Author's Note: Ah! Here we go! I am so sorry to have delayed updating this for what seemed like forever thanks to issues with the site and my own laziness, but now I'm back on track. *scatters red and blue petals everywhere*
From now on, I'm not sure I can post about all the pairings in one go. I'm going to upload one chapter at a time, and if your favorite pairing or the pairing you're paying most attention to isn't there, it will be coming soon.
~ Meteor Mashed! ~
...
For the next fifteen minutes or so, Staraptor (and Tori herself) ran - or rather, flew - themselves ragged trying to recover all of the scattered pages. While Staraptor flew and grabbed pages with his talons, Tori reached out to grab them with her hands. Sometimes she even used Psychic to simply float a near page to her.
Finally, Staraptor could see no more pages floating in the air.
"Good. Did we get all of them?"
"Wait a second," Tori replied, rearranging the pages and checking them. She groaned. "Oh, no! We still have one more last page to find. And it happens to be my favorite chapter!"
Staraptor quickly scanned his surroundings but could see no more pages.
"Hang on. I'm going to try getting close to the ground - maybe it's fallen," Staraptor told her, then began to drop towards the ground.
That was where they saw Darwin, and she was holding a sheet of paper with Physics formulas on it.
"Good news, your last page's been found," he told Tori, then landed on the ground near the puzzled Roserade. Tori quickly leapt off Staraptor's back and practically plucked the page out of Darwin's roses.
"Thank goodness!" she gasped in relief.
Darwin blinked then glared at them; she was still in a bad mood. "What was that about?"
"Sorry about that," Tori apologized. "Staraptor and I went fast-flying and did some aerial acrobatics, and the pages of my book got scattered. Luckily, we managed to catch all of them. Also, thank you for catching the last page! Heat happens to be my favorite subject in Physics."
Darwin stared at her with a calculating look as if she couldn't trust anyone who actually liked Physics. However, she did answer slowly, "You're welcome...?" in an unsure voice.
Staraptor had been looking around. Now he turned back to Darwin. "Hey, where's Tepig?" he asked. "Isn't he supposed to be with you?"
"Oh, Tepig." Darwin waved a dismissive hand. "No, he's waiting in front of Chandelure's tent."
Staraptor frowned at her. "And what are you doing here?"
Darwin stuck her nose in the air. "Looking for Hypno. Have you seen him?"
"Hypno? Actually, I did see him when we were up in the air," Tori spoke up after having tied her manuscript again, this time more securely. "If I wasn't mistaken, he was in the Power Zone with a Snivy, a Breloom, and a Braixen."
Darwin scowled upon hearing the grass snake's name. "In that case, I'd better be going," she said determinedly. "Thanks for the hint."
"You're welcome!" Tori replied with a smile.
Staraptor frowned as he watched the Roserade walk away. "Why do I get the feeling that something's gone dreadfully wrong," he mumbled under his breath.
Staraptor is right – something is dreadfully wrong.
With Darwin and Tepig, anyway, not Pairing 4: Staraptor x Tori! Lopunny is glad to see that this pairing is back on track after finding Tori's last page. I wonder what kind of high-flying adventure will they take off to next?
All right! Leaving Wish Park, let's zoom in on the activities of another pairing. This time, the place is PokéPark's Beach Cove.
In the Beach Cove, three Pokémon divided into two teams were standing opposite each other, about to play beach soccer.
On the left side were Timburr and two of his Tech Area friends, Golett and Roggenrola.
On the right stood Oshawott, Lizzy, and Drilbur (who just joined the team a few minutes ago to be the goalkeeper, courtesy of Oshawott's very subtle pushing).
As she stood there uncertainly, Lizzy looked around at her team members. Oshawott, the captain, had his eyes fixed on Timburr, seemingly not intimidated by the squared log Timburr was carrying. Lizzy herself was supposed to help Oshawott on the offense, and Drilbur was their goalkeeper... Only he seemed more interested in something underground in front of their goal, for now a hole in the ground was the only thing left of him.
Lizzy turned to Oshawott, pessimistic. "I think we're going to lose," she blurted out and regretted it the next second. Whenever she wasn't awkward, she was impulsive when it comes to speech.
Oshawott only laughed. "Are you kidding me? Our team is perfect! We're totally gonna win!"
Lizzy was exasperated but there was no time to do anything else. Drifblim, who was to act as referee, started the match. Timburr was the first one to get the ball and he began to dribble it towards Oshawott's goal.
"Lizzy, tackle him!" Oshawott exclaimed. He was quite far away from Timburr, but Lizzy was just a stone's throw away.
Lizzy didn't know that "tackle" meant something else in soccer, so she did what Oshawott asked her to do - Pokémon battle style.
"Oomph!" Timburr exclaimed after having been shoved by Lizzy. Drifblim exclaimed, "Foul!"
"What?" Lizzy cried out in alarm, quickly straightening up. "I d-d-didn't do anything...!"
She thought Oshawott would be disappointed because she was clearly really bad at this. However, Oshawott was laughing instead. "No, not that kind of tackle!"
After that, Drifblim allowed Timburr's team to shoot a penalty kick, which flew straight into the net thanks to Oshawott's and Lizzy's absent goalkeeper, but Lizzy hardly seemed to mind. Even with one score down, Oshawott hadn't been annoyed or exasperated because she mistook his instruction as the other kind of tackle.
Never mind, dear Lizzy! We make mistakes like that all the time!
Lopunny is glad to see that Oshawott and Lizzy are getting along well. Oshawott doesn't seem to rattled that Lizzy isn't really good at soccer, which certainly saves Lizzy a lot of trouble. It's definitely a good thing because she has enough things to deal with already – such as the fact that she'd gotten dragged into a game she hadn't wanted to participate in, in the first place.
Once again, Lopunny shakes her head pitifully. Good luck, dear Lizzy! You're going to need it!
After meeting Treecko and Amelia in the cafe in front of Cofagrigus' cake-shaped building, Rem and Lombre went into the cake-shaped building itself, where they saw Cofagrigus seated on his sugar-coated throne wearing a face expression that looked as if he'd been expecting them.
"Welcome, Meteor Mash-up participants," he said with a smile. "Welcome to Cofagrigus' Cake Contraption. Since today is the day of the Meteor Mash-up, we are going to have a special version of the Cake Contraption. You will be playing this attraction in pairs." His smile went wider.
Lopunny had told all of the attraction masters to hold special versions of the attractions. He had heard from Haxorus that one pairing was at his dojo and about to play Power Bash. The pair over at Haxorus' dojo had been really eager to play the Valentine's Day version of Power Bash.
However, Cofagrigus would soon discover, it didn't work that way with the pair standing in front of him.
They were both frowning.
"What, you mean we have to play the attraction together?!" the Whimsicott burst out.
"¡Caramba! You mean we have to work together?!" the Lombre gagged.
"Well, yes!" Cofagrigus stared at them. "Isn't that what you meteor mashers want? It'd be really romantic."
However, if anything, the two Pokémon stared at each other and quickly tossed their heads.
"No way!" they exclaimed at the same time.
Rem frowned at Cofagrigus. "Seriously, can't we just play the usual Cake Contraption?"
Cofagrigus frowned back. "Well, that wouldn't be that easy, young man. I already have participants waiting and they're expecting to play the Valentine's Day version of the Cake Contraption."
But all Rem said was, "Well then, tell them that we're going to play the usual Cake Contraption after all, because I really don't want to play with Señorita Screamo here."
"Good, because I don't want to play with you, too," Lombre shot back. "You'd totally mess things up."
Cofagrigus looked back and forth between them and finally had to sigh deeply. Lopunny wouldn't be happy if he told her that he'd turned down the only pairing that came to him.
"Fine," he said. "We'll play the usual Cake Contraption."
He got off his throne and went over to a door leading to an inner room. He opened it a crack and called, "I apologize, folks, there has been a change of plans. We are playing the usual Cake Contraption after all."
Rem and Lombre heard a chorus of "Awww"s and grumbles and footsteps of the disappointed Pokémon deciding not to play but couldn't have cared less. They weren't going to have to work together and that was all that mattered.
...
Rem and Lombre didn't seem to notice the accusative looks the remaining Pokémon in the room were giving them, either. All they had eyes and ears for was the upcoming Cake Contraption and none of them was backing down.
Cofagrigus climbed back onto his throne. This time he was wearing an annoyed expression on his face.
"All right then, we can finally get started," he said with an exaggerated sigh. "We are going to play the Cake Contraption exactly how we've always been playing and enjoying it. (I hope you can still enjoy the attraction even after that unneeded farce earlier.) The winner will get all this."
He waved a hand at a pile of sweet treats on a table beside his throne. There were cakes and cookies of a lot of different colors and varieties, but most exciting of all was the sheer quantity of the prize. You could probably eat a different cake every day for a week and still not run out of treats. Unconsciously, the Pokémon in the room began to smile. Everyone wanted to win the treats. (OK, maybe everyone except our Rem and Lombre. They just wanted the pride.)
By now, all the Pokémon were holding the typical Cake Contraption berry shooters and Cofagrigus was saying, "OK! On the count of one, two, three! Begin!"
Suddenly Watchog were appearing while holding acorns and Yamask were flitting around holding cake mix. They were supposed to shoot at the acorns and cake mix Cofagrigus' helpers were holding to make the most cakes.
Quite a lot of Pokémon participated in the competition, of course, but a certain Whimsicott and a certain Lombre felt as though they were the only ones competing.
I'll show that rude Whimsicott, thought Lombre.
I'll show that Señorita Screamo, thought Rem.
... What a competition, huh?
Although Rem and Lombre have just met, Lopunny is delighted to see that Pairing 8: Rem x Lombre is already kicking off for some action! OK, so they may think the other is annoying now, but who knows, maybe they'll warm up to each other later?
Lopunny is keeping tabs on this. With both of them intent to win the Cake Contraption, she wonders how this will turn out!
Aren't you curious as well? Lopunny asks mischievously. If so, stay tuned on Wish Park FM~!