Espeon and Castform

Watching the rain coat the window, Sarah the Espeon twitched her tail. She disliked rainy days, as it meant she wouldn't be going outside for a walk. Thankfully, she lived inside the building she worked at. She didn't have to go out in the rain. She still didn't like it.

As the playing song started on its ending, she turned from the window and hopped back onto a chair, then to the desk. The radio station's program was blinking, so she tapped the screen to let it know she was there. Soon, a Castform drifted to her side. "Warooo?"

"Yes, it's almost your turn," she told him.

He gurgled in excitement and twisted the top of his water droplet form around. As it was raining, he was blue with his rainy form. He liked the rain much better than her, since it was an opportunity to use this form.

However, she didn't have time to reply just then. She turned to the seat where a black box was sitting. This was an artificial human voice, something a local inventor wanted tested. While the radio station had meant to use it as a joke, Sarah found it to have immense potential. With her psychic powers, she could manipulate the voice box. She couldn't telepath over radio waves. But she now had a human voice to use.

As the station screen started showing its broadcast warning, Sarah focused on the voice box. "And that was The Spinda Twist by the Reynolds Brothers Band," the box stated in what seemed to be a normal human woman's voice. "A good wake-up call to any of you sleepyheads still snoozing, right? This is Sarah's Morning Sun Morning Show on 99.4 FM from our studio in Vermillion City, Kanto region. For those of you getting ready to head out, here's your traffic report with Cindy. How's it looking out there?"

By memory, Sarah tapped the screen with one tip of her forked tail, letting the line open up to their traffic correspondent. Cindy was one of the morning show's human workers, although only the two Pokemon were in the studio. "Well the rain has many roads and routes slick, so be careful heading out. Visibility is cut in the heaviest sections of the storm, so take a few extra minutes to get to work or school safely. Car traffic is slow around the bypass, while foot traffic is down to a minimum. But if you Trainers are determined, you may find rain and mud loving Pokemon along the unpaved routes. Just bring your mud boots and umbrellas."

Sarah then hit the screen button again to cut off that line. "All right, thank you Cindy. Sounds like a good day to go fishing for Water Pokemon! Next, we have our weather forecast with our weather Castform Ray. What've we got in store for the rest of the day, Ray?"

"Waaarra!" The Castform drifted over to another screen, which gave them forecasts from a weather station. But it was only a guideline. Between the two of them, the given forecast was modified to something more accurate. Ray felt weather in his every watery molecule, while Sarah could sense it with her powers, gem, and whiskers. "Weh do raaa oo rasaa wrep wess weddo wraah."

She knew what he was saying, but the human listeners wouldn't. "It seems the rain will continue through the morning, tapering off into scattered showers for the rest of the day. Western parts of Kanto should start seeing clear skies by noon, while eastern Kanto will remain mostly cloudy until evening."

"Waadda!" Ray exclaimed, then chattered on.

"Ah, and Cinnibar, Fuschia, and the sea routes surrounding them are under a fog advisory until eleven in the morning. You residents know this already, but anyone planning to travel to these areas may wish to hold off until the fog clears. As you know, a fog advisory means that you may be able to clear a certain area with Defog, but the moisture content is too high to fully clear visibility. So don't be reckless even if you have a defogging Pokemon with you."

Ray then went on. He liked the radio business too. Then again, he just liked being given an excuse to talk. Sarah took advantage of that to give him his own comedy segment of the morning show. The Castform was familiar enough with buttons and touch screen computers that she could give him a variety of sound clips, bites, and samples to spice up his talks with. While humans found it a positive and endearing part of the show, Pokemon listeners found him hilarious. She never translated his chats, but few listeners made serious complaints about that.

Sarah did translate all of his weather forecast segments. "Tomorrow and Friday should be partly cloudy with mild temperatures, but the rains will return on the weekend. Ray says if you have any plans for then, you'd better have rain gear or alternate plans then."

"Weez whe ran ah."

"Oh yes, and if you have any rain loving Pokemon like our Ray, you might want to let them outside today to enjoy the wet weather. Any who dislike the wet would rather stay indoors."

Sarah's whiskers then twitched. Something was up. Listening to her psychic senses, she could tell that a competitor at another morning show was trying to steal their audience and was trying to call them in order to discredit them. If she wanted to keep her (and Ray's) job, they needed to address this competitor directly.

She felt confident that she could do so. 'We have trouble on the line," she warned her partner. 'Don't lose your temper.'

Ray bobbed in the air, showing his agreement.

Taking control of the voice box, she stated over the air, "Okay, and let's take a call from one of our listeners. We'll take… this line." She flicked her tail to choose the line the competitor was on. "Good morning, this is Sarah and Ray..."

"Warroooo!"

"…of 99.4 FM. Who is this?"

"Hey, this is Bub," a man's voice replied, using a fake name. "I gotta question for ya."

"Ask away," she replied politely.

"Is it true that you've got no humans working for your show?"

"That is false," Sarah replied. After all, Cindy was human so the Espeon wasn't completely lying. "What makes you think that?"

"Well you've got that chatty Castform and you translate what he says. It takes a Pokemon to understand Pokemon speech."

"Whe ba do," Ray commented, making a dismissive gesture with his rainy frill.

"I'm a trained psychic," she stated. "And, as he said, I am familiar enough with him that I know exactly what he's saying. Besides, if all of us were humans, how would any of our human listeners understand us?"

"Well there's talking Pokemon; I bet you're a trained Kadabra."

"Fizzzzit.'

"The powers of a Kadabra tend to mess with electronics, so they can't work in a radio station," Sarah pointed out. "You should know that, Larry."

He was startled for a bit, then said, "I'm Bob."

"Actually, you said you were Bub. But you're really Larry of the morning show over at 102.9 FM, right?" After a moment of silence, the Espeon smugly added, "I did say I was a trained psychic."

"You're still a Pokemon," he said, getting mad.

"Now think about that. We know there are Pokemon trained to speak the human language. However, to become fluent in that language, Pokemon often must sacrifice a good portion of their natural powers. If I were a Pokemon, in order to speak the language as a native speaker, I shouldn't have the ability to tell who you really are over the telephone." That did not take into account the advanced speaking box, but few people knew about that.

"You've got some trickery going on," he muttered. "And I'll prove it someday!" He hung up.

"Pbbbbbbt," Ray blew a raspberry.

Sarah smiled. "That's about what I think of that call too. Anyhow, shall we have a song to cheer everyone up after that troublemaker's call? How about Combee Boogie?"

On the voice command, the computer would automatically bring up that song. After a chirp of approval from Ray, Sarah tapped the screen to play that song.

...

Castform D/P/P entry: Its appearance changes with the weather. Recently, its molecules were found to be just like water.

Espeon Fire Red entry: By reading air currents, it can predict things like the weather or its foe's next move.

Two weather related Pokemon. There may be a Pokemon for any type of hobby out there (although some would obviously be a stretch…)