The route to Petalburg was a short one, but this didn't stop wannabe Trainer kids from hanging around with their pet Zigzagoons pretending they knew how to fight. Abby, handily equipped with nimble wings and a keen eye for weak spots, water-gunned them into submission while Hickory leaped on them and scratched with wild abandon.
I peered around the next bend in the path to see a kid with a bug net and an absurdly large straw hat looking around expectantly. "Damn," I muttered. "Bug Catcher. They are the worst."
Hickory hopped up and down. "Is there a Trainer over there? Huh? Huh?!"
"Quiet," I said. "We're going through the woods. Maybe he won't see us."
"This seems like an awful lot of trouble," said Abby blandly.
I bristled. "Hey, who's in change here?"
She shrugged her wings. With no further argument, we snuck through the woods, past the vantage point of the kid with the net. I just knew if he saw me he was going to gush about the power of bugs for like an hour, regardless of how hard I kicked his ass in battle. I shuddered, remembering the Bug-Catching contests they held north of Goldenrod at the National Park, all the crazies who used to attend. I wasn't taking any chances here.
Fully absorbed in avoiding detection, I failed to notice the large pool of water to my left. I also failed to notice the Lotad lounging in the grass nearby. I became very acutely aware of both at the same time, when I tripped over the latter and found myself hurtling towards the former.
"Son of a bitch!" I cried, splashing down into the shallow pond.
"Hey!" said Hickory, hopping up to stare down the Lotad I had tripped over. "You gonna apologize?"
The Lotad stared at him blankly for a moment, before opening its mouth. A large spitbubble formed, and it was all Hickory (and I) could do to stare at it in fascination as it grew larger and larger. Then it popped.
"Argh!" yelped Hickory, falling back. Belatedly I realized that it had been an attack.
"Hey, Seabirdscuit! Do something," I called to Abby, as I heaved myself out of the water.
"Like what?" she said, perched on a nearby branch.
"I dunno, like, peck it or something! Attack!"
"Yeah, okay," said Abby, then spat a jet of water at the Lotad, which was turning around to face her in a very slow and unconcerned manner. The water didn't seem to bother it much.
"Screw it, never mind," I snapped, realizing the obvious type disadvantage. "Hickory, you're up again."
"You got it, boss lady!" cried the Torchic, springing to his feet and tackling the Lotad. It landed on its back by my feet, looking stunned.
I stared at it. It blinked, then waved its tiny legs in the air ineffectually. I sighed, and produced a pokeball from my bag. "This is stupid," I said, leaning down to bonk the Lotad with the ball. It disappeared inside without so much as a twitch.
"Looks like the team's growing," said Abby.
"Whatever. I'm just trying to make it look like I actually tried," I said. "Maybe then my dad will leave me alone."
"Who's your dad, anyways?" chirped Hickory. "What's your beef with him? Why're you doing this?"
Dogs, he asked so many questions... "He's a Gym Leader, okay? My whole life, everybody wanted me to be just like him. I don't want to be like him! I don't wanna inherit the gym or whatever! I just wanna do my own thing."
"You don't have to be a Gym Leader to be a Trainer," Abby pointed out.
I looked away. "Yeah, well...I don't wanna be a Trainer, either. The whole 'beat the Champion' thing is stupid."
"Whaaaat?! No way! It's super important," cried Hickory.
This time it was my turn to ignore him. I kept walking.
"Hang it down," said the Lotad, in a voice that was curiously deep yet somehow still feminine.
"Uh," I said, staring down at my new addition to the "team". After a surreptitious trip to the Petalburg Pokemon center, now we were lurking in the shade behind the building, out of sight from the street. "So, like, do you want me to call you something, or what?"
"Yeah sho' 'nuff go a'haid," she mumbled.
"Make it something cool!" Hickory chimed in. I shot him a glare, then returned to staring at the Lotad. She looked pretty much useless, top-heavy with the lilypad-head and with a totally zoned-out look on her weird beaky face. I sighed and ran a hand down my face.
Today was turning out to be a very long day.
Suddenly, something occurred to me. "Don't any of you, like, come with names? What do your dumb buddies in the wild call you?"
Abby shrugged her wings. "Eh, names among wild Pokemon aren't really as important as they are to humans."
I switched my gaze to her. "So, what? Everybody just calls you Wingull no.5 out there?"
"We don't need names out there. It's kind of a rite of passage thing after getting a Trainer."
"Oh," I said. "Okay, but I'm out of ideas here."
"Goat, plum give me some dojigger," said the Lotad.
"Do you speak regular English?"
"Dis jus' be how I rap, coo'?" she said.
"Okay...sure," I said slowly, feeling a headache coming on. "Whatever, I'm calling you Swagga. Swagga T."
"What's the 'T' for?" Hickory wanted to know.
"I dunno, short for Swaggalicious? I don't really care," I said.
"That shouldn't have a 'T' in it," said Abby.
"How about 'Swaggatastic'?" Hickory suggested.
"What part of 'I don't really care' did you fail to understand?"
The newly-christened Swagga T made a sound that sounded either like something laughing or choking to death. "Dese are pretty fun sucka's ya' gots."
Today was turning out to be the longest day in the history of time.
The party so far:
Hickory (Torchic)
Abby (Wingull)
Swagga T (Lotad)
A/N: Things are shaping up! Now half a team has been formed. And we've reached Petalburg. Wow, look at all this progress. By the way, I used a jive translator for all of Swagga T's dialogue.
Please R&R! I would really appreciate it :)