Chapter 56: Cool prizes

Important characters

Jessie (Male Tentacool/Ex-Human)

Abra (Male, impatient, and looking for love~ *must be age 60+)

At the prize exchange corner the pair had finally managed to drag their horribly heavy bucket of tokens up to the counter, only losing most of it on the way over!

"Jeez, we lost so many coins all over the place. Some random person with Itemfinder is gonna be one happy fella."

-"SHUT IT WITH THE META HUMOR! Finally! Oh finally, Abra gets his due! Gimmie gimmie, gimime that bitter bitter nectar!"

"He means the Scald TM."

-"FOR NOW!"

The receptionist doesn't speak pokemon, for obvious reasons. A nearby Mr. Mime comes over to help out and manages to mime the message over to her.

She doesn't get that either.

*miming* Face droops with obvious distress. Picks up an invisible suitcase and begins putting away unseen objects. Picks up one object and gives a sad smile. Lightly touches it. Single tear. Stows it away and closes the suitcase. Puts a hat on and turns to leave, taking just one last look back before continuing to trudge away. Leaves the casino and walks down the street. Holds onto his hat and pretends to walk against an invisible wind storm. Loses hat and begins to chase after it. Hat lands at the feet of a woman. Run turns into a slow trot, then staring. Woman picks up the invisible hat and dusts it off, returning it to the mime with a smile. Takes the hat as their hands touch. Anime eyes. Mimes shielding his eyes with the hat as the invisible sun peeks through the invisible clouds. The two smile at each other and lock arms, walking down a flight of stairs that isn't there. *fin*

In the end, the two pokemon just wind up pointing at what they want. She nods at the TM shelf and, after accidentally buying both Ice Beam and Reflect, she finally lands on the Scald TM.

-"Oh, I'm sorry you two, it looks like we're out of that particular TM. But not to worry, we can just make one on site! Or if you're in a rush, you can follow me to the back and we can get you to learn the move directly to speed things up a bit." She says in the usual chirpy, customer service voice.

"Hm... Nah, I'll wait."

-"WHAT?! Like hell I can wait! Let's go get this over with already!"

"Buddy, calm down! She's getting the TM for us now! No need to rush, let's just sit tight and wait the few minutes to-" *teleport*

"...Seriously?" 'The back rooms. They look so plain, the sounds outside are muted, and there's cages... I really don't wanna think about them right now.'

-"Just get the damn move already!"

"Seriously! Do I have to teach you about how dangerous it is to go to third locations? You'd never survive if we were in some kind of movie or book."

-"Less hypotheticals, more move."

The lady reappeared then, a shiny looking Porygon floating beside her.

-"Oh good, so this is where you went! My friend here is responsible for programming all the TMs here at our establishment. We'll be using their help to have you learn the move directly through our special device. Go ahead and hop up onto the... Er, I'll help you up!"

With a bit of struggling, the lady lifts Jessie's bucket up and onto a chair. It has a weird device attached that looks similar to an EXP share item. Setting him down with a grunt, she reaches up and fits the device snugly onto his squishy head, bits of the red spots splorping out between the openings.

-"There we go! All snug? Then let's start up the machine! Porygon, would you mind?"

The pokemon gives a shrill cry that not even Jessie was able to translate. It hops up to the machine and sets itself down, the lights in it's eyes replaced with lines of data as it synchs up with the device.

And in an instant, Jessie was no more.

A bright flash and piercing sound runs through Jessie's head as he winds up somewhere else entirely! A vast green land totally devoid of bumps or edges. The land, if you could call it that, possessed a reflective sheen which mirrored back the Tentacool's surprise as he looked down into it. The sky was dark, lit only by the occasional wave of light accompanied by a cacophony of noise before rapidly fading back to the calm emptiness.

"Where... am I?"

Out of the emptiness flickers a pink and blue pokemon, Porygon.

-"HELLO."

"Oh jeez, this is trippy. Yeah, hi. So this is how you teach moves now a days?"

-"THIS IS HOW WE TEACH MOVES. CORRECT. ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN YOUR SESSION?"

"Yeah sure, as long as I don't need to sign anything."

-"DAMN. VERY WELL. I WILL TEMPORARILY SUSPEND YOUR SUBSCRIPTION APPLICATION."

-"DICK."

"Uh huh... Well, let's get started then! So do I just start spitting water, but hotter?"

-"I WILL UPLOAD THE DATA DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS."

"Oh great! Just don't upload any advertisements, kay?"

-"CRAP. VERY WELL. I WILL TEMPORARILY SUSPEND YOUR HAND TAILORED ADVERTISEMENTS."

-"ASSHOLE."

The 'training' doesn't last all that long, thankfully. After Jessie gets the basic gist of how to use Scald, Porygon has him run a few drills and aiming to make sure it's working properly.

..! Jessie has forgot Bubblebeam!
And-
Jessie has learned Scald!

"Yeah! This move feels great! I can't wait to start trying it out!"

-"NOT ON MY SERVERS, YOU DON'T!"

"No, of course not. I don't make a habit if spitting on computers, even before I learned how to shoot out water like a super soaker from hell."

-"I MEANT THE HUMANS."

-"FOR LEGAL PURPOSES. THAT WAS A JOKE."

"Ha, ha, haaa... I'm ready to leave now."

-"I APOLOGIZE. USER."

Back in the casino, Abra frantically zipped around the room with Teleport. But despite how he tried, the psychic barriers prevented him from reaching anywhere outside of this room.

Flanked by two Mr. Mime, the lady from the counter cracks a whip menacingly.

-"You two aren't going anywhere."