Well, at least I can get some of these done when waiting for my partner in crime to show up. There was so many jokes that I could have made in the original version but I'd missed them out. Some of the best ones get included here. Hell, the whole scene in the Rest House is new. And we finally get a description of Joanne! I like that description, it seems to suit what little part in the storyline that she's played so far.
So, brief summery. Let's see here; They take a small break before moving on to Pewter. And then the gang gets its first Trainer Battle, a double one. Cue halarity and disaster.
Anyway, comment away. Or recomment, or whatever.
Episode Four: Asphyxiation (Redux)
The building we had entered as a 'Public Rest House' which was essentially a place that people heading into or out of the forest could catch their breath and get ready for the next leg of the tip. Pretty self explainatory, you could have figured that much out from the name of the place without me having to explain it. Well, most of you could. Anyway, me and Squirtle had found our way onto a counter (that was fireproof, so I couldn't accidentaly burn the place down. Shame, would have been good for a laugh and it'd have taken out that damn Demon Wall) and had dragged over a large bowl full of apples. Or, at least, it had been full of them before we got to it. As for Moron, who really cares what that idiot was up to? I had more important things to do than pay attention to the stupid brat.
"So, how'd you like them apples?" Squirtle asked, which was a stupid question considering that I'd downed three and was most of the way through a forth. Ripe, plump and juicy as the rich taste filled my mouth, and eventually my stomach, with fruity goodness (the thought of such perfection is making my mouth water, so I'll stop)
"Mhhph," I shrugged a reply, swallowing the mouthfull and took one last bite before throwing the apple core at the water type's head.
---
He ducked and the apple core spun through the air before it impacted, with a satisfying squelch, right on the back of Moron's head and knocked his hat off. I'd managed to get the apple core across the entire lobby, which happened to be around twice the size of my clearing. Shame that most of the force had gone by the time it struck so the core didn't splatter on impact and coat the retard's spiky black hair. Which sucked, really. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked by the mental image of him trying to get sticky apple juice out of that hair of his.
Back to the story at hand; said Human spun around and gave me the most evil glare he could muster, which was pretty pathetic. I countered his glare with a very toothy smirk, followed by a small plume of smoke.
"You want to pick a fight, Human?" I spoke up, my tone of voice getting the message across even though he wouldn't understand the words themselves.
"You do realise that you'll be killed if you try to murder a Human, even if it is Moron," Squirtle piped up, I turned my head to stare at him.
"I thought you said his name wasn't Moron, so why're you calling him it?" I asked.
"The name fits, I guess," he shrugged back, before sighing as he stared over at Moron before getting to his feet and hopping off the counter, "time to go. To adventure!"
"Screw you, I want a nap," I replied, laying on my back and staring up at the ceiling. There was these small orbs attached to it, called Light Bulbs which was pretty self-explanatory although I had to wonder how they managed to grow them. The glowing was almost mesmerising.
---
Just as I was about to doze off, something wrapped around my middle and I snapped back to attention just in time to be lifted into the air. I stared, having to look up, at Moron's face as he smirked down at me. That...git had gone and picked me up.
"We're going and you are coming with us, got that?" He asked, and I squirmed against the feel of his hands on my stomach. No one picked me up, especially not some self-rightous Human brat.
---
And so I did what I did best, I sank my claws into his wrists. While I didn't have enough leverage or momentum to pierce the flesh (Human skin is surprisingly strong, I'll tell you that much. Not as strong as scales though and no where near strong enough to stop me) the sudden pressure did make him wince and his fingers opened up. I was about to fall when I snapped my head to the side and opened my jaws. I slammed my mouth shut as I was about to fall past his arm and my body jerked to a halt, my neck hurting a little from the sudden stop as I hung from Moron's limb. Attached to the Human via teeth, perfect.
At least my teeth weren't long enough to pierce the jacket and shirt underneath or I'd probably have been choking on the blood. They did, however, prick the skin and that definitely shocked the hell out of him. How do I know this? Well, the fact that he started yelling and waving his arm around like a 'tard as he attempted to dislodge me were pretty big clues. Unfortunately, for him, my jaws were stronger then that and I held on tight. I was aware of Squirtle laughing his merry tail off somewhere below me and even the few other Humans around seemed to be finding it funny. I wasn't seeing the funny side, being shaken around like a cocktail (you do not want to know how I know what a cocktail is, it's a long and frankly rather boring story that ended with headaches all around)
---
Eventually he stopped flailing and I unhooked my teeth from his arm before landing perfectly back on the counter. I gave another toothy smirk at the glare that Moron was giving me as he clutched the arm. I even stuck out my tounge, for good measure.
"Fine, be that way," he grumbled, folding his arms.
"I will." I folded mine too, scowling slightly.
"We're done then."
"Good." Now I was smirking slightly.
"Stay here if you want," Bingo, I thought with an even bigger smirk; one that vanished Moron added, "surrounded by walls."
---
'Damn that Moron.' I thought a few minutes later as I found myself standing on the grass outside, rubbing my sore nose from where the Wall Demon had attacked again. He'd pulled the trump card, my distrust of Humans and especially those invisible walls so I had no choice but to follow him outside. It didn't help that we were now in a large open plain, covered in grass with massive oaks growing here and there and providing vital shade to the various living things. However, most of those living things were Human and I felt a little nervous at being surrounded by so many. Can't exactly blame me, one of the buggers had caused enough trouble so I didn't exactly want to find out how much grief that all those could cause.
Squirtle, however, was taking the whole thing in his stride as he dragged me along after the marching Moron.
"Calm down a little," he advised, "you're too jumpy."
"No I'm not." I would just like to point out that lying is not one of my strong points, being on my own for so long meant that I hadn't gotten any practice in at all. So, naturally, the water type saw straight through that fib and frowned.
"Ack! What's that?" He said loudly, suddenly looking worried and pointing behind me, and I spun around to where he was pointing with a fireball ready to go. There was nothing there.
---
"See, you're jumpy," Squirtle said as I turned back, panting slightly.
"You are an arse," I swore, which didn't happen that often back then but Humans did have this amazing habit of unlocking a torrent of verbal abuse.
"Really? I thought my shell hid it," Squirtle chuckled slightly, "just calm down a little. You'll attract attention to yourself if you keep on being terrified."
"I'm not scared of them! That's the most retarded thing I have ever heard, I'm just slightly uncomfortable," I insisted.
"They are not that bad, most Trainers are fairly decent and all the nasty ones wouldn't hang around here for very long. I oughta know, I've seen a fair few of them as I was growing up back in Pallet."
"You grew up around Humans?"
"Yeah. There were a load of us, I was the one who figured out how Human stuff worked so the others could break it or whatever. Nothing quite like reprogramming the VCR to record hour after hour of the shopping channel."
"...I am really looking forward to when I can leave, I'm going to kill you before I go." I meant it too, that guy was way too weird. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about but it sounded stupid.
"Nice to know that I'm appreciated," he smirked again, before stopping and staring over at Moron, "Oh, hello. Looks like we'll have some fun now."
---
I glanced over, insantly noticing that another Human had walked over and the two were now in some sort of conversation. The newcomer was female, according to Squirtle. She seemed to be a bit smarter than Moron, simply because her clothing didn't look quite so retarded. Sturdy looking, bluish trousers that I would later learn were called Jeans. A nice light brown jacket, it was the colour of sand. She had a fairly tall, yet sturdy, build. Topping it all off was some fairly tidy, shoulder length, brown hair complimented by bright blue eyes. Nothing fancy or unpractical like those stupid rings that people stick in their ear, only for someone to pull it out during a fight. So, overall, not a bad specimen. I'd seen a lot worse, that much was for sure. One of these bad examples of Humanity was the git in front of me that we all know as Moron.
My attention snapped to what they were saying when a certain word popped up. The girl had just said 'battle' and I wanted to start laughing, instead I turned to Squirtle.
"She's gonna flatten Moron in one punch. This'll be good for a laugh," I smirked, my smirk vanished when he shook his head.
"Although that'd be funny; they're not going to be the ones battling."
"What the hell is that supposed to-" I stopped in mid-question as I spotted the girl reaching for a pair of Pokéballs at her belt, "you have got to be kidding me. No way."
---
Moron just turned around and walked away, causing me to breathe a sigh of relief. There was no chance in hell that I was just going to fight for that brat. Squirtle headed along after with me tagging along behind. I almost ploughed into the turtle when both he and the Human stopped and turned back. We'd only gone a few meters.
"Why'd we stop?" I asked, confused at this random moving and stopping thing.
"Room to battle," Squirtle was suddenly looking very serious. I didn't like it one bit, and I wasn't exactly fond of him when he wasn't serious.
"I already told you, I'm not fighting." I crossed my arms, sneaking a glance back at the Human girl as she threw the two Pokéballs to the ground.
---
Suddenly, my whole reluctance to get involved in this scrap vanished in an instant as two Pokémon materalised. One, a small and fairly weedy looking weed, I ignored as my eyes narrowed and locked onto the second Pokémon. A familiar sight to me, a yellow rat. Pikachu. Small, furry and a pain in the tail ever since I'd started living in Viridian; I hated those stuck up gits with what could only be described as slight discontent. Okay, okay, I made it a habit to set them on fire whenever I got the chance. Usually as revenge for when the rats had woken me up in the middle of the night via a jolt of electricity. (Although sometimes I just did it for the sheer hell of it, it was good for a laugh.)
"Great, I've got a type disadvantage against both of them," Squirtle sighed, "our best bet is if you take down the Bellsprout while I keep the Pikachu busy untill we can both gang up on it."
"Bellsprout?"
"The weed thing."
"It looks retarded. And I don't mean as an appearence." It was just standing there and waving slightly in the breeze. And staring, while sap oozed out of what looked to be its mouth.
"It doesn't have to be smart to follow its Trainer's orders, she looks smart. Unlike ours, best to ignore him."
"I was going to do that anyway," I shrugged as I locked my eyes on the weed in front of me.
---
Both Humans yelled out 'Go' at the same time, so I took that as the signal to start and fired off a quick fireball. The weed flopped to the floor, the small stalk that held it up just seemed to bend and refuse to take its weight, and the fireball sailed over it. I growled, right up untill I heard shouting from nearby.
"Just get close and blast it!" Squirtle was yelling as he grappled with the Pikachu, who shoved him back and forced him to dive to the left in order to avoid being shocked.
"Fine by me," I muttered to myself as I turned back to the Bellsprout thing before I charged.
---
And straight into what the girl called a Vine Whip. One of the 'arms' suddenly lashed out as I was only around half a meter away and caught me across the chest. I skidded to a halt, that had stung, and quickly glanced down to make sure there was no serious injury. There was no injury at all, my scales has shrugged off the worst of the blow. So, I returned my gaze to the Bellsprout and glared at it as hard as I could. Unfortunately, it was too retarded to faint at my awesome display of anger.
So I went with plan C, dropping plan B and it's fireball usage altogether as I flexed my claws. It lashed out again and I stopped the whip with my forearm, not even wincing at the stinging sensation as I used that moment to get closer and lashed out with a swipe of my own. I struck, my paw slamming into the side of its stalk. One problem, it was bendy enough to simply roll with the blow without taking any real damage. My momentum forced me to keep going and I skidded to a halt on the other side of it, trying to figure out what had just happened, when its vines came back for another go.
This time, they didn't bother with a whip and just wrapped around my throat. My eyes widened as the pressure rapidly increased and I suddenly found it impossible to breath. The vines were too small for my claws to grasp and pull off, they hid in the small crevices between my scales. And I couldn't use my firebreath even if I could hit them with it. So I was helpless as it became harder to stay standing and the sounds of fighting from the Pikachu and Squirtle suddenly seemed so far away.