I was almost too tired to move by the time we reached what Alexa said was 'Petalburg City.' Of course I was still riding on her head, having already eaten through the Oran Berry I had found earlier. It wasn't even enough to make me stumble when I jumped down though, man had that Berry's juice ever been weak. I'd have to work on getting Alexa to grow some better ones or something of the sort...
We went into this weird building soon enough, I was a little shocked to see the glass panes in front of us moving aside as we approached. I had never seen something like this before, there was nothing like that back at the Laboratory in Littleroot. It kind of interested me as I inspected the door, using my tail as a testing point to see how it opened and closed. I couldn't see anyone moving the doors so honestly I had no clue exactly what was going on with this-
"GAH! Bloody-!" It was from then on that I determined that glass was a cursed substance that should never be tampered with.
"Oh! Jack, are you okay?" I could hear Alexa running towards me and making the glass slide away before she dragged me away from the panes of glass. Which was good, I could see the crimp in my tail now at least, it didn't look like the damage would be permanent. Still hurt like all hell though... I blinked when a woman with red hair took me from Alexa's arms, soon enough I was carried through a different sliding door (this one was made of metal) and gently put down on a table. Then, the strange woman started to put a soft bandage around my tail while Alexa came in, followed by Mudkip and Greg. A pokémon could get used to this, I smirked at the thought before the woman tied the bandage up and turned to my own trainer, "Your Treecko's going to be all right, miss. It really just has to be more careful, its tail will be all right in a couple of days."
"Thanks Nurse Joy," Strange woman was now Nurse Joy; I had to keep that in my mind as a mental note for the future. I couldn't help but sigh and shake my head as I inspected my tail now; it still throbbed a bit from the door. Mudkip was laughing at me, I kind of grinned a bit before speaking to her, "Well, I guess I'll have to get someone else watching my back from now on; I kind of just proved that I'll muck that up."
"No kidding," Mudkip rolled her eyes at me before hopping onto the bed, "You know..." Oh crap, she was looking serious. That couldn't be good for me. I must have been good about keeping my face blank though; Mudkip simply kept going as if that thought hadn't just popped into my mind, "I still have to wonder why you have a human name. It just seems odd for a pokémon to have a name like that, you know?"
"I'm an odd pokémon. The girl let me have a say in my nickname and it happened to appeal to me," I ended up shrugging before lying back and looking at the ceiling. Nurse Joy, Greg and Alexa had left the room at this point, and that meant we could be left alone for a while to have our conversation, "What about you? Did your trainer let you have a say in your nickname?"
"Naah, he just likes calling me Mudkip because it's easy," I heard her sigh before walking around on the bed; I couldn't help but wonder just what was she up to then. But, it was boring in here so I couldn't really blame her for wanting to move around. It was a few more minutes before Alexa and Greg came back in; I was finally taken off of the bed and let onto the ground to try and walk around for a bit. It wasn't the same with a piece of white cloth on my tail but I wasn't crippled or anything.
Something caught my attention though; I saw a glass bottle with a picture of an Oran Berry on the label and a whole bunch of that juice inside. With a smirk I jumped onto the counter and grabbed at the bottle while no one was looking; Greg, Mudkip and Alexa were preoccupied with Nurse Joy at the moment. There was nothing blocking the top of the bottle, therefore I decided this was one glass contraption worth working with. I easily managed to tip it so that the liquid went straight down my throat, the tangy taste sliding into my mouth with power the berries alone never had. Somehow - I don't quite remember how – I got the bottle standing back up before I fell to the ground from the counter with a smack.
It looked like I got everyone's attention again with that, which really didn't bother me; I couldn't get back up. Every single time I tried, I stumbled forward and fell onto my face. I heard Alexa sighing while Mudkip's tail tapped at my head. That hurt like all hell and I knew it shouldn't have been. Oh well, everything was still looking... different. I finally got back up and started to dance a bit. I stumbled all over the place while a giddy feeling took over me, making me rather dizzy before I grinned at Mudkip. Now that was the way to have fun.
Soon enough I had actually grabbed Mudkip's front legs and started dancing with her, earning a confused look from her and all of the humans in the building. It didn't matter though; nothing seemed to matter more than having fun at the time. I ended up falling over again and letting go of Mudkip, she also fell over and I laughed because of it. She seemed mad because I had let go of her so abruptly but I knew that she'd get over it. I then let my head smack against the ground while looking at the spinning ceiling above.
That... was definitely the best shot of Oran Berry Juice I had ever gotten, a thought that came and stuck just before I ended up passing out.
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"I can't believe he drank the wine," I sighed while returning Jack to his pokéball, shaking my head while blushing furiously. Greg's Mudkip was frowning at me but Greg was laughing his ass off over the matter, right until I gave him a death glare, "It's not that funny. Jack's hammered now because of it..." Of course, I'd probably be the one laughing the hardest over it later. At that moment I was just hoping he didn't poison himself on the stuff.
"Lighten up Alexa, you've gotta admit it's pretty funny," Greg ended up slapping my back just as I returned the pokéball to my belt, I gave him a meek grin before shaking my head at him, "Well, your Treecko should recover in a few hours from that, he was munching on Oran Berries all the way here. Why don't we go see the Gym Leader now? Mudkip and I are ready to get that Balance Badge and I heard the Gym Leader just got into town!"
My stomach flipped at the mention of the Gym Leader, I knew exactly who that was; I'd be meeting my Dad again a lot sooner than I wanted to. Silently I nodded towards Greg while following him and his Mudkip through the town with my gaze on the ground. Dad was probably still angry with me over the whole Poochyena incident from yesterday... He'll freak out on me when he finds out I scrapped with a Mightyena, I sighed inwardly while continuing onward, the dread in my gut rising higher as we approached the Gym.
When we came in though, I didn't see my dad anywhere; the person I guessed was the Gym Attendant was helping a boy try to calm down, "Easy kid, Norman's busy with a challenger right now. I'm sure someone will help you catch your own pokémon to take with you soon enough!"
"But... I'm leaving town in 20 minutes..."
I could hear the hesitancy in the boy's voice while he looked up to the attendant, right before I decided to step in; Dad wasn't there and someone had to take action. So why couldn't it be me? "Hey, I'll help him catch a pokémon if you really need someone to supervise; My name's Alexa, the gym leader Norman is my father. I'm sure he won't mind if I help."
Greg ran up in front of me as if he was about to say something but only ended up gawking at me. The attendant, in the meantime, looked rather pleased about this and handed a pokéball to the other boy,
"Great! Here Wally, take this Zigzagoon and use it to help you catch a pokémon in the bushes just outside of town. I'm sure Alexa will be able to help you if anything becomes too difficult, all right?"
"Sure... thank you," The boy smiled weakly and nodded before coming towards me, blushing heavily and looking down. Damn it, looked like he was shy. I smiled as warmly as I could before escorting Wally out of the gym and towards the bushes where Greg and I had come from earlier that morning. When I looked around I saw something that almost made me squeal; two of the cutest pokémon were eating Pecha Berries, I quickly whipped out my pokédex to see exactly what they were.
"Ralts, huh? You think that's what you want, Wally?"
I smiled at the boy beside me after hearing the pokédex explanation before he nodded shyly and throw the pokéball containing Zigzagoon, "Go Zigzagoon! Use Headbutt!"
It was almost too easy, the raccoon pokémon bowling over both of the tiny pokémon in one sweep; it must have been powerful to be able to take those two out so easily. Wally then caught one of them and thanked me before I ended up throwing an empty pokéball of my own at the second one; I just had to get one for myself, it was absolutely adorable! Plus, I heard it was a psychic pokémon which made it all that much more lovable.
What? I loved psychic pokémon! You couldn't expect me to just waste the opportunity could you?
It was a few more minutes before Wally and I returned to the gym, the Zigzagoon being given back before Wally turned to me, blushing even more heavily than before, "Thank you, Alexa. I really appreciate you being there to make sure everything went well. Thanks to you we each have our own Ralts!"
"Hey, don't worry about it. I hope to see you sometime, 'kay?" Winking and giving a thumbs up to Wally, I watched him leave before an all too familiar voice showed up behind me.
"Urk... your dad's one powerful trainer, Alexa. I got flattened in five minutes..."
I ended up smirking a little before going to Greg, but unfortunately that meant making eye-contact with someone else too. I had to bite my lower lip and look away to avoid his eye, but soon enough I heard him leaving; when I turned back to Greg he was gone. I couldn't help but sigh then and decided to drag the defeated boy with me back to the Pokémon Center; his Mudkip probably had a lot of healing to do along with his other pokémon after all.
When we reached it we met with Nurse Joy again, I gave her Jack's pokéball before looking at the other occupied sphere on my belt; I still had to let my new Ralts out. While Greg was busy I let Ralts out of its pokéball and let it wake up; apparently it was still rather flustered from the Zigzagoon attack it had endured earlier. It was a shame that I couldn't see its eyes though, but I guessed that was just a trait about the tiny pokémon before me. How would it react to having a new trainer so suddenly though...?
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Everything was coming back now. While I was eating Pecha Berries with my younger brother, a Zigzagoon came out of nowhere and bowled us both over at the order of a young human child. Since then, everything had been black. Now I could see light flooding everywhere, looking through the veil on my head to try and grasp my surroundings. It was so strange to look at and immediately I stumbled; the ground I floated above was hard and in square blocks rather than the grass and dirt I was so accustomed to.
Foreign hands came around me when I had stumbled, I blinked when this happened and looked up to see one of the people who had been with the Zigzagoon. I blinked to get everything back into focus; I could tell immediately this human was not the one who had ordered the raccoon pokémon to battle. With my head still pounding it was hard to hear what the human was saying to me but somehow I could still understand, "Are you feeling all right, Ralts? You can rest here if you still need to recover."
It was so hard to believe, how kind the human's tone of voice was. After what they had put me through, they were asking me how I was feeling? It was so strange to see someone so fickle, but at the same time I remembered hearing of humans like this; they captured pokémon from the wild and trained them to do battle or for other reasons. I ended up squirming quite a bit to try and get out of the human's arms, I couldn't trust humans! They had killed my mother and father a year ago, I was the only one left to take care of my little brother! And now he was gone too...
"Easy! Calm down, you're safe here," I didn't know what was so calming about that human's voice but I obeyed anyway, making myself still while I stared up at them again. I really wanted to escape to find my brother though... "Hey, are you worried about that other Ralts that was with you? Is that why you're struggling?"
That was shocking. It was almost as if the human read my mind in that moment, as if they could truly understand me. The human sighed before shaking their head and speaking to me once more, "That Ralts is with Wally now. You probably won't see that Ralts again for a long time."
I gawked at the human above me as their expression became one of sadness, they couldn't be telling the truth. They just couldn't have taken my brother away from me... "Just who do you think you are, separating my brother from me? You humans are so... so...!"
"Geez Alexa, you have a knack for getting the weirdest pokémon," Another human walked up then, crouching down to get a better look at me while the first human was still trying to keep me under control.
I noticed right away how different this new human's voice and appearance were, I guessed that probably meant they were of different genders. Just who was who was a mystery to me still but that wasn't important right now anyway; this new human was getting way too close for comfort, I didn't know why I was uncomfortable with them around me but the first human seemed a lot softer and therefore more likable to me, "A Treecko who drinks and a Ralts that's freaking out on you. I wonder what else is weird about it."
"To it you're the weird one, Greg," The human holding me spoke again while I blinked up at them, why did they keep referring to me as an it? I was male, were all humans that thick? Somehow I managed to slide out of the first human's arms before floating just above the ground to steady myself and flailing my arms about while the first human blinked and talked to me, "Ralts? What're you doing?"
"You humans! I'm a pokémon who just wants to look after his little brother and you took him away from me!" Accusingly I pointed my arm towards the first human before they sighed and held out their own hand to me. It was strange to me, seeing a human hand; it had five separate stretches of skin and bone stemming from its main hand and it looked like the main hand could move around in any direction from its wrist. I blinked at the hand and looked up at the human before me and listened to what they were saying for the moment.
"Look, I'm sorry if I've offended you in some way, Ralts. I don't want to fight with you, we're going to be partners now and it's important that we get along at least."
I felt my cheeks grow hot when I looked at the human now, what was so enticing about this human? I kind of picked up on the human's name when the other human had talked to them, it was 'Alexa'. And the other human was 'Greg'. Speaking of 'Greg,' they were inspecting me again before they said something that really made me angry, "Man does it ever look weak. I wonder if it's a girl Ralts or just a pansy boy."
What happened in the next few seconds happened almost too quickly to keep track of. First, Alexa ended up smacking Greg across the cheek along with some hissing about how gender had nothing to do with it (I think I got that Greg was a male and that Alexa was female by that point), right before I lifted Greg off of the ground with my mind and threw him across the room. Several humans were staring at me by this point, in fact I think I only knew one who didn't; Greg was currently dizzy and trying to get to his feet after slamming into the wall.
"I think that just proved that Ralts is a boy," Finally, someone who understood. Alexa grinned at me before she patted my head and looked at me. She had pretty blue eyes... I had to wonder if I had eyes like that. But past my distraction I still heard what she was saying, "Looks like you have the same opinion about Greg as I do; he just doesn't know when to shut up."
"You know I heard that..." Greg's groan came from behind Alexa as he approached again, still rubbing the back of his head. I couldn't help but smirk as he made his next comment, "Correction, you don't get weird pokémon. You get psychotic ones."
"They match me, don't they?" I ended up laughing a little when she said that, it made Greg get a blank look on his face before he backed off. I slowly crawled into her lap then, causing the girl to blink down at me. I felt a smile tugging at my own lips as one pulled at hers, "I think Ralts likes me too. Maybe it's not the end of the world that you were caught, Ralts?"
"I still don't trust you completely. But I guess I can tolerate you for now."
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In all honesty, I didn't do as much with this chapter as I wanted to. But at least it's done, right? As you can see I have introduced yet another character, the psychic pokémon Ralts; a distrustful (or so he'd like to think) and (I hope to be) more 'sophisticated' pokémon. You will see more updates from me soon but I still want to hear from you! I want reviews, damn it! So give them to me and you will see more chapters! Until next time, have fun, stay in school and don't do drugs!
... yeah. I'm horrible with jokes when I'm not in character with the story. Deal with it.
Big shout out to Buwaro and Dark Magician Girl Aeris for reviewing every chapter so far! Read their fanfics (Tales of Flame and Anomaly respectively) already! They're really good, promise! And now that the shameless advertising is over the chapter can finally end and I can leave you waiting for chapter five.
ONE FINAL NOTE TO YOU ALL.
Alexa does not have May's appearance from Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald. I will establish a true appearance for her next chapter. Same story with Greg, although his hair is the same colour as Brendan's from Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald, he does look different.