Choices, choices! Today, I spent all morning trying to pick out which clothes to wear. I just couldn't decide. There were the blood stained, old green tea smelling overalls, or the overalls that were splattered with Cyndaquil piss. Although both had been washed by me, there was still the faint smells of their respective disasters on them. Still, they were better than nothing.
I decided on the tea smelling attire, and, dressed up with a new hat on my head, I nearly looked ready for an adventure. As my old, saliva stained hat sat discarded on the ground, I beamed proudly at the mirror. The days I looked so wonderful, alas, were almost forgotten. My Pokémon journey had been reducing me to a burrito junkie standing in microwave lines at the Pokémon Center. That day, however, I decided to eat out and wear my nicest clothing.
I was heading out to Olivine Café. Never mind that the place wasn't exactly the most fanciest place around. As far as I'm concerned, if a café besides the Pokémon Center is graced with my presence, it is the most exotically appealing place at the time.
On my way there, I made a detour and ended up getting a fishing rod. I'm not exactly sure why I got it. The guy was probably so desperate, he didn't even bother selling it for cheap. I then got the idea of using the fishing rod, so I stood at the dock and smashed the thing into the water—the bait thingy, I mean.
From cartoons, I learned that fishing is supposed to go on forever and forever until you finally get something to bite. That wasn't the case for me, and I landed my own fish in a couple of seconds. I suppose that I must be naturally gifted at fishing, or something. Maybe the fish like me.
Anyway, fishing was an awful idea, because a Magi-crap came out of the water and splashed all over me. I was splattered with water, and my new hat got wrinkled too. Then the Magi-crap splashed again, on the surface. Instead of attacking Kitty, it just kept splashing all over me. I believe that the Magi-crap was doing a strategy of clearly malicious intent. By splashing on me, it was distracting me from my duties to command Kitty. Therefore, I would become inattentive to the battle long enough for Kitty to miss up his directions. Then, skillfully, the Magi-crap would gradually lower Kitty's health to the point of defeat, and I would be soaked. These Magi-craps are more crafty than I thought. I must approach them with the most dedicated caution.
Soaked and embarrassed, I stood awkwardly at the shore as the wind chilled my damp shoulders. From my left I could see the lighthouse, where that stupid Gym Leader kneeled over a sick Pokémon—probably to perform his funeral, I don't know. If she really wanted medicine, surely she could have asked her fan club to help her, right? Or at the very least, try to get the medicine herself? Sitting there and staring at the sick Pokémon isn't going to do anything. She isn't even praying, for goodness' sake. She can't use Christian Science as her excuse if she wants to. I'll testify against her in court if she does that.
And anyway, that Pokémon isn't on the inevitable path to death, he just got a goddamn cold. Apparently, Jasmine's fan club fails to see that on top of everything else, which in my opinion is one of the worst offenses of all. I bet most of those sailors were too busy staring at her ass to say anything about this insanity. Everybody else either went along with it, or had clouded thinking from a lack of their own intelligence.
I feel smart now. It's not as pleasant as I thought it would be.
I went to the lighthouse, told them everything I thought about the situation, and some more. Well, they booed me out with Magi-carp fish sticks. Screw them.
Because I am not stupid, and because I have a slightly kind heart, I surfed all the way to Cianwood City on Lorcan's slippery and clearly unsafe back.
It was pretty awful.
Lorcan hadn't swim five measly feet from the shore before we were attacked by a Tentacool. It just suddenly arose out of the water, swishing water against Lorcan's slender body and the girl that barely sat on it. As Lorcan's body rocked dangerously beneath me, I stared at the surface of the water feeling my poorly chosen sushi breakfast rise inside of me. I should've known that sushi breakfasts weren't to be trusted. They were the most expensive things on the menu.
Lorcan bursted forward, forcing his physical weight to clash against those of the Tentacool. I swerved back and forth, my grip causing white marks on Lorcan's fragile skin. I would've felt bad had I not fell off into the water, head butting with the stupid Tentacool immediately.
Then I threw up my sushi breakfast, and you can probably tell where my puke ended up in.
(Answer: The ocean. I hope my vomit doesn't count as pollution. People get fines from pollution, and I'm broke now because of that breakfast.)
The rest of the trip was equally annoying. I don't even want to describe it fully to you, because it was so awful. If you want to get a small idea of the whole thing, think of it like this—you're in a car, and your car abruptly stops every few feet. You jump a little bit in your seat (thank God you're wearing your seatbelt, a luxury I didn't have) and you blink and glance out of the window. Approaching your window is a ridiculous man without a shirt on, and—
I forgot how to construct the analogy.
Whatever. Let's move on.
I was soaked with salty ocean water from hat to toe, and I smelled like a piece of road kill that was discarded into the ocean because it was taking too much space on the road. When I finally reached Cianwood, I laughed hysterically. After that I puked all over the shore. Lorcan joined me in the vomit. I mean, he got some puke on...him...too...and, uh, yeah.
Well, a house near the shore happened to be the home of Cameron, this amateur photographer that spontaneously takes pictures of random people all around Johto. So when a boy found me near this doorstep, piteously moaning and leaning over my own milky colored vomit, his face became bright and cherry as his camera flashed light into my bloodshot eyes. I noticed that he made sure to include the concerned and vomited upon Lorcan at the side. The boy was apparently too uneducated to realize that was a bad touch. Or maybe he just had really poor taste.
The thing is, I knew who that kid was. He goes to my school and has taken...another unsavory picture of me.
"Bravo!" the boy exclaimed. "Wonderful! This'll be a good memory of your journey with your Pokémon!"
"Shut up," I moaned. Lorcan slid over to me a water bottle. I took it. "Thank you, Lorcan."
Lorcan purred in pleasure.
After swallowing some large gulps of the water, I glared at boy. "Look, you jackass. I am more than aware of who you are, and you are perhaps very well aware of who I am—"
"You're Soul, right?" the boy interrupted.
"Yes—wait, NO, I am not SOUL, I am LYRA! God, you took a picture of me vomiting my guts out at the Ruins of Alph, and you don't even have the decency to remember my name."
The boy blinked. "So?"
"It's disrespectful to do things like that."
"It's not my fault you keep throwing up and look interesting doing it."
"Well, you're going to be buying me medicine."
The boy made a face. "Um..."
"You have to," I said hurriedly. "It's the law."
"A law?"
"Yes. The law of endangered victims of unauthorized identity risks of unauthorized photography violations. It's in, the...it's in the first amendment of the American New Year-Christmas calendar, which is clearly indicated in Section Trillion and Two of the Constitution of the Laissez-faire people. In case you don't know, the Laissez-faire people's Constitution is in effect for the territories that is within a fifty mile radius of them. Which this territory is, because it follows under the Californian borderlines for territorial German werewolf packs, which are currently under Laissez-faire rule due to the results of the American Revolutionary War. So if you don't buy me something, I'm going to report to the police and you'll end up in court, sued. I am allowed to sue you under this violation due to the Charles Darwin and Dickens effect, which was a court case preceding this one. You see, Roberts, money will be taken off of you either way."
The boy, who I had named Roberts, simply blinked and said nothing. He didn't seem to be an intelligent kind of bloke, thank God.
I seized his arm. "Okay, Roberts. We're heading to the pharmacy now."
I headed to a blue roofed, brown bricked building that looked reasonably important. I was pretty sure that this was the pharmacy. Turning to Roberts, I nodded.
"Now, Roberts," I said, "this is the pharmacy. Look sharp. Your entire economic situation is based on this moment. So basically, your whole life is."
"But—"
"No buts!"
I barged inside the building, one hand on Roberts's arm, the other securely on my shoulder bag—
A girl reading a book on a dining room table gazed at me. The mother writing in a notebook frowned at me. Another girl stood in front of a fridge, her back to me. Apparently she cared more about her sugar cravings than my unexpected presence.
"Soul," Roberts whispered to me, "this is somebody's house."
"Uh..." I stammered. "Sorry...sorry..."
I rushed out, then rushed into the pharmacy. Correctly this time.
The pharmacy was a shaded, coffee brown colored place. Cramped, there were only a few, long shelves that lined against an orange wall, the wallpaper of which was peeling off. The curly haired clerk at the front desk had his back to the desk itself, clearly more interested in the television that stood opposite to the door. I approached the front desk tentatively. When he wouldn't turn around, I spoke right to the point.
He whirled around. "Huh? You need medicine? Your Pokémon appear to be fine."
But I recognized that guy. I recognize him better than my deceased father.
My eyes widened. "My God, aren't you the Gym guide?"
The "clerk" bit his lower lip. "Uh..."
"If you're here," I said fretfully, "who's at the Gym right now?"
"You see..."
"What if a challenger were to randomly pop up, fresh and young for battle? Their whole small, meaningless existence has been spent, training and training, and what if they were to finally come across the Gym? Surely their dreams would falter, their hopes crushed, their whole composure diminished at the fact that the Gym guide was—"
"Soul, you're weird," Roberts interrupted. "Just get the medicine and let's go."
"Hey, I'm practicing for my creative writing class," I insisted. "I take it this fall."
The Gym guide frowned at me. "You need medicine, Lyra...?"
I sighed. "The Lighthouse Pokémon is ill."
"The Lighthouse Pokémon is in trouble?"
"That is, uh...yeah, that's about what I said."
I tried to describe the symptoms as much as I could, but the Gym guide waved me off and gave me something called a "Secret Potion." I shot the guide a puzzled look.
"It's a tad too strong," he confessed. "I only really give it out in emergencies."
"How certain are you, really, that this is an emergency?" I asked cautiously. The guide didn't get a chance to answer. His favorite new show had just conveniently got on.
As Roberts began to hand money for the Secret Potion across the counter (ain't nothing's free, you know), my Pokégear suddenly rang. I glanced at it. Ian.
"Good afternoon, Lyra!"
"Um...yeah? Hi?"
"It's Ian. Were you confused? You know, I've learned a lot from watching you battle, and I've been practicing with my Diglett."
I paused in puzzlement. "Um..where exactly did you watch me battle?"
"Through windows," he answered.
"I have nearly nothing to say to that. Except, maybe, stop stalking me."
"But thanks to you, we've improved a lot."
"Go stalk somebody else! Stalk someone famous. You'll get more friends from fan clubs that way!"
I hanged up after that. The Gym Guide and Roberts were staring at me in confusion.
"Were you just encouraging stalking, Soul?" Roberts said in a hushed voice. "Because if you were, well...that's really wrong."
I scowled at him. "I think we should have established what my name is by now." I thought that calling him "Roberts" might help, but I guess not.
As we left the pharmacy behind, the sun's rays beginning to falter in the distant horizon, a middle-aged man in a fisher's clothing came up to us, panting. Apparently he was Roberts's father, and apparently he was also the real Cameron, the Photographer. The Cameron that I had seen everywhere else was actually the real guy's relatives pretending to be him, which made me feel mildly creeped out. And on his son, he said to me:
"I'm sorry about my son. He is very gifted, yet sometimes insensitive." He paused. "He takes after his mother."
Dead silence.
Er...all right.
I shrugged and turned away to Lorcan. Camern's eyes lit up as he took in Lorcan's amazing, awesome features
"Have you won the Cianwood Gym Badge yet?"
Well, it seems that we are going to stay in Cianwood City for just a little bit longer.
