Buck and the Bucket
by Raggy50
Buck Perilla's first mistake was that he thought he could put a Geodude in an ice cream bucket.
Okay. Hethoughthe was being smart. He painted a flimsy one-gallon ice cream bucket brown and hiked through the foothills of Stark Mountain until he found several small round pits of disturbed dirt and ash. Geodude rest on the ground when they sleep — they only levitate while awake — and since his bike was out of service, Buck had no way to chase one in flight.
"Don't mind me, all you sussy rockas," he whispered to a few boulders twitching in the foamy dew of dawn. Quickly the bucket was buried and disguised with pine boughs, and Buck Perilla dusted off his hands. "I'm just doing it for the meme."
Then Buck whipped out his phone and sat on a bright orange five-gallon bucket. It was time to crisp his neck in the sun while waiting for his victim.
The unlucky Geodude was massive. Its biceps crunched like gravel underfoot. Its forehead throbbed with veins of golden pyrite. Its eyes were black and chalky. It grimaced without teeth. When it appeared around noon, it dropped itself in the bucket with awhumpand curled its arms around itself to doze. A snug fit. Enough to crack the plastic handle off one side, and enough to prove that stones couldbreathe,whatever ancient riddle that resolved.
Buck strained his fingernails as he lifted the bucket up without the handle. Levitation be damned, the Geodude had to weigh at least twenty pounds, and when the bucket popped clean of the earth it bulged, plastic going opaque where stretch marks formed.
He turned it upside down and set it on the ground, Geodude downward. Then he retrieved his other supplies from just within the trees. There was an old push broom, wire and wire cutters, the seat from his busted bike, (missing a spring,) his helmet and swim goggles, and if all else failed, a tube of super glue.
Today was the day Buck became awizard.Not one of those spoon-bending magicians who bubbled their brains with Kadabra. Not one of those cape-wearing daredevils who rode Dragonite bareback. On this day in ass-hot August, Buck Perilla was going to swap his mortal bike for a magic broomstick, and on the earth's magnetic field he'd frickin'fly.
That is, as long as he could keep the Geodude in the ice cream bucket and the bucket hitched on firmly to the broom. He hiked up his board shorts and snapped the swim goggles on his forehead.
"Ow!"
They were off-center. He tried again. The plastic lens twisted around and hit him in the eyeball.
"Frickin' A!"
Then the Geodude woke up.
It tore the bucket to shreds just by clenching its jaw. Then it whirled around, effortlessly hovering a foot above the ground as it searched for its sorry opponent. The knuckles crinkled. The stone fists beat the air in warning. The inflexible lips made a sound like scraping sandpaper.
Buck froze. Rocks were blind, right? Those black eyespots weren'tfunctional.Besides, at this point in the summer his complexion blended in with the crags! He held the broom above his head in his best dead shrub impression, which was possibly his sixth mistake of the day because the Geodude rushed right toward him, stone fists absolutely flying.
"AW,CRAP ON A CRACKER!"
Buck screeched in terror, whipping the broom as hard as he could toward the Pokémon — and missing. Twenty pounds of metamorphic magic plowed into his sternum, and he stumbled blindly backwards into the five-gallon bucket. Of course. The thing was bright neon orange!
"Dude,"the creature grunted."Dude, dude, dude."
"DUDE!" Buck gasped on the ground.
"Dude!"the Pokémon retorted.
"Dude!" Buck accused.
"DUDE!"threatened Geodude.
"DUDE!"cried the human, a hand on his heart and an earthquake in his bones.
"Duuude," Geodude warned, and snapped the broomstick in half right above where Buck lay.
"Duuuuuude,"Buck whined, and shuddered onto his side, fingers grasping helplessly to reach his phone.
"Dude," said Geodude, as if meaning'Look at me, idiot.'
"Dude," whimpered Buck, and it was a crude gesture for'If you killed me it would be so seriously cringe.'
Back and forth they went, soft skin fearing the living mineral, until Geodude snatched up the swim goggles and snapped them perfectly onto its forehead. It growled like gravel, made a shaky mock salute, and then floated off into the forest.
"Dude,"Buck breathed, and it did nothing but tighten the pain in his chest when he raised himself to sit. Something was bruised. Something else was probably broken. It was a failed experiment — one that made him grin.
"I think I still got enough brown paint for you," he told the five-gallon bucket.
And then he called his brother Flint to pick him up.
~N~
This story is part of The PokéPod Project Generation One — a compilation of 151 flash fics and audio recordings based on them for each of the original 151 Pokémon. You can find the "Podfic" version of "Buck and the Bucket," along with all the other fantastic stories, on AO3!
Originally published by Raggy50 on AO3 October 8th, 2024. Crossposted to FFN November 3rd, 2024. Please don't repost. Please do review!