MINTY THRILL
Chapter the Second
Route Something or Other
With my newfound Bulb-is-sore Leaves, I was on the road to Dezu City, the first place to find a Mintythrill, fight a Jim Leader and get a badge. There were several grand tales about these beginnings, although oftentimes I wondered how many Jims there could be…
"You know Leaves," I muttered, looking down at him, "You're not gonna be walking around with me for long. I'm gonna get you a Pokéball soon, so don't get too comfortable." Leaves shot an offensive look at me, and snarled loudly. I backed up, intimidated by his impressive dental features.
"Alright, alright!" I gulped, "But… can't we walk a little faster? It's starting to get a little cloudy out here, and I don't want to get caught out in the rain." Grinning, Leaves looked up at the sky. It then hit me that… well, he liked rain.
"That better not be some weird fetish…" I snapped, "The last thing I want is a Pokémon that gets 'excited' when the opponent uses Rain Dance."
Despite our friction however, Leaves and I had recently established an important understanding, and that was that cheating is good. We would be sure to use any underhanded tricks we could, from sand in the eyes to a kick in the groin. All good tacticians were cheaters, after all. Napoleon Bonaparte was notorious for pushing people over while playing Twister, for one. Of course, the Christian inside me knew that too much cheating would prove hazardous to the soul, so we'd have to use it strictly as a backup plan. Plan B, we'd call it. …And hopefully, plan A would fall short with startling regularity.
I stepped off the dirt trail into the knee-high grass. It was a very unkempt route, I suppose.
"I better start catching some Pokémon if we're gonna beat this Jim guy." I announced. Leaves sighed, and sat down nearby.
"Now then, how does one flush out the Pokémon, anyway?" I pondered, "Umm… Maybe if I make a Pokémon call…" I cleared my throat, before waving my arms out, and bellowing. "RABBITA! PORRIDGEY!"
Alas, no avail.
"Alrighty then…" I said quietly, not yet ready to quit, "How about…" I pondered for a brief moment, before it hit me; "Some food!" I anxiously thrusted my hand into my pocket, but just ended up with a handful of useless, non-palatable Weedle horn. I sighed, and buried my face in my hands. I was just about ready to quit now.
"I don't have any food to lure them out…" I whined, and peered up. A plan was developing, slowly but surely. "What if I… made them think I did have food? There's bound to be something around here that looks edible…" I surveyed the territory. Grass, dirt, Leaves, leaves undeserving of a capital letter. …Leaves? Hey, there's an idea.
"Hey there, buddy…" I said with a grin, leaning toward the bemused Bulb-is-sore, "Come here for a minute, wouldya?"
"Wow!" I bellowed loudly for all to hear, "This sure is a delicious, uh… green mushroom!!"
Leaves growled furiously, unhappy with his position as a makeshift dinner. I knew that green thing on his back would come in handy.
"It's too bad I'm not hungry, though…" I continued, "So I'll just have to eat a little bit… and leave the rest for some other HUNGRY POKEMON!" Making sure this plan would work, I pretended to nibble at the green thing, then took a big lick at it. Instantly, my face twisted in disgust.
"Aww Hölle!!" I hacked, "My god Leaves! You taste nasty!"
Leaves looked at me bitterly as though he wanted to flip the bird. Despite his disappointing flavour however, the scheme seemed to work rather quickly when nearby in the grass a rustling was heard. I ducked low, bobbing up and down giddily. After a short pause, out came a weird dark blue Pokémon with a crazy orange planty thing atop its head. It looked rather gloomy indeed; unlikely it was a Happy. I shot up quickly, and pointed a waggling finger at it.
"Ah-ha!!" I cried, taking a deep breath in as I did. My face twisted, taking a whiff of the aroma that was emanating from this literally stinkin' little twerp. "Gaaag…" I choked, "That smells terrible! Gah! Boof!!" I waved Leaves forward to attack it. He didn't seem to mind the smell, actually. Chances are he was overwhelmed with urges to kill this thing. He did seem to have that 'sesame seed stare' of his.
"Leaves," I began, mulling over which attack he should use. Say, what were his attacks again? There was, umm… uhhhhh… uh-oh.
Sick and tired of waiting like a good little weed, the opposing Pokémon swayed back and forth like a Bob Marley groupie, and a strange yellow cloud of dust fired out from the noggin plant. It landed atop a confused Leaves, who shivered slightly and started teetering to the side.
"That's it!" I shouted suddenly, "Leaves, Growl!"
Leaves shook off the minor paralysis and snarled at the Pokémon. He then looked back at me as though to ask 'now what?' Now what indeed. I stood there blankly.
"Leaves!" I said, "Growl again!"
Leaves growled on command, then looked back.
"…Growl some more!" I demanded. He left off a small groan that sounded more like he had a migraine, and then hung his head low in disgust.
"Keep on growling, Leaves! I have a plan!"
And so for a couple hours it went on this way. I failed to remember any other attacks, and Leaves growled each time I told him to do so. By this point the word 'growl' sounded incredibly weird after such repetition, and of more important note, the other Pokémon never responded. I was about to cunningly command Leaves to growl, when I heard an odd sound.
"Leaves, is that you?" I asked, to which Leaves shook his head in the negative. He listened up as well. It was a bizarre sound, like a sort of throaty breathing. After a while, I noticed it was coming from the opponent. When I realised the situation, a huge sweatdrop appeared on my forehead. "It appears to be… sleeping."
Leaves collapsed to the ground, and I chuckled nervously for a moment. Suddenly, something came to me.
"Leaves!!" I shouted dramatically. Disinterested, he just peered at me out of the corner of his eye. "Use TACKLE!!"
Leaves got up quickly, thrilled to bits and ready to similarly smash the weed into bits, too. He shot off in its direction like a rocket; he was surprisingly spritely on those little legs. He crashed straight into it with picture perfect form, sending it rolling back dizzily across the ground.
"Good work!" I grinned, ready to take the credit and claim my first capture, "Pokéball go!" I reached into my pocket and quickly tossed out a… handkerchief? It landed on the Pokémon's head in what turned out to be a very good shot, but unfortunately it didn't seem to do much to capture it. The Pokémon soon stood up and threw the handkerchief aside. Its squinty eyes widened as it stared at us angrily, and the stench began to resurface worse than ever.
"Yikes!" I bellowed, "Run for it Leaves!!" We dashed off down the path and, although I was concerned for our safety, I was more interested in the pleasing fact that we were finally making good ground.
After a while we stopped, panting heavily. This certainly wasn't good; I didn't have any cash on me, so I couldn't afford any Pokéballs. And without an array of Pokémon, I couldn't exactly win any monetary prizes. Worse still, I didn't even have anything to blow my nose with now. All I had left was my pen and the Weedle horn. Though in my frantic sprint, I did come across a walkman. It was lousy and I would have to pay someone else to buy it, but it was mine, dammit.
I began to pace back and forth. This was so very not good. So very very not good. In fact, I came to the conclusion that this was so not good it was bad.
After several minutes pacing which produced a small crater in the ground, Leaves let out an excited "Bulb!" I looked up to see what he was so thrilled about, tempted to respond with a bulb of my own. I spotted a short kid walking in our direction, alongside him a small brown Pokémon with a bone in its hand and wearing a very cheap football helmet. There was no logo on it, no facemask… jeez, it certainly wasn't officially licensed.
I was about to scoff at this, though something twigged in my mind from the classes. Thinking hard, I recalled that this critter was a Cubone. There was no mistake, this was the Lonely Pokémon; I had actually spent the class crying over it. This one seemed to have a small spotted red fruit dangling on a string from one of its spikes.
"Hi!" said the kid in a cheery voice, "I'm Richard. I'm a Pokémon trainer. I'm only ten, but I'm really good! I see you're a trainer, too."
"And what proof do you have?" I snapped, to which Richard pointed at Leaves. "Well…" I muttered, "It could've been a mouldy frog."
"This here is Cubone," Richard continued. The aforementioned Cubone twirled his trademark bone across his fingers, then struck a pose. Hoping we wouldn't notice, Richard changed the subject; "Would you like to engage in a one-on-one battle?"
I leant over towards Leaves. "Should I do it?" I whispered. He nodded quickly, so standing up tall, I gave Richard a big smile. "I'm Anthony. I've got only one thing to say." I suddenly leapt at Richard and threw him into a headlock. "Gimme all your money or Leaves will Growl the crap outta you!!"
Leaves gulped and shouted Bulba-insults at me.
"…Oh," I said sheepishly, "You meant I should agree to a battle…"
Leaves nodded frantically. I let go of Richard slowly, stood there a moment, then dropped to the ground and put Leaves in a headlock. "Next time, you tell me when you don't mean plan B!!"
Richard and his Cubone looked at me wide-eyed, and I hesitated from my Pokémon abuse. "Uhh…" I muttered, "Just giving him a friendly hug. Yup."
Richard looked at Leaves and I, thought for a bit, then bent over toward Cubone and whispered something in his ear. Well, that is if he has an ear. Something I often ponder. Cubone took a moment to contemplate us as well, then gestured a thumbs-up towards Richard.
"How about we throw in an extra quirk?" Richard said deviously, "The winner gets 10… and the loser's Pokémon!"
I gasped in shock. "Are you crazy??" I shouted, "…Ten bucks? Man, you are so gonna be 10 poorer! Leaves and I are gonna rip that wussy little brown thing apart! We're gonna mangle him and strangle him and cripple him for life. …Then we'll take him!" We took a few steps back and my companion and I stared down the enemy. I couldn't help but dwell on how short the kid was. Should I have been thinking of something fiercer?
"Go Cubone!" Richard finally commanded.
"Go Cubone!" I said too, leaving Leaves to look at me, puzzled. "Well, it was worth a try. Go Leaves!"
Leaves and Cubone dashed towards each other. Richard made the first command, "Cubone, start this off with Bone Club!" Cubone lifted his bone like a club, though it could've resembled a hammer or any other bludgeoning object really.
"Leaves," I said nervously, "Duck! Quick!" He quickly slid to a halt on his belly, Cubone raced past, swinging the bone and nicking the top of Leaves' foul-tasting 'green mushroom'. Snapping his fingers unhappily, Cubone stumbled to a clumsy stop.
"Now Leaves, do that Tackle thing!" I cried. Wasting no time, Leaves charged at Cubone, who was turning about face. Leaves shouted a cry as he closed in on his target, and then leapt at him fiercely. There was a loud crunching sound upon impact and Leaves landed on the ground, seeming to have hurt his shoulder. Cubone fell back as well, but instantly flipped up onto his feet and readied himself.
"Haha!" Richard shouted with triumph, "You can't overcome Cubone's defence with such a feeble collision! Cubone, make them sorry for that mistake with Thrash!"
Fuming, I looked at Richard, who had suddenly changed from a chirpy little kid to a cocky punk. He'd be a lot less smug with my fist in his mug…
Leaves had been winding his arms to try and sit back up, but wasn't having much luck. He couldn't stop Cubone from leaping atop him, ready to attack. Cubone proceeded to slap the living snot out of him with his bone, while Leaves could only flail about frantically, trying to get Cubone off his back. He got to his feet, but Cubone held tight, the Bulb-is-sore reduced to stumbling around like a drunkard.
I had to think fast. Leaves' little claws were useless; he couldn't reach up and pry Cubone from atop him. It was high time I stopped trying to fight this battle like a Pokémon trainer and just use whatever came to me.
"Do a barrel roll!" I ordered, and Leaves promptly did so, causing Cubone to lose grip and fall to the dirt. Leaves followed this up by leaping atop his opponent in a kind of belly flop. Cubone bellowed in pain; I took it Leaves wasn't light. The Bulb-is-sore stood up and opened his mouth wide. He was about to do something either very dramatic or very cannibalistic.
"Bulb………aaaaaaaaaaa…" he droned, and his leafy growth began to glow and pulse. In any other story, that would've sounded rather rude.
Cubone twitched slightly, then suddenly sprang to life and kicked up off the ground. Before Leaves could reveal his dynamic intentions, Cubone had desperately flung his bone straight down Leaves' gaping mouth. He choked and his eyes watered, his green thing dying down to its regular colour. Cubone proceeded to punch and kick at his helpless target, who was too devastated by this onslaught to defend himself. Cubone lifted his fist, and wound up a final punch.
"Noooo!" I whimpered, as Leaves stood there dizzily.
Before he could land the clincher, Cubone stopped as suddenly as he had began. His fist fell to his side and he looked around, befuddled.
"Alright!!" I said with glee, "He's highly confuzzled! That's what happens when you make him Thrash around like a git, Richie!"
Before we could capitalise or I could cite some other fascinating fact, Cubone ripped the fruit off his spike and chomped it down. He instantly regained his focus.
"…Until he eats a Bitter Berry! Confusion nullified." Richard laughed wickedly, "Now Cubone, put that TM to good use and Dig!" Cubone threw aside the mouthwash he had been gargling while the attention was off him, pulled the bone from Leaves' mouth, then span it along his fingers like some… thing that spins. He thrust it toward the ground, and started to drill. He leapt down the hole he was rapidly digging, and Leaves had finally gotten his second wind. Cripes, must've been twelfth wind by this point.
"Leaves!" I gulped, "Brace yourself!" Leaves grinned sneakily and uncovered something shiny from under the dirt. He slipped it over his claw and raised it menacingly at no one in particular.
"Brass knuckles?" I groaned, "No Leaves, I'm not talking about plan B! Not that kind of brace…"
Cubone interrupted as he shot out from the ground underneath Leaves, propelling them both into the air. Leaves was pummelled fiercely by the propeller-like bone beneath him, before they both fell to the ground. Cubone landed on his feet, Leaves landed on my feet.
"Leaves!" I gasped mournfully (mostly because that bloody hurt). I bent over to pick him up, and the walkman squirted out of my pocket. It landed on the ground and the radio dial flicked across the stations. A static tune came out, like some sort of pep rally cheer. Cubone's eyes widened and he flinched slightly. He lifted the bone up his head, span it again and began stepping towards us.
"Oh no!" I cried, "This is it!"
Cubone quickly threw the spinning bone above his head. He stood there stomping on the spot, then caught it and marched back in the other direction.
"Cubone, NO!" Richard wailed, "You can't do this to me now! Stop that marching!!" Leaves slowly got to his feet, looked at me over his shoulder and I shrugged in response. Seems this Cubone had a thing for music.
"Now's our chance!" I said, "A regular Tackle won't do… Damn well Gore that thing!!" Leaves hunched over for a moment, and then tore off toward his target so fast he was like a blur. When Cubone turned back to us on his march, Leaves crashed into him with such force the pair flew back several feet, before they landed into the hard ground. Cubone lifted his arm weakly and tried to get up, then fell back down.
"I woooooooon!" I cheered, and looked at Leaves. He was tired and battered, but happy. I shot my fist to the air and leapt up and down like a hoon, while Leaves started to walk back towards me.
"Fire Blast!!"
Richard's command came so fast, and Cubone's final attack so much faster that neither Leaves nor I knew what hit us. There was a bright red flash from Cubone's mouth, and a star-shaped flame launched out and engulfed Leaves. I shielded my face as Leaves fell to the ground, char-black. It was too hopeful to assume he was just a very good pretender. Leaves was down and out.
I stood there silently. I… lost?
"Yeeeeeaaaah!" Richard screeched, jumping up and down, "I win, and now your Bulbasaur is MINE!!" He ran onto the battlefield, ready to scoop up both Pokémon.
No! This isn't happening! I won't let it! I ain't forking over Leaves or 10!! There has to be some way of fixing this… Hang on, ten? How about if I…? Hey, it might work…
"Wait!!" I roared, and Richard stopped in his tracks.
"What?" he snapped, annoyed, "Is it about my 10?"
"I should think not!" I said fiercely, and strolled toward him, "When you first spoke to me, how old did you say you were, son?"
"Ten." He replied, "Why?"
"You're awfully smart for your age…" I said, smiling. That smile quickly turned to an intimidating frown, "But not smart enough! You're underage, you can't be a legally licensed Pokémon trainer!" I stomped right up to him and towered over him. I had to take this thing a step further.
"I am from the Pokémon FBI! I'm Agent Tony from the…" trying to think up a name, I looked down at the purple dinosaur on my shirt, "Yenrab division of underage drinking, smoking and other naughty acts!"
Richard whimpered miserably. Either I was scaring him or I had bad BO.
"Now listen up." I continued, "You're a good kid… so I won't turn you in."
"R-really?" he stammered quietly.
"Yeah," I said warmly, "I won't even take your money… I'll just take Cubone with me so you don't get in any trouble, okay?"
Richard nodded without hesitation and wiped away a tear.
"Now get outta my sight before I change my mind!" I snapped, and with that he ran off toward Burake Town. …Television had saved me again. No way I could've come up with that Pokémon FBI rubbish myself. Of course, I can't remember what show it was. I think it had a pineapple and someone named Frank. Frank the Pineapple? Probably not.
Cubone watched as his trainer ran off into the distance, then up at me uncertainly.
"Hey," I muttered, folding my arms, "Not my fault your trainer didn't realise he was actually old enough to be a trainer. Why, the way things are going these days, he's probably old enough to grab a pack of smokes like Maltybros and drink some Jack Damniels…" Cubone chortled at my pronunciation difficulties, a thorny issue with me.
"Hey, let that slide and I'll play lots of music for ya." I chided, to which he nodded happily. Just as well, I didn't expect a 'Lonely' Pokémon to do much happily.
After a short rest and lots of poking with a stick, Leaves had regained consciousness and we were ready to finish the walk to Dezu City. Why, Richard had even left behind Cubone's Pokéball when he took off. I thought I would leave the little gaffer out for now, though. I stretched, and my hand landed on the back pocket I had forgotten these shorts had. I pulled out a tape and grinned.
"Guess what?" I said with a grin, "I even have some travelling music for us!" Cubone hopped up and down happily, and Leaves gave a disinterested smirk. I popped it in the walkman, pressed play and, after a few seconds, the opening guitar to the Proclaimer's I'm Gonna Be began to play. They're gonna love this!
To the Pokémon's shock, it was my voice that proceeded, as I belted out a tune.
When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up for Xatu! When I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who captures Pikachu! It was the special karaoke version I had sung to motivate my Pokémon. Leaves and Cubone screamed, then tore off at top speed toward Dezu City.
"Wow, look at that," I muttered, "I guess that motivation stuff really does work."