INM 4: a Duo Note Tale.
"Where are you going with these stories?" You asked llama god.
"I just wanted to spread some tales while you wait, here take a look at this one." Arceus smiled as she flipped some pages and began reading.
The Kalos Region, the most french in all of the pokemon world in here pokemon enjoyed a luxurious life of commodities and high class that is all but a few.
Some pokemon not born in city lives or town folk were forced to be rural, to run amok the ferals and wild pokemon.
It was uncomfortable to most, but it usually didn't affect those who were into fighting and proving their strength like it was the case with a blue lobster, Clauncher.
"Haha! Take this sucker!" Clauncher laughed as he shot a water pulse attack to a nearby Remoraid who was angry.
Or it could affect the lives of pokemon gifted with more intelligence than others.
"Do you mind! I'm trying to read." Skrelp looked annoyed as she was a crusty kelp seahorse looking thing.
"Wait first of all of is she reading a book underwater, second of all why do the pokemon in previous stories have names and this ones don't?!" You ask.
"Bruh, do NOT interrupt me while reading, also it's a magic book..." Arceus glanced away.
"uh huh..." You didn't look convinced.
"And uh um... i am god and creator of all pokemon, it's a bit difficult remembering the names of EVERY single one of my creations okay like sheesh i even forgot Tornadus real name!" Arceus shrugs.
"Mk then, carry on with the story." You roll your eyes and kept visualizing what Arceus read.
"As i was saying..." Arceus kept reading.
"Sheesh why you always gotta ruin my fun Skrelp!" Clauncher used Vicegrip on the remoraid who tried to tackle him.
"You consider this act of barbariansm fun? Don't make me laugh, your pitiful neanderthal skull couldn't comprehend why being a crustacean stuck at the bottom of the ocean is a curse more than a gift!" Skrelp scoffed.
"Bro, i don't ever understand like half the things you say okay, you confuse me when you speak." Clauncher looked annoyed and crawled away.
"Ugh whatever..." Skrelp looked equally as annoyed as she swam away to sleep on a reef.
Yep, both of these pokemon were living in the wild, at the bottom of the ocean with other sentient and feral fish like pokemon.
Clauncher was happy fighting and brawling everyday for food, he didn't have a problem at all with this life.
However Skrelp yearned for more, she was tired of her same mundane routine of swimming around, eating some kelp and just reading the same book every single day.
This book was gifted by a strange pumpkin headed man to her around a year ago, it was about the Kalos region, its history, its cities and its technology.
Skrelp loved to learn and figure out how things work, she was a fast learner and was proud of her intelligence; which was high above the average for a typical seahorse.
She was very unsatisfied with her life, she felt like she belonged somewhere else, like she needed to escape from the ocea of Coastal Kalos.
The next day she proposed the idea to her best... and arguably... Only friend, Clauncher.
Clauncher was very different than Skrelp, he was the Yin to her Yang; he was a brute, didn't think before acting, loved to fight, and was decently social.
Compared to Skrelp being well behaved, rational, avoided conflict and was very antisocial; most fish pokemon straight up avoided Skrelp due to her being seen as mean or snooty by them.
Clauncher didn't find as many reasons to ditch her however, sure she was bossy and annoying at times but, he was tough he could handle her.
So that's how the two hang out, most were afraid to be around Clauncher due to his inmense strength and battle prowess; but Skrelp was not intimidated therefore she was always around him.
"Clauncher, we need to swim away! We need to go to the surface!" Skrelp told him.
"What, why would we ever do that, we are fine here." Clauncher looked uninterested.
"We don't do anything here! We are just... just... wasting our lives!" Skrelp yells.
"So?" Clauncher replied not really caring.
"Don't you wish you could do more than fight fish everyday?" Skrelp asked him.
"Not really, i love fighting!" Clauncher smirks.
"...yea i know, you remind me everyday... but i want to do more with my life, i want to explore the Kalos region, the whole thing it has to offer!" Skrelp looked inspired.
"Oh crawfish, here we go again..." Clauncher rolled his eyes.
"Do not patronize me you overgrown crustacean!" Skrelp glares.
"Bruh you always go on these rants about wanting to explore the Kalos region, wanting to go to land, wanting more in life; you tell me this like A LOT but you never actually do it." Clauncher told her.
"huh?!" Skrelp was taken aback.
"You always say you want to do this and escape the ocean even tho we are fish! Yet you never actually accomplish your goal and choose to remain here, so why do you do this huh, what's the point?" Clauncher asked.
Silence, you could almost hear the sound of a pebble touching the ocean floor at the aquatic silence.
"Because you're my only friend, and i want to see Kalos with you." Skrelp replied.
Clauncher looked a bit surprised by this.
"You're the dumbest, most foolish, most loyal and strongest pokemon i know... i know you'd be amazing help during my dream journey." Skrelp looked genuine.
Clauncher looked a bit annoyed at being called dumb but grins at the loyal and strong part.
"Plus I'm a seahorse and can't walk on land like you so I'd need someone to carry me around." Skrelp finally admitted.
"Oh for fuck sake Skrelp!" Clauncher looked pissed off.
and so the duo were off, they emerged from the ocean and looked around.
"Where even are we.." Clauncher looked around.
"Apparently we are in Azure Bay, come on let us swim!" Skrelp guided the blue lobster.
Clauncher sighed and followed her.
Eventually they landed on a beach.
"What's the plan brainiac maniac?" Clauncher looked bored as he was using his big claw to hold Skrelp.
"First of all we need to find civilization! We can't just stay on this beach, we must explore some more!" Skrelp orders.
The two kept going around until they stumbled apon a nearby city, Coumarine City.
"You know this is actually my first time outside the ocean floor for this long, it's actually not so bad seeing different stuff for once." Clauncher looked around smiling.
"See! Isn't this great, we are on an adventure to explore the Kalos Region!" Skrelp looked happy.
Night-time then hit and both Clauncher and Skrelp were shivering in a bench covered in newspaper.
"Gee Professor Ugly, it appears y-your oh so wonderful adventure is just going s-swell!" Clauncher was shivering.
"I do not have a bachelors in t-teaching and also this is just a minor setback, i assure you we will find a place to live s-soon enough!" Skrelp shivered as well.
"Yeah sure, whatever you say kelp face..." Clauncher was irritated.
A couple days passed and well it went shitty.
"That's it! I'm tired of just walking around doing nothing for the past few days! We been mostly eating berries for a while!" Clauncher looked mad.
"There's got to be more! Come on we have to find a way to explore the Kalos Region faster, this method of transportation is a bit slower than anticipated." Skrelp looked stressed.
"I had to fight off so many damn Litleos for our berries, i suggest we just start eating them." Clauncher pointed at a nearby fainted Litleo.
"Revolting! We aren't feral pokemon Clauncher we have two things called standards and self respect." Skrelp replied.
"Maybe you, not me! It's time to feast!" Clauncher crawled towards the cat.
"Clauncher nooooo!" Skrelp shouts.
"Ugh what is it!" Clauncher glares.
"We cannot do that, we need to find another way to get food and travel." Skrelp orders.
"Well it's not like the solution will pop out of thin air now is it kelpy!" Clauncher huffed.
"Hey i uh couldn't help but overhear your conversation." said an invisible voice.
"Wuh, who just said that!?" Skrelp looked astonished.
"Reveal yourself bro, I'll totally not kick your ass for spying on us!" Clauncher growls.
"jeez calm down, i am an invisible uhhhhh pokemon yeah pokemon named uhhhh Host." Host said.
"According to this book, there is no pokemon named Host from this region." Skrelp spoke.
"I'm from somewhere else." Host said.
"Oh that makes sense." Skrelp nods.
"So what do you want dude?" Clauncher asked.
"Well i wanted to host a competition, a show where one of each species of Kalos pokemon get to compete in challenges all over Kalos to prove they are the best Kalos pokemon of all!" Host sounded happy.
"How is an invisible creature supposed to host challenges and make over fifty species of pokemon travel around the region?" Skrelp was a bit inquisitive.
"I have magic." Host simply said.
"Yep, checks out he's a wizard." Clauncher looked relaxed.
"That's improbable, magic isn't real." Skrelp looked annoyed.
"Oh yeah, then check this out." Host said, but nothing was seen as he was ofc invisible.
However a finger snap was heard and Skrelp could actually move, she was floating in the air and swimming around air like of she was on water.
"I can move? This is amazing, h-how!?" Skrelp was stunned.
"Like the blue lobster says, I'm a wizard." Host replied.
"Called it!" Clauncher grins.
"So yeah i already recruited a couple of players to join my show Battle for Kalos or something i don't know, I'm still working on it.. wanna join?" asked Host.
"Of course I'll join! It's been my dream to see the Kalos region and all it has to offer!" Skrelp looked happy.
"I mean beats fighting fish at the bottom of the ocean i guess..." Clauncher shrugs.
"Great, you two make audtion tapes using this camera and I'll teleport you all tomorrow if you finished recording." Host gave them a camera and then dipped ig.
"How do we use this brick?" Clauncher looked at it.
"It's quite simple really, you record me first so i show you how it's done; just press the button on the top before i speak and after I'm done." Skrelp grins as she swims to her position near infront of the camera.
Clauncher looked bored and pressed the button to start recording.
Skrelp (Audition Tape): "I am the smartest Skrelp alive! All of my brothers and sisters are brutes, nothing more than mindless toxic parasites but I studied the arts, science and history with a degree in mathematics, I will surely overtake this competition!" She looked very overconfident and cocky.
Clauncher pressed the button to stop recording.
"Gee that was so humble of you." Clauncher grins.
"I want to show Host the true side of me joining the show, I'll record you so just do your thing i guess..." Skrelp swam towards the camera as Clauncher now got infront of the camera, he looked bored.
"My thing huh, heh okay..." Clauncher grins.
Clauncher (Audition Tape): "I am strong, there I said it plain and simple, if you want someone to carry stuff or beat someone up, I'm your guy, my strength will be a huge benifit to my team so I can't wait to join and kick some butt hehe!" He grins confidently.
"Great! We have archived sucess in performing our audtions and now we wait to join Battle for Kalos!" Skrelp smiles.
"Yeah yeah whatever, hopefully this show finally shuts your trap about exploring Kalos or whatever..." Clauncher looked uninterested.
And sure enough it did, both Skrelp and Clauncher met a lot of different pokemon who competed with them; they got to travel all around Kalos and of course eventually even evolved; after the game ended and the Aftermath show was off-air, the only question left was, what now?
"So." Clawitzer asked.
"So what?" Dragalge replied.
"What do you plan on doing now, the show is over... you went all over Kalos, what's your goal now exactly?" Asked Clawitzer.
Dragalge pondered this question to herself a bit, she had successfully completed the task she set herself out to do, what even was there to do.
"I think i want to find a job and live here in the surface." Dragalge replied.
"Excuse me? What!?" Clawitzer asked.
"Oh come on Clawy, don't tell me you honestly want to return to that same life we had at the bottom of the ocean?!" Dragalge asked him.
Clawitzer thought about it for a second, traveling around Kalos and meeting so many pokemon did change his point of view in his style of living.
"I mean fine i guess, we can live in the surface." Clawitzer shrugs but gave a smile.
"Wonderful, you begin looking for a place to live for us, meanwhile I'll look for a place where we can get temporary jobs." Dragalge told him.
"K, sure thing Kelp face." Clawitzer nodded and crawled away.
They eventually did find a place to live and worked in a store as stockers for a while; Dragalge was studying at night to be a teacher while Clawitzer just slept.
After a couple of years Dragalge got her degree and she teached history and geography at a university and she was a part-time mathematics and biology tutor.
Needless to say Dragalge and Clawitzer were very well off in money, and lived in Lumiose City; Clawitzer had a gym membership where he regularly trained to keep his strength in peak.
Both were doing what they loved, Clawitzer was gettting strong and training at the gym; he started his own TubeYou channel about working out which was pretty popular while Dragalge was teaching younger generations about her passions.
Clawitzer and Dragalge were on their bed relaxing and watching a movie on their streaming thing which is totally not Netflix.
They were best friends but still slept on the same bed cause, why not.
"Hey Dragalge you know something..." Clawitzer asked.
"Hm?" Dragalge side eyed him with interest.
"You were right about leaving the ocean, experiencing this life has been the best." Clawitzer smiled.
"I'm just glad you actually decided to come along..." Dragalge smiled at him.
"Heh what makes you think i wouldn't?" Clawitzer asked.
"You were right when you said i always threatened to leave the ocean but never actually came through with it, fact is Clawitzer i was scared back then..." Dragalge looked melancholic.
"Scared? Scared of what?" Clawitzer asked.
"Scared of what lies beyond our ocean waves, what life on land truelly was... what we were even going to do up there... i had no plan, i was just winging it as you might say..." Dragalge told him.
"Yea those first few days were rough..." Clawitzer thought back and remembered it.
"I was convinced you were gonna leave, and then i would've been alone... i don't have anyone without you Clawitzer... if host wouldn't had recruited us for the show, we likely wouldn't be relaxing in this bed." Dragalge told him, she was shedding a few tears.
"That's true, we'd be relaxing in a different one." Clawitzer told her.
"Huh, what do you mean?" Dragalge looked confused as Clawitzer wiped the tears off her face.
"Look, i was annoyed and upset life on land was rougher than on the ocean sure, but i was never gonna actually leave you; we are rivals for life remember? The Kelp Brain and The Sea Jock! Even if exploring all of Kalos, evolving and getting to where we are now would've taken longer if not for the show, it's a path i was willing to take with you." Clawitzer smiled.
Dragalge hugged him and thanked him for being by her side, he hugged her back and thanked her for the fun adventure.
"We still have a life to enjoy so let's do our best tomorrow agreed?" Clawitzer asked.
"Got it! Dragalge smiled.
The next day things went off as normal, for about 10 minutes...
Dragalge was teaching her class like normal when she suddenly disappeared from plain sight, she was teleported away.
Meanwhile Clawitzer was just chilling in the gym doing some lifts when he also disappeared and was teleported away.
Dragalge and Clawitzer looked around, they saw a bunch of pokemon, some walking talking objects, some humans and more creatures around them.
However the most eerie thing of all was their surrounding biome, which was just an endless white void with no floor or sky, it was all just... so blank.
"This... can't be real..." Dragalge looked around, desperately trying to make sense of any of this.
But it was real, and it was very much out of my hands at this point, they began competing in the game called Deadly All-Stars...
Dragalge and Clawitzer were separated in different teams on the Red Apples we had...
(Red Apples)
Clawitzer, Folder, Rowlet, Trixie, Lurantis, Scout, Bergmite, Alejandro, Knuckles, Marill, Apple and Courtney
While on the Purple Grapes we had...
(Purple Grapes)
Dragalge, Emolga, Coalossal, Golf Ball, Hisuian Typhlosion, Silicobra, Clobbopus, Grubbin, Dedenne, Tsareena, Aegislash and Togedemaru.
They did the best they could, they did challenges, they tried to not get eliminated which in this game meant death... but it was very difficult.
Clawitzer and Dragalge talked as much as they could between challenges, stuff like the members of their teams, drama, potential game strategies and how they would escape this place.
Because the original plan was them both wanting to escape together obviously, but that seemed less likely to happen the more episodes they were on and the more challenges they did.
Each time their teams were up for elimination they felt like they barely escaped death just by a bit, they never truelly felt safe around this season unlike in Battle for Kalos.
Dragalge was more pessimistic saying there was no escape and they would get eliminated sooner or later; while Clawitzer tried to keep his friend up with hope and possibilities.
"Look Kelpy, i have a huge alliance with Alejandro, Scout and Knuckles, i am sure we can add you next time we have a new teams phase, come on just survive a bit longer and we'll find a way to help you out." Clawitzer smiled.
"That'd be nice Clawitzer, it would be nice." Dragalge closed her eyes as she tried to relax, her team Purple Grapes had lost last challenge and she wanted to relax before elimination.
In the end Dragalge didn't get very far but she gave all her prize tokens to Clawitzer as a last ditch effort to save him somehow.
Clawitzer now holding Dragalges old prize tokens was overwhelmed with grief but kept his cool guy facade pretending the death of his rival/best friend didn't affect him when in fact it did.
A couple episodes after Dragalges death there was a new phase in the game with new teams...
This time Clawitzer belonged in Team ONE which consisted of..
Atom, Falinks, Toxtricity, Goomy, Blocky, Grubbin, Circle, Squidward, Golf Ball, Heather, Mareanie, Hatterene, Apple and of course... Clawitzer.
The game continued like normal, alliances, strategies, challenges they just hsd to gloss over the fact lives were being lost every episode.
An alliance created a strategy of using ally immunity cards to save eachother, the plan was to use them in order to save players who were in risk of elimination; Tsareena suggested this idea to Alejandros alliance.
Clawitzer had enough tokens thanks to Dragalge to buy an ally immunity card for he didn't have enough to buy a self immunity eventually in his teams second loss a teammate Heather demanded she be saved with ally immunity.
Everyone else was silent, either glancing away or glaring at heather; Clawitzer broke the silence by saying.
"I'll use my immunity on someone i consider a friend... Dragalge was my friend... you aren't..." Clawitzer side eyed her with uninterestest.
Heather of course was outraged and pissed off as she was eliminated and killed.
More episodes passed, more challenges and eliminations occurred, and we reached the end of his story as well...
"Goo and Clawitzer! Both of you are OVER!" Host revealed the eliminated players.
"N-no way! This can't be! I can't be out! Not so early!" Clawitzer couldn't believe the results.
"Yea it's a shocker to all I know..." Host seemed to not care for the lives of the contestants.
"Hurry up and give your old allies your points!" Grubbin yelled out.
"Yea we might as well use them..." Toxtricity shrugged; Clawitzer was still stunned he was out and managed to speak out his final words.
"I uh ..I give all my points to Sylveon i guess..." Clawitzer spoke and then the second placer of Battle for Kalos had died.
Nothing else to this story, they were never recovered so they're nothing more than a forgotten character, unimportant to the main plot.
Their lives may have been meaningless to others, but to Dragalge and Clawitzer, they were happy with it while they had it; a shame we won't ever see them again sadly; despite being god i cannot revive them since Host killed them in his dimension, not mine.
Therefore Dragalge and Clawitzer will forever remain just a duo note tale.