Chapter 10: Magma
"Whew!" Risa said, slumping down beneath a tree on Route 36. They'd been training in the patches of grass and small trees. Heat fell down next to her, looking somewhat tired. "Good job getting rid of those annoying pidgeys."
"Whatever," Heat mumbled. "Most of 'em ran away before I could knock 'em out."
Risa shrugged, digging around in her backpack to find her water bottle. "You thirsty?"
"No."
"Okay, okay, just askin'," Risa said, gulping down some of the lukewarm water. Heat gave her a strange look. "Y'know, you're not the only one who's working out. I'm not super athletic and I've been havin' to run behind you and run around to find better vantage points and run when you sprint off to find something else to beat. Plus, it's hot."
"No, it's not. You're crazy."
"I'm not crazy, you're a fire-type, so you don't even notice." Risa made a gesture with her hands, flinging them up towards the blaring sun. Her open water bottle spewed its contents up into the blanket-like air, some of it landing on her head and the rest splattering against the tree behind her. Thanks to all the heat - not to mention sitting next to a fire-type pokemon that was actually on fire - she didn't mind the water on the back of her neck. "It's the middle of the summer so it's hot, so I'm hot."
Heat sniggered.
"Shut up," his trainer whined, not noticing that the tree she was leaning against was beginning to move. "I didn't mean it like that!"
The pokemon sneered. "You're ugly, nobody would like you."
"Heat, you're mean!" Risa whined, standing up and managing to avoid a swinging branch by sheer dumb luck. She assumed Heat's sudden shift of facial expression from smug to scared was due to the difference in their height, and she took that as a good thing. "I'm twelve years old, so I don't need to -"
"E-E-EVIL MUTANT TREE!" Heat managed to sit out before dashing in the opposite direction. Risa managed to turn just as the tree swung another triangular branch down at her head, shrieking and dashing after him.
It was only when they had managed to put enough space between them and the homicidal plant to deem themselves "safe" did Risa realize she'd left behind all her stuff. She turned, and to her dismay, the strange-looking tree now stood in between her and her backpack (and, more importantly, her water bottle; though, soon after thinking that, she realized she should have been more worried about her Pokedex or Heat's pokeball).
"Heat, it's a plant! Use ember!"
"What? I'm not goin' near that thing! It's weird!"
"Just set it on fire and we'll be FINE!"
"No!"
"Do it," Risa hissed, "or I'll tell all your future champion friends that you couldn't battle when you were little 'cause you were scared of a tree."
The cyndaquil grumbled something incoherent, but stomped towards the tree anyway and took in a deep breath. His backside burst into flames and he opened his mouth to spew enough tiny fireballs at the tree that Risa may have even called it a weak flamethrower attack if she was more myopic than she was.
The tree growled, but didn't look at all hurt by the fire. In fact, the fire didn't even leave a mark, much less the desired large expanse of black, charred plant skin.
Risa gaped. "What - is that -"
"I TOLD YOU THAT TREE WAS WEIRD!"
"Well, yeah, but - MOVE!" The tree slammed one of its branch-arms down onto the ground, releasing a barrage of rocks that flew up into the air and tumbled down towards her pokemon. "R-rock slide?" she shrieked, dashing to the side to avoid one of the mini-boulders. "What kind of plant knows rock slide?"
"A really WEIRD one!" Heat yelled from behind a not-so-small rock. How he managed to avoid the brunt of the rock slide, Risa did not know. She suspected it involved luck and an unusually helpful burst of stupidity.
Risa nodded, then noticed that the tree seemed ensconced with picking up various rocks that had fallen on the ground due to the rock slide attack and throwing them at Heat (or using them as a battering ram with which to flush him out of his rocky safe zone). Although she felt slightly worried for her outmatched cyndaquil, this meant she had a clear shot at getting to her backpack.
She took it. Hurling herself across the grassy hill, she managed to sprint over to her dusty backpack without the "weird tree" (as Heat so eloquently put it) noticing. After digging around a bit, she found her desired red electronic encyclopedia and whipped out her Pokedex. Flipping it open, she held it up so it could read data on the tree.
"S-sudowoodo," she read out loud, stuttering a bit due to a lack of breath. "The - the imitation pokemon. 'If a tree branch shakes w-when there's no wind, it's n-not a tree, it's a - a sudowoodo. It - it hides from the rain.' And it's a - rock type?! Heat! Heat, it's not a grass-type - it's a rock-type!"
"Yeah, I kinda noticed!" Heat's voice yelled from underneath one of the rocks. The tree, now known to be a (rather angry) sudowoodo, growled and tried to kick one of the rocks off of him. The rock shattered. Luckily, Heat didn't happen to be under that particular rock.
"I think it got mad 'cause I hit it with water from my water bottle! It says it hides from the rain, so I don't think it likes water!"
"I noticed that, too! Come up with something useful, idiot!"
Risa stared at the battle, her mind racing. What could they do? Heat was a fire-type, not a water-type. All he knew was ember, tackle, leer, and - "SMOKESCREEN!" She heard what sounded like a muffled explosion, and suddenly the sudowoodo and the pile of rocks were hidden by a thick layer of black smoke. "Good, now find it and use leer - use it a lot!"
"I can't see it! And if it can't see me, I don't think -"
"Shut up and do it!" Risa yelled back, not wanting to hear Heat's excuses, however logical they may have been. Instead, she went back to digging around in her backpack, looking for something she thought might help.
"Okay, so I've been looking at it really meanly, and I think it's kinda mad now."
"Good," Risa said, holding up two things - one was a full water and the other an empty pokeball. "Now run out of the smoke."
"Are you CRAZY? Wait - don't answer. But then it'll be able to HIT ME WITH ROCKS."
"It'll be fine! Do it!"
"Fine, but I'm tellin' everyone how crazy you are!"
She turned to face the smoke; a second later Heat zipped out of the smoke and began to make a beeline for her. "Good - get behind me!"
Heat dashed around her and peeked out from behind her legs at the sudowoodo, who had just begun to lumber out of the smoke. "See? It's really mad," whispered Heat as he ducked his head back behind her legs. "Really, really mad. And you're stupid," he added.
Risa ignored him, calling to their opponent instead. "He's right behind me! Why don'tcha come and get him!"
This appeared to work, as the irate sudowoodo shouted something angry and began to jog towards her. Risa held her breath, waiting for it to come close enough, and then -
Without thinking too much, she threw the entire contents of the water bottle into the sudowoodos' face. It shrieked, flailing around and squinting its eyes as if the lukewarm bottled water had been some sort of blinding acid. Risa then jumped towards it, slamming the pokeball into its face.
She fell to the side when one of its arms slammed into hers, but it still disappeared into the pokeball. Holding her arm and hoping she would only have a nasty bruise the next day as opposed to an actual fracture, she wriggled around to look at the pokeball status.
It shook once, then a second time, then a third time. Then it stood still in the tall, dry, yellow grass for what seemed like an hour, and then it dinged.
"You caught the weird tree monster," Heat said, sounding like he couldn't believe it. "That was amazing. Really stupid, but kind of amazing. But!" He turned to her, already on his hind legs. "I'm only gonna share my battle time if it's really powerful."
"Heat," Risa began, panting a bit. "It - it almost buried you in r-rocks. I - I think it's pretty - pretty good at fighting."
"Whatever. It'd better be."
---
Three hours, two cross-town bus rides, and one Pokemon Center visit later, Risa was back on grassy Route 36 watching her new sudowoodo throw a large rock at a wild pidgey and knock it out in one hit. Luckily, her arm really did only bruise - the nurse at the Pokemon Center (who begrudgingly agreed to check Risa's arm even though her practice was in pokemon medicine) said it was nothing to worry about. It did hurt, though.
"Um, that was really good," she said, exchanging a half-amazed, half-terrified look at her former only teammate. "What attack was that?"
"Rock throw," the sudowoodo replied, turning and standing pretty still. He had soft brown eyes that looked kind once he snapped out of his murderous rampage, and his wide mouth generally had nice things to say. "I learned it from Crys."
Risa frowned. "Um, who's Crys?"
"My trainer."
"But - um, I-I'm your trainer." Risa held up a red-and-white metallic sphere. "I caught you. Today. It's registered in my Pokedex and I translated you and everything. I-I'm your trainer."
The sudowoodo shook his head slowly. "Crys is my trainer. Her real name is Mariko Amaiwa, but she goes by Crys, which is short for Crystal. Do you know her?"
"N-no..."
"Oh," the sudowoodo said, looking rather dejected. For something that didn't seem to show much emotion on his face, he was starting to look pretty sad. "My pokeball broke," he added. "And my name's Pseudo."
"Oh," Risa replied, not exactly sure what to say.
"Aaaawk-waaaaard," whispered her other pokemon, but he shut up when she kicked him lightly in the stomach.
Risa stared down at the pokeball she'd used to catch Pseudo earlier that day. "But I'm registered as your original trainer."
"But I like Crys," he replied, though he quickly added an, "I'm sorry, that was rude. I shouldn't say rude things."
Risa cursed the heavens for sending her a polite pokemon that really wanted to get away from her. It was like lemon juice on the paper cut that was Heat the cyndaquil. "But - but you're a rock-type! You beat birds! I need to rechallenge Faulkner tomorrow!"
Pseudo perked up at this. "A gym battle? I can do that. But afterwards, I only go with you until we can find my real trainer."
As stung as she was when Pseudo referred to this "Crys" person as his real trainer, she gladly accepted. A powerful rock-type pokemon offering to win her a Zephyr Badge was a powerful rock-type pokemon offering to win her a Zephyr Badge.
"Well, um, can we keep training?"
"Of course."
As they began to walk, Risa looked down at her diminutive cyndaquil. "Please tell me you'll let him share 'your' battle time."
"Fine, but only if he doesn't throw rocks at me."
"I don't think he will."
"Then fine. Whatever."
"Good."
Nineteen days left.
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Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. I do own this story.
Author's Note: I think sudowoodos are pretty awesome. They're like poser trees that shake when you hit them with water. Anybody with me?