"So, you're telling me that you have travelled across the world, attacked three of our Miltank and attempted to sleep with my wife to learn about our tracking skills?" I tried to nod, but that tends to be difficult when the hand of a very muscular tribal soldier is grasped around the back of your neck, forcing you to remain on your knees.
I was in a large, native hut, surrounded by San bushmen, sometimes known as Basarwa. I didn't actually plan on entering the camp in the middle of the night and saying 'hello' in the way I did, but at least I was in.
I had caught a plane from Kalos vover to a South African airport, where my booked guide, Vanhali, drove me to the outskirts of the nearest San bushmen village – all in the space of a day.
"That could technically be considered correct, your Highness," I practically choked due to the force on my windpipe.
"Your Highness? You mistake for loyalty," spoke the shaman, who sat atop a very tall chair. "But I nonetheless hold your life within my power right now. Tell me, outsider, why do you need to see our ability?"
"Because," I growled impatiently, "there's some very spoilt sods on the GTS right now who will only give me my favourite Pokémon in exchange for something very, very rare – something that I need to stalk." The shaman sighed.
"You are another Roamer-hunter, aren't you?"
"Yes," I admitted, "but this one is a Zapdos. I don't want to have to encounter it 11 times-"
"Just take this and go," the shaman muttered, throwing what appeared to be a blowpipe at me. "Go."
"W-what…?" I spluttered. "No lecture? No awesome training montage? No conflicted father-mentor scene? No final showdown…?" The shaman looked up at the warrior who had me held. He spoke briefly in his native dialect, before the warrior nodded, and pulled me to my feet.
"You speak too much, Roamer-hunter. We have no further words for you," the shaman called as I was escorted from the village.
"Okay, Arkus," I whispered to myself. "Keep calm. You can do this."
"What's the funny man doing, Mommy?" laughed a child walking along Route 7 with his mother. "Why's he hiding in the grass?" His mother quickened her pace, hastily ushering her child away from the tall grass where I was hiding in wait. I probably looked a bit stupid in my old Air Cadet 'Greens' or 'combats' uniform, which sported a DPM (Disruptive Pattern Material) camouflage appearance. Whilst the uniform was a perfect fit when I was 15, I'm not entirely sure it was a good idea for a 23 year-old to be wearing that particular set, what with the exposed ankles and lower arms. Even worse, I had no DPM-pattern bush hat or Mk. 7 helmet to go with it, so I just resorted to using my Air Force blue beret, complete with it's shining, position-revealing ATC cap badge. Top that with the fact that my combat boots were too small so I had to resort to my brown hiking boots, I probably looked like some psychopathic paedophile just waiting to invite some passing children into my 'chocolate factory'.
I eyed the Pokédex I had taken from some ten year-old in a blue jacket I mugged on Route 2, with Zapdos' entry open. I had never quite figured out how to work the thing, so getting to the 'Location' page without triggering the voice functions was proving quite the challenge.
"A LEGENDARY POKÉMON THAT IS SAID TO-" I cast the device into the nearby river in frustration. There was no way I was going to get close enough to shoot it with a blowpipe dart if that thing was nattering away.
I sat there for what felt like hours. In reality, it was about thirty seconds, but the feeling was of hours, nonetheless. I sat there and waited. I wanted to read a paper, play with apps on my Pokétech, try out the blowpipe on innocent civilians – just anything, really. I never really was any good with waiting.
But I knew it would pay off. Once that thirty seconds was up, lo and beyond, a huge Zapdos just happened to blunder into a patch of tall grass about ten metres away from me. Perfect.
Remembering my fieldcraft training from my Air Cadet days, I used a leopard crawl to move myself closer to the edge of my patch of grass, before bringing myself to one knee and drawing my binoculars.
Through the dirty, abused lenses, I could just make out the badly-camouflaged Zapdos head as it pecked at some Caterpie. Blood flew everywhere and I could hear them squealing in agony as the huge bird happily munched on their souls. I placed down the binoculars and slowly drew the blowpipe. Luckily for me, the Zapdos was blissfully unaware of my presence.
Ensuring the dart was placed in the right way, I brought one end up to my mouth, drew a deep but controlled breath, and—
RING-DING-A-LING MOTHER FECKER
The Zapdos immediately straightened up and looked around in evident surprise. It scanned it's surroundings in defensive panic at a lightning pace. I blew hard in my own shock and ended up missing completely – the dart instead hit the Day-Care man, who almost instantly collapsed into a crumpled heap, fast asleep.
"FECK!" I shouted loudly, standing up and drawing my M1911. The Zapdos spotted me and made a break for it, leaving a dusty cloud with it's take off. I began to fire the pistol wildly, the 9mm rounds failing to make contact over and over – until finally, I could've sworn I heard the sound of a bullet making contact with flesh.
An ear-splitting screech filled the sky as the majestic bird came tumbling down on top of the Dare-Care before rolling off the roof and landing in front of me in pain.
My God-awful ringtone was still sounding. I grabbed my Pokégear from my pocket and answered it.
"WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!" I screamed in rage.
"Oh, hi Arkus, it's Joey!" came a voice from the speaker. I wanted to kill myself for giving him my number. "My Ratatta is sooooo cool! Okay, bye!" He hung up. Giving a sigh, I went over to Zapdos to check the poor sod's vitals.
"Sorry about, you know, shooting you, mate…" I apologised. I never liked seeing Pokémon in pain, but if anybody should be blamed, it should be Joey.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed I had only hit it's leg. Taking out my knife and first aid kit, I removed the bullet and bandaged the wound to stop the flow of blood. It began shivering, signifying that it was going into shock. "Alright Zapdos, I'm going to take you to a Pokémon Centre," I remarked, pulling out one of the 999 Master Balls I had taken as a battle prize from a cross-dressing boy who called himself 'Action(Replay) Man'. Zapdos looked at me in panic. "It's okay," I said soothingly, stroking it's head softly. "It's for a good cause…" I gently tapped the Master Ball onto it's wing, which absorbed it in a matter of seconds. Just to be sure, I hurriedly grabbed some duct tape and completely enveloped the Ball's seal with it. After the Ball stopped shaking, I stood up, triumphant.
"I just caught… GTS CURRENCY!" I shouted to the sky in my victory, holding up the duct-taped Master Ball. It was only then I noticed that the boy was still there.
"I wanna be just like him, Mommy!" he said excitedly, drooling. He was completely oblivious to the fact that I had accidently shot his mother, who was lying next to him.
"That's a good goal, little… boy." I said, walking over and ruffling his hair. I had a mental block on an insult that I could use that he wouldn't understand. I began to jog to the Pokémon Centre in Camphrier Town. "Sorry, ma'am," I spoke innocently, tipping my hat to the bleeding women as I left.
"Welcome to the Pokéman Cent'urr,"grumbled Nurse(?) Joy, this one of which may not have actually been a woman. "Would yeh loik meh to 'eal yer Pokéman?" I handed her(?) the barely recognisable Master Ball.
"Just the one, please." Joy eyed me for a moment.
"Yer shot ano'er one again, di'nt yer, Eon?" I looked around sheepishly as several fellow visitors to the Centre looked at me in alarm.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," I told her – or him – hoping that he would get the message that I would not like the existence my weapon to become public knowledge. "I'm going to get changed. Is the facility free this time?"
"Nope," Joy grunted, "it's still full of hot naked women."
"Great!" I clasped my hands together in excitement, rubbing them. "I'll just take my clothes back, then."
"Oi gave 'em teh that man o'er there," said Joy. "It's 'im yer be lookin' fer." I gave him a disapproving glare.
"What did you do that, for?"
"'e promised me 'e'd let meh family live."
"Oh."
"HAHAHAHAOHHELLOAGAINARKUSISUHEREFORTHEGTSSSXXX?!" screeched a once-again demented Professor Sycamore as I stormed into his lab. "IJUSTFINISHEDMYLATESTSTUDYONFOREPLAYWITHANOCTOWL-"
"Professor," I interrupted him, turning around as I reached the top of the stairs to face him. "Funnily enough, I don't actually care right now. I've got to get to the GTS machine before the amnesia drug wears off and Zapdos here," – I tapped the Master Ball on my belt, still covered in duct tape – "realises that I didn't really catch him properly. Savvy?"
"SAVVYASACARDBOARDUCKLETT," roared the Professor, who was now mindlessly spinning in circles.
I reached the same room, with the same terminal, with – funnily enough – a new login screen. This one featured a somewhat creepy image of the Professor engaging inactivates with a female Ampharos that I was fairly certain were illegal, but I nonetheless logged in. There were now fifty offers, but all were still offering Snivy in exchange for ridiculous exchanges.
I located the Zapdos deal – it was still on. I guess no-one had been stupid enough to go for any of these deals yet, but I caught Zapdos for this reason. I knew I'd never use it on a team, just as I knew that the duct tape was probably never going to come off.
Zapdos would be fine – he was healed, and as a safety precaution, all Pokémon stored in a Pokéball or PC Storage System for one month or more are automatically transported digitally (I don't know how either) to Silph Co., who then manually release the Pokémon even if the Pokéball proves impossible to open by using a data extractor (again, no idea how) and then releasing them.
"Alright, buddy," I sighed, placing his Ball into the hatch and closing it. "See you around."
The system scanned the Master Ball and, for some reason, identified it incorrectly.
LV. 100 ARCEUS (SHINY)
This meant it would've allowed me to accept that other deal. But to be fair, I didn't really want to give a Zapdos to a Trainer who behaves like that around Pokémon, so I rescanned it several times, watching the system struggle to suggest anything besides some certainly amusing yet frustrating results.
LV. 80 ARBOK
LV. 99 GIOVANNI
LV. 07 MEW
LV. 69 MISSINGNO.
LV. 50 WAILORD (NICK: URMOM) (ITEM: BURN HEAL)
Finally, the system came around and correctly identified it.
LV. 70 ZAPDOS
I proceeded with the trade by tapping 'Accept Offer' whilst viewing the offer asking for Zapdos, and the transfer began.
There was a loud whirring noise as Professor Sycamore's own rendition of a Rube Goldberg machine (this one was admittedly very crudely made) began a twenty-second process of pressing a button on top of the giant machine to confirm the transfer. A ping-pong ball was involved, but it fell out due to the shoddy nature of the machine's construction, so I just asked Aurora, my Talonflame, to sit on the button for a few seconds.
Within moments, the Ball vanished before my eyes inside the translucent hatch, only to be replaced seconds later with a regular Pokéball. I looked up at the screen. I had used proper GTS terminals before, and they usually give you a friendly 'look after your new Pokémon!' message, but Professor Sycamore obviously had other plans for this one.
ROFL LOL DATS A PRITTEE NIS ASS ON DAT (insert name of your new Pokémon) U GOT THARR BE A SHAYM IF SUMTHING WER TO HAPN TO ITS ASS LOL (MY DIK)
I shook my head in disappointment at his evident lack of grammar skills before opening up the hatch and removing the little Ball inside. The system had informed me that it was a young male, classified by it's strength as a 'Level 06'. All Pokémon have their strength evaluated by an official system within their Pokéballs that grades them in 'Levels' from one to a hundred.
"Well, little Snivy," I sighed happily. "Guess it's time to meet your new daddy…" I was about to activate the release catch, until I sensed that someone was standing in the doorway. I turned and saw Professor Sycamore, sitting there, doing something frankly inappropriate for public eyes.
"… Professor." I slowly put the Ball into the empty holder on my belt where Zapdos' Master Ball had just been. I didn't want to make first impressions on my new little Snivy with him around.
"U WOT M8," Sycamore said suddenly. "R U HAVING A LITTLE GIGGLE, M8? I'LL BASH YE FOOKIN' HEAD IN I SWEAR ON ME MAM."
"Professor, I need to leave."
"Crayons… THEY RAN OUT…" He shuffled himself nervously into the corner. "Now the shadows… they've come to life… and now… they're going to hurt me…" I backed off slowly. Seeing this, he suddenly made a line for my trouser leg, clawing at it with his long, bony fingers. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, ARKUS?! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME!"
"That's great, talk to you soon," I laughed uneasily, kicking him away and quickly leaving the room.
"NO, ARKUS, WAIT! THEY ARE DOWN THERE !" shrieked Professor Sycamore.
"Who, and from what fantasy of yours now?" I shouted back, rolling my eyes as I descended the stairs. "I'll bring you crayons tomorrow, okay?!"
I just about heard him whimper "Okay…" as I hastily left the lab. Now on the roads of Lumiose City once again, I quickly pulled out my notepad and pen.
"Okay, New Year's Resolution for 2014 number one – stop giving Sycamore crayons."