's rude. My sense of direction may be bad, but..."
Yeah, I had nothing. Lorcan looked at me pointedly. I looked away pointedly in return. Wait, does that mean that Lorcan won the argument? That's nonsense...! Right...?
We got deeper into the Union Cave, and deeper. We surfed through lakes and walked on harsh rocky ground, all to deliver Kenya's goddamn letter. The Trainers were exceptionally hard to beat, harder than Morty, at least. It was absurd on how poorly my Pokémon were performing—Lorcan, Kitty, and Cinder, that is. Miranda was too young to even consider more advanced forms of battle, and I didn't feel right using Kenya, considering that I had to return her later.
I came across a good amount of water, all under the heavy shades of the cave. A Lapras was swimming in it. I captured that Lapras, if you could imagine—I needed some more Pokémon to help get through the cave. The Lapras, named Hamako, was female. She also turned out to belong in Lorcan's egg group.
Once that was realized, there was a chill coming down my spine. Lorcan had aided in Hamako's capture, and I was too distracted by those thoughts temporarily to realize that I was utterly, completely doomed:
Kitty was paralyzed and low on health.
Cinder was asleep, and in even worse health than Kitty.
Lorcan was paralyzed and not much better.
Kenya was in low health, from just one hit from a Raticate.
Hamako was asleep, and not in the best health either.
And Miranda was too young.
There was no more Super Potions, or Potions of any kind expect maybe one Revive and two Antidotes. Nor were there any Repels or Escape Ropes.
So once I realized that I was doomed, I of course started screaming and started running off to get out of the cave as soon as humanely possible (my maturity has clear limits). Kenya aided with the escapes from wild Pokémon quite nicely, but one Raticate's bite got her to collapse on her knees. Kenya ended up fainting. I had to take out Kitty because of that.
I stared at the Raticate with all the hatred I could muster. The Raticate glowered at me in aggression, separating its tooth to show its sharp, bloody teeth. On impulse, I took Kitty's Clefairy doll and randomly threw it in the opposite direction.
"Go get it, you ass!" I shouted out at the Raticate. Raticate needed no further encouragement—it scampered off to gallop to the Clefairy plush, which was now tumbling down into the darkness.
From the distance, I heard a splash into the lake's chilling waters. Then another splash followed. All became silent as the water stilled back into its deep serenity. Kitty and I was stunned for a few moments. Then the peace was disturbed by a crashing torrent of tears.
"I'm sorry, Kit," I said. The sound of my naturally sarcastic voice only made Kitty more miserable, so I had to shut up immediately.
The loss of his beloved Clefairy doll had made Kitty weak to his knees. His little eyes glittered with tears as he sobbed, screeching ceaselessly with spurts dramatic enough to suit Gym Leader Brock's womanizing aftermaths.
I hesitated for a few minutes. I wasn't sure I was supposed to transport this living soap opera around.
But then, dammit, I didn't stop. I grabbed Kitty's hand and we got the hell out of there.
Despite Lorcan's lack of confidence in me, we managed to get out of the Union Cave alive. Well, barely, but it's the end result that matters, right?
I sped past Violet City. Or at least, I would've. I was stopped by the shameless Falkner. The only thing that resulted positively from that encounter was running exercise. Heck, I may even fulfill the daily one hour physical activity recommendations from gym teachers. I'm at a wonderful pace so far.
Well, I lost the race. I'm so out of shape, I suppose it was an achievement that I ran for a minute at all. Falkner caught up with me pretty well. I'm guessing he's used to running—birds get out of bird cages all the time. I would not be surprised if Falkner has daily running exercises to practice recapturing birds. After all, he's always uttering some random ultimate bird keeper crap. I'll be polite and assumes he practices more than he talks.
So he ran up to my sweaty and panting body quickly enough. However, on strangely good timing, I got a phone call from a guy named "Irwin." I didn't remember that guy particularly, because I just give out my number to whoever asks, since my safety standards aren't exactly the best. Anyway, I answered the call. Irwin on the other end just kept gushing on me beating Morty. I had no idea how he found out, but I pretended like I knew that because Falkner was right in front of me with this oddly saddened face on. I was so dense at the time, I didn't even know why Falkner was so upset. Still, I kept at humoring Irwin. (I figured that Falkner was abruptly remembering something awful or shit.)
"You beat Morty of Ecruteak Gym! Th—that's just incredible!" Irwin exclaimed.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "Morty...we're the best of friends." I was thinking that if I said that, Irwin wouldn't mention the "accident." Well, Falkner didn't know that.
"I actually went to the Gym's entrance to cheer you on," Irwin continued.
"Wow, Irwin. You're so devoted." I thought that if I sounded nice, I would halt the sudden bout of paranoia that was spreading inside of me.
Falkner looked like he was going to faint by then. I slowly lowered the phone.
"Falkner? You okay?" I was so dense, I would probably sink in water from the sheer measure of it.
Falkner painfully swallowed and looked away. I lifted the phone.
"But when I went to the Gym," Irwin was saying, "everyone had these candles on, like, their heads. It was kinda creepy, so I chickened out and took off for home."
I laughed. "Ah, okay."
"Call you later!"
We hanged up.
Falkner gaped at me. "Who was that?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. Some fan."
"Some fan?"
"Yes. I'm apparently very famous now."
"Does this...fan...call you often?"
"Very often," I said very seriously. "My fans love me." (I consider Joey to be a sad, sad fan.)
"I heard him. He is a man, right?" Falkner said nervously.
"Quite."
Falkner needed some time to think on that. I waited patiently. I mean, I think I did. Ten seconds is enough, right?
Finally, Falkner spoke. "Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Meh," I said.
"Yes, or no?"
"What's a boyfriend?"
"Don't evade my question."
"Don't evade mine."
"Listen, how old are you?" Falkner said irritably, running a hand through his admirably hot hair.
"Sixteen."
"Then you probably know."
"I do know," I said.
"Then why...?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you say you didn't know?"
"I never said that."
"You may as well did," Falkner argued.
"No. I wanted to see what you thought what a boyfriend is."
"Well. Wouldn't I think of one the same way everybody else does?"
"Sure, okay."
"So, do you?" Falkner pressed.
"Do I what?"
In my defense, I had slept horribly the night before.
The book I was reading was much too interesting. It was about French tea.
Falkner had to leave after that because one of his cousins started to desperately screech out his name. Apparently, one of Falkner's badly trained birds began to attack the cousin with vicious strength. Falkner asked for my number. I refused. So Falkner had to run off with a disappointed look on his face, and Kitty placed a bucket on Cinder's head. All seemed well.
Lorcan viewed Hamako with a slight curiosity, and nothing more. To be frank, Cinder was showing more interest in Hamako than Lorcan was. It was a pretty sudden change in behavior, on both the parts of Cinder and Lorcan. So I came up with two conclusions for both of them—Cinder was outgrowing the awkward teenager phase (at least a little bit), and the earsplitting lecture I had given Lorcan yesterday sank in pretty well.
When I mean that Cinder was showing interest in Hamako, I don't mean it a romantic manner; rather, it seemed to have more of a platonic meaning to it. Cinder understandably hated water, so now there's this Pokémon on our team who practically lives for it. Lorcan was fond of water but not as excessively as Hamako. Hamako was another business whatsoever, promoting a lifestyle that Cinder was completely contrary to. I suppose that I should be happy that Hamako was greeted with curiosity rather than hostility. Hamako herself made the curiosity mutual among them. It was probably the fire butt that did it. Upon taking all of my Pokémon out to take a much needed bath, the two approached each other tentatively and seemed to communicate with each other.
I guess it's better than, let's say, trying to eat each other.
Because that's what Miranda tried to do to Kenya.
You see, I have kind of forgotten that I was dealing with animals. Despite Lorcan's occasional "I'm a bad boy so I gonna eat ya'll" moments, they act a bit like humans. Extremely misguided humans with bizarre biologies, but still. My Pokémon had generally outgrown the childish, animal-like stage.
Miranda, however, was too young to possess this kind of self-assuring persona, so here she was, shitting in all the wrong places and bitting up my already badly abused hat. Also, she tried to eat some of my other Pokémon. First, she thought Kitty was some big egg creature that was meant to bake into pancakes or something, then she thought that Kenya—God, I don't even know what she thought Kenya was. Chicken wings?
