"Little girls don't need to be having dangerous journeys with wild creatures." My mother had told me when I asked to go on a journey with our pet to try and become champion. All of my friends had already left a year and a half ago and I was stuck here trying to convince my mom that journeys weren't dangerous.
"But Muffin isn't a wild creature!" I would exclaim while pointing at our pet.
"No, but if you meet any wild Pokemon, they could hurt you." My mother would counter, scowling at me. "Now go to your room and think about what you've done."
"What did I do!?" I then stomped my foot in frustration. My mother just would not budge!
"You talked back." My mom then pointed to my room down the hall. I then huffed and stomp into my room and slam the door close.
Well, actually I would only stomp into my room. If I slammed the door, I could only fear that my eventual Pokemon journey would float father and farther away until it disappeared over the horizon.
Instead I choose to scream into my pillow until my face turned blue.
When I calmed down, I noticed that Muffin had pushed open my door and was trying to eat one of my socks that had escaped the laundry basket in the corner of my room.
Muffin stood a little over a foot, and was skunk shaped. His fur was dark purple and his face was large and rounded with a narrow red nose, red rimmed eyes, and two pairs of V-shaped, cream-colored whiskers on each side of his face. On top of his head were two pointed ears that seemed to be red on the inside. Meanwhile, a stripe of cream-colored fur ran from along the back of his neck to his tail that took up half of his body. He had a cream-colored underbelly, four short, stubby legs that were only good for waddling from one place to another.
Muffin was a stunky.
Now stunky's were known for their award-winning stench, but that was only used in self-defense. stunkys are actually rather clean animals who only smell like stale bread that had been in a freezer. Granted, you won't see any stunkys on top of a top pets list. They're all stubborn animals who come in three basic flavors. There are the alphas; they are proud creatures who always think they are boss. The sillies, who have too much energy and get into everything and the fatsos, They waddle around, inhaling any food they see, but other than that, they tire easily, making the stunky's speed useless.
Muffin then fell onto his side, wiggling his claws around uselessly. I could only sigh with what I had to work with.
My father had chosen a fatso out of a litter of pure alphas.
Pure breed stunky my rear, clearly there was snorlax in Muffin's veins.
I scooted to the edge of my bed and picked up the overweight bundle of fur and lay on my bed, muffin lying on my chest, still chewing on a sock.
"Muffin." I held a firm tone, hoping to get the skunk's attention. His ear twitched at his name, but he kept chewing on the sock. I scowled and pulled the object that Muffin kept eating away from his and threw it in the corner. Muffin looked at me, irritation in his eyes. "Muffin." I commanded again. He seemingly rolled his eyes and nodded his head. I grinned. It had taken me a whole two weeks to get Muffin to respond to his name, but he wouldn't respond if he was distracted. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.
Now onto phase 2 of my awesome training plan. I pushed off the overweight stunky and he rolled onto his back, his tiny claws flailing around in the air, trying to roll back over. I skipped, barefooted over to my desk that was coated in various papers and picture books. I shifted through the pile, until I found the notebook paper with a to-do list. The first several items had been checked off,
Get Muffin to stop biting me
Get an awesome hat
Get Muffin to stop spraying my bed
Get Muffin to stop growling at everything
Get snacks
While the rest were unchecked,
Get Muffin to respond to his name
Get Muffin to spray on command
Get Muffin to attack on command
Get Muffin to follow me without a leash
Find Muffin's pokeball (Check Mom's room)
Get more pokeballs
Go on a journey
Catch a lot of pokemon
Get all the badges
Become champion
Get muffin to stop spraying my bed again
I searched my desk for a pen and check of the next item on my list. I glanced outside my eight story window. It was about midday, so if I take my pet to the park I could teach Muffin to spray things, and I could work on my amazing pokeball throwing skills. I picked up a baseball from the floor and stuffed it into my pockets.
I might not even hit someone this time!
It had taken ample convincing arguments to my mom that I wouldn't run away or get kidnapped by a hypno.
I don't know why she is so frightened by psychic types...
So I put a leash on my fat pet and drag him three blocks and across two major highways until I got to the park... Castelia City isn't known as the "Greenest" city in all of Unova. But the park it really the closest thing we have to a forest to train in. Central plaza is... well, a large, stone covered pavement plaza filled with entertainers trying to swindle you out of money, the occasional trainer battling said entertainers, and preachers... preaching about something silly. In the center of the plaza is a large fountain that couples would waste their wishes, and money, even though there is a sign literally on the fountain stating that they should not throw coins in the fountain. At the edge of the plaza is a small bundle of trees that were planted by our city's gym leader, who kept on insisting that more trees would be planted in time, but I didn't see it happening anytime soon.
I had slipped on some slip on shoes before I left the house, but I kicked then off in front of the fountain and pulled up my jeans to jump in. I made a habit of picking up the coins that were in the fountain whenever I went to the park, no one paid any attention to me though, and I was only a kid playing around in a fountain on a hot day.
Muffin had decided that he didn't like water and went to the three trees and bit of grass that made up the park.
I had collected 38 P, a relatively big haul, and stuffed it into my pockets. I slid back on my shoes, but kept my pants pulled up to my knees. I went and found Mr. Fatso snoozing under the shelter of the trees, he really didn't like heat. I looked around, not really wanting to wake Muffin. He got really cranky when he woke up and I didn't want to smell like rotten eggs for the rest of today. I instead, opted to climb a tree, but I couldn't reach the lowest branches and just ended up scraping my elbows and palms on the bark.
I then tried throwing the baseball at a tree, pretending the tree was a brand new, undiscovered pokemon, and the ball was an amazing ball TM, the best ball in the world that played music and smelt like roses and... was just an amazing ball. I grinned as I spread my feet apart.
My eyebrows creased in consideration as I zoned onto the tree. My intense studying of watching people in cartoons throwing pokeballs flowed into my mind. I took a big dramatic breath, and then let it out. I pulled back my arm, my palm sweaty. Like a spring, I coiled, and then threw the ball at the tree.
The ball, instead of slamming into the tree and capturing it, flew half way, and then landed in the grass. I blinked, and then looked down dejectedly before I went to retrieve the ball. I went back to my previous spot and coiled again. I threw the ball. This time the ball flew the same amount as before... perhaps even less. I frowned and retrieved the ball. I decided after the next several times that I should mark where they land, to see if I'm getting stronger. I used various sticks on the grass that had fallen from the trees until my arm started hissing at me, making my throws more and more off. One time the ball flew up in the air and actually hit me on the forehead.
I fell back onto the grass with a loud cry and covered my forehead to protect myself from anymore falling balls. I felt tears from the pain and frustration of not succeeding at capturing the tree pokemon crawl at the corner of my vision. Why can't I hit a stupid tree!? I sat up and rubbed my eyes, my body slouched over. I looked up in between the tree trees and saw a bug trying to jump from one branch to the other.
The worm-like bug had a red, spiky shell that covered most of its body. A small pale, yellow horn protruded from its head and it had two longer ones on its rear. The creature had a blank yellow eye will a black pupil with no shine. Its face was round and pale. I snickered at the fact that the creature looked like it had a butt for a face. The underbelly was also pale and it had multiple spike feet that helped it reach the next branch.
I didn't recognize it immediately, but I did know that it evolved into cascoon. But what was it doing in Unova? I then remembered that the PC's were malfunctioning and releasing all sorts of pokemon from all over the world into Unova. I think they tried blaming terrorists, but it didn't stick because the old terrorist group, Team Plasma had dissipated permanently after their leaders were killed for their crimes once they were found after the kyurem insistent five years ago.
"You know your posture was wrong." A voice, which came out of seemingly nowhere, told me. I jerked my head to see a lanky 14 year old boy who had long black hair that reached to his shoulders. His eyes were dull brown and his skin was a dark brown. He wore a green vest with a black undershirt, jeans that were slightly ripped at the knees and ends. He had on black boots that had the underside turning gray from overuse and a pale green backpack that was slung over his shoulders.
But the most notable feature would be the five pokeballs on his belt.