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Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. Pokémon is the property of Game Freak and Nintendo and all of those awesome people who invented it.
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Joanna saw that Mitchell and Charmander had gone rigid, staring up into the trees above them, though she could not see the pack of crazed Mankey staring down. She called to them again, but neither moved. If the pack had already found him, there was nowhere he could run. Joanna looked down at her belt, at the two Poké Balls sitting there. One was a fainted and useless Rattata that she would need to take to the Center, but in the other was a Spearow that had not been harmed by any more than a Tackle attack. Flying beat Fighting, she remembered.
"Spearow, go!" she yelled, and the ball cracked open in midair and let out the brown and black bird Pokémon. It flapped its short wings a few times to figure out where it was and what had happened. It tilted its head to the side to see its new trainer facing another, not too far away.
"Spearow, fly into that treetop and get rid of all the Mankey!"
The first of the Mankey bent its short legs and sprang off of the branch, covered in fresh bark, landing only a few feet from the immobile trainer. Spearow's Peck attack narrowly missed each of the falling Mankeys that followed the first down and onto the dirt. Mitchell saw that they were preparing to charge, and the first one looked absolutely enraged. He could see a visible vein forming in the Pokémon's forehead, bulging and pulsing with its rapid heartbeat. Without thinking, he shut his eyes so that none of the pig-monkeys would think he was challenging them and got low to the ground. Charmander stood firm, ready to fight. As he sat waiting, a sickeningly sweet breeze blew by, making the temperature and humidity rise and slightly tinting the air. The scent filled their surroundings completely, sending Charmander, Spearow, and the distant Bulbasaur into fits of revolted coughing. The Mankey pack was now rushing forward, and Mitchell felt their wiry fur against his arms and shoulders and waited to feel one sitting atop his back, but he opened his eyes and saw that they had run past him. They were rushing down the path that made Route 2, toward the guardhouse visible in the distance. Spearow fell out of the tree and landed on his back, the high-pitched gargling cough drowning out the rapid heavings of Charmander and the deep hacks of Bulbasaur.
"Spearow, Bulbasaur, return!" Joanna shouted, holding her Poké Balls out. Two lights shout out, enveloping the convulsing creatures. Mitchell pulled out Charmander's Poké Ball and called him back as well, standing up and making sure there were no more Mankey around.
"What in the world just happened?" Mitchell asked, but neither of the trainers understood what had just happened. The smell, like strawberry shortcake, hung in the air like a dense fog, nearly visible. Joanna was still trying to comprehend what had happened. The smell, whatever it was, seemed to have calmed the Mankey pack down, but why had they all run off like that? And what was wrong with her two Pokémon? Above all, though, she wanted to find the source of that delicious scent.
"Let's just get out of here. We got what we came here for," Mitchell said. His heart was still working overtime from what he interpreted to be a near-death experience, and he wasn't keen on ever returning to Route 2.
"I think we should get the Pokémon looked at before we leave," Joanna said. They left the route quickly, breathing a sigh of relief when they passed out of the sticky cloud and into clean, fresh air. The town was not far after that, and the red roof of the Pokémon Center drew their eyes. The doors slid open and they walked inside, approaching the desk. A brunette nurse with a ponytail was sitting with one finger twirling around the phone cord, and other holding the receiver to her face.
"Nothing an Antidote won't fix, ma'am. Yes, it should be a few minutes before the poison goes away, but after that he'll be good as new. Thank you for calling the Viridian Pokémon Center. Bye!" she said, hanging up the phone. She looked up at the two visitors, who were already unclipping their Poké Balls and setting them on the counter for her to take.
"Hello there, Jamie," she said, looking directly at Joanna. He looked over at her confusedly and suddenly felt her painful stomp on his foot when she realized he was going to blow her cover. He bit his tongue and looked back at Charmander's ball.
"Hey, Nurse Angela. I don't know if you've met my friend, this is Colin," Joanna told the woman, putting her hand on Mitchell's shoulder as she gave him his fake name. He glanced sidelong at her and nodded to Angela.
"That must've hurt," the nurse commented, taking the five Poké Balls off of the counter and taking them to a table behind her with six slots. The two slots closest to the desk were used for Charmander and Mankey. Bulbasaur, Spearow, and Rattata occupied the ones by the wall. Mitchell put his hand on his bruise again and pressed on it. It still hurt, though less than it had yesterday.
"Do you know what I can do to get rid of it fast? Like a pill?" Mitchell asked. Angela seemed deep in thought for a second before her answer.
"I don't think so. Ice packs will help, but it'll be a couple weeks before it goes completely away. Don't get a needle and try to suck the blood out or something, I know someone who tried that. Didn't end too well," Angela responded, pushing a green button on the healing table. Small, transparent spheres enclosed the Poké Balls and filled with a bluish liquid that gave off a glow. It was then that Mitchell and Joanna noticed the television set hanging from the ceiling in one of the corners of the room. It was tuned in to the local news station, where a reporter that looked very familiar to Mitchell – the same one from the news he had seen at Oak's lab – was sitting alongside the main anchor.
"Yes, Ms. Saxon, and you had a reason for visiting Viridian City, I mean, other than to just see your good friends at Channel 6, didn't you?" the anchor asked, and Veronica nodded.
"That's right, Liz, I've come to inform the city of the two runaways from Pallet Town," she said, turning her face to the camera. Mitchell felt as though she was staring at him through the camera, as if she could see him standing there. Angela was focused on the healing table, luckily, but it only seemed like a matter of time before she looked up.
"Their names are Mitchell Direnetti and Joanna Reese. Last night, Mitchell vanished from his home after his father Edward attacked his wife. According to a witness, Edward also attacked Mitchell, which may have been the reason for his fleeing. Edward shot the witness, who has chosen to remain anonymous, shortly afterward. Amber, the wife and one of the victims, escaped at this time and went to the police department to report what had happened. Ambulances and police cars were dispatched to the Direnetti household in northwest Pallet, but both Edward and Mitchell were nowhere to be found.
"Later on into the night and early morning, the search yielded the body of Edward Direnetti, found sticking through the windshield of a car after crashing into a tree at a high speed. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
"We later received word that the laboratory of esteemed Pokémon researcher Professor Oak had been burglarized. Oak claims that the perpetrator was female, which rules out Mitchell Direnetti as a suspect. However, we also know of one more runaway, Joanna Reese. Reese's father called the police department late into the night and claimed that his daughter had information on the whereabouts of the missing boy. Upon the police's arrival, she too had disappeared without a trace. Mr. Reese believes that the two are traveling together," Saxon finished.
"And you believe that by spreading this story to surrounding towns, you block off their escape routes and eventually bring them to justice?" the anchor asked, and Saxon said yes.
"And," Saxon said, her eyes again locking with Mitchell's through the screen, "here are their most recent photographs,"
"Angela, can I check the score of the game?" the boy asked, scooping the remote up from the edge of the desk and changing the channel just as their photos came up on screen. Channel 8 was sports, and this TV had no Channel 7, so the switch was very quick. A football player was flying through the air with his arms outstretched, the ball just barely falling out of his reach and bouncing off of the ground.
"Smooth one," Joanna whispered to Mitchell, giving off a sigh of relief. Mitchell feigned interest in the game. He wasn't a fan of football, not since his father had grown to like it. That was one of the things that Mitchell changed about himself in order to make him different from his father.
"Bummer. I like Sandlin," Angela said, referencing the player who had just missed the ball. Mitchell counted down the seconds from 30, deciding that they wouldn't have the pictures up for longer than that.
"Yeah, he's a cool guy," Mitchell said. From the TV speakers came a roar of excitement and anger as the cameraman shifted the lens to the seats nearest the field, where a large fight had broken out. Now Mitchell was interested.
"Wow, something worth watching," Angela said, hearing the egg timer-like buzz of the healing table as it finished with the Pokémon. She kept watching the fight, which grew larger with every passing second, while loading the balls back into the plastic bag. She brought them over and set them on the counter next to Joanna, who unglued her eyes from the fight and starting sifting through for hers. She felt Charmander's warmth from his ball and saw the scratches in the paint on Bulbasaur's, but none of the others were very obvious at all.
"Oh, sorry, I meant to keep them separate," Angela said, trying to distinguish for herself what was in each ball. Mitchell took Charmander and let him out, just to check. Joanna did the same with Bulbasaur and her new Rattata. The nurse knew that the ball with the slight wind around it was Spearow, so there was no need for the others to be checked.
"Well, thanks for the help," Mitchell said, putting Charmander back into the ball and clipping it alongside Mankey. Angela smiled and wished them luck on their journey, and they left the Pokémon Center through the sliding doors.
"If we catch up to Eric and Danny, they'll be pretty mad at you," Joanna said, after they had walked a few yards from the red roofed building, "They looked for days and couldn't find a Mankey, you found one after a couple of hours,"
Mitchell smiled and unclipped the ball from his belt as the strawberry scent from earlier came back, though it was much weaker than it had been further down Route 2. He looked down at the ball and pressed the button on the front, wanting to see his first catch, now that it wasn't trying to kill anyone. He dropped the ball and it cracked open, spitting out the reddish light that transformed into the nearly two-foot red-eyed creature. It was sitting on the ground and staring up at its owner when it was fully formed, the menacing look it had had before replaced by one of respect and admiration. Its nose twitched as the strawberry scent went into its snout.
It shrieked its name with an unnatural pitch and stood up, turning to face down Route 2 as if nothing else existed. It launched into the air and grabbed the nearest tree branch and started to swing down the road.
"Mankey, stop!" Mitchell shouted, but the creature could not hear him. Already he was too far away for the Pokéball to be able to recall him, so Mitchell started to run after him, with Joanna following closely behind.
"Bulbasaur, go! Vine Whip it before it gets too far away!" Joanna shouted, throwing the ball up ahead of Mitchell. He pounded by quickly, still calling for the pig-monkey, and Bulbasaur popped out and started to follow. Two green vines snaked out of Bulbasaur's bulb and started to move forward, but his front legs failed him and he slid into the ground face-first, hacking and coughing as he did so.
"What the hell!" Joanna exclaimed, calling the Grass Pokémon back into the ball. It was the smell, she could tell. It got thicker the further they moved, and for some reason Pokémon couldn't breathe in it, none except for Mankey, it seemed. Mitchell was way up ahead of her now, already turning into the field where she had caught Spearow. Joanna could not see Mankey anymore. She wished she had a bike.
"Mankey, get back here right now!" Mitchell shouted again as he left the field, now standing on a brick path that ran for a couple hundred feet before turning to the left. The Fighting Pokémon did not even acknowledge that it had heard him, thinking only of the irresistible smell. He could see more Mankey joining in the chase, swinging through the treetops and headed for the source of the smell, which was getting closer and closer. When his Mankey went deeper into the trees, Mitchell was forced to leave the path and go into the wooded area as well. On his way in, he saw a Rattata on the ground that had been sent into convulsions by the smell. Joanna had caught up and seemed to notice it as well. She stopped and unzipped her backpack, pulling out a small blanket and wrapping it around the Pokémon. She thought perhaps she could block out the smell, but it was everywhere. The Rattata started to thrash even more wildly when it realized that she had grabbed it. It kicked and released itself from the jacket and stumbled away, coughing and wheezing the entire time.
Mitchell came upon a small clearing, where the pack of Mankey from earlier had merged with what seemed like every other wild Mankey in the area. They were all crouched down and digging their snouts into a reddish liquid that filled a small indented area in the center. Immediately the boy knew that this was the source of the smell. His Mankey was in there somewhere, though he could not see which one was his. They inhaled the liquid quickly, the small hole emptying quickly and the Mankey standing up, appeased. Joanna caught up and stopped near Mitchell, both standing and staring at the Mankey swarm. They looked dazed, as if in the early stages of heatstroke. One by one, they fell over backwards, landing and not getting back up.
When the last one collapsed, both Mitchell and Joanna saw Poké Balls being thrown from the shaded area off to the right. They ducked and watched the Mankey as they were captured, every single one of them being encased in the red and white balls and not even fighting back. All of them, that is, except for one. The ball bounced off of Mitchell's Mankey and sat near him, unopened. Joanna took a step forward, but Mitchell held her back.
"Wait," he said. He was beginning to understand what had happened. The smell was some kind of lure for Mankey. It was the rarest of the Pokémon on Route 2, so it made sense that someone would make a substance to attract them. Maybe it was some kind of nectar that attracted Mankey and repelled anything else. It was also an obvious poison, and potent as well. The Mankey had only a few seconds upon drinking it before fainting. A few seconds passed before another Poké Ball flew from the shadows, hitting Mitchell's Mankey again, and landing next to the first, also unopened. They heard the cracking of leaves under boots and watched a figure emerge, clutching another Poké Ball. She was wearing a black spaghetti string tank top with her midriff exposed, revealing a sapphire belly button ring. Her shorts left little to imagination and were tight and beige. She had long blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail and looked to be around twenty or twenty-one. She approached the Mankey and crouched down, poking it with her Poké Ball.
"Come on now, I'm not losing my five-hundred because you don't want to climb in the ball, little Mankey," the woman said. Mitchell saw a pistol sticking out of the woman's small backpack. Just in case, he pulled his out and stepped forward. Joanna looked at him as if he were crazy. Not only was he carrying a gun, but he had pulled it on a random woman in the middle of the woods.
"Typically," he said, and her head snapped backward, catching his eye, "you weaken a Pokémon before you capture it," The woman stood up slowly, her hands raising into the air in compliance with the gun in her face. She looked genuinely scared, as if Mitchell's face didn't ring a bell in her mind. Joanna stayed crouched in the trees as Mitchell got closer.
"Okay, if you want money, I've got money, if you want Mankey then take your pick, just please don't shoot me, sir," the blonde said respectfully. Mitchell stopped and stared.
"Do you not even recognize me?" he asked confusedly. Her expression changed quickly when she realized who he was, but the fear was still there.
"You're that boy the police are looking for in Pallet Town. Mitchell, right? Okay, if you'll let me go, I'll give you my wallet and the Mankey, just please, don't shoot,"
"That's not what you're supposed to recognize me for," he said, and her expression, that abject terror, turned to a quizzical stare and promptly to an amused smirk.
"Oh, you're the boy from last night," she said. Her hands went down and she took a step forward, but Mitchell waved the gun to make her stop. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"Okay, look, I'm sorry for last night. I was just trying to get a little money. I'm not really like that, I swear, I just needed some bread or something and there's no Pokémon Center in Pallet so I couldn't go there for a meal. I'm really, really sorry for that. But I had to put on the act, you know? Otherwise you probably would've just walked off. My gun wasn't even loaded," she explained. Mitchell looked at her warily, but she sounded honestly sorry about what had happened. And while he wasn't exactly the type to trust someone who waved a gun at him less than 24 hours ago, she had a plausible story. She wasn't the only wandering trainer who suffered temporary poverty in her journey. It happened to all of them.
"Is Pidgey okay?" Mitchell asked, and she nodded. "Good as new,"
"That's good. How did you get all these Mankey here, and why?" Mitchell asked. It was beginning to sound like an interrogation to the girl.
"It's a poison. I don't want to hurt them, and the Center cures it really fast, but it's the easiest way to catch them. It's not perfectly in line with the rules and laws and stuff, but it gets the job done, and in the end the Mankey all get good homes so it's okay," she said, "The poison smells good to the Pokémon it's made for, but the others can't stand it so they run away,"
"Mankey, return," Mitchell said, keeping his gun hand level with her head and using his other to pull his Pokémon out of the crowd of Poké Balls.
"That makes a lot of sense," the blonde muttered.
"I don't trust you," Mitchell told her, basic instinct overpowering the logical progression his mind had just followed..
"I said I'm sorry, okay? You have to understand, I hadn't eaten in three days and neither had Pidgey. We couldn't catch the ferry to Cinnabar because someone stole my money when I got into Pallet Town, some twelve-year-old punk. You were a really easy target, I'm really sorry about it and I wish I could take it back. Can you just put the gun down and we can start over?"
"Your name is Bailey?" Mitchell asked. She looked at him blankly.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"You left your gloves with me in the alleyway," he said, pulling them out while keeping the gun trained on Bailey. He tossed them over to her and she looked at them, balling them up like socks and holding them in her hands.
"Let's just start over, and we can just pretend none of that robbery stuff ever happened," Bailey begged. She picked up one of the Mankey and offered it as a truce. Mitchell still didn't completely trust her, but he had never suspected someone of her looks and age to ever be a criminal like she had seemed.
"How do you clean this up?" Mitchell asked. She looked irritated that he seemed like he was completely ignoring her.
"I'll clean it when we're okay," she said. He put the gun down and she extended her hand.
"Okay, fine. Call me Mitch," he said, gripping her hand. She smiled sinisterly and he knew he had made a huge mistake. In one fleeting movement, she twisted his arm around and up behind him, driving her elbow into the small of his back and knocking him face-first onto the ground.
"Sorry for this handsome, but you don't just go waving a gun in my face," she said.
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Author Notes: Well, took me a while to get that one up, didn't it? Sorry about that, I'm in between my RP, this story, Dead Rising, and planning a Star Fox fanfic that I plan to post here at . In the next chapter, Rival Battle 2 will happen and…hmm…well, my planning is all thrown off because I decided to change some stuff for this chapter, but the next one will probably end at the guardhouse before the Viridian Forest. R&R, people, I now accept anonymous reviews for those of you too lazy to login or those who don't have accounts.
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