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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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Already, they were tired. They had been walking for hours, and it seemed that the Pokémon in Viridian Forest had all vanished. The forest floor was soggy and caked their shoes with mud, as though it had recently rained. Little sunlight reached the floor, and with the sun drifting closer and closer to the horizon, the visibility was dropping. They could make out shapes and basic colors, and the light from Charmander's tail helped them avoid tripping and falling into the muck. They were just over three-fourths of the way through, and could care less if they came across any Pokémon, as long as they got to the guardhouse before sunset.
Joanna released a gasp and Mitchell turned quickly on his heel, catching her falling weight. Her knee splashed into the mud and she shot back up, look back at the spot in the path that she tripped over. It was just as muddy as any other spot, with no visible rock or branch for her to have caught her foot on. A line had been cut across the path, though, something that had not been there when they passed it. Bulbasaur started to growl, the low rumble building in his throat. Charmander sensed it too, but neither of the humans could see.
"Thanks," Joanna said to Mitchell before resuming her careful walk. She could tell that something was there, just off the path, something in the trees. The fact that it had gone by them undetected bothered her. Both of their starters were glancing uneasily off to the sides as they walked, and no one spoke. The sounds of the forest were all around them; the running of water in a nearby stream, the sounds of bugs, the occasional flutter of wings overhead, the rolling of thunder from a storm on Mt. Silver, visible to the west when the trees parted enough for them to see through the canopy.
"Shh, shh, hey, hey," Mitchell said quietly, putting his arm out to stop Joanna, in case she hadn't heard his whispering. She ran into it and stopped, looking up at Mitchell. His eyes were fixed on something in the path, a low-lying figure that looked segmented. It was too large to be a normal bug, yet still small. The segmented body looked a yellow color, and on what they could only assume to be his head was a horn.
"Called it," Mitchell said, reaching for an empty Poké Ball and stepping forward. His foot came up out of the mud with a wet sucking noise, and the shape in the path stopped moving. Its head lifted off of the ground and it looked down the path suspiciously, seeing the bright orange flame on Charmander's tail.
"Ember!" Mitchell yelled, and the bug squealed and started to push away, but the mud was too thick. The bounding red lizard came closer to the smaller creature as it made a desperate attempt to escape, but it could do nothing. The lizard was now on top of it, and a bright jet of flame shot out of its mouth. The flames spread on Weedle's back and he cried out in pain, rolling onto his back. The cool mud touched the flames, and they went out. Charmander jumped backward, ready for his next command.
"Tail Whip!" Mitchell called out, and Charmander swung his tail into the delicate underbelly of the Bug type, the fleshy exterior blistering and cracking. Weedle rolled over to cool the burn with the mud all around, but Charmander whipped it again, sending it flying into the air. It landed not far from Mitchell, who pressed the button on the empty Poké Ball to prepare it to capture the Pokémon.
As Mitchell retracted his arm, Weedle sprang up out of the mud, the point on its head gleaming as it passed through the small patches of sunlight. The teenager let out a yelp as the barb buried itself within his thigh, tearing through his jeans. Weedle yanked it out and began to crawl away, but before it could get far, it felt a light thump on its head. Everything went red, then black. The bug could not move. It had been captured.
"Gah…" Mitchell rasped, one of his hands pressed down hard on the new hole, warm blood spreading onto the leg of his jeans and leaking through his fingers. The wet stickiness of his life's water just made kneeling ankle deep in thick mud all the more uncomfortable. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he felt a headache building up in the depths of his frontal lobe, bright pulsing objects flooding his vision. He could not tell which direction the floor was now, and ended up lying on his side in the muck. Joanna knelt down, reaching into her bag for something.
"I think you're poisoned," she said, stating the obvious. Mitchell moaned and pushed himself onto his feet, his body unstable and legs shaking wildly. He leaned against a tree and waited for the world to stop spinning.
"I have an Antidote, roll up your sleeve," Joanna said, retrieving a needle from her bag, filled with blue liquid. At the sight of the needle, Mitchell's senses came back 110%, and he started backing away, with one arm extended to keep Joanna away.
"Whoa, no, no, no, let's talk about this," he said to her. She crossed her arms.
"Afraid of needles?" she asked, and he shook his head.
"No, no, not afraid,"
"So roll up your sleeve,"
"No,"
"I'm not carrying you when you faint from this,"
"That's fine, I'm not poisoned,"
As he said that, he felt bile rising in his esophagus, but choked it back down. Joanna eyed him, knowing he was lying.
"It's just one little pinch. You went through worse yesterday,"
"Being hit in the face with a book is different than having a sharp piece of metal forced into a vein, I'm fine. Let's keep moving,"
He started to walk and she shrugged, putting the needle back into her bag and slinging it. She grimaced when she realized that her socks were now soaked with mud and water, and desperately wanted a shower. She could imagine what they would feel like when they had dried: old, dirty, crusty, and disgusting. She refused to spend the night in this forest.
"Look," Mitchell said, pointing down at the place where Weedle had been sitting before it had been attacked. There was a line cut across the mud, not unlike the one they had seen before.
"Well, that totally took all the mystery out of this forest," Jo commented, continuing forward into the darkness. Mitchell followed closely and quietly, almost able to feel the poison running through his blood, messing with his heart rate, his thoughts, his actions. He was beginning to move sluggishly, and Joanna had to have noticed. She changed her walking speed four times to make sure Mitchell could keep up, but Bulbasaur and Charmander pressed onward as quickly as they had been before, scouting out the path ahead. With Weedle no longer stalking them from the sidelines, everything seemed peaceful. Occasionally they passed a hive tree, with Kakuna and Metapod hanging from the branches, suspended by a sticky web-like material. Neither Mitchell nor Joanna were interested.
"This place sucks. We better not have to deal with anymore forests once we get outta here," Joanna said to Mitchell, and he mumbled in agreement. She started to think it would be a good idea to lag a bit behind Mitchell, to catch him at a weak moment and inject him with Antidote. She could tell that he was watching her, though, waiting for her to reach into her bag and pull out that shiny pointed object.
He couldn't do anything about it if I did, she thought, smiling. Control always made her smile, though she tried not to take leadership if she could help it.
Ducking under a tree branch, she felt a sticky glob of some foreign material splash onto her face forcefully, covering her eyes. She cried out and stepped back, nearly falling into Mitchell. The sticky mess solidified and formed webbing, and she tried to claw it away and landed on the muddy ground. Bulbasaur and Charmander started to circle the humans, facing outward, watching the forests for movement. Something was still out there, and the Pokémon could hear it scurrying throughout the branches around them.
"Where are you?" Bulbasaur barked into the shadows, and he heard a giddy response.
"Up,"
Charmander and Bulbasaur both looked up in time to see a fleeting shape hop between the treetops, with agility neither of them could keep up with. It spiraled around another branch, gripping the trunk of a tree and sliding into the mud.
Joanna knelt down and soaked her hands in the mud after tearing the glob off of her face, though she could feel the remnants sticking to her eyebrows and the inside of her nose. She blew air out through her nostrils to try and dislodge the goop, but it was set. She glared at her surroundings, looking for whatever was responsible. Bulbasaur and Charmander could see it moving, but Joanna's eyes could not distinguish the shape hiding in the mud nearby.
"Fun game. Scares humans," the squeaky voice called out to Bulbasaur and Charmander, and both glanced sidelong at the other. The shape had disappeared into the mud, but reappeared on the other side of the path, skirting the treeline and kicking up mucky water. A glob of webbing hit Bulbasaur on the side and it bucked, trying to get the irritating material off of its skin. It rolled in the mud as Charmander kept an eye on the moving shape in the darkness.
"Play game. Fun game. Scare humans. Great fun," the voice called, and Charmander started to form a fireball in his mouth.
"Fire no fun. I play with humans. Play with me?" it said, and it shot onto the muddy path, its green flesh now visible to all. It started to shoot more webbing out of a tiny hole on its face, what could have been its mouth.
"Called it!" Joanna shouted, and Mitchell waved for her to go ahead.
"Vine Whip!" she called out, and Bulbasaur popped out of the mud, his side now free of webbing. The green bug sat up on its tail and kept spraying the webbing, trying to entomb Charmander in a silk cocoon. Bulbasaur's vines cracked as they made contact with the Caterpie's tender body, knocking it to the side.
"No fun! Play game, no fight!" it screamed, but Bulbasaur did not listen.
"Tackle!" Joanna commanded, and Bulbasaur lunged at the Caterpie, already reeling from the vines. It felt the hard skull of the Grass Pokémon collide with the pink antennae on its head, bending it backward painfully and causing the bug to sink completely into the mud.
"Bring him up, I need a clear shot!" Joanna said, and Bulbasaur stuck a vine under the surface of the mud, wrapping it around the weakened shape and pulling it out. A red and white ball flew through the air and landed on Caterpie's head. It was sucked inside and didn't bother struggling.
"Bravo," Mitchell clapped weakly, and Joanna flipped her hair jokingly. Bulbasaur brought her the Poké Ball and she clipped it on with the others.
"The guardhouse is right there," Mitchell said, pointing down the path at a single yellow light burning in the distance. It was like a beacon of hope for both of them. Joanna hoped that they had a bathtub or a shower, but all Mitchell wanted was a bed. Looking at himself, he was sure that the workers would object to him, as they wouldn't want him to muddy up their cots. But he was too tired for a shower. Such a conundrum. He could always just ignore what the guards said.
"Move faster," Joanna called to him, and he realized he had drifted into a world of his own thoughts for a few seconds. His companions were already a hundred feet ahead of him, though they probably had a few hundred yards left before they would reach the building. The poison was starting to wear off, he thought, and he could feel his vitality bubbling back up inside of him. His pace increased to normal and he caught up with Joanna, confident that he had beaten it.
He doubled over and vomited in the middle of the path, and all of his symptoms screamed themselves back into existence at one time. Joanna sighed and shook her head, walking around the puddle of bile and Mitchell's most recent meal, the unappealing mess of neutral color, and slid her arm up under his, supporting him with her shoulder. Moments later, they were stumbling up the guardhouse's steps.
The door opened slowly inward and the three boys within the large rectangular building gazed out into the darkness. One reached for a Poké Ball, as if expecting something large and threatening to step in through the portal. Instead came the four figures, two human and two not.
"Hey, it's those two again!" one of the boys at the other end of the guardhouse told his companion, a blue-eyed youth dressed in a shirt, boxers, and socks. The speaker had on a baseball cap with a Saffron City logo stitched onto the front, covering up a head of shaggy blonde hair that otherwise ran wild. The two dirty teenagers shut the door, one of them hunched over and clutching his stomach tightly. The other guardhouse occupant, the one who had gone for his Poké Ball as soon as the door opened, reached into his bag and pulled out a syringe, standing up and approaching the hurt boy. The female shook her head and held out a hand to stop him.
"No needles," she said, and the hurt boy gave her a thumbs-up. The auburn-haired girl looked over at the two boys at the other end of the building.
"Hey, look, it's Danny and Eric," she told her partner, who looked up, his face drooping with weakness.
"How's it going, boys?" Mitchell asked, and his stomach groaned loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. He darted for a trash can near the door and stuck his head inside, ejecting the fresh contents of his digestive system into the bottom of the bag.
"That sounds juicy," Eric commented, and a unanimous "Eww" followed, filling the chamber. The sick boy stood up, wiping the remnants of the burning liquid from his mouth and nose. He felt better now.
"See? Didn't even need an Antidote," he said to Joanna, who covered her nose quickly when his breath reached it.
"Please go brush your teeth," she said, and he obeyed, entering the men's bathroom on one side of the building. The door shut slowly behind him.
"Any luck with the Mankey?" Eric asked. Joanna bit her lip. Would he be angry if she said yes?
"Yeah, a little,"
"Dammit! I knew I should've stayed longer,"
"Long story about the Mankey. It can wait for another day. I feel really gross," she said, unslinging her backpack and tossing it over to an empty bed. Bulbasaur and Charmander were already comfortable on the floor of the guardhouse. They were stretched out and relaxing finally, no longer hunted by rogue Caterpie.
"Looks like we're spending the night here," Joanna said to the Pokémon, "We don't want to be out in the dark without a tent,"
"Good plan," Danny commented.
Joanna pulled out a pair of pajamas and disappeared through the women's bathroom door. Shortly afterward, the three boys in the main room heard the squeaking of shower controls and the escaping of water through a showerhead.
"She's pretty," Danny said, and Eric nodded. The older boy on the other side of the room, sitting up in his bed, chuckled.
"Younger every day, aren't they?" he said to himself, grabbing a newspaper nearby and opening to an article about the Rocket Organization.
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Author Notes: Long time no see, eh? Well, you know, life catches up to people sometimes. And by life, I mean school. Sorry if this one seems a little rushed toward the end, that part was written on a Sunday morning before church, so I was very likely tired. This is also the shortest chapter, I think, but they won't stay that way. I promise. I'm not sure if I'll be updating this next or Insurrection, but they'll both be updated soon. In the next chapter *checks notes* we get a glimpse of an event happening further down the road, a bit of Pewter City, and maybe some law stuff (I gotta go and check how much time has passed. Oak gave Mitch 3 days, and I think the first day in Pewter will be the third day, so the second day in Pewter will be when the long arm of the law catches up. Chapter 14, maybe.)
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