The Quest for the Legends

[Dragonfree]

I know this sounds A LOT too similar to Gavin Luper's Lisa the Legends. But don't worry, I've actually never got around to reading that fic and I didn't even know anything called "the pokémasters" existed when I decided what this fic should be. So, it has nothing to do with that fic... but I've got warnings to readers, for those who haven't read it in the Writer's lounge...

It starts out really bad, and as a very normal trainer fic.

It doesn't get to the actual point (and explaining what the heck that name has to do with anything) until chapter twenty-seven, although there are a few nice plot twists until then so I won't kill all readers of boredom.

But it WILL GET BETTER. Trust that.

My descriptions are really bad, just try to imagine what everything looks like. You won't have to imagine what people's voices sound like, though.

If someone is still going to read the first chapter, here we go. Two and a half pages, among the shorter chapters in the story (the shortest is one page; I'll never make a chapter that short again).

Oh, and in this fic, the pokémon talk. It happens in the future when kids learn Pokémonish at school after a lot of money had been spent on a project to research the language of pokémon. Just so you know, the pokémon aren't really speaking English.



Chapter 1: How the adventure began

Mark was very interested in pokémon. He owned many shelves full of books on pokémon. And he was especially interested in legendary pokémon. However, he unfortunately happened to live in a tiny village in the northwest corner of Ouen that just had no pokémon near it. And of course some famous professor wouldn't come there to give out starter pokémon for kids. Mark's parents didn't want him to go alone to the next town with pokémon near it, and they had no interest in going with him. Mark simply thought he could never become a pokémon trainer.
Until that day, which just seemed to be a normal day in May.
Mark was outside with his friends when a thunderstorm started. They all hurried home because it started to rain heavily. But when Mark was about to reach the door to his house, he thought he saw a movement in the bushes along the road.
A pokémon? he thought. Can that be?
He rushed to the bushes and rattled the branches, but there was no sight of anything living other than the bush itself. Mark assumed he had been imagining it, and went inside.
After dinner, Mark sat down in the living room and looked out of the window at the weather. He suddenly remembered what he had thought to be a pokémon. Maybe it was a pokémon, after all. Looking better wouldn’t hurt.
The window was very wet, but through it, he saw the blurry image of the road. And there was indeed something moving out there. He rushed to the door and opened...
On the road was a real, living Charmander. Well, barely living. The flame at the tip of its tail wouldn’t last long in that weather. In fact, the flame was nearly extinguished. That was also the reason why it just fell unconscious. Mark did, of course, what anyone would do in that situation – picked up the poor pokémon and checked it out a bit. It was a male, and clearly young. The Charmander opened one eye with difficulty and caught Mark’s face, then fainted again. Mark hurried back inside and closed the door.
“Mom! Dad! I – I found a Charmander outside and it is dying!”
“Hahahahaha,”came his mother from upstairs. She obivously didn't believe him.
“No, really! Can you help me a bit!” Mark shouted angrily.
She came down the stairs, eyed the pokémon and stopped.
“Oh my god!” she said. “John, you have to see this! It's a Charmander!”
But his father was fast asleep, judging from the snores. Of course, he didn't really care and his mother didn't either. She hurried back upstairs, got a flame-proof garment from the kitchen and some extra pillows, and told Mark to place the Charmander on the pillows and put the tail on the garment so it wouldn't burn up the house. Then she advised him to put the pokémon near himself in his bed so it would get warm quicker. He did so, and fell asleep with his hand on the Charmander's body, in dreamy thoughts.
Maybe I can own it. Maybe it can be my pokémon, and I can become a pokémon trainer. Or, maybe a trainer lost it and I will get a lot of money for finding it...
He grinned and his thoughts changed into a dream.

Mark woke up the next morning and found his hand on the empty garment. The Charmander, however, was looking happily at his face, holding its tail carefully up.
“Charmander! You’re alive!”
“Mander,” said the Charmander and nodded.
Mark couldn't believe his luck.
That day, Mark checked out all the news and “lost pokémon” in the newspapers and on the internet, but no one had reported a lost Charmander. Meanwhile, Charmander seemed to be really thankful for being saved. Mark had been very good at Pokémonish at school, so he could usually understand Charmander pretty well. The basic thing he said was something around the lines of “Thanks for saving my life out there, I thought I’d never make it!”. Charmander was very nice as a friend, but as Mark now saw his chance to become a pokémon trainer, he couldn't stop thinking about that possibility. After a long debate with his parents, they finally allowed him to go on a journey and become a pokémon trainer.

And the next day, he started training pokémon. That means he started walking to the next city with a Pokémon Center, Cleanwater city. It was actually a pretty interesting city, according to some of the books on pokémon legends Mark had read. Near the city was a lake called the Lake of Purity. It contained 100% clean water, and the legend said it was because Suicune came every night and cleaned the lake by dipping its paw into it. Also, a Gyarados was said to have lived in the lake once, but it could never catch prey because it was so easy to see with the water that clear. But then it suddenly disappeared. No one knew where the Gyarados went, as there was no river in or out of the lake. But, at least, the city’s many pokémon legends attracted tourists, so many trainers came there, and many trainers need a Pokémon Center and a Pokémon market, so that was where Mark headed. And as he obivously had no pokéballs, Charmander just walked beside him for now.
“Charmander, I’ve been thinking...”
“Yes?” Charmander replied.
“What were you doing out there? You can’t be a wild Charmander, then you would know where to go when it’s raining. Besides, there are no pokémon around our village.”
“A... a trainer used to own me,” Charmander said and hung his head.
“What? Did your trainer just leave you there in the rain?”
“No, he traded me,” said Charmander.
“Traded you for what?”
“Quilava,” said Charmander bitterly.
“A Quilava? But people just don't do that! Why trade a pokémon for the evolved form of its counterpart? It's like trading a Milotic for a Magikarp!”
“Oh yeah, so I'm as weak as a Magikarp, am I?!” Charmander said offended.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that, I...”
“And surely Quilava easily matches a Milotic in strength...”
“I... oh, sorry, I didn't mean that you were weak...”
“That's better.”
“Yes, but anyway, why did that Quilava's trainer accept the trade?”
“That Quilava was level fifteen. My trainer told the other trainer that I was also level fifteen.”
“Oh, and of course, Quilava evolves at level fourteen, but Charmander at level sixteen... what level are you really, anyway?”
“Five,” said Charmander lousily.
“Well, what did the other trainer do when they found out you were only level five?”
“Threw my pokéball away and went after my old trainer.”
“So you got out, then. But for what did you go to our village?”
“Looking for my old trainer, I guess.”
“Why? Your old trainer just wanted power and lied just to get rid of you!”
“Yes, that has dawned onto me by now. I have no interest in finding him now. But I guess there's some loyalty naturally built into me...”
“Just forget about him... Oh, a house!”
There was a house ahead. A farm, that is. Inside a fence, there was a lot of pokémon like Tauros, Miltank and Mareep. But a large sign intrested Mark the most. It said "PONYTA AND RAPIDASH FOR SALE". Under it, it said "Bed and breakfast".
Just as he read the sign, a middle-aged woman came out of the house. “How much is a Rapidash?” Mark asked her.
“40000,” was her answer. The way her voice sounded told Mark that she wasn’t ready to lower the price.
“Oh, I only have 10000. Aren’t the Ponytas any cheaper?”
“They’re 20000,” the woman said in the same tone of voice.
“Can they battle?” Mark then asked.
“No, of course not!” the woman said. “They are trained not to attack anything but in self-defense, and then they are not supposed to use their fire powers. But of course they can burn people that touch them,” she added nastily when she saw Mark’s hand was getting close to one of the Ponytas. He quickly withdrew his hand.
“Can I buy a night here for me my Charmander?” Mark asked when he remembered that it was still a long way to Cleanwater city.
“Charmander, eh?” said the woman. “Well, if it burns the house down, you'll have to pay.”
Mark walked inside with her.


And that's the end of chapter 1. Please tell me what you think.

[Dragonfree]

Here's chapter two. It's nine pages long, but it doesn't make it better - it's actually one of the very worst chapter since it is entirely Mark reading a book. It seems like the actual plot will start now, but it won't. It was just because that was when I decided what the story should be about, then I abandoned the idea and was just going to make it a trainer fic until I suddenly had a great idea of something to happen. This chapter is just made from descriptions of (stupid) legendary pokémon I made up many ages ago, mostly combinations between two others. I just beg you not to judge the entire fic by it; it's the worst chapter, just forget it ever existed (but don't forget that those legendary pokémon exist).


Chapter 2: The book

Mark looked around once they were inside. He eyed a book in a large bookcase called Old and new pokémon legends. By the size of the book, Mark got the feeling that it included more than just those normal, boring legendary pokémon everyone has already caught. As a matter of fact, he also had the odd feeling that he just had to read that book, so he asked:
“Can I read a book?”
“Guess you can,” said the woman like she didn’t care what he did at all and went into another room.
“Thanks,” Mark said and drew the book out. It was very dusty, and seemed like it had been there untouched for years. At least it was certain that the woman wasn’t very interested in legendary pokémon. He opened the book, sat down on a gray old sofa and started to read, with Charmander reading over his shoulder.

Part I: Legendary Pokémon

Contents:
Articuno 4
Zapdos 7
Moltres 10
Mew 13
Mewtwo 16
Molzapart 17
Raikou 18
Entei 21
Suicune 24
Rainteicune 27
Ho-oh 28
Lugia 31
Hogia 34
Celebi 35
Chaletwo 37
Regice 38
Regirock 40
Registeel 42
Laitos 44
Laitas 46
Groudon 48
Kyogre 51
Rayquaza 54
Jirachi 57
Deoxys 60
Waraider 63
Flamer 64
Hydrocean 64
Electrone 64
Leafer 64
Freezer 64
Psycon 64
Darkan 64
Dracolor 65
Dragoreen 66
Dragored 66
Dragoblue 66
Dragold 66
Dragowhite 66
Dragoblack 66

“Molzapart? Rainteicune? Hogia? Chaletwo? Waraider, Flamer, Hydrocean, Electrone, Leafer, Freezer, Psycon, Darkan? Dracolor, Dragoreen, Dragored, Dragoblue, Dragold, Dragowhite, Dragoblack – I’ve never heard of any of those!” Mark felt weird to know that so many legendary pokémon hadn’t been mentioned in his books at all. He turned to page 17 and started to read about Molzapart.

Molzapart

Molzapart is a mix between Articuno (see pages 4 - 6), Zapdos (pages 7 – 9), Moltres (pages 10 - 12), and Mew (pages 13 – 15). It is the most powerful pokémon, along with Chaletwo (page 37). There is only one that was born when Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and Mew were at Seafoam Islands. They saw the ultra-powerful Mist stone (see page 74) and thought is was a pokémon, so they attacked it, each with their most powerful attack. These attacks all hit the Mist stone at the same time and it shattered into a million pieces, except that the middle part was still there, floating in mid-air, crackling with electricity, glowing white-hot, but yet frozen at the same time. And it turned to life because of the power of their attacks combined with the power of the Mist stone. It transformed into a pokémon with Moltes’s head, Zapdos’s body, Articuno’s wings and tailfeathers, and power equal to its creators’ added together, along with having gained five types, Fire/Electric/Ice/Psychic/Flying. After Mew and the legendary birds ran away, Molzapart started to train itself and at last it reached level 100. But it wanted more, it wanted to become the most powerful pokémon ever, so it trained even more and with help from its psychic powers, it finally managed to get over level 100 with experience. When it then reached level 255, it used all of its psychic powers to get even farther than the only other pokémon capable of getting over level 100, Missingno., and got itself to level 256. After that, it had to rest for three years because of the power that required, but then it could train itself forever without help from the psychic powers. No one knows for now what level Molzapart is currently on. Molzapart learns these attacks:

Level Attack
--- Peck
6 Thundershock
7 Ember
8 Powder snow
9 Gust
15 Confusion
18 Icy wind
20 Wing attack
22 Flame wheel
23 Spark
24 Psybeam
26 Fly
30 Drill peck
34 Psychic
35 Thunderbolt
36 Flamethrower
37 Ice beam
40 Aeroblast
41 Sacred fire
42 Zap cannon
45 Fire spin
50 Blizzard
51 Fire blast
52 Thunder
55 Sky attack

Another interesting thing about Molzapart is that it can know five attacks at the same time. It also has the ability to modify people’s memory at will, and not just erase it, but actually modify it, and is said to kill any trainer who tries to catch it and then make everyone forget them.

“Wow, that sounds really powerful,” Mark muttered. “Let’s see... what is Rainteicune?”
He turned to page 27.

Rainteicune

Rainteicune is a mix between Raikou (page 18), Entei (page 21) and Suicune (page 24). It was born when clones a trainer had created of Raikou, Entei and Suicune were on their race around the Johto world when a terrible thing happened; they all crashed into each other on Route 46. Because of their speed, the force broke their skulls easily and killed them, although life was still left in their bodies for a few seconds afterwards. Suicune died first, melting into a pool of water. But when the water touched Entei’s body, Entei died, too, and at the same time it touched Raikou, which was still barely alive. The water caused Raikou to release a Thunder, but then Raikou died.
Because that Thunder was Raikou’s very last bit of life, it managed to revive the life that had just left the legendary beasts. But as they were all connected by Suicune’s water, it mixed them up into Rainteicune, which had Raikou’s body, Suicune’s head and ribbons, and Entei’s feet and cloak. Rainteicune’s birth gave it more than two types, like had happened with Molzapart (page 17), making Rainteicune a Fire/Water/Electric type. Rainteicune’s attacks are:

Level Attack
--- Bubble
5 Water gun
6 Thundershock
7 Ember
10 Bubblebeam
11 Spark
12 Flame wheel
18 Fire spin
22 Surf
23 Thunderbolt
24 Flamethrower
30 Rain dance
36 Hydro pump
37 Thunder
38 Fire blast

Rainteicune’s maximum stats at level 100 are: 433 HP, 328 Attack, 328 Defense, 328 Speed, 328 Special Attack, 328 Special Defense.

“Wow, that’s incredibly much, even for a legendary pokémon!” Mark said, astonished. “Each stat comes from the one of them that is the strongest in that category, it seems. But these legendary pokémon all appear to be boring mixes of others... ‘Hogia’? Not hard to guess what that is...” And he turned to page 34.

Hogia

Hogia looks very much like Ho-oh (page 28) but the feathers on the head are different and also the colors of the tail-and-wingfeathers. It also learns different attacks. It learns Aeroblast, which is Lugia’s (page 31) signature move, and that’s why it has this name. People assume it is related to Ho-oh in some way. It is a Fire/Flying-type and learns:

Level Attack
--- Gust
--- Peck
--- Transform
--- Ember
17 Metal claw
27 Whirlwind
37 Wing attack
47 Flamethrower
57 Sacred fire
67 Stare
77 Aeroblast
87 Fire blast
97 Hyper beam

The strangest thing about this pokémon is how it learned Transform.

“Well, it wasn’t a mix between Ho-oh and Lugia after all. Let’s look at Chaletwo,” Mark muttered and turned to page 37.

Chaletwo

Chaletwo is equally powerful as Molzapart (page 17). Only one exists, and it doesn’t really exist but once a year. It always appears at the same place, just out of Green town, in the grass down from the Pokémon center. It appears at 4: 26: 45 PM at the 25th of May. There is a clock in the pokémon center that tells the exact timing for people that want to see Chaletwo. It looks like a Mewtwo (page 16) for an unknown reason except that its eyes are extremely powerful, and whatever it looks at with its eyes open will die if it’s alive and explode if it’s not. However, Chaletwo, regardless of being a Dark/Psychic type, is a protector of all life and therefore doesn’t use its powers. Chaletwo’s eyelids are the only thing that can resist the power streaming from its eyes, and even with its eyes closed, Chaletwo can see through things. So, once a year, it appears near Green town and, with its eyes closed, will scan through the planet to check for a threat to all life. If it finds one, Chaletwo will travel back in time, because one of its abilities is timetraveling and try to fix it before it starts. Otherwise, Chaletwo will just travel one year into the future for its next yearly appearance. Chaletwo’s psychic powers are incredibly strong, it has very powerful stats and is level 4739 when this is written. Its Special attack and Speed are even higher than Molzapart’s, but the Attack, Defense and Special defense of Molzapart are slightly higher than Chaletwo’s. Chaletwo’s eyes are bright yellow under the eyelids. The attack when it opens its eyes is called Death Stare. It also knows Psychic, Future Sight and Teleport, and Chaletwo can also learn Mirror coat, Ancient power, Mind reader, Confusion, Psybeam, Psych up, Psywave, Recover, Reflect and Barrier. Its abilities to control the weather are also said to give it the ability to indirectly use Gust, Whirlwind, Powder Snow, Blizzard, Thunder, Rain dance, Sunny day, Sandstorm, Earthquake, Haze, Mist, Icy wind, Moonlight, Morning Sun, Razor leaf, Razor wind, and Solarbeam.

“It’s the 10th of May today! If I get to Green town within two weeks, I can see Chaletwo!” Mark was exited by knowing this, but still wondered why his books on legendary pokémon didn’t mention Chaletwo. He turned to page 63.

Waraider

Waraider is a legendary pokémon that few people know of. It is a white flying unicorn, Normal/Flying type, and knows Horn attack, Fury attack, Horn Drill, Wing attack, Double kick, Jump kick, Hi jump kick, Stomp, Mega kick and Gust. Its evolutions all know these attacks and more, they will all be described briefly on the next page. Waraider and its evolutions all race around in company, and try not to be caught. They are said once to have been only Waraiders, but when they were all near a town, some kids started throwing stones at them, but didn’t notice many of the stones they threw at them were evolution stones which evolved the Waraiders as they hit them. The pokémon ran away, only two of them were still Waraiders, and one unfortunately stepped on a part of the Mist stone (page 74) and evolved too. After that, the last Waraider became the leader of them all.

Flamer

Flamer is the fire evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Fire stone. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Ember, Fire spin, Flame wheel, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Sunny day, Sacred fire, Morning sun, and Fire punch. Its tail and mane are made of fire, like Ponyta’s, but its body is white.

Hydrocean

Hydrocean is the water evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Water stone. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Water gun, Waterfall, Hydro pump and Rain dance. Its tail is like a waterfall and its mane is like a river. Its body is deep blue.

Electrone

Electrone is the electric evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Thunderstone. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Thundershock, Thunder wave, Spark, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Thunderpunch and Zap cannon. Its horn is a little shaped like a bolt of lightning and its mane and tail are always sparkling. Its body is bright yellow.

Leafer

Leafer is the grass evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Leaf stone. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Razor leaf, Solarbeam, Synthesis, Absorb, Mega drain, Giga drain and Leech seed. Its tail, mane and wings are not made of hair and feathers, but leaves. Its body is white.

Freezer

Freezer is the ice evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Mist stone and therefore the most powerful of them all. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Powder snow, Mist, Haze, Ice beam, Icy wind, Aurora beam, Ice punch and Blizzard. It is very cold to the touch and its tail, mane, horn and wings are light blue. Its body is white.

Psycon

Psycon is the psychic evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Sun stone. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Confusion, Psybeam, Teleport, Barrier, Light screen, Mirror coat, Psych up, Amnesia, Agility, Future sight, Hypnosis, Dream eater, Meditate, Kinesis, Psychic, Psywave, Reflect and Rest. Its mane, tail, wings and horn are purple, but the body is white.

Darkan

Darkan is a little different from the others, as its wings are those of a bat and it has fangs. It is the dark evolution of Waraider, evolved with a Moon stone. In addition to Waraider’s moves, it learns Pusuit, Bite, Crunch, Faint attack and Thief. It is completely black, but its eyes are a bit red.

“Those are interesting, but Dracolor sounds very interesting too.” Mark turned to page 65.

Dracolor

This is a baby pokémon. It can evolve into Dragoreen, Dragored, Dragoblue, Dragold, Dragowhite or Dragoblack. They all learn different moves at different levels. Dracolor starts with Bite and Tail whip but doesn’t learn anything else. It’s a Dragon/Flying type, although the wings are small and can barely keep it in the air. It evolves at level twenty, but it will always evolve into Dragoreen if nothing special is done. According to the legend, it needs to be treated in a special way in order for it to evolve into other evolutions. Those “requirements” will be described on the next page. Dracolor is classified as a Baby dragon pokémon. Its evolutions are classified as Dragon pokémon. Dracolor is green, but its color changes when it evolves into an “advanced” evolution, or so are the evolutions that need special requirements called. Now, as Dracolor and its evolutions aren’t even one of a kind, you could wonder why they are legendary. Well, they happen to have more than two types, like Molzapart and Rainteicune, making them very special as they aren’t even born in a special way, just hatched from eggs like any other pokémon.

“ Cool!” Mark turned to the next page.

Dragoreen

It is green and it is the regular evolution of Dracolor. Its type is Dragon/Fire/Flying and it has high Special attack, very low Attack, medium Special defense, medium Defense, and high Speed. Its attacks are:
Level Attack
--- Bite
--- Tail whip
11 Dragon rage
22 Slam
33 Dragonbreath
44 Flamethrower
55 Outrage

Dragored

It is red and it is the Fire evolution of Dracolor. Its type is Fire/Dragon/Flying and it has very high Special attack, very low Attack, low Special defense, medium Defense, and high Speed. Its attacks are:
Level Attack
--- Bite
--- Tail whip
--- Ember
11 Dragon rage
22 Flame wheel
33 Slam
44 Flamethrower
55 Dragonbreath
66 Fire blast
77 Outrage
Its requirements are hatching the Dracolor at day in open land, having a Fire pokémon all the time of hatching, Fire attacks (have to be damaging) need to be used on the Dracolor, and no Water attacks may have been used on Dracolor (do NOT have to be damaging) – all BEFORE Dracolor evolves.

Dragoblue

It is blue and it is the Water evolution of Dracolor. Its type is Water/Dragon/Flying and it has very high Special attack, very low Attack, low Special defense, medium Defense, and high Speed. Its attacks are:
Level Attack
--- Bite
--- Tail whip
--- Water gun
11 Dragon rage
22 Slam
33 Hydro pump
44 Outrage
Its requirements are hatching the Dracolor in water, having a Water pokémon all the time of hatching, Water attacks (have to be damaging) need to be used on Dracolor, and no Ice attacks may have been used on Dracolor (do NOT have to be damaging) – all BEFORE Dracolor evolves.

Dragold

It is golden and it is the Steel evolution of Dracolor (although it has caused people to think the Steel type should be changed to “Metal”). Its type is Dragon/Fire/Steel/Flying and it has high Special attack, medium Attack, low Special defense, medium Defense, and medium Speed. Its attacks are:
Level Attack
--- Bite
--- Tail whip
11 Dragon rage
22 Pay day
33 Slam
44 Dragonbreath
55 Flamethrower
66 Outrage
Its requirements are only having at least 500,000 credits the whole time of hatching and raising Dracolor, and making it come in contact with it as much as possible.

Dragowhite

It is white and it is the Ice evolution of Dracolor. Its type is Ice/Dragon/ Flying and it has very high Special attack, very low Attack, low Special defense, medium Defense, and high Speed. Its attacks are:
Level Attack
--- Bite
--- Tail whip
--- Powder snow
11 Dragon rage
22 Aurora beam
33 Slam
44 Ice beam
55 Blizzard
66 Outrage
Its requirements are hatching the Dracolor in the Ice cave, having an Ice pokémon all the time of hatching, Ice attacks (have to be damaging) need to be used on Dracolor, and no Fire attacks may have been used on Dracolor (do NOT have to be damaging) – all BEFORE Dracolor evolves.

Dragoblack

It is black and it is the Dark and Poison evolution of Dracolor. Its type is Dragon/Fire/Poison/Dark/Flying and it has high Special attack, medium Attack, low Special defense, low Defense, and high Speed. Its attacks are:
Level Attack
--- Bite
--- Tail whip
--- Pursuit
11 Dragon rage
22 Poison fang
33 Slam
44 Dragonbreath
55 Flamethrower
66 Crunch
77 Outrage
Its requirements are hatching the Dracolor at night, having a Poison and a Dark pokémon all the time of hatching, Poison attacks (have to be damaging) need to be used on Dracolor, and Dark attacks have to be used on Dracolor – all BEFORE Dracolor evolves.

The next page, page 67, had a note on it.

As the author of a book about legendary pokémon, I had to talk to many people. One, who chose not to be named in the book, told me about Molzapart and Rainteicune, and said he/she had seen both of them and knew their attacks. What you see in this book about them is exactly what that person told me.
Mark closed the book, turned to Charmander and said:
“Wouldn’t it be cool to be a legendary collector and try to catch all the legendary pokémon in the world?”



If you noticed the pokémon "Chaletwo", snorted and then stopped reading, no, it's not just my version of a "Mewthree", it doesn't look like Mewtwo just because I can't think of anything else and it is NOT GOING TO BE SOME UNEXPLAINED JUNK. I don't really know why I put it in the story in the first place, because I made it as a joke purely to outshine the entries I just read in a fake pokémon contest in stupidity by being even rarer and even more powerful. It was a joke. After I did put it into the fic, I decided to try to make something out of that junk since I bothered to put it into my fanfic, and I did a REALLY GOOD JOB AT IT. Trust that. All in chapter twenty-seven...

[classy_cat18]

Not bad, not bad. Can I make a suggestion? In the first chapter, try spacing your paragraphs, especially during conversations. Makes it easier to read.

[Dragonfree]

classy_cat18: Good idea, I'll try to remember that. Here's chapter three, it improved soooo much when I revised it...

Chapter 3: Mark gets his second pokémon


The next day, Mark paid the woman and went on with Charmander. They walked in silence.

“Charmander, do you want to evolve?” Mark suddenly asked.

“Am I to believe you’re asking me?” said Charmander, stopping.

“Of course,” Mark said. “I wouldn’t force you to evolve if you didn’t want to. And unevolved pokémon learn attacks faster, so it won’t be a big loss.”

“Well, I don’t really have anything against evolving. Flying must be fun, though.”

“Okay then. I was just thinking about the pokémon I would have later on.”

They kept walking for a while. Then Mark saw a pokémon – a Rattata.

“Charmander, go! Scratch!”

Charmander raced at the Rattata and scratched it three times. Rattata countered with a Tackle.

“Charmander, just keep scratching until you win!”

“Charmander! Charmander! Char-man-der!” Charmander said as he scratched Rattata all over. The Rattata tried to do something but without success, and ended up just lying there, fainted.

“That was easy!” said Mark and they went on. They were silent for a while again, while it was getting darker. It started to rain, although not as heavily as the day before, and steam spouted from Charmander’s tail.

“Look!” Charmander suddenly said.

“Where?”

Charmander used Ember on a bush, and out ran a small pokémon – an Eevee.

“Whoa! Eevee is so rare! I have to catch it... wait, I don’t have any pokéballs... what can I do before it runs away?”

But the Eevee didn’t run away. It just sat there, two or three meters away from them, shaking with fear. A quiet “Eeeveee” was the only sound it made.

“Er... are you all right?” Charmander said carefully.

“Eeeee!” the Eevee shrieked, taking a few steps backwards. Then Mark saw something on the ground – it was a pokéball, just when he needed it.

“Pokéball, go!” he shouted and threw the pokéball at the Eevee that still didn’t dare to move.

“No!”

Charmander jumped up and punched the pokéball back to Mark. “Can’t you see this Eevee is scared out of its life?” he said angrily. “And it’s very young and unable to battle at his age. I thought it was well punched through humans’ skulls not to catch a pokémon that is unable to fight, because it causes the pokémon to find you untrustworthy?”

Mark looked at the Eevee. It still just stared at him, trying to make itself small.

“And,” Charmander continued, “an Eevee this young wouldn’t be out in the open except in one case – if it has lost its mother.”

Mark still stared at the Eevee. The poor little thing was homeless. It would die.

“I won’t hurt you,” Mark then said as his hand reached for the Eevee and stroke the soft fur. Then he picked it carefully up. The Eevee shrieked again and tried to get away, but the heat from Mark’s body made it comfortable and it snuggled up to him, still shaking and its heart beating very fast. It made Mark feel weird, but then he grabbed it tighter.

“Better hurry to Cleanwater city,” he said to Charmander and they started running. A lonely pokéball was left on the road in the rain.


After ten minutes or so, they arrived at the Cleanwater city Pokémon center. Once inside, Mark went to nurse Joy.

“Hello... I was just outside, and found this Eevee. It’s too young to be walking around – I think it must have lost its mother.”

“Let me look at it.” Mark handed the Eevee to her, and it tried to get away again, but Nurse Joy’s experienced hands held it carefully there. She peered at it.

“It’s a male,” she said. “Indeed very young, but he looks pretty tough. See, some scratches – he has had battles, but only in self-defense against some other very small, weak pokémon... still, being able to battle at that age... my, my, that’s something special...”

Nurse Joy seemed to have earned Eevee’s trust by now, as he had stopped struggling. “But he needs food, that’s certain, and a bit of healing.”

She put Eevee down on the desk, and went to a back room to get a Potion and a bowl of pokémon food.

“Your Charmander can eat too,” she said as she put the bowl on the desk. Mark put Charmander on the desk whil Nurse Joy sprayed Eevee with the Potion. He had obivously never had anything sprayed on him, first he screwed his eyes shut, shook himself and sneezed, but then started eating like Charmander.

“There is a pokémon gym here, right?” Mark asked Nurse Joy while his pokémon ate.

“Yes, but the gym leader, Rick... you shouldn’t let your guard down. He uses legendary pokémon, although at low levels, and he is very strong. It is said that he caught legendary pokémon with illegal Master balls he made himself and then cloned them and released the originals... oh, what am I doing, spreading these stupid rumours... Well, there are more sick pokémon around, and your Eevee and Charmander have finished eating. We hope to see you again.” She went to help some other trainers after this quick end of the conversation.

“Let’s go,” said Mark, and he went out of the pokémon center with his two pokémon.

Mark went to buy pokéballs while Eevee and Charmander searched for the pokémon gym. They found the gym easily, it was a huge building in the center of the city. There were also signs all over pointing the way and made the gym very easy to find. Then the met Mark just outside the pokémon market.

“Did you find the gym?” Mark asked.

“It was easy to find,” said Charmander.

“Eeee,” said Eevee happily. He couldn’t really say anything that made sense yet.

“Okay, good. But Eevee, are you... do you want to be... my pokémon? You know, do you want me to be your trainer, if you’ve lost your mother?”

“Eeee!” Eevee nodded and licked Mark’s hand.

“All right then. You will need to go into that ball.” Mark held out a pokéball, and Eevee turned into a red beam of light that disappeared into the ball.

“And Charmander, here’s your pokéball,” said Mark and held out another ball.

“Er... do you mind if I don’t go into my pokéball?” said Charmander. “Pokéballs make me feel uncomfortable...”

“It’s okay. Hey, I also bought a pokédex.” He pointed his brand-new pokédex at Charmander. “Let’s see how much you grew when battling that Rattata.”

“Charmander, lizard pokémon. If the flame at the tip of its tail dies, so does this fire pokémon.”

“Yeah, I know, tell me the level,” said Mark, rather impatiently.

“At level 7, Charmander should know Scratch, Growl, and Ember,” said the voice of the pokédex.

“Level seven? That’s two levels against one Rattata. Seems incredible... anyway, we’ll need to train a lot to beat that legendary pokémon gym leader.”

And they headed out to the Lake of Purity to train for the gym.

[Dragonfree]

Here's chapter four. Not very interesting, and Mark seems very flat and "Ashly" in it, but we're getting closer to the first pre-planned chapter, chapter nine (the other ones were just written off the top of my head when I had just started the fic). The pre-planned chapters are ALL better than the others, trust that.

Chapter 4: Training and battling

There were a lot of tourists on the way to the Lake of Purity. Mark knew the lake was famous, but he had never imagined so many people could be there to see it in one day. When he got to the lake itself, he looked at the water and saw why: the water was very deep, and very large, but the bottom could as easily be seen as the grass on the bank. And as the water was so pure, many pokémon preferred drinking that water, he remembered having read somewhere. So there were many pokémon living around the lake.

Mark saw a big tourist information sign. It had some boring stuff about the depth of the lake and all that, but it also had the full story of the Gyarados that disappeared. Mark stopped and read it with interest.


Once, not so long ago, but still quite a while, a Gyarados lived in the Lake of Purity. It had evolved from a Magikarp said to be actually powerful. It battled weak trainers who came to the lake to let their weakest pokémon battle Magikarps, and eventually evolved. In those times, the water was icky. The Gyarados caught fish fish pokémon for prey and could easily hide. No one could get rid of it and soon all the fish was hiding and didn’t dare to move when the people of the city were fishing. This made people hungry and in the end, everyone was making their own mixtures to kill the Gyarados and get the fish back. They poured them into the lake and even though each mixture was only supposed to kill the Gyarados, they made the whole lake poisonous when added together. All the fish pokémon were dying, and people who drank the water were dying, even after cleaning it as well as they could. The Gyarados, however, was not harmed at all. Then a woman prayed for help, and Suicune rushed to the lake, dipped one paw into it and it was perfectly clear in an instant. Then Suicune dashed away again.

The next day, Suicune came again to clean the lake, but this time stopped by the woman’s house and told her not to worry about the Gyarados, and also that it would come to Ouen to clean the lake every night after that, as long as Suicune could be there safe from any trainers who might try to catch it. The woman told everyone that, and because no one dared to disobey direct order from a legendary pokémon that had just saved them, they agreed. All trainers are warned to stay away from the lake in the evening because of this.

The next day, it was easy to see that the Gyarados wasn’t benefitting from the lake being so clean. All the fish pokémon could see it from the other end of the lake. And a few days later, the Gyarados just disappeared and hasn’t been seen since. Perhaps it just “flew” away using its Flying type!


“That’s interesting,” Mark said. “I never heard the story in full detail before. Anyway, we’d better start training...”

Just at that moment, he heard someone say: “A pokémon trainer? What about a battle?” He turned around and saw it was a blue-haired girl about his age. She had a pokéball in her hand and she was throwing it up and down. He could also see that at her belt there was one more pokéball.

“Great! Let’s begin!” he said, delighted.

“Go, Butterfree!”

“Go, Charmander!”

“Butterfree, String shot!”

The Butterfree shot a long string from its mouth, and it wrapped around Charmander pretty much by itself so Charmander couldn’t move.

“Charmander, use Ember to get yourself out of this thread!”

“Butterfree, Tackle!”

Charmander mumbled something inside the thread and then managed to burn it away. Just then, the Butterfree tackled him, but Charmander managed to set the Butterfree’s wings on fire using his tail flame. The Butterfree fluttered around trying to put out the fire, but had no luck at it.

“Butterfree, Confusion!” the girl snapped at the Butterfree. The butterfly pokémon obeyed regardless of being on fire, glowed purple, and so did Charmander. He went all dizzy and then simply collapsed and fainted.

“Oh, no! Charmander, come back! Go, Eevee!”

The Butterfree was still fluttering around madly, but the girl didn’t even think of recalling it.

“Eevee, Tackle!” Mark shouted. Eevee shot at the Butterfree and tackled it down, causing it to faint as it already was on fire.

“Come back, Butterfree! Go, Skarmory!”

“Eevee, crouch to the ground, and that Skarmory can’t hurt you without crashing!”

“You think so!” said the girl and smiled evilly. “Skarmory, Swift!” The Skarmory fired a barrage of metallic feathers down at Eevee. The feathers were very sharp and Eevee got all cut.

“Eevee, don’t give up! Jump on top of the Skarmory and drag it to the ground!”

“Skarmory, fly higher!” the girl commanded.

Even though the Skarmory flew up as fast as it could, Eevee was quicker and caught hold of the Skarmory’s tailfeathers. They crashed. Both of them seemed to have fainted, when Eevee stood up and shook himself, then looked happily at Mark.

“Eeeveee!”

“I won! I won my very first trainer battle! Eevee, come back!” He recalled Eevee.

“Skarmory, return,” the girl said, rather disappointed. “You’re a pretty good trainer,” she admitted. “What is your name?”

“My name’s Mark,” Mark said.

“My name’s May. Are we friends, then?”

“Friends!” They shook hands.

“Anyway, I need to go. I have to train a lot.” May hurried in the direction of Cleanwater city to heal her pokémon. Mark took out his pokédex to check on Eevee’s level.

“Eevee, evolution pokémon. It has many possible ways to evolve, as its genetic code is very unstable. At level 9, Eevee should know Tackle, Tail whip, and Sand-attack,” said the pokédex voice.

“Level nine? I need to train Charmander as soon as I’ve healed him... guess that Confusion really hurt.”

Then he also went to the Cleanwater pokémon center.


After healing Eevee and Charmander, Mark went straight back to the lake.

“Wait, Mark. Aren’t you going to ask Eevee if he wants to evolve?” Charmander asked on the way.

“Oh, that’s a good idea. Eevee, come out for a minute.” Mark let Eevee out of his pokéball.

“I asked Charmander, so it is just fair that I ask you too. Do you want to evolve?”

“Vee?” Eevee looked puzzled.

“Yes, you can evolve. Didn’t you know?”

“Eevee.” He shook his head.

“Well, you can easily evolve into Vaporeon, Jolteon, or Flareon using evolution stones. Vaporeon,” Mark recited from his Pokémonology textbook he had pretty much learned by heart, “is a water pokémon that can turn itself into water and then back to its normal form. Jolteon is an electric pokémon covered with spikes that it can shoot at the enemy. Flareon is a fire pokémon that can blow fire over 5,000 degrees. And then, you can evolve into Espeon or Umbreon, but that is much more difficult, you’d have to go through a lot of battles and trust me really well... Espeon is a psychic pokémon that has a glowing crystal on its forehead. Umbreon is a dark pokémon with glowing yellow rings on its body. Well, do you want to evolve or not?”

Eevee looked down for a second, then looked back up, nodded and said “Vee.”

“OK then... Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon or Umbreon?”

Eevee shrugged.

“Well, since you don’t mind... I’m not going to try for Espeon or Umbreon, it would take ages. I already have a Fire pokémon, so not Flareon. That means Jolteon or Vaporeon. Um, better get back into your ball, shouldn’t you?” Mark recalled Eevee.

“Well, the question is: Where are the pokémon?” Mark asked impatiently when they were back at the lake. Just as Mark said that, a wild Sandshrew peeked out from behind a tree.

“Charmander, go!”

The Sandshrew was ready, charged towards Mark and scratched Charmander as soon as he came out of his pokéball.

“Charmander, Ember!” Mark ordered.

Charmander shot some flames at the Sandshrew. It didn’t seem to be damaged much, but Mark decided to try to catch it anyway.

“Pokéball, go!”

The ball wobbled once, it wobbled twice, and...

“Shreew!” an angry Sandshrew popped out and kicked a bunch of sand in Charmander’s eyes.

“Darn... Charmander, use Ember and try to hit if you can!”

Charmander blew fire in a random direction, which unfortunately was not Sandshrew’s.

“Ember again!”

“CHAAR!” A really angry Charmander used Ember on the Sandshrew.

“Pokéball, go!” Mark shouted and threw another pokéball at the Sandshrew, absorbing it inside. It wobbled once, it woobled twice, it wobbled three times, it wobbled for the fourth time, and...

“YES! YES! I caught a Sandshrew!” Mark picked up the pokéball and pointed the pokédex at it.

“Sandshrew, mouse pokémon. This pokémon can dig very fast and can also curl up in a ball so that almost no attack can hurt it. At level 13, Sandshrew should know Scratch, Defense curl, Poison sting and Sand-attack.”

“Level thirteen! No wonder it popped out of the ball! Charmander, we need to find another pokémon if you’re to gain any experience...”

After a long search, they found a Pidgeotto resting in a tree. It didn’t like being disturbed like that and shot down to attack.

“Charmander, go! Ember!”

Charmander fired a blast of flames at the bird pokémon, which took the damage and looked very angry. It flapped its wings rapidly, using Gust. Charmander managed to withstand the powerful wind and retailated with another Ember. Pidgeotto then used a Quick attack on Charmander.

“Charmander, one more Ember, and you’ll win this!”

Charmander blew more fire at the Pidgeotto, causing it to fall down to the ground, all charred with spirally eyes.

“Good, Charmander! You really did great!” Mark pointed the pokédex at Charmander.

“At level 10, Charmander should know Scratch, Growl and Ember.”

“Level ten already? Then it’s time to train Eevee...”

And so he trained all that day and didn’t notice at all it was getting dark.

OK... replies? Shiny -er, I mean Chris? Someone? Anyone?

[Dragonfree]

Chapter five. Something that has a lot of things to do with the plot actually happens (you won't really notice that it has a lot to do with the plot at this stage, though). Chapter six will be pretty long and nothing but battles, chapter seven will introduce May (who is actually the "me" in the story) better, chapter eight will have something that's a bit interesting, and chapter nine will be the first chapter I planned long before I wrote it. By the way, this chapter is pretty bad, because revising battle scenes is hard.

Chapter 5: Legendary pokémon


Finally, after a lot of work, all three of Mark’s pokémon reached level 15.

“Whew... well, that paid off. We can find a hotel and then challenge the gym leader tomorrow,” Mark said and recalled Sandshrew back to his pokéball. “Charmander, go first so I can see the road by the light of your tail.” But they had only taken a few steps when Mark suddenly felt something, like the presence of something. There was an eerie silence. He turned around, and Charmander seemed to feel it too as he also turned around.

Something large and blue raced to the lake at incredible speed and stopped there. The clouds revealed the moon, showing its graceful shape.

It was Suicune.

It dipped one paw carefully into the water, and then it rushed off. Just as it was in safe distance from the lake, a large Gyarados emerged from the surface and roared in Suicune’s direction.

“It’s the Gyarados that disappeared!” Mark whispered. “Oh, I’m going to catch it... I swear I’m going to catch it...” For a second that seemed dreadfully long, he tried to think of something to catch the Gyarados’ attention so it would stay and fight him but not just go and hide again.

Then, he shouted: “Hey, Magikarp! Did you learn Tackle yet?”

“Gyaaaaro!” it roared and turned its head towards him. Mark actually thought it looked very insulted and wondered if that had been wise to say.

“Go, Eevee!” he then managed to say as he hurled the pokéball forward.

“EEEEEE!” Eevee shrieked when he saw the Gyarados, running back towards Mark.

“Eevee, I know this is a bit scary, but you’ll be all right, I won’t let anything appen to you – Sand attack!”

Eevee collected his courage, ran forward to the bank of the lake and kicked some sand into the Gyarados’ eyes. It shook its massive head, trying to see, and roared again.

“Eevee, Tackle, however you’re going to do that...”

Eevee charged forward and tackled the Gyarados in the air, then managed to land on the bank anyway. The Gyarados blindly tried to bite Eevee, but missed him narrowly as Eevee rolled over.

“Eevee, Tackle again! And just keep doing it!”

Eevee flung himself at the Gyarados again and again between Gyarados’ attempts to bite even though it didn’t see anything. Finally, the Gyarados managed to clear the sand and managed to bite Eevee’s tail. Mark quickly recalled Eevee so he wouldn’t become the Gyarados’ next meal.

“Do it, Sandshrew!”

“Shreeew!” Sandshrew cried as he came out of the ball. He didn’t seem to be afraid of the Gyarados.

“Sandshrew, Sand-attack!”

Sandshrew obivously had more experience at kicking sand than Eevee. He sent a whole sandstorm at the Gyarados, which roared even louder. It tried to bite Sandshrew, but turned completely in the wrong direction.

“Sandshrew, Scratch... if you can... man, battles where the enemy is in water are sure difficult...”

Mark didn’t really know how Sandshrew could scratch the Gyarados, but Sandshrew knew. He jumped at it, landed on its neck, held himself with his claws and then scratched it powerfully. The Gyarados roared in pain and tried to shake Sandshrew off, but Sandshrew didn’t let go. Then the Gyarados dived, and Sandshrew being weak to Water, Mark recalled it before something bad would happen. The Gyarados came up again, to Mark’s surprise.

“Go! Charmander! Smokescreen!”

Charmander opened his mouth and blew thick black smoke all over. Mark couldn’t see the Gyarados through the smoke.

“Gyyaaaaar!” he heard the Gyarados roar deep inside the cloud.

“Charmander, uh... well... do something!”

Charmander used Ember. The Gyarados didn’t seem to notice. Either it didn’t harm it at all, or it missed through the smoke. Mark heard the Gyarados snapping its jaws somewhere in the smoke cloud. Charmander powered up the attack before attacking with Ember again. It seemed to hit and hurt the Gyarados, judging from the painful roar he could hear.

“Pokéball, go!!!” Mark shouted and threw a pokéball through the smoke. When in finally cleared, the ball was wobbling on the ground. It eventually stopped wobbling.

“I did it! I did it!!!!! I caught the legendary Gyarados that disappeared!” Mark said in disbelief.

“Char!” came from Charmander.

“What’s wrong, Charmander?” Mark asked as he turned. Charmander was glowing white, and he was growing larger. A horn appeared on the back of his head. Then he stopped glowing.

“Meleon!” the resulting Charmeleon spat. For some reason, Mark felt like Charmander was a lot nicer. “Congratutations, you evolved!” he said anyway.

“Char...mele...on!” he said like he really didn’t care.

Mark pointed the pokédex at Charmeleon.

“Charmeleon, flame pokémon. This pokémon is known to blow out blueish-white flames when excited. At level 16, Charmeleon should know Scratch, Growl, Ember and Smokescreen.”

“Meleon!” Charmeleon then said and nodded, like agreeing with the pokédex entry.

“Let’s go. I’m sure we can beat that Rick guy now, but first let’s find a hotel.”

Evolving seemed to have changed Charmander’s personality. At least now he didn’t care about being put it a pokéball.

When they were back in town, Mark healed his pokémon and went to the Cleanwater hotel, a large building beside the gym. He got a room for him and his pokémon at the tenth floor. When he was up in the room, he looked at the city through the window. Who would know what challenges awaited him in the gym? Would he catch Suicune sometime, since he wanted to be a legendary collector? Or should he just give up that dream? He let Eevee, Charmander and Sandshrew out of their pokéballs, but Gyarados was too big for the room. He told them to find a place they liked to sleep, but he went to sleep in the bed.

“Good night, Charmander, Eevee and Sandshrew. We’ll cream that Rick tomorrow.” Then he fell asleep.


Mark woke up early and went to the gym. Outside it, there was a sign saying: “CLEANWATER CITY GYM – LEADER: RICK – The Low Level Legendary pokémon trainer!” When he entered, he saw he was on a large battlefield with a pool of water in the middle. On the other end there was a large door. A trainer approached him and said: “Hey, I’m first up! You can’t battle Rick just like that!”

“I’m ready,” Mark said.

“Go! Arcanine!” the other trainer said. He had a very boring voice, exactly the type a stereotypical politician has.

“Go! Gyarados!” Mark wanted to try out his new pokémon, of course. Gyarados roared when he came out of the ball.

“Arcanine, Extremespeed!” the other trainer commanded. The Arcanine shot across the arena at incredible speed, tackling Gyarados hard. Then it was back in front of the trainer quicker than you could say “Pikachu”.

“But... Arcanine doesn’t learn Extremespeed until level 50!” Mark stammered. At least he had learned something in all those pointless pokémonology classes.

“It’s cloned, of course,” said the trainer in the same boring voice.

“Cloned?” Mark questioned before he remembered his talk with Nurse Joy.

“Yes. Arcanine, Extremespeed!” said the trainer. The Arcanine shot across the room again in the same way. “Low level legendary pokémon” fit it very well. At least the level must be pretty low if two Extremespeeds barely harmed a completely untrained Gyarados at all. But Mark didn’t waste time thinking about that, as that trainer obivously used every opportunity to make his pokémon get an extra hit in.

“You... you... okay, Gyarados, Bite!”

Low level indeed. Gyarados bit the Arcanine’s leg once and it fell unconscious to the ground.

“Arcanine, return! Go, Zapdos!” the trainer said. His voice really got on Mark’s nerves now.

“How the heck did you get... oh, forget it. Gyarados, come back! Go, Sandshrew!”

“Zapdos, Drill peck!”

The Zapdos dived at Sandshrew, spinning like a drill.

“Sandshrew, quick! Dig to dodge the... oh yes, you can’t dig through the floor... uh, just curl up and roll out of the way!” Mark ordered. He felt stupid. Sandshrew obeyed, curled up and rolled to the side.

“Zapdos, Drill peck again!”

“Sandshrew, keep rolling so it won’t hit you!”

Then, a very funny pursuit began. Sandshrew rolled around the whole battlefield, closely followed by the Zapdos, which flew at its highest speed after Sandshrew, trying to peck him. In the end, both of them fell to the floor, completely exhausted.

“Zapdos, return! Go, Articuno!”

“Sandshrew, come back! Go, Charmeleon!”

“Char meleon!” Charmeleon spat as it came out of the ball.

“Articuno, Mind reader!”

The Articuno’s eyes glowed a scary red, focusing on Charmeleon.
“Charmeleon, Ember!”

Charmeleon scorched the Articuno and it appeared to melt into a pool of water with feathers in. Mark was disgusted, although he knew Fire attacks could have that temporary effect on Ice pokémon. When chilled down, the pokémon would take shape again.

“Articuno, come back! Go, Moltres!”

“Charmeleon, that’s enough! Go, Gyarados!”

“Gyaaaaaaro!” Gyarados roared. He appeared to like roaring a lot.

“Moltres, Sky attack!” The Moltres started glowing. It looked very hot, both burning and glowing like that. Actually, Mark wasn’t sure it would be a good idea for Gyarados to bite it in that state. The other trainer obivously knew that too.

“Gyarados, I know it sounds stupid, but – Splash!”

Gyarados started to laugh, that is, to roar wildly between catching his breath. The other trainer also laughed. Even the Moltres’s glow was flashing, like it wasn’t concentrating. Finally, even Mark started to laugh.

“No, really, Gyarados, use Splash!” he choked in the end.

“Gyar...” Gyarados said lousily and tried to look like a Magikarp. Actually, he did pretty well in looking stupid. What Gyarados didn’t realize was that being big and heavy, Splash actually had some effect, namely making them all wet, including Moltres. And a wet Fire pokémon usually faints. Which was exactly what happened.

“Moltres, return,” the trainer said, his voice sounding even worse than normally. “Okay. You beat me. But the next trainer will cream you!”

The door opened into another identical battlefield. When Mark was at the other side of the door, a nurse Joy stopped him and said: “Wait. You want me to heal your pokémon, don’t you?”

“Oh, thanks, I forgot,” Mark said and handed her the pokéballs. She put them one by one into a Pocket healer (A small machine you can put a pokéball in and press a button to heal the pokémon inside, banned in the Pokémon league and other big tournaments). Then she gave them to Mark again, smiling.

“Good luck,” she said.

“Thanks,” Mark replied and went on to the middle of the battlefield. He saw the door he came through closed automatically. Then a trainer came.

“Let’s begin!”

“Fine for me,” Mark said and took out Sandshrew’s pokéball.

“Go, Raikou!”

The tiger pokémon emerged from the ball and stared at Mark.

“Sandshrew, I choose you!”

“Raikou, Crunch!”

“Sandshrew, curl up, but be ready with a Poison sting!”

The Raikou tried to catch Sandshrew with its teeth, but biting in a ball is very hard, so it failed. Sandshrew quickly un-curled himself and stung the Raikou with one claw.

“Raikou, Swift!”

“Sandshrew, Defense curl!”

The Raikou fired a barrage of stars at Sandshrew, but Sandshrew curled up and most of the stars repelled off his hard skin.

“Raikou, Swift!”

The Raikou fired more stars before Sandshrew managed to curl up again. Sandshrew seemed really hurt, but still managed to hold on.

“Sandshrew, Defense curl!” Mark ordered. Sandshrew curled up, ready to repel another Swift.

“Raikou, Roar!” said the trainer. The Raikou roared, and Sandshrew turned into a red beam of light, then disappeared into the pokéball.

“Hey, Sandshrew! What do you think you’re doing!? Well, go, Eevee!”

“Veeeeee!” Eevee cried as he faced his enemy. Eevee seemed to be a lot braver now. He looked at the Raikou like any Pidgey. Or maybe Eevee just had no idea that Raikou was a legendary pokémon and far stronger than anything he had battled before.

“Raikou, Thunderrrr!” the trainer said and pointed at Eevee. It sounded very funny. Raikou’s tail sparkled and a blast of lightnings shot from it straight at Eevee. Eevee got badly shocked. The Raikou didn’t seem to feel very good, either. This was, of course, because if the poison from Sandshrew’s poison sting earlier in the battle. It looked very weak now.

“Raikou, come back! Go, Entei!”

“Go! Charmeleon!”

“Entei, Stomp!”

“Charmeleon, quick! Smokescreen!” The whole room got covered with smoke and whatever the Entei hit with that Stomp, it wasn’t Charmeleon.

“Entei, Sunny day!” the trainer said. The Entei roared, and suddenly, light shone from it and cleared the smoke. Only legendary pokémon have the power to use a Sunny day inside a building, Mark remembered having read somewhere.

“Charmeleon, Ember!” Charmeleon blasted flames from his mouth at the Entei, however, it didn’t seem to hurt it much, as Entei is a Fire pokémon.

“Entei, Stomp!” The Entei lifted its paw, roared and stepped on Charmeleon’s tail. Charmeleon bit the Entei’s leg back, and then held on with its teeth and started scratching it too. The Entei shook Charmeleon off, only to get him in its face instead, scratching madly. It lost its balance and fell down.

“Entei, come back! Do it, Suicune!”

“Charmeleon, you don’t stand a chance against a water pokémon! Go, Gyarados!”

“Gyaaaar!” Gyarados roared, particularly madly, at Suicune. Understanding the roars was a lot harder than understanding normal pokémon, but he was getting hang of it. Although this was probably no more than just a roar, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Suicune, Bubblebeam!”

The Suicune fired a blast of bubbles the size of cannonballs at Gyarados.

“Dive, Gyarados!” The bubbles covered the room, but couldn’t reach Gyarados, who watched just under the surface of the water.

“Gyarados, Bite!” Mark roared.

Gyarados rose from the water and bit the Suicune’s leg, lifted it off the ground and shook it violently. Then Gyarados dropped it and it stood heavily up again, looking into Gyarados’ eyes. The Suicune didn’t do anything, just stood there.

“Suicune... it’s cloned from the one that cleans the lake! It must remember Gyarados!” Mark whispered. “But why won’t it battle?”

“Cune,” Suicune said weakly and then fell to the floor.

“Suicune, come back!” said the trainer. “Okay, you beat me, but you won’t stand a change against Rick! He’s strong, you know. Very strong.”

Mark went through the door to the next battlefield. There was also a nurse there. She healed his pokémon and then Mark checked their levels. Charmeleon was level 17, Eevee was still level 15, Sandshrew was level 16 and Gyarados was level 21. Then the trainer of this battlefield came.

“I’m tough, don’t expect a stupid trainer like the ones you’ve already beaten. I’m the only junior trainer in this gym with real power!”

“Okay, can we begin now?” Mark said, confident. “Go, Sandshrew!”

“Go! Mew!”

“WHAT? You have MEW?!” Mark questioned and stared open-mouthed at the cat pokémon floating in mid-air.

“Yes, we’ve got about twenty in all,” the trainer said like Mew was a common Rattata. “Can’t we start?”

“But... but...”

“Are we going to start the battle or not? Mew, Psychic!”

“Sandshrew, Sand-attack!”

Sandshrew kicked sand at the Mew, but it closed its eyes, glowed purple and somehow reflected the sand back at Sandshrew with double the power.

“Sandshrew, Poison sting!”

Sandshrew charged at Mew and managed to sting it with one claw.

“Mew, Transform!”

Mew’s shape sort of melted and turned it into a Sandshrew.

“Sandshrew, Scratch!”

Sandshrew jumped at the Mew, but it curled up and rolled away. Then, when Sandshrew lay on the ground, the Mew scratched him with its own Sandshrew claws. Sandshrew was getting weak...

“Sandshrew, return! Go, Gyarados!!!!!”

“Mew, Ancientpower!” Mew transformed back into its real form, glowed green and some of the rocks on the arena flew towards it, danced around it and then Mew flung itself at Gyarados, the rocks hitting Gyarados hard too. Gyarados used the opportunity and bit Mew with his vicious fangs.

“Mew, come back! Go, Mewtwo!”

A Mewtwo emerged from the ball and looked at its trainer with deep disgust.

“What do you want now, kid?” came Mewtwo’s telepathic voice, echoing inside Mark’s head.

“Oh, shut up, kitten. Just use Psychic on that Gyarados over there,” said the trainer and pointed at Gyarados.

“Why should I obey you, kid? I could hypnotize you any time and take over the world. What can stop me from doing it?”

“Don’t get any ideas, you overgrown cat,” the trainer said. “We changed your genetic code so you can’t. Actually, you were also supposed to obey after we did those changes...”

“I don’t care what I was supposed to do. I’m on my own now. Goodbye.”

And then the Mewtwo teleported away.

“Mewtwo, what are you doing?!!!” the trainer yelled. “Oh well, the last one also did. Go, Mewtwotwo!”

“Uh, are you sure you said that right?” Mark asked, but out of the pokéball came a weird pokémon. It looked like a Mewtwo, but it was larger, darker in color and had much longer arms and legs. The ears were also longer and the eyes were smaller and more evil-looking.

“What is that?” Mark asked.

“It’s Mewtwotwo, of course – cloned from Mewtwo and much stronger.”

“Whaddayawant?” said the Mewtwotwo.

“Psychic,” said the trainer.

“Okay,” said the Mewtwotwo lazily and waved one finger. At first, that seemed to be careless, but the effects were incredible. The water in the pool all went up into the air and stayed there, leaving Gyarados in a deep, dry hole. Then he started to headbutt the walls until he fell down and didn’t move. Then all the water fell down again and Gyarados floated up at first, but then he sank to the bottom.

The Mewtwotwo yawned. “Anything else? Maybe something a bit more... challenging?”

“Just wait a minute. He’ll most likely send out another pokémon,” said the trainer like Mark wasn’t there.

“I choose you! Ember!” Mark sent out Charmeleon. How dare you calling Gyarados weak, he thought...

“Mewtwotwo, Psychic!” The Mewtwotwo made the fire bounce straight back at Charmeleon and then lifted him into the air and dropped him to the floor without moving at all. Charmeleon looked unconscious. The Mewtwotwo turned to its trainer and asked: “Is there anyone here who TRAINS pokémon, not just catches them? Same boring challenges day by day! I feel like battling something powerful...” But in the meanwhile, Charmeleon stood up again with difficulty, and then rushed at the Mewtwotwo and used all of his attacks at once. The Mewtwotwo also did something and the two pokémon then blasted away from each other and crashed into the walls. For a few seconds, both of them lay next to the walls, looking knocked out, but then Charmeleon opened his eyes and stood up.

“Chaaaaaaar,” he said and walked dizzily to Mark. “Charmeleon...”

Then he fell down, fainted.

“It’s a draw,” said the other trainer.

“No, it isn’t! I still have Eevee!” Mark said and sent Eevee out as a proof.

“Okay then,” said the trainer angrily and made the door open. Mark went through, healed his pokémon and found out that Charmeleon had grown to level 18 and Gyarados was level 22. The next trainer didn’t even bother talking to Mark.

“Go, Ho-oh!”

“Go, Sandshrew!”

“Ho-oh, Sacred fire!”

“Sandshrew, Defense curl!” Sandshrew curled up in a ball and his skin repeled the super-hot flames Ho-oh blasted at him.

“Sandshrew, Sand-attack!”

“Ho-oh, Gust!” The sand was blown right back at Sandshrew by two flaps of Ho-oh’s powerful wings.

“Sandshrew, you can’t beat it, come back! Go, Charmeleon! Smokescreeen!”

Charmeleon blew thick, black smoke all over the room.

“Ho-oh, Gust!”

Ho-oh blew the smoke away, just like the sand before.

“You’re a tough guy, but I’ll beat you!” Mark announced. “Charmeleon, jump and scratch it!”

“Ho-oh, Fly!” The Ho-oh flew high into the air, where Charmeleon couldn’t reach it.

It’s way too strong, and my pokémon’s attacks are too wimpy, Mark thought. “Wait, I give up,” he then said aloud to the trainer.

“You’re giving up?” the trainer asked. “You’re really GIVING UP now??!!!!”

“No, I’m not really giving up,” Mark said. “I’m just asking you to stop and I’ll come back within ten minutes and battle you again – from the start.”

“Well, okay,” said the trainer. “But you’ll still have to battle the other trainers again, you know.”

“Okay! I’ll be back!”

Then Mark went out, healed his pokémon, and went to the Pokémon market.

“I’m going to buy... uh, one Thunderstone, one Fire blast TM, one Surf HM and one Earthquake TM,” he said to the woman at the counter. She got it all from the shelves and said: “It’s 96700.”

“That’s exactly what I have left,” Mark said and handed her the money. Then he tought Fire blast to Charmeleon, Surf to Gyarados, Earthquake to Sandshrew and then let Eevee out.

“Eevee, now I have a Thunderstone for you. You will become a Jolteon. At first, you’ll feel a little strange, but you will get used to it. But if you’ve changed your mind, I can still return the Thunderstone. Are you sure you want to evolve? You’re also a bit younger than I originally intended for you to evolve so, this is just a warning, pokémon that evolve too young can change a lot in personality too, but I don’t know if that’s the case with you, because you’re very tough for your age. So...”

Eevee nodded, although he seemed a bit nervous. Then Mark took out the Thunderstone and gently made it touch Eevee’s head. He started glowing white. Then he grew larger and spiky and stopped glowing.

“Jolteon!!” He scratched himself but got a spike in its hind leg. Mark drew it out, laughing.

“You should not scratch yourself, even if it itches,” he said. “You will get used to it.”

“Jolt!”

“Now let’s just train a bit, and then we’re ready for the gym!” Mark recalled Jolteon and went to the Lake of Purity.

“Feaaarow!” he heard from somewhere above.

“A wild Fearow! Go, Jolteon!”

The Fearow immediately dived to peck Jolteon.

“Jolteon, you’re quicker! Evade it!”

Jolteon ran to the side and the Fearow missed. Angrily, it shot up again and prepared for another attack. It shot down again.

“Jolteon, Sand-attack and then Tackle!”

Jolteon kicked sand at the Fearow, then jumped up and tackled it in mid-air. The Fearow attempted to use Fury attack, but missed due to the Sand-attack.

“Jolteon, Tackle, Tackle, Tackle!” Mark said enthusiastically.

Jolteon flung himself at Fearow again and it fell to the ground, then Jolteon tackled it two more times and it was knocked out.

“You did great, Jolteon! Let’s see your level, now...” Mark pointed his pokédex at Jolteon.

“Jolteon, Lightning pokémon,” the pokédex voice said. “This pokémon is the Electric evolution of Eevee, very fast and powerful. It can shoot its spikes very accurately. At level 17, Jolteon should know Tackle, Tail whip, Sand-attack and Thundershock.”

“Great! You’ve learned Thundershock! Now we can surely take on Rick!” And Mark recalled Jolteon and went back to the gym, ready for anything.


Can ANYONE reply? How am I supposed to get better if no one tells me what's wrong? (Not that I can't do better than this, you should see chapter eleven, chapter 22 and chapter 27.)

[Black Knight28]

Good chapter. It was a lot easier to read b/c its spaced out, however, (and this is just me) you may want to have more details then quotes. Don't get me wrong quotes are good, but too much of them can confuse or bore a reader. Details help the reader to visualize what's going on. I try to visulize things when I read something..helps me to remember stuff. I'm not going to attack you with spelling or grammer because I suck at that too, lol o.o; .

Anyway, nice chapter. I'll be reading the next one if you post it. Hasta luego!

[Dragonfree]

Originally posted by Black Knight28
Good chapter. It was a lot easier to read b/c its spaced out, however, (and this is just me) you may want to have more details then quotes. Don't get me wrong quotes are good, but too much of them can confuse or bore a reader. Details help the reader to visualize what's going on. I try to visulize things when I read something..helps me to remember stuff. I'm not going to attack you with spelling or grammer because I suck at that too, lol o.o; .

Anyway, nice chapter. I'll be reading the next one if you post it. Hasta luego!

A reply? Wow, I didn't really expect to get one now...

Anyway, I have a hard time making descriptions, and an even harder time putting descriptions into a very boring chapter I'm just revising. Chapter three got pretty good with the revision, but number five... *shakes head* Anyway, thanks for reading, and there will be sooo much better chapters later. Just wait till you see chapter 27... I'm quite proud of it myself.

English isn't my first language so you'll have to forgive any spelling and grammar mistakes... especially as I may have overlooked some I'd never do today while I was revising...

[Charles Legend]

Nice work Dragonfree, I can't wait to read Chapter 30, Err I mean the next Chapter here at TPM, Ok so I Read all 29 Chapters on your site ;o and I did not seem like a Shallow plot at all to me and I agree with Mark's Scyther about Scyzors, But both of them look cool to me but I perfer Scythers myself.

~Ryu

[Dragonfree]

This is a VERY revised version here so you should read the chapters I'm posting here too if you're reading the fic. I won't put up the revised versions until I'm satisfied with all the chapters, which is definetly not now.

[Dragonfree]

Here's chapter six. It's five pages of pure battles, but I did a better job at revising the battles this time.


Chapter 6: Rick


When Mark got to the gym again, he reminded himself not to talk to the first trainer while battling, or he would lose a turn. He checked if his pokémon were all right and then went in and took out Sandshrew’s pokéball.

“You again? Go, Arcanine!” said the trainer with the annoying voice. The Arcanine came out of the ball he threw out and barked.

“Go, Sandshrew!”

“Arcanine, Extremespeed!”

The Arcanine became a blur and tackled Sandshrew at great speed.

“Sandshrew, Earthquake!” Sandshrew stod upright, then smashed his paw into the ground – and the ground actually shook. It was amazing how such a small pokémon could cause and earthquake to occur, but it still did. The Arcanine was still shaking after the Earthquake, being a Fire type, it was very vulnerable to Ground type attacks.

“Arcanine, Extremespeed!” the trainer commanded. The Arcanine wasn’t as fast and didn’t hurt Sandshrew as much this time.

“Sandshrew, Earthquake!” Sandshrew caused an earthquake again, still getting hang of his new attack, Sandshrew now tried smashing the ground again so the earthquake would last longer. The Arcanine ended up falling. It didn’t stand up again.

“Arcanine, return! Go, Zapdos!”

“Sandshrew, that’s enough! Go, Charmeleon!” Mark still remembered the pursuit between Sandshrew and the Zapdos.

“Zapos, Thunderbolt!” Zapdos charged up electricity and shot a bolt of lightning at Charmeleon. He roared in pain as it struck him, and angrily he inhaled deeply and shot a Fire blast at the Zapdos from his mouth.

“Zapdos, Thunder wave!”

The Zapdos started charging electricity again, but Mark wasn’t going to let it hit.

“Charmeleon, try to be quicker and use Fire blast!”

Charmeleon managed to blast the Zapdos while it was still charging, and it fainted, to Mark’s surprise.

“Zapdos, come back! Go, Moltres!”

“Charmeleon, come back! Do it, Jolteon! Thundershock!”

Jolteon fired some electricity at the Moltres and it somehow fainted in one hit.

“Moltres, come back! Go, Articuno!”

“Jolteon, Thundershock!”

The Articuno fainted in one hit too. Mark couldn’t believe it!

“Articuno, return. You beat me again,” the trainer said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Mark and went on. After he healed his pokémon, he checked their levels. Charmeleon was level 19, Jolteon was level 18, Sandshrew was level 17 and Gyarados was, of course, still level 22.

“You? Go, Raikou!” the next trainer said as soon as Mark entered the battlefield.

“Go, Sandshrew!”

“Raikou, Crunch!”

“Sandshrew, quick! Earthquake!” Mark yelled. The Raikou was quicker, though, and leapt at Sandshrew in attempts to bite him. But like in the first battle, Sandshrew managed to curl up before the Raikou could do anything. Then Sandshrew smashed his paw into the ground, causing an earthquake to hit the Raikou. It roared and then collapsed.

“Raikou, come back! Go, Suicune!”

“Sandshrew, come back! Go, Jolteon!”

“Suicune, Hydro pump!”

“Now you made a big mistake!” Mark said, grinning. “Jolteon, be ready with Thundershock!” Jolteon charged for a Thundershock while the Suicune blasted water at it, but when the water was just about touching Jolteon...

“Now!!! And evade the Hydro pump!” Mark shouted. Jolteon let off the Thundershock and the water led it at the Suicune which got fried. Meanwhile, Jolteon ducked and the Hydro pump just hit the wall.

“Suicune, come back! Go, Entei!”

“Jolteon, come back! Go, Sandshrew! Earthquake!” This time Sandshrew was quicker and the Entei fainted in one hit, just like the other ones. Odd, Mark thought. Legendary pokémon ought to be stronger than that...

The trainer said nothing, he just recalled the Entei and opened the door. Mark went to the nurse and healed his pokémon and checked their levels. Jolteon had grown to level 19 and Sandshrew was level 18, almost 19. Charmeleon and Gyarados were, of course, still level 19 and 22.

“Okay, now it’s the trainer with Mewtwotwo,” Mark thought. “Better be careful this time.”

But the trainer wasn’t there. Mark went to the door and saw a note saying “Went to get another Mewtwo. Challengers, please go through, it’s not locked.” Mark thought of how the Mewtwo had teleported away. And the trainer had said “the last one also did”. How many Mewtwos could be lurking around, waiting to take over the world? Mark tried not to think about it and went through. The next trainer came.

“You’re finally back,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. Go, Ho-oh!”

“Go, Jolteon!”

“Ho-oh, Sacred fire!”

“Jolteon, quick – Thundershock!”

And, oddly enough, the Ho-oh fainted.

“I can’t believe it! It fainted in one hit?!” Mark said in disbelief.

“It’s level 9,” said the trainer dully. “Its stats are boosted, of course, but it’s still only level 9.”

That explains a lot, Mark thought. I knew legendary pokémon have great stats and shouldn’t lose just like that! But he said nothing aloud.

“Go, Lugia!”

“Jolteon, Thundershock!”

Lugia fainted too.

“You beat me,” said the trainer. “Go on – there’s one more junior trainer before Rick!”

Mark went int the room and healed his pokémon. The last junior trainer came and said: “I won’t be easy! Go, Celebi!”

He sent out a green fairy pokémon.

“Celebi?” Mark questioned. How on earth could common junior trainers have pokémon like Mew and Celebi? What could Rick have, then...

“Yes, it’s a Celebi, congratulations you noticed. Send out a pokémon.”

“All right, go, Charmeleon! Fire blast!”

“Celebi, Psychic!”

Charmeleon was quicker, but again to Mark’s surprise, the Celebi didn’t faint of one Fire blast, which it would surely have done if it was anywhere near level nine. It just glowed purple and sent Charmeleon banging his head against the ceiling.

“Charmeleon, Fire blast again!”

But the Celebi teleported away in time; Charmeleon missed.

“Celebi, Psychic!” Celebi sent Charmeleon up to the ceiling once again, then let him fall. He didn’t stand up again.

“Charmeleon, come back! Go, Sandshrew!”

By sending out Sandshrew, Mark was taking a risk. Celebi was a Grass pokémon and therefore it was resistant to Earthquake, besides being able to fly even though it was on the ground at the moment, but Sandshrew would surely gain a level if he managed to beat Celebi.

“Celebi, Solarbeam!” said the trainer. The Celebi started charging power for a Solarbeam, and, to Mark’s satisfaction, neither the trainer nor the Celebi assumed Sandshrew knew Earthquake, so Celebi was still on the ground.

“Sandshrew, Earthquake!” Mark knew it had to beat Celebi, or Sandshrew would faint to Solarbeam. But luck is a blessing; it was a critical hit, and Celebi fell down, fainted, with a weak “Cele... biiiiii...”

“Celebi, return. Go on and face Rick!” the trainer said and opened the door. Some noise could be heard through the door. Mark went to check what it was.

“Lapras, come back!” It was May, just recalling a Lapras she had apparently caught since they battled at the lake. “Oh, hi, Mark! How are your pokémon?”

“They’re fine. Both have evolved and I’ve caught two more,” Mark answered. “Was the battle hard?”

“He’s tough,” May said. “Very tough. Be careful when battling him, especially...”

“No spoilers!” said Rick from behind her. He was a young blonde-haired man with brown eyes.

“Thanks for warning me anyway, May,” Mark said, smiling.
“Okay, girl, here’s the Element badge,” said Rick and handed her a badge. “Now get lost so I can battle your friend.”

“Okay,” said May and put the badge in her pocket. Then she smiled at Mark, said “Good luck,” and went out. Now Mark noticed that this battlefield was even larger than the other five. There was a pool for water pokémon on the left and there were rocks all over on the right. Between them, there was just the floor.

“Let’s start the battle, boy,” said Rick. “I choose Ho-oh!”

“Jolteon, go! Thundershock!”

Rick’s Ho-oh got fried, but still managed to hang in.

“Ho-oh, Earthquake!” ordered Rick coldly. His Ho-oh obeyed right away, dived down and smashed into the ground. Jolteon fell down, but stood wearily up again.

“Jolteon, Thundershock!” Mark roared. Jolteon charged up, then released a jolt of electricity at the rainbow-colored pokémon. The Ho-oh fell down, fainted.

“Ho-oh, return!” Rick spat, clenching his fist. “Go, Mew!”

Mark had learned not to be surprised when the trainers in this gym sent out a pokémon he had always thought no one could ever just catch.

“Jolteon, you’re quicker! Thundershock!”

“Mew, Metronome something good!” Rick said quickly. The Mew waved its paw, and then became a blur, just like the first junior trainer’s Arcanine, and tackled Jolteon at incredible speed before he managed to attack. He was flung at the wall, hit it hard and fainted, while a smile spread across Rick’s face.

“Jolteon, come back! Go, Gyarados!”

“Mew, be ready! And now! Thunderbolt!” Rick roared, pointing a finger at Gyarados.

Electricity + Gyarados = faint. Everyone’s heads had been filled with this in school. There was no way to forget it. And indeed Gyarados got fried to a crisp.

“Gyarados, return! Go, Sandshrew!”

“Mew, Surf!” Rick said, peering at Sandshrew. Mew glowed blue, and the water in the pool flooded across the floor, straight at Sandshrew.

“Sandshrew, you can do it! Curl up and repel the water!” Sandshrew curled up and after the water disappeared, he was still unhurt.

“Sandshrew, use Earthquake, trust me!” Sandshrew looked questioningly at Mark. Mew was floating in mid-air, so there wasn’t much sense in using Earthquake. The situation was pretty much like when Mark told Gyarados to use Splash, but one main thing was different: Sandshrew trusted Mark all the same. As a powerful Earthquake struck the ground, the rocks on the left started to roll around, the smaller ones flew up in the air and landed again. A big rock rolled over Mew’s tail as it was trying to avoid another one and stuck it to the ground; more rocks followed and now the Earthquake started to affect Mew too. Mew fell to the ground and got buried under rocks. “Meeeeeeeeeew!” it cried from under the pile.

“Sandshrew, stop!” Mark shouted through the noise of the rolling rocks, but Sandshrew didn’t hear him and more rocks piled on top of the Mew, still shrieking.

“SANDSHREW! STOP NOW!” Sandshrew stopped and the noise died away. Mew seemed to have fainted from under the weight of the rocks, but all the same...

“Sandshrew, finish it!” Sandshrew curled up and rolled at the pile of rocks Mew was buried under. As he hit the pile, the rocks scattered around the battlefield. Then Sandshrew stopped and there lay Mew, completely worn out and unconscoious.

“Poor thing!” said Mark and walked up to the battered Mew, bent down and examined it carefully. He then heard Rick mutter something like: “I knew I shouldn’t use those originals, they’re much too weak...”

“What? This is the original? The original Mew?” Mark asked, now standing up.

“Yes, but it’s useless! You can have it if you like,” said Rick.
“Can I... just take it?” Mark asked.

“Why not? It’s useless, and it’s even fainted! I have nothing to do with it! Here, take that!” And Rick threw a pokéball to Mark – Mew’s pokéball. Mark recalled Mew into it and was going over to the nurse when Rick called:

“Hey, I said you could have it, not that you could use it in the battle! Come back here at once!”

“But I want to heal it! It’s badly injured, I have to!”

“After the battle, kid! After the battle!”

“It’s dying!!” Mark roared.

“And I don’t care!” roared Rick even louder. “Go, Celebi! Solarbeam!” Rick sent out a Celebi which immediately started charging sunlight.

“Sandshrew, come back! Go, Charmeleon!”

Celebi used Solarbeam, but it didn’t damage Charmeleon much.

“Charmeleon, Fire blast!”

“Chaaaaaaaar!” Charmeleon attacked with a good blast of fire. This Celebi fainted, so apparently the junior trainer’s Celebi was stronger than this one. Odd. Usually gym leaders have stronger pokémon than their junior trainers.

“Celebi, come back! Go, Suicune!” Rick said and gritted his teeth.
“I have to switch, but Sandshrew is also weak to water... Well, I have to. Charmeleon, come back! Do it, Sandshrew!!!!”

“Suicune, Surf!”

“Sandshrew, curl up and repel it!” But Suicune’s Surf was more powerful than Mew’s. Sandshrew was hurt, less than he would if he hadn’t curled up, of course, but he was hurt.

“Sandshrew, do it, please! You have to! Earthquake!”

Sandshrew jumped up and cried “SHREEEEEEEW!!!!!!”, then landed on the ground, causing a big earthquake. The Suicune roared and fell down to the ground, then Sandshrew slashed it with his claws, finishing it off.

“Suicune, return! Go, Articuno!”

“Sandshrew, come back! Go, Charmeleon!”

“Articuno, be ready!”

“Charmeleon, Fire blast!”

“Articuno, Ice beam!”

Articuno’s Ice beam and Charmeleon’s Fire blast met in the middle between them. The ice melted into water upon contact with the fire. Now Mark saw what Rick was trying to do; the Ice beam would turn into a Water attack, gain the power of a Hydro pump and if Charmeleon gave up, it would hit him, fainting him. However, if Charmeleon could somehow push the water back at Articuno, it would surely faint to the power of Hydro pump and Fire blast put together. But a blast of water should eliminate a blast of fire easily, shouldn’t it?

“Charmeleon, don’t give up! You can do it!” said Mark. But it didn’t help much; the place where the attacks met was slowly moving towards Charmeleon and Rick was urging his Articuno on. It seemed hopeless. Suddenly, something seemed to happen with Charmeleon. Like he just got an idea. And he stopped for a second and fired some flames at the ceiling, but then went against Articuno again as the icy water was about to hit him. Suddenly the sun burst out – Charmeleon’s flames had burned a hole in the ceiling.

“Sunny day! It works like Sunny day! And that means... Sunny day powers up Fire attacks but weakens Water attacks! Yay for Charmeleon!” Mark was delighted. “Charmeleon, keep going, you’ll do it!”

Charmeleon didn’t give up. And the place where the attacks met was moving towards Articuno again, slowly but steadily. When it reached Articuno, it burst into an explosion of feathers. Nothing was left of Articuno but a pool of water that would reform when healed.

“Articuno, come back! Go, Raikou!”

“Charmeleon, enough! Sandshrew, go!”

“Raikou, Crunch!”

Rick’s Raikou sped at Sandshrew and bit him, before he managed to curl up. Sandshrew took the damage pretty well with his hard skin, though.

“Sandshrew, Earthquake!” Mark commanded.

Sandshrew smashed his paw to the ground and caused an earthquake; it hurt the Raikou a lot, but it didn’t faint.

“Raikou, Roar!”

Raikou roared menacingly, and Sandshrew was forced back into his pokéball.

“Go, Charmeleon! Fire blast!” Charmeleon blew a Fire blast at the Raikou and it fainted.

“I won! I won! I won!!!!!!!!!” Mark shouted and hugged Charmeleon. “You did great! Really great! And that Sunny day substitute was a great idea!”

“Okay, kid, you can have the Element badge, but you won with luck!” said Rick.

Rick handed him a cool badge, with clouds, lightnings, fire, grass, snow and water surrounding a purple eye. Mark put it in his pocket and went out.

-----
OK, chapter seven, May, will be up pretty soon as I doubt it will take me that long to revise. But it has maybe too much of me in it.

[Dragonfree]

OK, here's chapter seven. I don't consider if very bad, but I think it may have a bit too much of me. The truth is, in fact, that May is an exaggerated version of me, and this chapter is mainly my "fictional revenge" on some people I hate, through her.


Chapter 7: May


May was outside, waiting for him.

"Hi again, Mark. Did you get the badge?" she asked as soon as he stepped out of the gym.

"Yeah, but his Mew was very tough," Mark answered.

"Yes, I also found it tough, it was the pokémon I was going to warn you about. But I beat it with my Skarmory! He really did great!"

Mark suddenly felt like a storyteller and told May in details how the battle went. May was very impressed by how Charmeleon discovered a way to beat Articuno.

"What an idea!" she said. "Most pokémon would give up in that situation - and most trainers, actually, too."

"Yeah, I'm very proud of Charmeleon," Mark replied.

"It reminds me of my Quilava," said May, looked down and started messing with her fingernails.

"What about it?" Mark asked.

"Well, I got my first pokémon from Prof. Elm. It was a female Cyndaquil. But I didn't like her and she didn't like me. I caught a Caterpie over in Johto and raised it to a Butterfree and then I went over here to catch a low level Skarmory. It's one of my favorite pokémon, you see, so I wanted to catch one as soon as possible. I always meant to go back to Johto after catching one, but when I was on my way, I found a trainer. "What about a 1 on 1 battle?" he asked, and I agreed. Cyndaquil was level 13 by then. He sent out a strange Pikachu - it had some blue balls at the end of its ears and its cheeks were also blue. And its pawpads - and claws. It had VERY long blue claws. And the tail was like a narrow thread with a blue triangle at the end. And its hind legs were so long and rabbit-like... well, when he sent it out, it said something that sounded more like "Pikatoo" than "Pikachu" and electric waves started streaming between the balls on its ears. And when I had sent out my Cyndaquil, the trainer said "Running shock!" and it ran over to Cyndaquil and made those electric waves touch her, and - and Cyndaquil just became paralyzed like that and couldn't use Ember. I couldn't understand what was happening, I just stood there and watched Cyndaquil being creamed, but finally I shouted: "Cyndaquil, don't give up!" and then she started to glow, and evolved into a Quilava. She looked at me, and I felt she trusted me unlike Cyndaquil. And she was so strong. She beat the strange Pikachu and when he had recalled it and I had recalled Quilava, he said: "That's a strong Quilava you've got there." And I said I didn't like her and she didn't like me, I must've been thinking about her as a Cyndaquil, because I liked Quilava, and he said he had a Charmander and asked me if I wanted to trade, and I said: "A Charmander? This is a level 15 Quilava!" - I just checked her level, you see - and he said: "Chamander is also level 15, but it won't evolve until level 16..." What's wrong, Mark?" He had suddenly turned pale.

"Wha... no, nothing. Just go on."

"Well, then I accepted the trade, I don't know what I was thinking, I handed Quilava's pokéball to him and he gave me Charmander's, it was just an unofficial trade, and then he went away, but when I checked the Charmander, it was only level five! And I went so mad I threw the pokéball away and ran after him. But I didn't find him, and it rained that evening, I'm so worried about the poor Charmander, it must have got out of the pokéball when I threw it, maybe it's dead by now, all my fault..." She couldn't go on and now didn't take her eyes off her nails.

"I'm sure the Charmander is okay," Mark said. "You know, probably some trainer found it and it's in good hands now."


"Why didn't you tell me it was May?!" Mark said angrily to Charmeleon when they were back in the hotel. "What if she finds out? She could as well claim you as her pokémon!"

"I only saw her back, Mark," said Charmeleon. "I didn't see her properly."

"That doesn't matter! Why didn't you just tell me it was a blue-haired girl that looked like May from the back? That would've helped, but you just stood there and told me nothing..."

"Why should I have known you'd be interested in knowing that?" Charmeleon spat, very annoyed.

"Didn't think? You act like you want to get another trainer!"

"And you act like you want to get another pokémon," Charmeleon said angrily.

"I don't..."

"You do."

"Well, okay, sorry, but still..."

"Still what?"

Mark couldn't think of anything to say now and started watching Mew, who was floating around in the air. It was fully healed. It looked curiously at a lamp on the table and poked it carefully. Then poked it again and again, always faster and less carefully, until the lamp fell down from the table and broke. Mew looked apologizingly at Mark, used Psychic to make the lamp stick itself back together and then put it on the table again. Mark laughed.

"Mew, stop playing with things here! I will have to pay for it if you don't stop!"

"Meww," said Mew, still glancing at the lamp every now and then like to see if it would fall apart again, and flew up to Mark.

"Mew, I was thinking about something. You're the original Mew. You should be free. I've got you, so you count as one legendary pokémon I've caught, if I do make something out of this legendary collector idea. Now, you're no longer owned by Rick. So you should be free now. Now I declare you are free; you are a wild pokémon again." He opened the window and continued: "Now, fly out and enjoy freedom!" Mew looked sadly at him, and then gave a little "meew" as a goodbye and flew out into the sky. Mark looked out after it and hoped no one saw when it flew out. He had talked to Mew earlier and knew its home was deep in the Rainbow forest, so he just closed the window and stopped thinking about Mew. No one saw it; he tried to convince himself of that.

But someone did see it - and that someone also saw Mark looking out of the window.


Later, Mark went out to find May. Maybe she was going to train a bit, or maybe she would battle him again. He searched a little around the town, and found May in the pokémon market.

"Hi, Mark," she said, grinning. "I just bought a new bike. Look!" She took a little bike-like thing out of her bag and pressed a button. It maximized into a full size bicycle. "They're cheap now, you should buy one, too. Something else than back when they cost 999,999..."

Mark bought a bicycle for himself, minimized it and put it into his bag. Then May saw a Super rod on a shelf.

"These can come in handy. Shall we go training at the Lake? We just need one rod, we can take turns battling the hooked pokémon."

"I've got no more money, so you'll have to buy it," Mark answered.

May bought the Super rod and then they went out and headed towards the Lake of Purity. The road was rocky and uneven, so they kept the bicycles in their bags.

"So, what pokémon have you caught?" Mark asked.

"Well, I have Butterfree and Skarmory, of course, and I caught a Pikachu here somewhere soon after our battle. And then I caught a Lapras on the bank of the lake just before I battled Rick. Well, that's it. What about you?"

"I caught a Gyarados," said Mark.

"A Gyarados? Do you mean..."

"Yes, the one that disappeared. I saw Suicune too."

"Wow! That's impressive... What else did you catch?"

"Soon after our battle, I caught a Sandshrew."

"Yeah, I remember now," said May. "When you told me of your battle, you told me you used it to beat Mew. And - where is Mew now?"

"I released it," Mark said. "I wanted it to be free, so I released it."

"That was a good thing to do," said May. "You did just the right thing, legendary pokémon shouldn't be stuck inside pokéballs."

Mark really felt like giving up the legendary collector thing now.

"Yeah, that was why I released it. Hey! There are two boys ahead. Maybe they'll battle us."

May stared at the boys, who were walking in their direction. "Oh no!" she sighed.

"What?" asked Mark.

"I know them. They're from my class and think they're funny..." she said. One of the boys pointed a finger at Mark and May and said something to the other boy. They walked on and stopped around four meters from them. May looked at them with uttermost disgust.

"Hi May!" one of the boys said cheerfully, and they started laughing.

"What's so funny?" said May in a voice that sounded like it was made of blood.

"I see you've brought your boyfriend," the other boy said, and they laughed more.

May suddenly looked exactly like a raging Tauros. "Give me that!" she snapped and grabbed Mark's bag.

"May..."

"Shut up, Mark!" May said and turned to the boys.

"You know me, if I knew me I'd leave myself alone!"

"There it comes," one of the boys said and laughed more along with the other one.

"Now, you listen. I met him yesterday and he's my friend, he's probably going to help me find the Quilava that was stolen from me."

"And then you'll probably be more than just friends, you'll be telling each other teddy stories and..."

"I TOLD YOU THAT THE TEDDY STORY JOKE WAS NOT FUNNY!!!" May roared.

"Hey, May, teddy stories, teddy stories..."

"I... am going... to KILL YOU!!!" said May in the bloody voice. "I'm going to break every bone in your filthy little bodies with these here bags, they hold two bikes, a Super rod, tons of Potions and stuff and much, much more... they're heavy enough to kill you easily..." As May said this, walked slowly towards the two boys, tossing the bags around. When she was near enough, she flung the bags at them but they evaded it and found it very funny. She was about to swing them at the two boys again when Mark grabbed the bags and held them.

"May, remember violence solves no problems..." he started, but May looked furiously at him, and a second later, she punched him in the face. He felt himself fall and after rubbing his face with his hand, he noticed he had a bleeding nose.

"Boys!!!!!! Always thinking they're so smart! I HATE YOU ALL!!! I'm going to find my Quilava on my own, I don't need a boy to find one lost pokémon! Oh, I wish I was a Poochyena... did you know that in groups of Poochyenas and Mightyenas, the females have so much more power than the males that the male Mightyenas have to bow down to the female Poochyena pups? Really, it would make the world a better place! And you two..." she turned to the two boys again, "...don't you DARE say anything of this sort again, or else!"

"Else what?" asked one of them.

She took out a pokéball and sent out a Pikachu.

"Pika!"

"Or else Pikachu will Thundershock you!"

"Oooh, I'm soooo scared," said the other boy in a mocky voice.

"Pi...ka....CHUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" May's Pikachu shocked the boys with a weak Thundershock, but they still stood there. May recalled Pikachu and sent out Lapras.

"I'll make Lapras Perish sing you if you don't go away this instance and never come before my eyes again! And take this as a goodbye!" She delivered a kick in their direction and they decided they had picked on her enough and should better run for it. On the run, they laughed and shouted "Help! There's a mad girl over there!"

"I hate them," May then said, like nothing happened. "Now, Mark, shall we continue?"

"You just said boys are stupid," Mark said, backing automatically off a bit like in fear she would hit him again.

"Don't be silly, Mark," she said. "I just said that so they wouldn't spread out that rubbish talk about us. SOME boys are stupid, like 90% of all the ones I know, for some reason."

"But you hit me right in the face!" Mark protested.

"To make it look real," answered May matter-of-factly. "Really, what do you think I am? I don't hit people who haven't done anything to me."

"Okay, May, I'll accept that... but don't do that again. It still hurts!"

"Sorry, Mark," said May. "But you wouldn't want to meet some twenty kids laughing their heads off, saying "hey, watch out, your girlfriend bites!", would you?"

"Bites?" Mark stopped.

"When I was eight," said May. "A boy in school was picking on me. But I haven't bitten anyone since then."

"May, do you know what? You can be scary!"

"I take that as a compliment," said May and handed Mark his bag.



OK... replies, anyone? It has a hint for chapter 10 & 11, the first REALLY good plot twist of the fic...

[Dragonfree]

Well... chapter eight. I should maybe explain a certain thing about the "good" chapters...

There are actual "good" chapters, and there are "semi-good" chapters. Chapter nine is a "semi-good" chapter, for example. (I think very few would disagree with me on the good and semi-good chapters.)

Semi-good chapters so far (out of the 29 completed chapters):
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 14 (maybe actually good)
Chapter 15
Chapter 19
Chapter 21
Chapter 25
Chapter 28
Chapter 29 (maybe)

GOOD chapters so far:
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 (maybe just semi-good)
Chapter 20
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 27
Chapter 30 WILL be here once it's completed, along with chapter 31 and most likely 32.

As you can see, the boring chapters become fewer as it goes on. The good chapters REALLY ARE good. The bad chapters are pretty bad.

Anyway, time to actually post chapter eight... it's not very good. Probably a lot of grammar errors and stuff... anyway, the next one's the first semi-good chapter, and it IS better.



Chapter 8: Fishing at the Lake


May showed Mark how to attach a bait to the line. Then she cast it out on the water and a nearby Seaking hooked on. It tried of all its might to get itself free, and it was too strong for May to reel it in just yet. She sent out her Butterfree.

“Butterfree, Confusion!” Butterfree fired a blast of psychic energy at the Seaking and it became dizzy and weak. She reeled the Seaking in.

“That’s how you do it.” She released it off the line and dropped it back into the lake. It swam off, zigzagging a bit because of the confusion.

“Now you try,” she said and handed the Super rod to Mark. He attached a bait to the line and cast it at a Poliwhirl. He sent out Jolteon, but before he ordered Jolteon do do anything, May stopped him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mark,” she said. “If you use Thundershock, it will affect every pokémon in the lake.”

“Of course,” Mark said and recalled Jolteon. “I should have thought of that. Go, Charmeleon!”

“Meleon!”

“Charmeleon, do something good... hey! What’s that?” Mark saw a small, light blue thing. His heart started beating. It swam quickly across the lake, deep at the bottom. Mark got all excited, reeled in the line before Poliwhirl hooked on and cast it out. He waited a second and reeled it in shaking – but Mark saw at once he had missed. He had missed the Dratini.

He stared blankly at the Super rod in his hands. He could have caught a Dratini, evolving into Dragonair and then Dragonite. A Dragonite.

Mark suddenly looked at May. She was giggling.

“What’s so funny???” Mark asked furiously.

“Just that you look so awfully serious,” she said and giggled some more. Then she suddenly stopped, and pointed at something behind Mark. He turned around, and saw the Dratini stick its head curiously out of the water, just where he stood.

Mark bent down. He couldn’t believe it! The Dratini looked at him and wasn’t afraid. He took a pokéball, and dropped it just above the Dratini’s head. It dived down in fear, and the pokéball sank down after it. As the water was so clear, Mark could see the Dratini stop by the bottom, deep down, for a second, and then it swam forward, looking back at the pokéball. It rolled a little on, and the Dratini went behind a rock. The pokéball stopped. Dratini watched it for a second, and then came and touched the ball carefully. It popped open, and Dratini was absorbed into a red beam of light and disappeared into the ball.

Mark stared at the pokéball at the bottom. He had a Dratini. One of the strongest and rarest pokémon once it evolved. But the ball was in the water, how could he get it out? Charmeleon and Sandshrew were weak to Water. He couldn’t send them down to get it. It was too risky to send Jolteon, he could let off some electricity. And Gyarados had no legs and his mouth was to big to take a small pokéball. The rod? No, he was being stupid. Pokéballs don’t hook on rods. His Dratini was lost forever – except...

Mark suddenly dived into the lake in all his clothes. He went deeper and deeper, but the ball didn’t seem to come any closer. He had to breathe, but he couldn’t, he was halfway there... no, he wouldn’t drown... he wouldn’t...


“Mark! Wake up!”

He opened his eyes. He was at the bank of the Lake, and May stood over him and seemed not at all pleased.

“Finally!” she hissed. “Get up now, or I might throw you back in!”

Mark stood up. Now he saw why May was so angry; the two boys they had met on the way were there.

“Oooh, she was just this close to trying a kiss of life!” one of them said and held out his thumb and forefinger almost touching. The other one just laughed maniacly. Mark really wondered how two people could laugh this much at completely unfunny things, and what was more, he was feeling angry too.

“Go, Charmeleon! Burn those gits!”

His voice was not the only one that sounded. May had just ordered Pikachu to attack, and the combined force of their attacks scorched the boys black.

“Should Lapras Perish sing you now?” said May in a threatening voice. The boys walked dizzily away and one of them said something like “you’ll have to pay for our clothes...”.

“How stupid can two people possibly be?” May fussed as she recalled Pikachu. “How could Lapras know Perish song? Lapras doesn’t learn Perish song until level 29! And trainers who are still here are very unlikely to have pokémon over level 25! For short, Lapras is very unlikely to know Perish song!” But Mark wasn’t listening. He was thinking about how he could get his Dratini.

“How can I get it back? How?”

“Not by drowning yourself!” May snapped.

“Oh yes, what happened?” Mark asked. May was in a very bad mood and was seemingly unable to answer any question nicely.

“What else than that you just suddenly dived into the second-deepest water of Ouen, and I went after you so you wouldn’t kill yourself, and when I came up, the Ouen record-breakers in stupidity were watching!”

“Thanks for...” Mark began, but May interrupted.

“Yes, you better be thankful! There must be something wrong with me! Why did I do that, with them lurking around?”

“Okay, May, but how do I get my Dratini?”

“Try thinking, just this once. What are pokéballs made of?”

“Uh... steel... I guess...” said Mark, confused.

“Indeed. And what is the best way to get steel from distance?”

“Uh... hey, I know! Magnets!”

“Exactly. And then you can...”

“...use a Magnemite!”

“And where are you going to get a Magnemite, if I may ask?” said May. “However...”

“We could use Jolteon and Pikachu!” Mark found out.

“Just what I was thinking. Okay, now we have to wrap a wire around something made of steel, and then make Jolteon and Pikachu put some electricity on it...”

“Like the hook! The hook on the rod!”

“Yes! Well, I have a wire here somewhere,” May searched her bag and pulled out an enormus roll of wire “and it’s plastic-folded, so we won’t shock every pokémon in the Lake, and we’ll just need to put the ends of the wire at Pikachu’s cheeks and then we’ll have a magnet.” She unwrapped the roll, cut a long piece of wire and held one end touching Pikachu’s cheeks and wrapped the other one around the hook. Then she handed Mark the rod. “Be quick,” she said, “Pikachu can’t keep using Thundershock for very long. Pikachu, Thundershock!”

Pikachu released electricity through his cheeks and the hook became magnetic.

“Now it should work like a magnet,” said May.

“Okay!” said Mark, with a new glint of hope. He cast the line out and gave it all free. He just hoped the line was long enough. He saw the hook sink down, but it stopped. The line wasn’t long enough after all. He lowered the rod down until only the end of it was above the surface, then he lowered his hand down too, then he decided to make his pokémon help him.

“Go, Charmeleon! Go, Sandshrew!”

They emerged from their balls and said their names.

“Hold my legs so I can go a little down, but take me back up just after you’ve lowered me down as much as possible!”

They grabbed hold of Mark’s legs and he took a deep breath, then put his head underwater. Then he went a little lower, until he could see, when looking up, that his pokémon were just at the bank and couldn’t go farther. But the line had still not reached the ball. In his determination to get his Dratini, he let go off the rod, kicked his pokémon off his legs, and then dived down after it. He could see the hook reach the ball and stick to it. Then he caught hold of the rod again, and swam back up. He crawled up on the bank, and started to reel in the line.

“Just to warn you, Pikachu has given up and the hook will stop working like a magnet in a few seconds,” May said like she hadn’t noticed when Mark dived down. But now, he got an idea.

“Go, Gyarados! Dive down and go under the ball, then push it upwards on your head!”

“Gyaaaaaaaaro!” roared Gyarados and nodded as he dived down. But Mark could see that the ball was sinking down agagin. Gyarados went under it and pushed it up. When Gyarados reached the surface, however, the ball fell off his head, but Mark quickly dived into the lake again, caught hold of the pokéball and then swam to the bank. He looked at the pokéball, then at May.

“Look! I caught a Dratini! Yeah!” he said and smiled. He recalled his other pokémon and felt like he owned the world.



So... yeah. That was chapter eight. Chapter nine IS better...

[Dragonfree]

Chapter nine. It was good enough already to make it easy to revise. Three and a half pages, not long, but better than the average chapter all the same.

Chapter 9: The secret of the gym


Mark went to the hotel to change clothes, but May wanted to fish a little more and train some. She seemed to be totally obsessed with the technical part of pokémon, actually. Mark healed his pokémon and then thought about the book he had read on the first day of his pokémon journey. He wanted to be a legendary collector, he was interested in legendary pokémon and all. But did Dratini count as a legendary? And what about Gyarados? He wondered where he could get to know, and then he thought Rick must know everything about legendary pokémon, being a gym leader who uses them and cloning them and all, so Mark decided to go and ask him. Maybe Rick would be in a better mood now.

When Mark came into the gym, the first junior trainer wasn’t there. On the door was a note saying “Went down for break. Please go right through.” When he went through the door, he found out that all the junior trainers had similar notes. The one with the Mewtwotwo had that note on top of the “went to get another Mewtwo” note, which was still up. Mark somehow had the feeling that it was being cloned. And Rick’s arena was empty too. His note, however, said “Went down to the basement – will be back. Challengers, have patience and come later.” Mark supposed the basement was where the junior trainers were taking a break. But as he wasn’t a very patient person and didn’t know what else he could do to kill time, he wondered where the door to the basement could be, and walked a few steps backwards while looking around. And of course, he fell into the pool on the battle arena.

The first thing he thought was that now the extra clothes were wet too. The second thing was “How oddly deep this pool is!” and the third thing was “Why is that hole in the wall down there?” The fourth thing was that he better get up to the surface. He swam up and sent out Gyarados into the pool. Gyarados roared.

“Gyarados, go down there, through that hole in the wall just by the bottom, and see if there’s air at the other end somewhere.”

Gyarados dived down, but the more of Gyarados’ body disappeared into the hole, the more hopeless it was that Mark could swim there. After what seemed like ages, Gyarados returned.

“Was there air?”

Gyarados nodded.

“Would you think I could make it there?”

Gyarados shook his head.

“But would you think Rick could make it?”

“Nope,” said Gyarados. “No human could make it there without oxygen, or I’m a Magikarp.”

This was the very first thing Gyarados said that Mark understood as a sentence. He had been wondering whether Gyarados spoke German or something, but he probably was just antisocial. Not much for chatting.

“Then he must hide some oxygen here... or... Gyarados, go down again and see if there’s some kind of a drain at the bottom.”

Gyarados dived down again, checked out the bottom, and then came up.

“There is one. Right there in the middle.”

“Great! It must open electrically, somehow...he can open it from up here... Jolteon!”

His spiky yellow pokémon came out of the ball and yawned and stretched. He seemed really disappointed that there was no battle.

“Do you think you could somehow... shock... the... no, it’s too risky. There must be a switch here somewhere...” Mark looked around and saw six buttons on one wall. He walked up to the buttons and pressed the first one, because the buttons weren’t marked in any way. The lights went out. Mark pressed the button again, but nothing happened. He pressed the second button, and the boxes where the trainers were supposed to stand got lighted up. He pressed it again too, and nothing happened. He tried the third button, and suddenly, bright spotlights, probably controlled by Pokémon energy detectors (so that they would dim as the pokémon they illuminated got weaker), lit up Jolteon and Gyarados. Jolteon was so startled that he accidentally let of a Thundershock, which narrowly missed Gyarados, who growled angrily at Jolteon. Mark pressed the fourth button and the lights went back to normal, to his relief. He pressed the fifth one, and finally, the water level of the pool started to lower. He quickly recalled Gyarados and Jolteon, and when all the water was out of the pool, he saw it was way too deep for him to get down. Mark went back and pressed the sixth button, pretty hopelessly, but that caused a ladder to appear out of the side of the now empty pool.

Mark went down and through the hole, wondering if Rick would be mad when he saw him. Whatever, it was still exciting, with an attracting mystery feel to it. The hole turned out to be a long tunnel. Then he went up stairs again, and into a very strange room.

It was all lit by red lights. There were strange machines that looked the same except for the size everywhere by the walls, but there were other things that interested Mark more. Everywhere around the floor were some sorts of fish tanks, with loads of buttons on them, holding pokémon fetuses. Floating in some kind of a brown liquid, some looked certainly like pokémon, others looked like shapeless forms he wondered what could possibly be, but gave him the creeps. Mark knew instantly where he was; this was Rick’s cloning lab.

He heard some voices and quickly went behind some red glass and lay flat on the floor. In walked some scientists. One went to a tank with a Caterpie-like thing that seemed to be darker in color than most Caterpies Mark had seen. The other one went to a glass tank he couldn’t see well because it was farther away. Instead, he watched the other one.

“Peter, come,” he said, calling the one who was farther away. “I think it’s ready, what do you think?”

The other scientist came and peered at the Caterpie through the glass. “Yes, I think so too. It looks pretty good,” he then said and went back to is tank. The scientist with the Caterpie pressed two buttons on his tank, and the brown liquid slowly started to flow out of the tank. When all the liquid was out, the Caterpie, which seemed to have a dark blue feeler, lay at the bottom of the tank like dead. The scientist pressed another button and some kind of an electric wave struck the strange Caterpie and caused it to wake up. The scientist watched it opening one eye, rising up, opening the other eye, and looking curiously around. Then he pressed yet another button, and the glass tank opened with a low hiss. He picked up the Caterpie, examined it, and then said, delighted: “It’s a beauty! What a perfect clone!”

The strange Caterpie replied with “Catertwo!” Now Mark knew what they were doing. They were making clones that were a little different, two-clones, like Mewtwo had been. Illegal, of course, after what happened with the Mewtwo experiment. He hardly dared to breathe.

“Look, mine’s absolutely perfect too!” The other scientist, the one called Peter, came holding a strange Pikachu. It had blue balls on it ears, blue cheeks, blue triangle-shaped tail, large blue claws and pawpads and sharp teeth. “Pikatwo!” it said and looked menacingly at the Catertwo.

“It’s not as good as the one Rick gave to Taylor, though,” the Catertwo cloner replied. “But then again, that one was so perfect, I doubt we’ll ever make one like that again.”
“Rick made it himself, of course,” Peter said. “I think he’s really spoiling Taylor. I mean, he’s just Rick’s little brother, if my little brother came to me and said the Charmander he got as a starting pokémon was too weak and he wanted a cloned pokémon, I’d tell him to shut up and clone one himself. But no, Rick made that Pikatwo for him, and they say he made even more later... also, after Taylor lost his Charmander and got that Quilava, he hasn’t trained it at all! He just keeps messing around with his clones, and Rick is actually proud of him! If I had a brother like that, I’d be embarrassed...” He couldn’t get any farther because then Rick came into the room.

“Who was playing with the buttons? The computer came up with a message that someone was pressing all the buttons!”

“I have no idea,” said Peter.

“And I was with him all the time,” said the other scientist quickly.

“Oh well,” said Rick, “probably it was just some kid who thought I’d come if they pressed the buttons!” Rick laughed and went back into the room he came from.

“Anyway, should we test them together?” the scientist called Peter asked when Rick was gone. The other one agreed, and they took some special pokéballs and put their pokémon into them. Then they walked to an empty space on the floor, and faced each other.

“Go, Catertwo!”

Go, Pikatwo!”

When the Pikatwo came out, electric waves started streaming between the balls on its ears.

“Catertwo, Bug rush!”

“Pikatwo, Running shock!”

The Catertwo sort of rolled up, then leapt forward and hit the Pikatwo powerfully. The Pikatwo then charged at the Catertwo with its ears stretched forward, and got a wave of the electricity between the ears touching Catertwo. The Catertwo went stiff, and then fell down, paralyzed.

“Great! Now, let’s evolve them,” Peter said. “You first, Jim.”

The other one, Jim, picked up the Catertwo and took it to one of the machines by the walls, a very small one. He opened it, put the Catertwo inside and closed. Then he pressed a button on it, waited a few seconds, then opened it again and took out a metallic gray Metapod. Those machines were obivously some kind of “evolvers”.

“Let’s try this one,” Jim said and sent it out against the Pikatwo.

“Metatwo, Metal shield!”

“Metatwo!” said the Metatwo and hardened, but much more than a normal harden would.

“Pikatwo, just tackle it or something!”

The Pikatwo tackled the Metatwo, but just hurt its leg. The Metatwo did not seem harmed at all.

“Very good!” said Peter. “Now, it’s time for Pikatwo to be evolved.”

He put the Pikatwo into a little larger evolver and pressed the button. The pokémon he took out again had purple balls on its ears, purple cheeks, purple belly, purple claws and pawpads and a purple tail. “Raitwo!” it said.

“Let’s try out your unique attack! Raitwo, Power shock!”

The Raitwo ran at the Metatwo and touched it with the tip of its ear. The Metatwo recieved what seemed to be a very powerful shock and fainted.

Jim took the Metatwo into an evolver and it became a Buttertwo with a very purple body and dark blue legs and mouh. It used Anteanna shock, an attack that paralyzed Raitwo. Then Peter and Jim went out of the room, very pleased with the outcome.

Mark crawled behind the glass, afraid they might hear him, and managed to read about a lot of plans for ‘twos’ which were on the walls. There were rough drawings and unique attacks on them. He didn’t know whether they had been made yet, of course. He reached the tunnel back to the gym arena, went through it as fast as he could, climbed the ladder and pressed a small button he noticed just above the ladder, which made the water go back into the pool and the ladder disappear. Then he hurried out of the gym towards the pokémon center.

When Mark came to the pokémon center, he met May.

“Hi Mark! Where have you been? I caught a rare pokémon in a cave nearby. See!” She sent out a pokémon – a Larvitar. It looked like May was getting somewhat his rival. But that was not what he was thinking of now.

“May. The guy who stole your Quilava is named Taylor. He is Rick’s little brother and the Pikachu you battled wasn’t a Pikachu, it was a Pikatwo, a genetically modified clone. I’ll explain later.” Then he rushed off to the hotel to change clothes again.



Mmmm... was that a hint of a PLOT?

[Dragonfree]

Ahhh, now we're getting to the good stuff! *rubs hands together* The plot of the first really good chapter, chapter eleven, starts in chapter ten. It's just over three pages, and the worst thing about it is that in two places, I jump over a short period of time to get to the things that matter, cutting the chapter up a bit. It also happens to have the first battle I wrote in the new, so much better style - that is, the battle in it is not completely rewritten for first revision (chapters one to eight have actually had two revisions) simply because it was so bad. Well technically, the battle to test the clones in chapter nine was the first one, but the reason why I described the battle there was that they were using made-up attacks. Then I just discovered how much better that battle was and wrote this one, describing what the pokémon are doing instead of the old "Charmander, Ember!" "Char!" "Rattata, Tackle" "Ratta!" style... god, it makes me embarassed to even think about it... -_-;;; Anyway, chapter eleven IS good, and this one's not too bad, either.

Chapter 10: Through Rainbow Forest

“So, Rick is cloning Twos?” May asked as they walked out of the town towards Metal city. It was called so because there were lots of mines for precious metals around the town, and Skarmorys were very common there. “That’s illegal, isn’t it? After what happened with Mewtwo? It’s illegal to modify a clone’s genetic code at all, isn’t it?”

“Yup,” was Mark’s answer. He was thinking. There was only one obstacle on the way to Metal city: Rainbow Forest. It had a lot of pokémon, but they were all at a pretty low level, so Mark thought he shouldn’t be catching any pokémon there. However, he might encounter Mew again. Its hideout was in the middle of the forest, by what Mew said. Mark really had the feeling that he’d see Mew soon, for some reason. Or maybe it was just hope.

All this floated through Mark’s mind.

“...and... Mark, are you listening to me?” May asked. He hadn’t heard anything of her speech.

“Sorry, I was... thinking, could you repeat that?”

“Never mind,” said May, looking offended.

“Hey, May, we could have a battle!” Mark quickly said to change the subject. “We battled at the Lake, but it’s been a long time, and we’ve caught more pokémon...”

“That’s a good idea! Go, Larvitar!” May stopped and sent out Larvitar.

“Now? Here? No, I mean – Gyarados can’t battle here where there is no water. There’s a pond over there, see, let’s battle there.”

“Okay,” said May and they went over to the pond.

“Go, Dratini! Wrap!” Mark shouted.

“Larvitar, Sandstorm!” May yelled.

Dratini wrapped himself around Larvitar. Larvitar conjured a sandstorm that struck both of them, but Larvitar was unaffected by it, being a rock-solid pokémon.

“Dratini, tighter!”

“Larvitar, Bite!”

Dratini tried to wrap himself tighter around Larvitar, but Larvitar bit Dratini, causing him to release him.

“Larvitar, Rock slide!”

“Dratini, Twister!”

Some rocks from the ground behind Larvitar slid through the air at Dratini, but Dratini made some kind of a whirlwind which blew the rocks away and hit Larvitar.

“Dratini, Dragon rage!”

“Larvitar, Sandstorm!”

Dratini blew some sort of strange-looking flames at Larvitar, but the sandstorm blew the flames right back at Dratini.

“Oh no! Dragons are weak to Dragon attacks!” Mark shouted as Dratini became enveloped in those flames, fainting.

“Dratini, come back! Go, Gyarados! Use Surf!”

Larvitar didn’t have much of a chance. He fainted.

“Larvitar, return! Do it, Pikachu! Thundershock!”

“Pika CHUUUU!” Gyarados, having an extreme weakness to Electric, fainted instantly.

“Gyarados, come back! Go, Sandshrew! Earthquake!”

“Pikachu, quick! Double team!”

Five Pikachus appeared in a ring around Sandshrew, who was very confused. He didn’t use Earthquake, but looked at Mark, puzzled.

“Sandshrew, use Earthquake! They’re only illusions!”

“Pikachu, Quick attack!” May ordered.

The Pikachus all leapt into the air, dodging the Earthquake, and struck Sandshrew. But only one of them really hit; that was the real Pikachu.

Suddenly, Sandshrew glowed white. He became larger and spiky. His claws lengthened. A Sandslash now stood there in its full glory.

“Oh! I never asked Sandshrew if he wanted to evolve!” dawned onto Mark.

“Sandslash!” Sandslash announced.

“Well, Sandslash, Earthquake!”

Sandslash’s Earthquake was more powerful than Sandshrew’s, that was easy to see. The Pikachus jumped up for a Quick attack again, but when they landed on Sandslash’s back, they got hurt by the spikes and the copies disappeared, leaving only the real Pikachu. He fell of the back and the Earthquake hit him, he still didn’t faint, though. It’s a tough Pikachu May owns, Mark thought.

“Pikachu, come back! You’re too weak to battle! Go, Lapras, use Surf!”

May had obivously taught Lapras Surf, because Lapras used a powerful one, leaving Sandslash very weak.

“Sandslash, Earthquake!”

Sandslash smashed his claws into the ground and caused an earthquake, but Lapras was in the pond and was not very much affected by it.

“Lapras, another Surf!”

Sandslash fainted as soon as the big wave Lapras sent at him hit.

“Well done, that’s enough, Sandslash,” Mark said, recalling him. “Go, Jolteon!”

Mark knew May was now in trouble, because her three pokémon left were all weak to Electric.

“Lapras, you must do it – Sing!”

Lapras started singing a tune that made them all feel drowzy. Mark and May covered their ears so they wouldn’t fall asleep, but Jolteon, after attempts to lie down and get his paws over his long, rabbit-like ears, fell fast asleep.

“Lapras, Body slam!” May shouted. Lapras went out of the pond, then slammed hard onto Jolteon, of course waking him up, but Jolteon was stuck. He growled and used Thundershock, and much to Mark’s surprise, it was enough to make Lapras faint. Looked like he had a strong Jolteon, too. However, when May recalled Lapras, Jolteon had fainted too under Lapras’ weight.

“Go, Charmeleon, Fire blast!” Mark said, throwing Charmeleon’s ball forward.

“Go, Butterfree, Confusion!” said May, clenching her fist.

Butterfree was quicker and fired a blast of psychic energy at Charmeleon. Charmeleon blew flames at Butterfree, causing her to faint.

“Go, Skarmory! Do it!”

Mark was pretty sure of his victory now. Skarmory was weak to Fire.

“Skarmory, you must listen to me and do exactly as I tell you. Stay where you are, and wait for me to instruct you, don’t move.”

“Charmeleon, Fire blast!” Mark roared.

“Skarmory, Whirlwind... now!” May bellowed. Skarmory flapped his metallic wings very fast and the Fire blast was sent back at Charmeleon. It didn’t hurt him much, as he was a Fire type too.

“Skarmory, quick now – Drill peck!”

Skarmory dived swiftly down at Charmeleon, spinning very fast like a drill. Before Charmeleon could do anything, Skarmory’s sharp beak stung right into his stomach like a knife. He roared in pain, and Skarmory went off him. The battle was over. May had won.

“How did your Skarmory get Drill peck? I thought the only way to do that was making a baby one learn it from its parents?”

“You don’t need to be a parent to teach a Skarmory how to Drill peck,” said May casually. “You can as well be a trainer, but it takes a lot of hard work.”

“Well, Charmeleon needs immediate healing,” said Mark. “Gotta hurry to the Cleanwater pokémon center.”

“I’ve got some revives, so I’ll just train here in the forest until you get back,” said May and took some Revives out of her backpack and used them on her pokémon in turn. “Actually, the forest is full of pokémon like Beedrill and others that might be dangerous if all your pokémon are badly injured. I can just lend you Larvitar, he doesn’t need that much training anyway,” said May. Then she handed Larvitar’s pokéball to Mark.

“Thanks, May.”

Mark went to Cleanwater city and back pretty much without anything interesting happening except that it took a lot longer than he had expected. He found May easily once when he was back in the forest again.

“What took you, Mark?” she asked. “My pokémon are up many levels, Larvitar is seriously behind... but I had an idea – we can go to the Rainbow café and have something to eat. It’s at the other end of the forest.”

They went through the forest, but sadly without seeing Mew. They encountered some pokémon, which May allowed Mark to battle because her pokémon had so much training already. Mark beat them with Charmeleon or Dratini. He was eager to let them evolve, as he had asked Dratini a short while before if he wanted to evolve. Dratini had thought wings would be fun. Of course, Mark did tell him that it would be long before he evolved into a Dragonite, he’d have to become a Dragonair first and the Dratini line evolves slowly, but Dratini was excited all the same.

“Look! Rainbow café!” May pointed at a small house. A little ahead of it was the edge of the forest.

“A café? This is tiny!” Mark complained, but when they got in, he realized he was wrong. It was one of those houses that seem much larger from the inside than the outside. They sat down at a table, ordered some food and ate. Everything was just like normal until they got outside. A wild Spinarak attacked them.

“All right! I’ll take it!” said Mark. “Go, Char... hey! Where are my pokéballs?”

Mark looked down, but his pokéballs were gone off his belt where they were supposed to be.

“They were attached to your belt, weren’t they?” said May. “They shouldn’t disappear into thin air...”

“But... oh, I get it. Give me my pokéballs, May. This isn’t funny.”

“Me?? Are you saying I stole your pokémon?”

“Give them back!”

“I DIDN’T STEAL YOUR LOUSY LITTLE POKÉMON!” May shouted in Mark’s ear. “MINE ARE MUCH STRONGER ANYWAY!”

“Okay, but who stole them, then?” asked Mark.

“Well... hey! It might have been that guy who came in just after us! He sat at the next table, remember, and he didn’t order anything! He went out before us, also, and headed towards Metal city!”

“Okay! Let’s go!” shouted Mark and ran towards the city, which was now in sight.

“Mark!” May shouted after him. “Wait for me! That guy also stole my Larvitar! I’m helping you as I can!”

[Iveechan]

Ooh... trainers w/o their Pokemon. Hee hee...

I like this fic a lot, but it's a tad too fast paced. I prefer a faster pace myself though. It's too late now, but having the trainers both have "M-a" names makes it harder to read. I like the battles, action scenes tend to be your strong point. The part where Articuno melted made me laugh . I also liked the part where they were trying to get Dratini's Pokeball, it was quite clever.

Even though this fic contains legends and two-clones, I really like it and am looking forward to the next chapter. *quite voice: I bet hitmonchan's not going to be in it* You didn't see that ^^; Oh yeah, and don't put notes like "This chapter is good but the the next isn't so good". Everyone interprets goodness differently.

[Dragonfree]

Wow. A reply when I almost thought chapter two and nine combined had scared everyone away...

Well, really, some chapters are just better written. It's very easy to feel the difference. Next chapter is just... better. More serious, better described, some kind of a plot... bit of blood...

Actually, there is a Hitmonchan in the story, although he's not owned by the main characters. A very strong Hitmonchan in chapter... 23, if I remember correctly.

And lastly, the two-clones won't have a big role in the story, except for just being constantly given to Taylor. The legendaries have a big plot behind them too, and no one is going to go and catch them all and beat the pokémon league with them... I KNOW that's stupid and that's not what this fic is about. I wonder how many times I've said that already?

Anyway, I'm glad someone likes it, especially someone who's a great writer herself. Guilty by Design is VERY good...

[Iveechan]

Yay! Hitmonchan in future chapter! I hope he's not a bad guy... ah well. Your fic. Just as long as he's portrayed goodly ^^. I think my favorite character is Gyarados so far. While catching strong Pokemon so early in a journy may be frowned upon by some people, I get sick of fics about newbie trainers catching Ratata and stuff. I like your "let's cut to the chase!" style. Since I'm impatient myself, heh.

As you can see, because of chapter 4's b*tchyness, the Guilty is... um, not looking so hot. I feel bad about it (Guilty makes me feel guilty!). I've seen fics on ff.net that have been updated a year later, so we'll see what the future holds...

[Dragonfree]

Iveechan: Nope, Hitmonchan is not a bad guy. He's called Fury and has a very nice battle with a Feraligatr called Jaws (and wins with much superiority). He may appear in the fic again, I sorta like him. Hitmonchan is my favorite Fighting pokémon, and I thought it would be nice to put one in... er, what that chapter is about.

Anyway, the first really good chapter of the fic, chapter eleven! Introducing my very favorite character of the story, and probably winning the prize for the most developed character not appearing in any other chapter, it's the very longest chapter of the story made of pure plot so far, nine pages long (and in Word where I'm writing the fic, it's not double-spaced). It also has the fic's first and currently only pre-planned battle (pre-planned as in planning in detail the attacks each pokémon uses instead of the usual just what pokémon each trainer uses). Really, you'll notice a difference about the chapter. It's just better.



Chapter 11: The Mew hunter


When Mark and May entered Metal city, the first thing they saw was actually the guy from the café. He had a black full beard, a brown hat that covered his face in shadow and a brown jacket. He held his hands in the pockets of the jacket and walked hastily into a large, ugly building that was painted yellow, but had large gray patches where the paint had gone off. It seemed big enough to be a pokémon gym, but the Metal city gym was in the other side of town, so it must be something else.

“There he is! Let’s see if this house has a ventilation...” said May. “Come, Mark.”

“A ventilation? Why?” asked Mark, confused.

May shook her head and sighed. “Mark, do you think you can just knock on his door and say ‘hi, you stole my pokémon, can I have them back?’ We must sneak inside, steal the pokémon which are rightfully yours so it really isn’t stealing, and then sneak back outside. And the best way to sneak into a house is through the ventilation.”

Yes, the house had a ventilation, although Mark was wondering why May looked so professional suddenly. The outside grid of the ventilation was pretty high on the wall. May sent out her Skarmory, plucked one steel feather off him, and flew up on him to the grid and used the feather as a screwdriver to loosen the grid. She threw it down to the ground and then Skarmory dived down to get Mark too.

Mark went into the pipe first. It was very narrow, it was impossible to turn around in it. Well, they weren’t going to, anyway...

The screws on the grid at the other side were clearly loose already, because Mark’s head suddenly bumped into it, and the grid fell down to the floor with a lot of noise. Even better, as Mark leaned forward to see what the building actually was, May bumped into him and he fell down to the floor too. Just then, the guy from the café came in, obivously to check what the noise was. He looked at Mark very strangely.

“You!” His voice was hoarse and quiet, but yet it sounded very wild. “You... here... I’ve been... you didn’t have... must... get...” On second thought, he also sounded mad.

Suddenly, he ran towards Mark and grabbed his arm. “WHERE IS IT?!” he roared. The man sounded even more mad now.

“Where is what?” Mark asked, puzzled.

“You know very well what I mean! My goal, my life... Mew!”
Mew?

“I don’t have Mew,” Mark said, truthfully.

“YES YOU DO! At least you did! I saw you!”

“Saw me when?”

“When you let it out of the window! Look, boy, I’ve been searching for Mew my entire life... I must get it! I MUST GET IT!” The man shook Mark violently. He was still very confused about all of this.

“Why don’t you just calm down and give up searching for Mew, if you haven’t found it yet?” Mark asked. Afterwards, he thought that had been a very stupid question.

The man actually calmed down and looked a lot less mad now. He took a few deep breaths, then said: “I think I must tell you the whole story.

I am a Mew hunter, meaning a person trying to find Mew. That is, I started a pokémon journey when I was ten, like everyone else. I got a Totodile as my starting pokémon. But I had read long before that about the one and only pokémon with real power – Mew.

I trained very hard. I wanted Mew, but I knew I could never get it until I was a skilled trainer. After Mew, I wanted dangerous pokémon the most. I evolved Totodile into Feraligatr for the strong jaws. I got myself a Sandslash and a Sneasel for the claws. I found a Kabuto fossil, got it resurrected at a pokémon lab and evolved it into Kabutops for the deadly scythes. I opened an unofficial gym with them as “armed” pokémon – pokémon with natural weapons. I was doing well with it, but at night, I was studying pokéballs. I bought a Master ball for all the money I collected from the gym. Then I used all I knew to change it into a special ball for Mew – a ball that prevented the pokémon that was captured in the ball from ever going too far from it. I didn’t want to risk that Mew teleported away when I sent it out to battle. Then I closed the gym, and went off chasing Mew with my pokémon.

But I had a rival – Rick, the gym leader from Cleanwater city. He was also young by then, but very skilled at cloning. He also had a special ball, but it was different. His ball was made so that the pokémon captured in it was forced to obey the trainer mindlessly. He just wanted to clone Mew and never use the original one. He didn’t respect Mew or its powers. He thought of legendary pokémon as tools to make powerful clones. I found it my duty to catch Mew before him. Mew deserved better than being a cloning slave.

After a year or so of chasing Mew, I finally found it, fast asleep in a clearing near the Lake of Purity. I got out my ball. I was ready to throw it when Rick came to the other side. He looked at me with hate, and I looked at him back in the same way. He took out his ball and was ready to throw it. Then we had a silent war, we both pushed at each other with our eyes, trying to say ‘I’m going to get it!’. Then, we both threw our pokéballs at the same time. They both hit Mew at the same time, causing it to wake up, of course.

All three of us knew that if a pokémon is caught by two balls at the same time, it is divided into the balls and neither trainer can ever send it out, and the pokémon is trapped inside the two balls forever. But Mew, being a powerful pokémon, could get all of itself into one ball. For short, Mew had to choose which of us was to catch it. Mew looked at me as it turned red and disappeared. We couldn’t see which ball had got Mew, as Mew didn’t try to break out, knowing it wouldn’t have a point. We had to go and get the balls.

Of course I knew Mew would choose me. Rick would enslave it, it wouldn’t have any mind after being caught by him. I would however get it to trust me slowly, and then we could take over the whole world. But as I touched my ball, I felt there was nothing inside. I felt the truth. Mew had betrayed me. Mew had chosen to be a slave of Rick forever.

Rick also felt there was something inside his ball when he took it up. He looked at me with a smile of victory. From his face, I could read ‘I got it! You have lost. I won. I have Mew. I have it!’ But he didn’t say anything. Neither did I.

The first feeling I felt was anger. I was angry with Rick for catching Mew, I was angry with Mew for choosing Rick, I was angry with myself not for having thrown my ball before Rick came. I hated the world. I spent days in my gym without eating, just thinking about how much I hated Rick. But later, my anger turned to sadness, and even later, the sadness turned into nothing. I decided to keep training my armed pokémon, I caught two more and I opened the gym again. But one day, when I was in Cleanwater city, I saw Mew again! It flew out of a hotel window. And who was letting it out was you. All the feelings from when I was hunting Mew returned with even more power. I now knew in my heart that catching Mew was still my deepest desire. I thought you must have been letting it out for fresh air or something. I started following you. When you went to Rainbow café, I nabbed your pokéballs. I sat for a while so I wouldn’t look suspicious. Then I went here, sent out all the pokémon, but none of them was Mew. I realized you had been releasing it. But I knew you must know where Mew usually hides, if it was freed from Rick, it would of course want to meet the person who freed it again. I was going to start following you again to find you, but then,” the man laughed softly, “then I heard a noise from here and checked what was here, and it was you! You came to me by yourself! And now, I want you to tell me where Mew’s hideout is!”

Mark listened to the impressive story, but he did not like the look of things. If he understood the guy right, he was going to take over the world, and Mark did not at all like the idea of a madman with dangerous pokémon and a Mew taking over the world. “I won’t tell you,” he then said.

“Oh yeah? Did you think that was a question? You’re telling me where Mew hides – now!”

“No, I won’t!”

“A little hard to convince, eh? Well, what do you say about this? Go, Scyther!”

A Scyther burst out of a pokéball he threw forward, and, like it was already planned, the Scyther rushed at Mark at incredible speed, knocked him down and held its right scythe by his throat. Then it whispered in his ear, “One little move, the tiniest movement, and...”

“Are you saying... what I think you’re saying?” said Mark, feeling very sick.

“You bet I am, boy! You tell me where Mew is, or else...” He drew his finger across his own throat, and was now starting to sound mad again.

“I can’t tell you!” said Mark, sounding a lot braver than he felt. “I can’t let you... take over the world...” He paused, then added, “And you’ll probably kill me anyway so I can’t tell the police about you.”

Mark’s heart was beating so fast he felt like it was exploding. He had never felt more terrible in his life than now when he admitted to himself that it was most probably going to end quite soon. “Why do you want to kill me?” he then stammered out, although his voice was pretty much leaving him along with every bit of color in his face.

“I don’t want to kill you! I want to know where Mew is!”

“You’re mad!” Mark somehow managed to shout. He didn’t remember having decided to say that.

“Am I? I give you five minutes to think about it. No more.” Then the man went out of the room, slammed the door back and left Mark alone with that terribly scary pokémon. After a few seconds of this tiny bit of hope breaking out, he decided he could barely be worse off if he tried.

“Scyther, would you mind if you just... let me go?” he asked.

“Perhaps I would,” was Scyther’s answer. He sounded very calm, and didn’t think at all before saying it.

“Oh, come on. You don’t like that person, do you?”

“Maybe.”

“But... I mean... you wouldn’t actually...”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Mark noticed that Scyther never seemed to give clear answers to his questions, which made him feel even more uncomfortable.

“Hey, Scyther – can I call you that? – you hate that man, okay. If you let me go, you can come with me and you’ll never have to see him again! How does that sound to you?”

“Sadly for you, there’s no leaving for me, because I happen to have been caught with a certain pokéball. So trying to bribe me with freedom won’t help you in any way at all.”

Mark decided to try another way.

“Scyther, what will you get out of killing me?”

“What will you get out of it if I don’t?”

“What do you mean?”

“He has other pokémon. Kabutops is very nice. His scythes aren’t as sharp as mine, though, he doesn’t think as much about the maintenance...”

Mark quickly changed the subject.

“But Scyther, wouldn’t you get a bad conscience if you kill me? Wouldn’t you feel better if you just let me go now?”

“You’re one of the first humans I’ve seen that admits bugs have feelings, too,” was what Scyther said. “Although this bug in particular has no feelings at all in the category you speak of.”

“This isn’t the time for fanciful talking! Your trainer is a homicidal madman, you have to let me go!”

“And why should I let you go, if I may ask?”

Now Mark started making up all kinds of excuses, some were completely out of nowhere (You wouldn’t want blood on your nice, clean scythes, would you?) while others had some bit of sense (You’ll be arrested, both of you!), but Scyther had those terribly calm answers to everything. A few times, Mark looked up at May, who was watching through the hole, unable to turn around and get help. Once, she reached back for a pokéball, but after some desperate facial expressions from Mark she managed to make out that he was telling her not to take any risks. So she just watched, the color having drained from her face, too.

“Scyther, please!”

“No, and if I’m right, your five minutes are over.”

Hearing footsteps, Mark shouted in panic the last thing he could think of: “I’m too young to die!!!!!!”

“Can’t believe you even tried,” was Scyther’s answer, and both of them stared at the door. It opened and the man stepped in.

“Well, has Scyther convinced you? Are you going to tell me where Mew is?”

Mark collected all of his courage, although most of it had apparently escaped through the window over the last five minutes, and then he said: “No.”

The man suddenly looked strange. But that was only for a tiny bit of second, so then Mark thought it must have been an imagination. The man calmed down again, and said: “Okay then. This will be over quickly. I assure you that Scyther’s blades are razor-sharp, no pain at all... well, Scyther...”

Mark looked up at May, as white as a sheet of paper, then closed his eyes for his death. He thought he saw a very bright light, or was he just imagining it? Suddenly, the most wonderful thought struck his mind.

“No, wait a minute! You aren’t going to kill me! You were never going to kill me!” Mark felt heat stream into his body again, and the weird white mist that seemed to have formed all around him in the last second cleared. The Mew hunter looked strange again.

“You were just threatening me to get me to tell you where Mew hides! You wouldn’t give me up, the only person who can tell you anything about Mew, would you? I should’ve told by the look on your face when I refused to tell you! Then you had the idea of acting like you were really going to kill me, just to put me under pressure for a second, and it almost worked. But then I suddenly saw right through you!”

The man looked more mad than ever before. “Maybe this trick won’t work on you anymore, but I’ll never let you go out of this building again! Never! Until you tell me where Mew hides, of course.”

“Hey, wait. You talked about an unofficial gym. Is this the gym? We can have a pokémon battle. You win, and I’ll tell you where Mew hides, you give me my pokémon and let me go. I won’t tell the police either. I win, and you give me my pokémon and let me go, but I’ll not tell the police anyway. How does that sound? You have nothing to lose, really.”

“But what if you don’t tell me where Mew is even after I’ve won the battle?”

“Then you just don’t give me my pokémon or let me go.”

“Hmmm... okay then, boy. Scyther, come on!”

Scyther stood up and Mark also did. But Scyther didn’t walk over to the Mew hunter.

“Scyther! What do you think you’re doing?” said the Mew hunter angrily.

“This is unfair,” said Scyther. “This is an unfair battle if I battle with you.”

“You’re going to fight for me?” Mark whispered. “You’re actually going to fight at my side?”

“Yes,” said Scyther, pointing his words to Mark.

“Okay! Let the battle begin! Hand me my pokémon!” said Mark. But the man suddenly looked devilish, and said: “Looks like you don’t need them anymore. You have a pokémon already. Go, Kabutops!”

Of course, Scyther, being very weak to Rock, wouldn’t stand a chance against Kabutops. And even if Scyther managed to beat Kabutops, this match was one on five. He was going to lose this for sure. But he wouldn’t give up, he just wasn’t that type...

“Scyther, this is one on five and whatever, I know, but you must do it!”

“I don’t think so!” came May’s voice as she swooped down on her Skarmory. “I have four pokémon with me, so this is going to be a fair battle, five on five! Go, Butterfree!” She sent Butterfree out and landed, recalling Skarmory.

“We’ll win this together, right?” she asked Mark.

“Of course we will!” Mark replied. He had completely forgotten that she was there too.

“Butterfree, Giga drain!” May ordered. The Kabutops glowed green, and small green orbs shot from it to Butterfree causing the Kabutops’ glow to fade and Butterfree to start glowing instead. Each orb weakened the Kabutops, but it was already clear that it was a very high-leveled Kabutops and was not going to faint in one attack. When the glow was all moved to Butterfree, the glow somehow sank into Butterfree and she looked stronger.

“Kabutops, Slash it!” said the Mew hunter angrily.

Mark was surprised that the Mew hunter didn’t tell his Kabutops to use a Rock attack, Butterfree being just as weak to Rock as Scyther, but then he thought maybe a Kabutops had much more power in its Slash than its Rock attacks. It had those scythes after all.

“Butterfree, fly so high it can’t reach you, and use another Giga drain!”

Butterfree quickly flew up as the Kabutops jumped and tried to reach her. She then made it glow green again.

“Kabutops, Ancientpower!” said the Mew hunter when his Kabutops regained the ability to move.

“Butterfree, finish it off!” said May.

The Kabutops was quicker and a band of rocks appeared out of the ground, hitting Butterfree. However, Butterfree was powered up and Kabutops was weakened, so Butterfree managed to survive it, even though it was a Rock attack and Kabutops was a very high level. Then Butterfree used one more Giga drain, being left pretty healthy. The Kabutops stood there for a moment as the Mew hunter told it to attack, staring blankly at nothing, then fell down, fainted.

“Kabutops, come back! Go, Sneasel! Slash!” the Mew hunter said madly. A Sneasel appeared out of his ball, and quick as lighting, it jumped up and slashed one of Butterfree’s wings with its claws. The wing was practically torn apart, and May’s Butterfree crashed and twitched a bit like a fly that’s about to die. Why did pokémon have to look so dead when they were just fainted...

“Butterfree, come back! Go, Skarmory! Use Steel wing!” said May and didn’t show any reactions to Butterfree’s state. Her Skarmory came out of the ball and struck Sneasel using his wing feathers like swords. The Sneasel was badly cut in a place or two, but just looked at Skarmory and awaited its trainer’s orders.

“Sneasel, Blizzard!” the Mew hunter commanded. The Sneasel’s eyes glowed white and the room went cold. A blizzard struck through the middle of it, but Skarmory avoided it.

“Skarmory, use Steel wing again!” said May, happy with the previous outcome. Skarmory dived down again and cut the Sneasel with his powerful wings again.

“Sneasel, Blizzard again!” the Mew hunter growled. Again, the Sneasel’s eyes glowed white and a blizzard struck through the room. This time Skarmory didn’t manage to get away in time, the blizzard struck him. After it passed, Skarmory shivered with some icicles hanging from his wings. He shook himself and icicles flew in all directions, as May told him to finish the Sneasel off. He dived down, spinning like a drill, and Drill pecked the Sneasel. It was knocked down and Skarmory’s beak pierced it. It screeched in pain, then fell limp. The Mew hunter recalled it.

“Go, Feraligatr!”

“Skarmory, Drill peck it!”

“Feraligatr, ready with Crunch!”

When Skarmory span towards the Feraligatr, it opened its mouth and caught Skarmory when he came. The Feraligatr grabbed Skarmory’s wing, shook him violently and then dropped him to the ground. Then, as Skarmory attempted to get up, the Feraligatr thrust its leg onto his body and Skarmory’s metallic body went completely screwed up.

“Skarmory, good! Go, Pikachu! Thunderbolt now!” May yelled, throwing Pikachu’s pokéball forward. When the electric pokémon burst out of its ball, its cheeks were already sparkling.

“Pika... CHUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!”

Pikachu sent a bolt of lightning at the alligator pokémon, it got badly electrocuted and fainted.

“Feraligatr, come back! Go, Sandslash, Earthquake!”

This Sandslash was much quicker than Mark’s. Pikachu didn’t manage to jump up and having very low Defense, he fainted.

“Pikachu, return! Go, Lapras! Use Surf!”

Lapras sent a big wave of water at the Sandslash and it got soaked and fainted.

“Sandslash, come back! Go, Fangcat!”

A strange pokémon Mark had never seen before appeared out of the ball. It looked like a saber-tooth tiger, but its fangs were three times as long, and covered with blood. It looked very vicious.

“Fangcat, show them your fangs!” the Mew hunter hissed. The Fangcat jumped at Lapras and sunk its fangs into her neck.

“Oh no! Lapras, come back!” May recalled Lapras quickly as blood started leaking to the floor. “What do we do now? This thing looks really deadly and I’m out of pokémon!”

“We must use Scyther! Go, and do your best!” Mark said to the Scyther beside him. He nodded and walked forward, watching the Fangcat closely.

“Fangcat, punish Scyther for betraying me!” the Mew hunter said. The Fangcat started running towards Scyther.

“Scyther, fly up!” Mark shouted and Scyther took off.

“Fangact, jump!”

“Scyther, fly higher!”

Fangcat jumped up, but didn’t manage to reach Scyther. When it was falling down again, Mark had an idea.

“Scyther, Slash it from the back!”

When the Fangcat heard this, it decided to turn itself around in the air to defend from Scyther’s attacks. When Scyther flew down at it, the Fangat actually ran Scyther through with one of its fangs. Scyther let out a terrifying roar, and Slashed Fangcat madly. When they landed, Fangcat also took more damage, landing on its back, and one more Slash finished it off all bloody.

“Oh no! Scyther! We must get that fang out of it!” Mark said as he ran over to the two pokémon that were stuck together. He grabbed the fang, and tried to pull it out of Scyther’s body, but he didn’t manage to. Scyther was breathing rapidly and getting weak fron blood loss.

“Wait, I have an idea,” said the Mew hunter. He actually looked very worried, which was a surprise to Mark as he had really expected him not to care about anything except Mew. “I’ll recall Fangcat, and then the fang must go with it. You know, like the girl recalled Lapras.” He then took a pokéball and Fangcat turned into a red beam of light that disappeared into it. Scyther was left lying on the floor, now unconscious. Blood was leaking out of the big hole in the middle of his body. He lay motionless on the floor. Mark walked a few steps backwards. He saw one of the man’s pokéballs suddenly disappear into thin air. Could it really be...?

No one did anything for a few seconds. Then May walked over to the Scyther. She went around him a few times, then walked right up to him and touched him carefully. She pulled her hand back quickly.

“He’s dead,” she then said after a moment’s pause.

There was a long silence.

“...no...” the Mew hunter finally breathed. “No! NO!”

May looked hateful. “Oh yes,” she said. “That bloody beast of yours killed him! Your own Scyther!”

“NO!” roared the Mew hunter again. Then he just let himself fall to the floor too and lay there looking just as dead as his Scyther, but an occasional sob witnessed that he was living. It seemed like ages spent, although it was probably not long in reality.

Then, the window suddenly broke, and Mew flew in. Mark couldn’t believe it, rubbed his eyes, but Mew actually was there, staring at him. Then it looked around, glanced at the dead Scyther and then closed its eyes. It became enveloped in purple glow. Scyther’s body also did. The hole in the middle of his body disappeared. The blood disappeared. Then the glow went out, first on Scyther, then on Mew. Scyther still just lay there. Mew flew down and poked Scyther, very much like it had poked the lamp in the hotel, first very carefully, then again but not very carefully and ended up punching him hard. Nothing happened. Mew looked annoyed, then went to Scyther’s leg, lifted it up and shouted “MEEEEW!” at his knee. Scyther suddenly rose up, slashed the air and then looked around, confused. Mew looked satisfied, and Mark realized that Mew had just decided to come and resurrect Scyther.

“Uh... May? I didn’t really get that... why did Mew shout at Scyther’s leg?”

“Scythers have ears in their legs,” May answered, still staring at Mew explaining something to Scyther in pokémon language.

“Oh,” Mark said. He paused, then asked again: “How did you know?”

“Well, if you want it short, I was top in pokémonology, partly because this was on our test about the Bug type.”

“Top in pokémonology???? How did you manage that?!”

“Well, there’s always someone who’s top of class,” May said and blushed. “Have you never been top of class in anything?”

“Just third or so in pokémonish,” Mark admitted. “But pokémonology is much harder!”

“No! Really, have you never found it hard to learn hundreds of languages that are only one word each? Actually, my Butterfree speaks Japanese. I mean, Japanese Butterfreeish. I didn’t notice when I caught her because she still said ‘Caterpie’, but when she evolved... that was such a NIGHTMARE! All she said was some Transell nonsense and I had no idea what she was saying at all... then she evolved into Butterfree and became understandable again. That was a relief...”

The Mew hunter suddenly walked up to Mark.

“I won the battle,” he said. “Scyther died.”

“That’s not fair!” said Mark loudly. “Fangcat fainted first!”

“Yes, but then Scyther died! Dying is much more than just fainting!”

“He’s alive now,” Mark said. “Mew resurrected him.”

“Yes, but he was dead! I won the battle!”

“Okay,” May interrupted, “let’s say you won the battle. Then I’ll tell you where Mew is. It’s over there. Now, you let us go and give Mark his pokémon.”

The Mew hunter seemed to be noticing just now that Mew was still in the room. He reached for his ball and threw it at Mew, but it just teleported away.

“Mew, you’re out there somewhere. I’m going to catch you sometime,” he muttered.

Mark was happy. He was safe, Mew was safe, and Scyther was safe.

“But... but... where is Scyther’s pokéball?” the man suddenly said. “Where?”

“It disappeared when Scyther died, remember?” said May. “Pokéballs form such a connection to pokémon that when they die, the pokéballs will disappear...”

“But Scyther is alive now!” the man said.

“Yes, Mew resurrected Scyther, but not the pokéball,” she answered.

“But... that means...”

“...Scyther is no longer your pokémon,” May finished, “but a wild pokémon.”

Mark had a sudden idea. “Scyther, you now have three choices. You can stay here with him, you can come with us, or you can go and be wild. What do you choose?”

Scyther looked at Mark, then at his former trainer, then at the window. Then at Mark again, and then at the window again. Then he flew out of the window to freedom.

The Mew hunter stared blankly outside. “Mew... you’re out there... you are there somewhere... I’m going to catch you... and we’ll take over Ouen.” He didn’t seem to mind, or even notice, that Scyther had gone. But now Mark was sure Mew could evade him pretty easily.

“Hey, you said you’d give me my pokémon,” Mark said. The man handed him the six balls without thinking, and then started staring out of the window again.

When Mark and May were back outside, Mark handed May Larvitar.

“That was scary,” he said.

“Yeah,” May replied.

“I’m a bit disappointed that Scyther didn’t join me, though,” Mark said. “I really thought he would. But Scyther wanted to be free, and I’m happy that he’s happy.”

“I pity that man a little, too,” May said. “He really loved his pokémon, but Mew overshadows them all. He’ll probably realize it one day and stop searching for Mew.”

“No, I’m sure he won’t,” Mark answered. “Mew is his goal, and seeing Mew with his own eyes apparently turns his logic upside-down, as he didn’t even think of just holding me longer. He knows Rick doesn’t have it. The reason why he almost forgot about Mew is that Rick caught Mew, so there wasn’t any Mew to search for. He can’t think about anything except Mew now that he knows Mew is there somewhere. Well, I sort of do pity him, he’s... out of his mind. I guess he will always be searching for Mew in some way or another.”

They were now at the pokémon center. But before they went in, Scyther landed in front of them.

“I’m going to come with you,” he said.

“What? Really? Did you change your mind?”

“No, but I had to pretend to go and be wild because he’d never accept me joining another trainer.”

“Oh, I see. Okay then, here’s a pokéball for you!”

Mark held out a pokéball and Scyther was absorbed inside it.

“What did he say?” May asked. “I told you, I’m terrible at pokémonish.”

Mark told her what Scyther had said.

“You’re incredible,” she then sighed. “How can you understand a language that is one word?”

“It comes with practise,” said Mark as they went into the pokémon center.

[Dragonfree]

Well, it's been a while since, but chapter eleven of The Quest for the Legends is up, and it's good.

[Dragonfree]

Here comes chapter twelve. This chapter is incredibly important, but really strange. You see, I originally wrote it as a filler between two action chapters that was meant for a bit of character development, nothing more. It was inspired by Eevee Oak, who was in a shock because her grandfather died, and it made me think, "hey, people don't get threatened to be killed and then walk away all happy". But after I wrote it, I realized that this chapter is one of the three chapters in the fic that affect the whole rest of it. It is, namely, the first chapter with any character development at all in the pokémon, and the start of a big sub-plot that will be slowly going on until chapter 23, which again is the reason why I realized that I was being stupid by always referring to the pokémon as "it", they were living creatures, AND, that sub-plot drove me on with the fic. It would've ended at chapter 15 or so, maybe, if I hadn't put this chapter in. So enjoy the importance...


Chapter 12: The rivals


Mark and May healed their pokémon, then started walking off to the hotel.

“Mark... you know, that was amazing.”

“What?”

“That you were ready to sacrifice your own life.”

“May... everyone would’ve done that... especially since I thought he’d kill me anyway...”

“Also, you refused to believe that your life had come to an end and managed to find out what was wrong with the whole thing. That’s something admirable.”

“May... please... if those classmates of yours heard you...”

“They won’t.”

“May... please stop it... I don’t feel so good...”

“Rubbish. Why shouldn’t you be feeling well? You won the battle, Scyther got resurrected, Mew is safe, and you felt very good just a few minutes ago!”

“May, don’t talk about this...”

“Why not? It was exciting!”

“Maybe to you! May, please stop and listen to me for a moment!”

They stopped.

“What’s wrong, Mark?” May asked.

“May... do you know how I feel when I think about anything sharp, anything related to that man, anything related to death? I relive this whole ‘exciting’ thing fast forward, I get the same feeling I got when Scyther was threatening to kill me, I get the feeling I imagine it must be to get a 30 cm long fang through my body, I get the feeling it must be to be stuck in a ventilation and have to watch your friend being killed, I get the feeling I imagine it is to die, and I can’t think of anything else, AND IT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD!”

There was some silence, then May said: “I see... sorry... shocks like this can cause it... try to think of something happy, and not this.”

“Oh great!” said Mark loudly. “I’m depressed, and I’m going to kill myself soon because I’m so curious to know if it’s the right feeling of death I keep getting...”

May did not take this joke well. “Mark. Don’t even think about it.”

“May, can’t you take a little joke?”

“You shouldn’t be joking! This is serious!”

“May, I think talking about this over and over won’t help.”

“Hey, you’ve not recorded Scyther in your pokédex yet!” said May, changing the subject.

“You’re right.” Mark took out Scyther’s pokéball and the pokédex, then pointed the pokédex at the ball.

“Scyther – mantis pokémon. Scyther uses its sharp scythes to kill its prey, quickly and effectively. They are very rare, because they have been overhunted be trainers for the much-preferred evolution, Scizor.”

“Did you hear that??? Even the pokédex is against me! “...uses its sharp scythes to kill its prey...” thank you, pokédex, just what I needed!” Mark threw the pokédex over his shoulder and May picked it up. Suddenly, Scyther’s pokéball burst open. Apparently he had taught himself how to get out of his pokéball by himself.

“Mark, I’m not feeling very good...”

“Me neither,” said Mark.

“I keep imagining that my scythe is slipping, there’s blood all over...”

“I get your point...”

“Wow. That’s weird.” May didn’t say anything else for a second, but then she said: “I think both of you should think about when you felt better.”

They walked to the hotel in silence. Mark and Scyther were both concentrating on the best moments of this whole thing, Mark on the wonderful feeling when he found out he wasn’t about to be killed and Scyther on being brought back to life. May got two rooms, handed Mark one key and went to her room without saying anything. Mark took the key, went to his room and flung himself on the bed. Scyther did, too. They lay there until Mark sighed.

“Scyther, do you also find it hard to think about just one moment for long?”

“Yup.”

“Come, then. I’ll introduce you to my other pokémon.”

Knowing Gyarados couldn’t be let out in the room, he went to the hotel’s battle arena, which had a pool in the middle like all pokémon arenas that are up to today’s standards.

“Go, Charmeleon! Sandslash! Jolteon! Dratini! Gyarados!”

The five pokémon appeared, looked at Mark, then saw Scyther and looked at him doubtfully, then goggled at Mark.

“Guys, this is Scyther. Scyther is my newest pokémon.”

Charmeleon looked at Scyther again. “Are you the guy who stole us pretending to be our trainer, or did you steal the thief’s Scyther while stealing us back?”

“Neither. Scyther joined us.” And Mark told them the whole story.

“And... are you sure we can... trust him?” asked Charmeleon.

“Of course! If not for Scyther, I don’t know where we would be! There are some possibilities... I would maybe be dead, and you’d be owned by that madman, because he’d maybe have realized that I wouldn’t be of any more use to him free than dead. Or we’d still be there and never see each other again because he’d be holding me captive trying to force me to tell him where Mew hides... Or we’d be here, but the madman would know about Mew’s hideout. Or he’d have thought of the fact that he’d not be losing anything if he threatened to kill YOU, and then he’d mean it.”

“Mark, this Scyther was going to kill you! This is mad!”

“Scyther pretended he was going to kill me!”

“And this Scyther did not let you go when you asked him to!”

“...because ‘this Scyther’ knew very well that he wasn’t supposed to kill me!”

“Mark, this pokémon is not worth your trust! Why didn’t he tell you then?”

Mark didn’t want to answer this question. “Charmeleon, both me and Scyther are not feeling very well after this whole deal. He feels even worse than me, if anything. And, this Scyther got run through by a 30 cm long fang just for you and me! I want all of you to accept Scyther as one of you! Everyone who is ready to count Scyther among you, come over here!”

His pokémon just stood there for a while, glancing anxiously at Scyther’s scythes. Mark tapped his foot impatiently and in the end, Sandslash walked forward. Mark supposed it might be because he knew Scyther had gotten along with a Sandslash for some time. And because he knew he also had big claws. He looked quickly in Scyther’s face and said “Hi”, then looked off him again and stood beside him. Gyarados grunted, eyed Scyther with an “I’m bigger than you anyway, so why not?” expression and nodded. Scyther’s expression didn’t change at all.

Jolteon was next, although he seemed a bit scared, walked up to Scyther and said “Hello”, then quickly went to Sandslash’s side and bent a bit down so he looked like he was trying to hide.

Dratini then crawled over, looked happily at Scyther and then took his place at the other side of Mark and Scyther. Mark was actually surprised that a pokémon this small wasn’t afraid of Scyther at all, he seemed mainly just shy.

Then only Charmeleon was left. He just crossed his arms, gave Scyther a nasty look and then turned around. Scyther looked at Charmeleon with an even nastier “fine, have it your way, see if I care!” look, then crossed his arms and turned around, too.

“Oh, stop it, you two!” said Mark, but they didn’t move. The other pokémon looked at Scyther, then at Charmeleon, then at Mark, and then at each other. Mark looked at his watch, it was getting late.

“Hey, I’ll let all of you sleep out of your balls tonight! Gyarados, I guess you’ll have to be here, but the rest of you can sleep in my room.”

When they went to sleep, Mark slept in the bed, and the pokémon on the floor. Mark made sure Charmeleon and Scyther were both fast asleep when he fell asleep, and then he had a very strange dream.

At first, it was just the nightmare he’d been expecting, more reliving the day, more feeling death, more Fangcats and Scythers and more blood, but after that, he saw two yellow eyes, felt horrible pain, and then he woke up, all sweaty. His pokémon were all still asleep. Then he fell asleep again. He had another such dream, but then he was with Mew in front of him, and threw a pokéball. Mew was absorbed into the ball, and he saw himself taking the ball, but he had no face. Then a roar found its way through the dream and Mark woke up to see Scyther awake. He apparently had a nightmare, too. Scyther had seen himself killing Mark and blood everywhere, Fangcat attacking him again, and then he had seen himself attacking various pokémon, but Mark was nowhere to be seen. The other pokémon didn’t have a trainer either. They both went back to sleep, had more nightmares that were all something like that, and kept waking each other up. It was a terrible night.

But somehow, Mark had the feeling he felt better than he would have if Scyther wasn’t also experiencing the same sort of thing. They went through this together, and it made both of them feel better. However, Scyther and Charmeleon were still enemies. Scyther wouldn’t look at Charmeleon and Charmeleon wouldn’t look at Scyther.

But Charmeleon’s dislike for Scyther wasn’t what Charmeleon thought himself. Charmeleon had managed to convince himself it was because he wanted to protect Mark from Scyther because Scyther wanted to kill him. But deep down, Charmeleon knew very well that it wasn’t true. He was simply jealous. Charmeleon felt like it was all Scyther’s fault that the Mew hunter didn’t give Mark his pokémon for the battle. Charmeleon had wanted to be the pokémon that fought Fangcat and was the hero of the day. I’ll show this Scyther, Charmeleon thought, I’ll show him...

[Chris 2.1]

Oh man, I'm so sorry dude! I said i'd check this out AAAAAAGES ago....and I didn't!


Ok, the style's pretty good, and I'm overwhelmed by your creativity! *SO MANY LEGENDARIES......* and it's great to see the fic chugging along! It's going fast, mainly because you're not getting replies *pats on back* but as long as i'm here......hehe.

I also like hw it may develop to be darker....you knw, how mark was willing to sacrifice his life, that's pretty good (Chris from FRTC would NEVER do that, hehe ^^).

Keep it up!

[Dragonfree]

I was feeling so great after you said that about "From Rookie to Champion: NOT ANOTHER DAMNED FIC!!", I decided just to finish the revision of chapter 13 (you HAVE to see chapter 27 before you leave! And 30!). Nice that you're reading it, but I have to tell you, I can do SOOOO much better than that. All those legendaries were put into the fic when I had no idea what to do with it...

But anyway, chapter 13. WARNING: CHEESY ANIMÉ-ISH TITLE ALERT! There are two good things in it; one is a hint for something great, a really sweet sub-plot, that is, and the other one is a poster about the pokémon league that's slightly humourous. Otherwise, it's just a gym battle, not even the most boring to write, that's the next one...


Chapter 13: Battle for the Shining badge!


When Mark woke up after that terribly long night, he wasn’t feeling better at all, but he recalled his pokémon into their pokéballs (thankfully Scyther and Charmeleon were both still sleeping), got dressed and went downstairs to the breakfast table. May was there too and he sat down beside her.

“Slept well?” she asked.

“No, not really... I was having nightmares... Scyther was too...something about eyes, pain and Mew... and I had no face... and Scyther saw itself killing me, and then battling other pokémon and neither had trainers... weird...”

“That’s what I thought it would be... hey, Mark, I’m sure you will make you feel better when you get your second badge! I think you should sleep some more, though. You look tired...”

“No, we should just go and get our badges... this gym will be a piece of cake...” Mark yawned. “It’s a Steel gym, isn’t it? It’ll be easy with Charmeleon.”

“I’m not sure,” said May doubtfully. “After all, your pokémon are still level 22 or something like that... you haven’t gone out and trained in a while. Mine are level 34, but I have no Fire pokémon. So I guess we’re about equally placed.”

“Hey, what was Scyther’s level again? Wait, I’ll check...” Mark took out the pokédex and pointed it at Scyther’s pokéball. This was a great feature invented by Gary Oak, making it enough to point the pokédex at a pokéball instead of having to release the pokémon first.

“At level 42, Scyther should know four of the following: Quick attack, Leer, Focus energy, Pursuit, False swipe, Agility, Wing attack, Slash and Swords dance.”

Mark stared. “Level 42?? Wow! No wonder Scyther could beat that Fangcat thing! He’s double my other pokémon!”

“I’ll bet Fangcat was at a high level, too,” said May. “And remember, it’s no good to have one pokémon much stronger than the others.”

“Yeah,” said Mark. “I’ll not use Scyther for the gym.”

“Also, a Scyther’s main strength is its scythes, and they are useless against Steel pokémon. Charmeleon will melt them down.”

“Yeah...”

They finished their breakfast, went out and walked in silence to the gym. It was made of Skarmory feathers and people said that the gym leader, Christopher, used light to his advantage, blinding the oppoment. When they approached in the sunlight, the bright, shining feathers made them squint their eyes. Mark eyed a poster on the wall beside the door. He walked to the poster and May followed. It was about the pokémon league.


Here is how the Ouen pokémon league rules will be this year.

First, all trainers may enter the Elite four competion. The trainers who enter the Elite four competion cannot battle for the title of a League Champion, but they will all get an official pokémon league T-shirt. The requirements for competing are only that if you have five or six pokémon, they must all be higher than level 40, if you have three or four pokémon, they must all be higher than level 50, if you have two pokémon both must be higher than level 60 and if you have one pokémon, it must be over level 70. The trainers will battle to find the four strongest of them. Those four will get an official pokémon league Elite four badge. The one who was in fourth place is put as Elite first, the one from third place will be Elite second, the one from second place will be Elite third and the one who was in first place will be Elite fourth (or the leader of the Elite four). After the Elite four are decided, trainers have one month to challenge them and beat them. When the first trainer beats the whole Elite four without healing in between, that trainer will get the title of First League Champion. When the First League Champion is defeated, the new League Champion takes the old one’s place, the old League Champion becomes the Fourth Elite, the old Fourth Elite becomes Third Elite, the old Third Elite becomes Second Elite, the old Second Elite becomes First Elite and the old First Elite is no longer a part of the Elite four. After one month, the current League Champion (if any, otherwise Fourth Elite) gets a trophy, an official Unbeaten badge and the title of Unbeaten Pokémon Master. The current Elite four members will also get trophies. Then, the pokémon league is over this year.


“So there will be an Elite four system on this year? Interesting... but with the Elite four system, it’s easier to find second, third and fourth place and so on,” said May, reading over Mark’s shoulder.

“Well, I guess we’re pretty far from the league now... one badge out of eight isn’t much. We better go and get our second one,” answered Mark and they went into the building.

As much as Mark had been hoping the walls didn’t shine so brightly on the inside, they did. The lights were very bright too, so he could barely see anything. For example, he could not see the big, bulky man wearing extremely black sunglasses who walked up to him, until the man’s shadow blocked the light.

“Hello, I’m Christopher, the Metal city Gym leader. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You will use two pokémon maximum, I will use two. So, which of you will battle first?”

Mark looked at May, or tried to, but he couldn’t see her properly. Only the outline of a girl.

“You can go first, Mark,” she said and went to the corner.

“Go, Charmeleon!”

“Go, Steelix!”

“Charmeleon, this will be easy for you! Fire blast now!”

Charmeleon fired a jet of flames forward, but missed the Steelix due to its metal shine that matched completely with the walls and made it almost impossible to see, as it seemed to be trained not to move at all.

“Steelix, use Earthquake!”

Of course. Christopher was using attacks that really can’t miss even though the pokémon using them can’t see. The Steelix raised its huge metallic tail and slammed it on the floor, causing it to shake. Charmeleon was flung down to the ground.

“Steelix, Iron tail!”

The iron snake slammed its tail at the ground trying to hit Charmeleon, but missed, as it was blinded by the light just like Charmeleon. Christopher swore loudly.

“Charmeleon, Fire blast!”

Charmeleon got up and blew an even massiver blast of fire in the opposite direction and it actually hit the Steelix by pure coincidence. It roared in pain.

“Steelix, Iron tail again!”

“Charmeleon, use another Fire blast when it comes!”

Mark’s caculation was right. When Steelix was using Iron tail, it cast a shadow at Charmeleon, giving him some accuracy. Charmeleon hit the Steelix easily now, it roared loudly, then the massive body collapsed, and it was fainted.

“Steelix, return! Go, Scizor!”

A shiny Scizor popped out of the ball – an actual shiny one. A green one. It flew up to the air instantly, and waited there.

“Charmeleon, Fire blast!”

“Scizor, Double team!”

Seven copies of the shiny Scizor appeared in the air. Both this and being blinded made it almost impossible for Charmeleon to hit. He managed to hit the wing of a copy, though, and it dissolved into the air.

“Scizor, use another Double team, and then strike!”

Each copy of Scizor now created more copies, and the true Scizor flew down quickly and grabbed Charmeleon hard by the arm with its claws. Then it flew up and joined the copies again. Charmeleon was left on the ground, his arm bleeding.

“Charmeleon, another Fire blast!”

Charmeleon was already inhaling deeply, then he blasted some fire into the air and managed to hit three copies with it, but none of them was the real Scizor. The Scizor then flew down and grabbed Charmeleon in its claws again, and flew upwards, this time holding Charmeleon.

“Charmeleon, use Fire blast on it now!”

Charmeleon tried, but he couldn’t. Then Mark remembered Charmeleon had already used Fire blast five times, he had to rest before being able to do it again...

Scizor was now near the ceiling, and dropped Charmeleon, who fell down... and down... and then landed on the ground with a big “THUMP” and a weak “chaaaar...”.

“Charmeleon, return. What can I use now? I guess Jolteon would be good...”

But before Mark had sent out Jolteon, one of his pokéballs popped open. It was Scyther’s.

“Scyther, what are you doing!? I was not going to use you in this battle!”

“I’m going to battle here and now, for all Scythers still around!” Scyther said and turned hatefully to the Scizor.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m going to battle this piece of garbage!” Scyther said angrily and looked at the Scizor with disgust. Then Mark remembered the pokédex. Scyther has been overhunted by trainers and evolved into the much-preferred evolution, Scizor. But Mark knew Scyther was the strongest of all not fully evolved pokémon. In fact, Scizor wasn’t stronger than Scyther at all. And Scyther wanted to battle Scizor, just for the pride of all still existing Scythers that had not been evolved. Mark also remembered reading about something like that. About a Pikachu that battled a Raichu and won, some twenty-five years ago in Kanto. And now he, Mark, was in the same position – just with a Scyther against a Scizor. And the Scyther was surely a much higher level than the Scizor. Mark smiled when he thought of that. This would be an easy victory.

“Okay, Scyther, but just this once!” he said. “Go and slash it!”

Physical attacks would probably prove to be much better in this gym, as they are not as likely to miss as special attacks. Scyther flew up, facing his evolved form.

“Scizor, don’t let it catch you!” Christopher shouted. The Scizor flew forward, but its Steel type slowed it down, and its level was much lower than Scyther’s. He caught up with it in a few seconds, reached forward with a scythe and slashed blindly. The Scizor moved desperately trying to avoid Scyther’s scythes, but Scyther reached further forward and something fell down to the ground as the Scizor roared – it was one of the Scizor’s wings. It was obivously falling, since it had only one wing left. Scyther dived down and slashed the Scizor again with hate in his eyes. When Scizor fell to the ground, Scyther wouldn’t stop slashing and roaring madly. Mark felt like Scyther was trying to do something more than just winning the fight and recalled him. Christopher picked up the wing off the ground and recalled his Scizor, then gave Mark a metallic badge.

“This is the Shining badge. Now, I’ll battle the young lady... with those of my pokémon that are still in one piece.” He gave Mark a nasty look and put one of his pokéballs, which Mark assumed must be Steelix’s, in a pocket healer as May walked towards them. Mark went to the corner to watch the battle.

“Go, Steelix!”

“Go, Skarmory!”

“Steelix, Iron tail!”

“Skarmory, Swift!”

Clever move. Swift can’t possibly miss. Skarmory fired a flurry of stars at the Steelix, but the stars just repelled off it. The Steelix then swung its tail forward and it hit Skarmory, throwing him down to the floor. It then slid a number of large rocks at him and Skarmory, all wounded and battered, was recalled into his pokéball by May. Her expression was the same as before.

“Go, Lapras! Use Surf!”

The beautiful pokémon beat Steelix easily with a big wave of water coming out of nowhere, Steelix being a Ground pokémon.

“Return, Steelix! I have a Skarmory too, girl... go!”

Christopher’s Skarmory emerged from the ball he sent forward.

“Lapras, Surf!”

“Skarmory, we’re on plan!”

Skarmory flew up and used what seemed like a Drill peck on the ceiling. The sharp Skarmory feathers it was made of rained down, and on top of all things, they shone even brighter now as the sun burst through the gap. Mark couldn’t see anything, but he heard May and Christopher shout commands at their pokémon, and once he heard a Skarmory feather land righ next to him with a lot of noise. But after that, nothing was heard, and he could see some dark outlines again by putting his hand over his eyes.

“Great battle,” Christopher said and shook May’s hand. “You are worthy of the Shining badge!”

Mark had the feeling that Christopher was a lot nicer to her than to him. He handed her a badge like Mark’s. She took it and walked over to him.

“Come. Let’s get away from this brightness.” Mark nodded and they walked out of the gym.

“Wasn’t Scyther a little violent in your battle?” May asked. “I mean, pokémon don’t usually act like that... not after they’ve already won...”

“Well, a little, I guess... but Scyther seems to really hate Scizors for some reason...” Just then, Scyther popped out of his ball. “Obivously! All real Scythers with some bit of respect for themselves prefer their scythes over a lously little Steel type any day!”

“Well, I guess I won’t have to ask you if you want to evolve...” Mark said, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course not, that one must have had no respect for himself at all, otherwise he wouldn’t have let his trainer evolve him,” Scyther growled and went back into his ball. Maybe there was something deeper than that behind it, though.


However, when back at the hotel, Mark noticed two things. Charmeleon was twice as mad at Scyther now than before, and he and Scyther were both feeling better. Scyther had defeated a Scizor, and Mark had a new badge.



Cheesy ending too, I may add.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter fourteen! You're right about the fic getting darker, Chris, this is the next dark chapter. It also starts a funny thing about this fic: when I'm making up a chapter very shortly before writing it, I often feel crazy when I'm making it and put in all sorts of things that are just plain weird. When I'm actually writing the chapter, of course, I don't include those, but I write a special version of the chapter with the whole of that stuff included. The outcome of that can be really weird, especially as I like to put "the author", that is myself, in them yelling at the characters, Mark is obsessed with his job description and May likes arguing with the author (me arguing with me... oh my, that won't end well... I never stop arguing once I've started). Besides some personal jokes between me and my best friend finding their way into it. Anyway, here's the REAL chapter fourteen.


Chapter 14: The Black desert and Scorplack!


The next town on the path to the pokémon league was Scorpion city. It was placed in Scorpivalley, a valley shaped a little like a scorpion. The town was at least in the valley, and from a plane it looked like a giant scorpion. But Scorpion city was also the smallest town in Ouen with an official gym. The gym was in the “tail end” of the scorpion shape. The gym leader’s name was Mitch. He liked Bug/Poison type pokémon, and was an expert on poisons and antidotes.

As Mark and May made their way out of Metal city into the Black desert, they saw a whole lot of Skarmories, but when they came into the desert, the Skarmories slowly became fewer and there were more other pokémon. Mark battled them as his pokémon needed training more than May’s. He used Charmeleon very much, and he was pleased for getting to battle but not Scyther. He also used Sandslash a lot and his other pokémon except for Gyarados, as there was no water for him to be in. The desert seemed to be very big and it was a possibility they’d have to sleep on the way and continue tomorrow.

After endless walk in the heat and no sight of Scorpion city, the sun was disappearing behind the mountains far away. It was suddenly getting ice cold.

“Maybe we should sleep here somewhere, it’s getting too late to be traveling and it gets very cold here at night, or so am I told,” said May and looked at Mark.

“Yeah... I’m freezing. Should we light a fire or something?”

“We have no firewood, Mark, but you have a Fire pokémon that just happens to have a fire on his tail that doesn’t need any firewood...” May was obivously referring to Charmeleon. Mark sent him out while May sat down. Then both Charmeleon and Mark sat down too.

“Why is it called the Black desert? There’s nothing black about it... just normal, yellow sand...” Mark wondered out loud.

“I don’t know,” said May. “Perhaps it gets black at night or something.”

“They can call it what they want,” said Charmeleon.

They mumbled something in agreement and were silent for a while.

“What levels are your pokémon now?” said May finally.

“They’re somewhere around 29... I think Dratini is level 29, and Charmeleon and Sandslash are level 30 if I’m correct... Jolteon is level 28, Gyarados... um, I guess he’s still around level 23 or 24. Scyther is still level 42.”

“So, Dratini will evolve soon?”

Mark hadn’t thought about that. And Charmeleon wasn’t too far from it either. Maybe he could have a Dragonair, and if he was really lucky, a Charizard, when he battled Mitch. Maybe he wouldn’t.

“Well, I guess we should go to sleep, we’ve probably got a long journey tomorrow since we can’t even see Scorpion city...” Mark yawned and took out his sleeping bag. “Charmeleon, you should sleep out of your ball if it isn’t too cold.”

May took out her sleeping bag too and her toothbrush and toothpaste. After they brushed their teeth they both went to their sleeping bags and Charmeleon lay on the ground between them with his tail burning wildly.

“Good night, Mark,” May muttered.

“Good night, May,” Mark replied.

They fell asleep quickly, unware of the danger that drew nearer every passing moment...


Like a century’s producion of ink, a black flood flowed over the sand. Actually, it wasn’t a liquid. It was a horde of the terrors of the Black desert, Scorplacks. Those black, dangerous scorpion pokémon spent the day deep in the sand, but at night, they went out to hunt. They killed each other if they found nothing else, but if an unwary pokémon – or human, even better – was around there somewhere, they all worked together to kill it. Only their yellow eyes could be seen in the dark. By counting the eyes, one could see there were hundreds of thousands. All ready with the deadly poisonus stingers on their tails in attack position.
The Scorplacks had quickly noticed that there was something happening at a certain place. Something happening meant prey. That was why they flooded, each trying to be the first to their meal, to that place. After each sand wave they went over, a hundred more joined. The desert was covered with the Scorplacks.

Somehow, Mark woke up like he just had to. Like some voice inside his head was saying “wake up, now, you must!”. He opened his eyes, but didn’t believe what he saw. He blinked, and he rubbed his eyes, until he finally accepted the truth; there were millions of evil-looking scorpion pokémon surrounding them in every direction.

“Wow,” he murmured, “now I know why this is called the Black desert...”

He took out his pokédex.

“Scorplack – scorpion pokémon. Found mainly in the deserts of Ouen, this scorpion-like pokémon had deadly venom in the stingers on their tails.”

“Deadly????!!!!! Wait a minute – are you telling me those could actually kill us????”

But the pokédex obivously didn’t answer. Mark was getting a bit panicky. However, May and Charmeleon were waking up too.

“What is that?” May asked as she got out of her sleeping bag.

“It’s a trillion of scorpion pokémon that are going to kill us,” Mark said and took one step backwards in May’s direction.

“Charmeleon!” roared Charmeleon as Mark had just tripped over his tail. But he quickly forgot about that, seeing all the scorpions, still just standing there. They were actually waiting for the right moment to strike. One of the Scorplacks suddenly leapt forward and stung its tail stinger deep into May’s leg. She kicked the Scorplack away, and just hoped they would get to Scorpion city in time.

“Go, Skarmory! Pikachu! Larvitar! Butterfree! Attack the Scorplacks on that side, so we can make our way to the city!”

“Go, Jolteon! Dratini! Sandslash! Scyther! Help Charmeleon and May’s pokémon!”

Jolteon and Pikachu joined in a powerful electric attack. Meanwhile, another Scorplack stung Charmeleon. Scyther dived into the crowd and attempted to chop the Scorplacks in half. Sandslash and Larvitar tried to drown them in sand. Butterfree used her Sleep powder and Psychic attacks. Dratini used Dragon rage again and again. Skarmory defended the other pokémon, being immune to poison. May and Charmeleon were getting slow in reactions and pretty drowsy, and in the end they fainted, first May, then, a bit later, Charmeleon.

“Oh no! Keep attacking!” Mark shouted and recalled Charmeleon. Suddenly...

...Dratini started glowing...

...and Larvitar too...

They went larger, Dratini went longer and Larvitar got more pupa-like, they stopped glowing, revealing a Dragonair and a Pupitar.

“Wow! Attack the Scorplacks, quickly, we have to get on...”

But they way wasn’t clearing, there were always more and more of the Scorplacks.

Suddenly, Mark got an idea.

“Skarmory! You have to carry us to Scorpion city! We have no time to lose!” Mark recalled all his pokémon except Dragonair, took May’s balls and recalled all her pokémon except Skarmory, and put May on Skarmory’s back. Then he went on his back too, roared at Dragonair to keep the Scorplacks away while they were going into the air, when they were up, he recalled Dragonair and they flew as fast as they could to Scorpion city.

As soon as they reached the edge of the city, Mark asked Skarmory to land. It actually hadn’t been as far as he thought. He took May and put her down on the ground, then recalled Skarmory. He looked around to see if someone was there, but it was the middle of night, how could anyone be there?

“Help! Can somebody help me!”

But no one answered. He shouted again, but nothing happened. Mark looked at May, she was getting pale and cold.

Suddenly, someone stood beside him. Just suddenly he was there, he hadn’t heard him come in any way at all. It was a young man with silvery white hair down to his shoulders or so, he was wearing a black cape and a red belt with a circular gold thing with a scorpion engraved on it at the front. He looked at May, bent down and touched her forehead. “Scorplack venom,” he muttered and turned to Mark.

“I am Mitch, the leader of the Scorpion city gym, and an expert on poisons and antidotes. Can you tell me how much time has passed since she was stung?” Mitch’s voice was soft and clear even though he spoke very fast, and it was quiet and had that ‘flowing’ feeling to it.

“About twenty minutes or so,” Mark said. “Why?”

Mitch ignored the question. “How long passed from that until she fainted?”

“Not long, one or two minutes at most...”

Mitch looked at Mark. He had gray eyes which shone in a very special way.

“Then you better pray for her life,” he said, picked May up and ran swiftly into the darkness.

It took Mark some time to actually realize what Mitch just said. Then he ran after him, and saw he was going to the gym.


“How is she?” Mark asked after Mitch had put May on a sofa in a small side room and given her some kind of an antidote.

“Steady,” Mitch said, but he was just looking up but not at Mark’s face. “Let’s hope so, at least. I gave her an antidote, we just have to see what happens.”

“Is she – is she going to die?”

“Perhaps she will. Perhaps she will not. Only time will tell. We just have to wait and see.”

“What are the odds?”

“Not good. My guess is 70 that she will die, 20 that she will live, but never wake up, and 10 that she will be okay.” Mitch was still looking up while he talked.

“Ten? That’s not very... good, is it?”

“Good?” Mitch finally looked at Mark now. “How could it be good?”

“Well, you can always hope... but is there no hope?”

“Have you ever thrown a die and got six?” Mitch asked seemingly out of nowhere.

“What do you mean? I mean, yes, of course, but does that have anything to do with Scorplack venom?”

“Then imagine this is a die with ten faces, and she will live if we get ten.” Mitch yet again ignored Mark’s question.

“That doesn’t help very much...” Mark said.

“Yes, it does. I have much experience of bringing bad news to people,” said Mitch, looking up again.

They were silent for a while, but then Mark asked: “Is she suffering?”

“No,” Mitch answered. “First after people are stung, they feel pain with every beat of the heart, because the poison is spreading. But when they black out, it is just like heavy, sweet and dreamless sleep.”

“What about dying of that poison? Does that hurt?”

“I have never tried, and those who have are all dead,” said Mitch with a weak smile. “But I have watched. Many unlucky victims of Scorplacks have died right there on that very sofa. Scorplack venom works oddly, you see... it slows down all organs it flows through, and when it has slowed everything down enough, everything just... stops. The breathing stops, the heart stops, everything stops. And then... well, it’s hard to consider someone alive after that.”

“What do you mean ‘have never tried’ if you can describe everything else? You’re not going to tell me you have been stung by a Scorplack, are you?”

“Yes, I have,” said Mitch. “I was a kid, just started training pokémon. I wandered off into the desert to train and when it was late, I found a Scorplack. I had no idea it was dangerous, it stung me and I caught it without wondering if the poison was going to kill me. Just after I caught it, I fainted of the poison. In the middle of the Black desert. No one ever found me. But I somehow survived. It was a miracle, and it is still a mystery. But when I woke up, a month or so later, everyone thought I was dead. I had no idea how much time had passed, I went here and people thought I was lying when I told them who I was and what happened to me because my clothes were all torn and I was so skinny. I was angry, and I started studying poisons and antidotes because of my so-called ‘death’. I made up a name to use. And I have never told this story to anyone before, but there may be a reason why I just did.”

“A miracle saved you?”

“Something saved me. I am alive, at least... if I am not mistaken.” Mitch smiled weakly again.

There was silence. Then Mark asked: “How is Charmeleon?”

“Well,” said Mitch. “He’s recovering right now, he will be in perfect battle condition tomorrow.”

“Why?” Mark said. “Why is Charmeleon going to be okay, but May is dying? It’s not fair... why are humans so vulnerable to that Scorplack venom?”

“Humans.” Mitch muttered. “Humans are so weak. Take any normal pokémon attack, like Ice beam, and use it on a human. It kills. Use it on a Magikarp, and the Magikarp survives. It faints, surely, but does not die. Pokémon are stronger than humans, but humans are clever, that is why humans can tame pokémon. If the pokémon wanted, they could go and take over the world, but they do not because they know better. This is balance where everyone benefits, why destroy it?”

There was a very long silence after this. Then Mitch spoke again.

“Can you stay here while I go to make the research room ready? I got a sample of her blood I have to check out to see if my guess is correct. Just tell me if anything happens. Oh, one final tip. Any movement means she will be okay, and if she seems not to be breathing, she is dead.”

Another one of those weak smiles followed. Then Mitch went out of the room.

“May, hang in there! You can’t die now! What about your pokémon? Speaking of which, I still have your pokéballs here somewhere...”

Mark put May’s pokéballs on a table.

“Now, May, would you just please not die? Do whatever you want, but don’t die please...”

“Mew?”

Mark quickly looked around, rubbed his eyes and stared, but it was an incredible fact: Mew had just teleported into the room.

“Mew! Just when I need you! You see I have a problem here... can you just heal her or something, Mitch says she’s most likely going to die...”

“I can’t,” said Mew.

“Why can’t you?” asked Mark angrily.

“You won’t understand,” said Mew.

“So you think I won’t understand??? I will understand, why shouldn’t I understand?” said Mark annoyed.

Mew said a bunch of very scientific things about how Scorplack venom works and why it couldn’t be healed just like that.

“Okay, I don’t understand. Fine. Can you then just resurrect her if she dies?”

“No,” said Mew.

“But you could resurrect Scyther! Why not May?”

“I can’t...you won’t understand that either...”

“Okay. You can’t heal her, and when you’re trying to tell me the reason, you talk in such a scientific nonsense there is no way to understand you. I ask if you could resurrect her, and you say you can’t and say I won’t understand that either. Well, now you tell me both of those reasons until I understand you!”

After a long arguement with Mew, Mark finally understood a bit of this. Somehow, the Scorplack venom would have to be cleaned out of her blood to heal her, and that was not possible using just psychic powers. And about the resurrection, somehow the poison would just kill her again.

The door handle was moving. Mark looked quickly back where Mew had been, but there was nothing there. Mitch walked in.

“Well, do you want to learn a little about Scorplack venom? It is quite interesting, I think you would like it, just come.”

They walked into the research room.

“Scorplack venom, like I told you, slows down the organs,” Mitch said. “The antidote slows down the poison. Then, it is just a matter of time – if the antidote stops the effect of the poison completely before she dies, her kidneys will clean it out of the blood and she will get better. If the poison kills her first, she just dies, and if the poison had slowed her down too much already, she will never wake up. That is why I asked you first about the time – the time it takes for the poison to make the victim faint also gives me roughly how strong the poison of that specific Scorplack was. This one must have been pretty strong... usually, it takes about ten minutes to make a human faint. Now, let us see here...” Mitch took a glass with something Mark assumed to be May’s blood. It was an unusual color, a little purple. Mitch put the glass on a table.

“The blood is heavier than the poison, so the blood will sink down, leaving the poison at the top,” Mitch explained. “We just have to wait a few minutes.”

When the blood was at the bottom, Mitch poured the dark purple poison carefully into another glass. He then poured the poison into some sort of a machine.

“This will check the poison and find how active it is, I have the time when this sample was taken, and then I can caculate the odds better.”

After a few minutes, the machine showed some numbers on a screen. Mitch looked at the numbers, which had no meaning to Mark whatsoever, and then said: “Looks like my guess was correct, it’s about ten...” They went back into the room where May was. Mark and Mitch stared at her without saying anything. After a long silent wait, she turned around and sighed.

Mitch looked at Mark.“Looks like we got ten,” he said, smiling.


The weird version will be up sometime when I feel like it.

[Dragonfree]

OK... it's time for the crazy version of chapter 14. Only a few parts are edited, and they're just plain crazy. Just hope you get the title...



Chapter 14: The Black desert and Scorplack!
Weird version: Special crazy edition


The next town on the path to the pokémon league was Scorpion city. It was placed in Scorpivalley, a valley shaped a little like a scorpion. The town was at least in the valley, and from a plane it looked like a giant scorpion. But Scorpion city was also the smallest town in Ouen with an official gym. The gym was in the “tail end” of the scorpion shape. The gym leader’s name was Mitch. He liked Bug/Poison type pokémon, and was an expert on poisons and antidotes.

As Mark and May made their way out of Metal city into the Black desert, they saw a whole lot of Skarmories, but when they came into the desert, the Skarmories slowly became fewer and there were more other pokémon. Mark battled them as his pokémon needed training more than May’s. He used Charmeleon very much, and he was pleased for getting to battle but not Scyther. He also used Sandslash a lot and his other pokémon except for Gyarados, as there was no water for him to be in. The desert seemed to be very big and it was a possibility they’d have to sleep on the way and continue tomorrow.

After endless walk in the heat and no sight of Scorpion city, the sun was disappearing behind the mountains far away. It was suddenly getting ice cold.

“Maybe we should sleep here somewhere, it’s getting too late to be traveling and it gets very cold here at night, or so am I told,” said May and looked at Mark.

“Yeah... I’m freezing. Should we light a fire or something?”

“We have no firewood, Mark, but you have a Fire pokémon that just happens to have a fire on his tail that doesn’t need any firewood...” May was obivously referring to Charmeleon. Mark sent him out while May sat down. Then both Charmeleon and Mark sat down too.

“Why is it called the Black desert? There’s nothing black about it... just normal, yellow sand...” Mark wondered out loud.

“I don’t know,” said May. “Perhaps it gets black at night or something.”

“They can call it what they want,” said Charmeleon.

They mumbled something in agreement and were silent for a while.

“What levels are your pokémon now?” said May finally.

“They’re somewhere around 29... I think Dratini is level 29, and Charmeleon and Sandslash are level 30 if I’m correct... Jolteon is level 28, Gyarados... um, I guess he’s still around level 23 or 24. Scyther is still level 42.”

“So, Dratini will evolve soon?”

Mark hadn’t thought about that. And Charmeleon wasn’t too far from it either. Maybe he could have a Dragonair, and if he was really lucky, a Charizard, when he battled Mitch. Maybe he wouldn’t.

“Well, I guess we should go to sleep, we’ve probably got a long journey tomorrow since we can’t even see Scorpion city...” Mark yawned and took out his sleeping bag. “Charmeleon, you should sleep out of your ball if it isn’t too cold.”

May took out her sleeping bag too and her toothbrush and toothpaste. After they brushed their teeth they both went to their sleeping bags and Charmeleon lay on the ground between them with his tail burning wildly.

“Good night, Mark,” May muttered.

“Good night, May,” Mark replied.

They fell asleep quickly, unware of the danger that drew nearer every passing moment...

Like a century’s producion of ink, a black flood flowed over the sand. Actually, it wasn’t a liquid. It was a horde of the terrors of the Black desert, Scorplacks. Those black, dangerous scorpion pokémon spent the day deep in the sand, but at night, they went out to hunt. They killed each other if they found nothing else, but if an unwary pokémon – or human, even better – was around there somewhere, they all worked together to kill it. Only their yellow eyes could be seen in the dark. By counting the eyes, one could see there were hundreds of thousands. All ready with the deadly poisonus stingers on their tails in attack position.

The Scorplacks had quickly noticed that there was something happening at a certain place. Something happening meant prey. That was why they flooded, each trying to be the first to their meal, to that place. After each sand wave they went over, a hundred more joined. The desert was covered with the Scorplacks.

Somehow, Mark woke up like he just had to. Like some voice inside his head was saying “wake up, now, you must!”. When he woke up, he actually discovered it wasnt just in his head.

“Mark!” the voice hissed. “Wake up, you were supposed to wake up, just now!”

“Oh,” Mark said sleepily. He opened his eyes, but didn’t believe what he saw. He blinked, and he rubbed his eyes, until he finally accepted the truth; there were millions of evil-looking scorpion pokémon surrounding them in every direction.

“Wow,” he murmured, “now I know why this is called the Black desert...”

He took out his pokédex.

“Scorplack – scorpion pokémon. Found mainly in the deserts of Ouen, this scorpion-like pokémon had deadly venom in the stingers on their tails.”

“Deadly????!!!!! Wait a minute – are you telling me those could actually kill us????”

But the pokédex obivously didn’t answer. Mark was getting a bit panicky. However, May and Charmeleon were waking up too.

“What is that?” May asked as she got out of her sleeping bag.

“This was definetly not in the job description,” Mark said, walking back. Suddenly, a hole appeared in the air, and a girl's face came out. “Change of the plan. Now, go on with the plot, I don’t have all day here.”

“But I never agreed to this,” Mark complained.

“Tell me, who is making this story, me or you?”

“You,” Mark muttered.

“Good. Remember, I’m always watching you!” The hole in the air disappeared.

“It’s a trillion of scorpion pokémon that are going to kill us,” Mark said and took one step backwards in May’s direction.

“Charmeleon!” roared Charmeleon as Mark had just tripped over his tail. But he quickly forgot about that, seeing all the scorpions, still just standing there. They were actually waiting for the right moment to strike. One of the Scorplacks suddenly leapt forward and stung its tail stinger deep into May’s leg. She kicked the Scorplack away, and just hoped they would get to Scorpion city in time.

“Go, Skarmory! Pikachu! Larvitar! Butterfree! Attack the Scorplacks on that side, so we can make our way to the city!”

“Go, Jolteon! Dratini! Sandslash! Scyther! Help Charmeleon and May’s pokémon!”

Jolteon and Pikachu joined in a powerful electric attack. Meanwhile, another Scorplack stung Charmeleon. Scyther dived into the crowd and attempted to chop the Scorplacks in half. Sandslash and Larvitar tried to drown them in sand. Butterfree used her Sleep powder and Psychic attacks. Dratini used Dragon rage again and again. Skarmory defended the other pokémon, being immune to poison. May and Charmeleon were getting slow in reactions and pretty drowsy, and in the end they fainted, first May, then, a bit later, Charmeleon.

“Oh no! Keep attacking!” Mark shouted and recalled Charmeleon. Suddenly...

...Dratini started glowing...

...and Larvitar too...

They went larger, Dratini went longer and Larvitar got more pupa-like, they stopped glowing, revealing a Dragonair and a Pupitar.
“Wow! Attack the Scorplacks, quickly, we have to get on...”

But they way wasn’t clearing, there were always more and more of the Scorplacks.

Suddenly, Mark got an idea.

“Skarmory! You have to carry us to Scorpion city! We have no time to lose!” Mark recalled all his pokémon except Dragonair, took May’s balls and recalled all her pokémon except Skarmory, and put May on Skarmory’s back. Then he went on his back too, roared at Dragonair to keep the Scorplacks away while they were going into the air, when they were up, he recalled Dragonair and they flew as fast as they could to Scorpion city.

As soon as they reached the edge of the city, Mark asked Skarmory to land. It actually hadn’t been as far as he thought. He took May and put her down on the ground, then recalled Skarmory. He looked around to see if someone was there, but it was the middle of night, how could anyone be there?

“Help! Can somebody help me!”

But no one answered. He shouted again, but nothing happened. Mark looked at May, she was getting pale and cold.

Suddenly, someone stood beside him. Just suddenly he was there, he hadn’t heard him come in any way at all. It was a young man with silvery white hair down to his shoulders or so, he was wearing a black cape and a red belt with a circular gold thing with a scorpion engraved on it at the front. He looked at May, bent down and touched her forehead. “Scorplack venom,” he muttered and turned to Mark.

“I am Mitch, the leader of the Scorpion city gym, and an expert on poisons and antidotes. Can you tell me how much time has passed since she was stung?” Mitch’s voice was soft and clear even though he spoke very fast, and it was quiet and had that ‘flowing’ feeling to it.

“About twenty minutes or so,” Mark said. “Why?”

Mitch ignored the question. “How long passed from that until she fainted?”

“Not long, one or two minutes at most...”

Mitch looked at Mark. He had gray eyes which shone in a very special way.

“Then you better pray for her life,” he said, picked May up and ran swiftly into the darkness.

It took Mark some time to actually realize what Mitch just said. Then he ran after him, and saw he was going to the gym.


“How is she?” Mark asked after Mitch had put May on a sofa in a small side room and given her some kind of an antidote.

“Steady,” Mitch said, but he was just looking up but not at Mark’s face. “Let’s hope so, at least. I gave her an antidote, we just have to see what happens.”

“Is she – is she going to die?”

“Perhaps she will. Perhaps she will not. Only time will tell. We just have to wait and see.”

“What are the odds?”

“Not good. My guess is 70 that she will die, 20 that she will live, but never wake up, and 10 that she will be okay.” Mitch was still looking up while he talked.

“Ten? That’s not very... good, is it?”

“Good?” Mitch finally looked at Mark now. “How could it be good?”

“Well, you can always hope... but is there no hope?”

“Have you ever thrown a die and got six?” Mitch asked seemingly out of nowhere.

“What do you mean? I mean, yes, of course, but does that have anything to do with Scorplack venom?”

“Then imagine this is a die with ten faces, and she will live if we get ten.” Mitch yet again ignored Mark’s question.

“That doesn’t help very much...” Mark said.

“Yes, it does. I have much experience of bringing bad news to people,” said Mitch, looking up again.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! IT’S A MASONIC SIGNAL!!!!” Mark suddenly yelled.

“What is?” Mitch asked.

“Looking up while you talk! You’re trying to take over the world! I should’ve listened more to that Walter Fight or whatever his name is...”

“No, you see, I am new in this story and I could never remember my lines, so I have to look up there to see what I am supposed to say. Look.” Mitch pointed up. There was text in the ceiling which read “to see what I am supposed to say. Look.”.

“Oh, I didn’t know that. The author made me remember all my lines... lucky you.” Mark said. Suddenly, the face appeared in the air again.

“Mark, Mitch is supposed to look up when he talks, you’re not. Stop complaining!”

“Yes, O author,” Mark said as the face disappeared.

They were silent for a while, but then Mark asked: “Is she suffering?”

“No,” Mitch answered. “First after people are stung, they feel pain with every beat of the heart, because the poison is spreading. But when they black out, it is just like heavy, sweet and dreamless sleep.”

“What about dying of that poison? Does that hurt?”

“I have never tried, and those who have are all dead,” said Mitch with a weak smile. “But I have watched. Many unlucky victims of Scorplacks have died right there on that very sofa. Scorplack venom works oddly, you see... it slows down all organs it flows through, and when it has slowed everything down enough, everything just... stops. The breathing stops, the heart stops, everything stops. And then... well, it’s hard to consider someone alive after that.”

“What do you mean ‘have never tried’ if you can describe everything else? You’re not going to tell me you have been stung by a Scorplack, are you?”

“Yes, I have,” said Mitch. “I was a kid, just started training pokémon. I wandered off into the desert to train and when it was late, I found a Scorplack. I had no idea it was dangerous, it stung me and I caught it without wondering if the poison was going to kill me. Just after I caught it, I fainted of the poison. In the middle of the Black desert. No one ever found me. But I somehow survived. It was a miracle, and it is still a mystery. But when I woke up, a month or so later, everyone thought I was dead. I had no idea how much time had passed, I went here and people thought I was lying when I told them who I was and what happened to me because my clothes were all torn and I was so skinny. I was angry, and I started studying poisons and antidotes because of my so-called ‘death’. I made up a name to use. And I have never told this story to anyone before, but the author ordered me to let you in on all my deepest secrets...”

“Mitch!” the author’s voice sounded angrily.

“Yes, yes, yes... on with the story... Mark, I think it is your turn to say something...”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Mark said. “So, a miracle saved you?”

“Something saved me. I am alive, at least... if I am not mistaken.” Mitch smiled weakly again.

There was silence. Then Mark asked: “How is Charmeleon?”

“Well,” said Mitch. “He’s recovering right now, he will be in perfect battle condition tomorrow.”

“Why?” Mark said. “Why is Charmeleon going to be okay, but May is dying? It’s not fair... why are humans so vulnerable to that Scorplack venom?”

“Humans.” Mitch muttered. “Humans are so weak. Take any normal pokémon attack, like Ice beam, and use it on a human. It kills. Use it on a Magikarp, and the Magikarp survives. It faints, surely, but does not die. Pokémon are stronger than humans, but humans are clever, that is why humans can tame pokémon. If the pokémon wanted, they could go and take over the world, but they do not because they know better. This is balance where everyone benefits, why destroy it?”

“... and instead, you are going to take over the world, almost everyone in high places has been seen doing masonic signals... why am I talking about those masonic signals, anyway?” Mark asked.

“I have no idea,” Mitch said. “I think it is a personal joke from the author...”

“My personal jokes are none of your business,” said the author’s voice.

“Okay, okay...” said Mitch.

There was a very long silence after this. Then Mitch spoke again.

“You love her, don’t you?”

The face appeared again.

“No love scenes out of the script!” the author snapped.

“Oh, come on, we all want the story to be a little emotional!” Mitch said.

“Maybe you want love scenes, but I don’t want love scenes, and this is my fanfic, so there will be no love scenes except on my command!” said the author.

Mitch stood up. “Might I remind you that most pokémon fans are around sixteen? Have you ever seen a story or a movie for that age without love scenes?”

“Get down, Mitch!” the author bellowed. “I think you might be too old to be a character in this fanfic!”

“But I’m not the oldest character here!” Mitch complained.

“That’s not my point,” said the author. “They at least don’t go on and on about love scenes when I’ve already said I don’t want them... besides, you’re talking in the wrong way. Do you have any idea how much time I spent deciding how you are supposed to talk?”

“Oh, you mean that...” said Mitch and sat down again.

“Now, who is the author of this story? Me or you?”

“You,” Mitch muttered.

“And who decides if there are going to be any love scenes?”

“You.”

“Good boy. Now, on with the story!” The author’s face disappeared.

“Um, yes, where was I...” Mitch looked up to see his lines, “...can you stay here while I go to make the research room ready? I got a sample of her blood I have to check out to see if my guess is correct. Just tell me if anything happens. Oh, one final tip. Any movement means she will be okay, and if she seems not to be breathing, she is dead.”

Another one of those weak smiles followed. Then Mitch went out of the room.

“May, hang in there! You can’t die now! What about your pokémon? Speaking of which, I still have your pokéballs here somewhere...”

Mark put May’s pokéballs on a table.

“Now, May, would you just please not die? Do whatever you want, but don’t die please... hey, author, wherever you are...” Mark looked up in the air, “be a little fair, now? I always escape when I’m going to die, why not May? She’s also a main character! And why does she have to be the violent of the two of us?”

The author’s face appeared. Mark went on. “What’s the matter with you? And by the way, why do you always make me say such stupid things?”

“This is my fanfic, not yours. You’re just the main character, I am the author. So you should listen to me. Though I might consider your idea of not having you always escape narrowly. Making you die just once would be fine…”

“What? No, I didn’t mean... I was just joking, I...”

“And were those stupid lines?”

“No, not at all, not at all...”

“And who is the author of this fanfic? Me or you?”

“You,” Mark murmured and looked down.

“And you're seeing things. Why do you think I live up here? Ouen is my imagination, you know.” The author's face disappeared.

“Mew?”

Mark quickly looked around, rubbed his eyes and stared, but it was an incredible fact: Mew had just teleported into the room.

“Mew! Just when I need you! You see I have a problem here... can you just heal her or something, Mitch says she’s most likely going to die...”

“I can’t,” said Mew.

“Why can’t you?” asked Mark angrily.

“You won’t understand,” said Mew.

“So you think I won’t understand??? I will understand, why shouldn’t I understand?” said Mark annoyed.

Mew said a bunch of very scientific things about how Scorplack venom works and why it couldn’t be healed just like that.

“Okay, I don’t understand. Fine. Can you then just resurrect her if she dies?”

“No,” said Mew.

“But you could resurrect Scyther! Why not May?”

“I can’t...you won’t understand that either...”

“Okay. You can’t heal her, and when you’re trying to tell me the reason, you talk in such a scientific nonsense I’m sure the author had to repeat to you ten times to make you remember it, there is no way to understand you. I ask if you could resurrect her, and you say you can’t and say I won’t understand that either. Well, now you tell me both of those reasons until I understand you!”

After a long argument with Mew, Mark finally understood a bit of this. Somehow, the Scorplack venom would have to be cleaned out of her blood to heal her, and that was not possible using just psychic powers. And about the resurrection, somehow the poison would just kill her again.

The door handle was moving. Mark looked quickly back where Mew had been, but there was nothing there. Mitch walked in.

“Well, do you want to learn a little about Scorplack venom? It is quite interesting, I think you would like it, just come.”

They walked into the research room.

“Scorplack venom, like I told you, slows down the organs,” Mitch said. “The antidote slows down the poison. Then, it is just a matter of time – if the antidote stops the effect of the poison completely before she dies, her kidneys will clean it out of the blood and she will get better. If the poison kills her first, she just dies, and if the poison had slowed her down too much already, she will never wake up. That is why I asked you first about the time – the time it takes for the poison to make the victim faint also gives me roughly how strong the poison of that specific Scorplack was. This one must have been pretty strong... usually, it takes about ten minutes to make a human faint. Now, let us see here...” Mitch took a glass with something Mark assumed to be May’s blood. It was an unusual color, a little purple. Mitch put the glass on a table.

“The blood is heavier than the poison, so the blood will sink down, leaving the poison at the top,” Mitch explained. “We just have to wait a few minutes.”

When the blood was at the bottom, Mitch poured the dark purple poison carefully into another glass. He then poured the poison into some sort of a machine.

“This will check the poison and find how active it is, I have the time when this sample was taken, and then I can caculate the odds better.”

After a few minutes, the machine showed some numbers on a screen. Mitch looked at the numbers, which had no meaning to Mark whatsoever, and then said: “Looks like my guess was correct, it’s about ten...” They went back into the room where May was. Mark and Mitch stared at her without saying anything. Suddenly, she sat up.

“Hey, I’m bored of lying here! Why is it always the boy who saves the girl? I really think you need to rethink your plans, author... and you should get going, you spent such long time arguing with them that I woke up too quickly! Now, let’s finish this off; if I’m correct, this is about the end of the chapter.” She lay down again looking irritated. The author’s voice sounded silently: “Go on, boys, go on...”

Mitch looked at Mark.“Looks like we got ten,” he said, smiling.

“You know, I’m going to have to edit out a whole lot from this chapter...” said the author, as she disappeared.

[Dragonfree]

OK... chapter 15... I've actually revised chapter 16 too... and halfway through chapter 17. It's going faster now, there isn't as much I feel the need to change... this is the first (and only so far) time in the fic when it goes out of Mark's point of view (meaning that you read about something Mark doesn't see or think).



Chapter 15: Stealing is bad


May woke up twenty minutes later. Her eyes just suddenly opened, she looked at Mitch and asked “Who are you?”

“You’re lucky to be alive,” said Mitch. Mark had the feeling that if Mitch had anything else to say, his rule was simply not to answer any questions.

“This is Mitch, the Scorpion city gym leader,” Mark said. “His antidote saved you from the poison of the Scorplacks.”

“Really? A gym leader, are you?” May asked.

“Yes. Would you like a battle?”

“I’d love one,” May answered. She looked out of the window. Suddenly, she grabbed Mark’s shoulder, said “Taylor!” and ran outside. Mark followed without really knowing what she was up to.


Taylor was feeling happy. He just got his brother into giving him a new clone. A very powerful one, actually. He looked at the Clone ball, which looked just like the one holding Pikatwo, with satisfaction. Pikatwo had done really well so far, too. But then there was that Quilava. He hadn’t even had a single battle with it. Pikatwo had just been too strong for all the wimpy trainers he had met. And what else could it be, it was a clone made by the true cloning master Rick.

Taylor had teleported to Scorpion city. Rick lent him the first Abratwo which had just been cloned. Then Rick had wanted it back because he said it wasn’t good enough to be Taylor’s pokémon. Taylor was happy to get all that attention from Rick, but being an impatient person, he didn’t like when Rick kept saying he had to wait for some kind of a perfect pokémon. Abratwo had indeed been very impressive, but Rick still didn’t think it was good enough. But now Taylor had a new pokémon Rick said was the most powerful ever apart from “the ultimate legends” called Molzapart and Chaletwo. Rick had never even tried to catch them, although he never told Taylor exactly why. Rick had just told him they were dangerous, but after all, what powerful legendary pokémon aren’t? Taylor, however, never got the interest for legendaries his brother had. Maybe it was because Taylor didn’t find legendaries any special as Rick had always owned so many. Or maybe he just thought in a different way.


“What Taylor?” Mark shouted after May on the run.

“Taylor! The one with my Quilava! Rick’s brother! You said his name was Taylor!”

“What about him?”

“I saw him, of course! Right outside, and I’m going to get Quilava back now!”

Taylor was standing, not far ahead, looking at one of his pokéballs and looked like he was thinking. May went into some bushes along the road, sneaked towards Taylor and made no noise at all. She then came out, grabbed one of the two pokéballs at his belt (the one that wasn’t a Clone ball) somehow without him noticing and tiptoed into the bushes again. Then she quietly came back.

“That was easy,” she whispered to Mark. “I’m going to buy some antidotes for the gym battle, I’ll need them.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Mark and they went to the market.


Taylor felt a little odd suddenly. He quickly looked around. Without thinking, he seized a pokéball. Quilava’s ball was gone. And a girl with blue hair and a boy she was talking to were the only people in sight.


After buying the antidotes, Mark and May just went outside. Oficer Jenny of Scorpion city was there. She looked at them carefully from distance, then pointed at them. Suddenly, a whole lot of policemen appeared from all around and surrounded the two kids.

“What’s wrong?” May asked, although she obivously knew the answer.

“Don’t try to be funny! The boy saw you and told us the whole story. So, you’re from Team Rocket? You’re pretty young for that...” one guy said.

“What?” May asked and Mark heard on her voice that she was getting angry. “We can be thieves, but I’d never join that team stupid in my lifetime!”

“May...” Mark kicked her leg. This was just too easy to misunderstand. And then was of course the fact that he had nothing to do with it.

“Team rocket or not, you have admitted that you stole a pokémon from him, and that requires investigation,” said the policeman. “You’ll have to come with us.”

The policemen took them to the police station somewhere in the middle of town. Officer Jenny took them inside and sat down at a desk.

“Now,” she said, “who do you work for?”

“No one,” said May. “We’re on our own.”

“So, why did you steal the boy’s pokémon?”

“That Quilava is rightfully mine!” May spat at Officer Jenny. “It’s my starter pokémon, I received it from professor Elm in Johto, and he stole it from me!”

“Then why didn’t you just report him then?” Officer Jenny said in a voice that made it obivous she didn’t believe May. “And... Quilava? But the boy said it was a Charmeleon which was stolen! So you stole two pokémon? That doesn’t help you... Send out all the pokémon in your balls.”

As the pokémon cries filled the room, Officer Jenny looked over the crowd.

“One Charmeleon, one Quilava. Fits. I guess you can go with a warning when the boy has gotten them back, as you’re so young. Although it seems suspicious that you could steal his pokémon without him noticing... he said the balls were attached to his belt.”

May looked at Officer Jenny furiously.

“Now, listen. I don’t like the police. And I’ll tell you why. Something was stolen from my family two years ago. I knew who the thief was. I came to the police station and reported him. The police laughed at me and sent me back home. Everyone I told it laughed at me. And I swore to get it back sometime. So I trained myself in the art of thievery. When I was good enough, the police had forgotten about it all long ago. I went out one night, broke into the thief’s house and stole back what was ours. The next day, my parents were shocked when I told them that I had been teaching myself to steal. They made me promise I would never steal anything that wasn’t rightfully mine. And I kept that promise. I stole that Quilava from that filthy little rat, but it was mine and will always be.”

So that was why May had sounded so professional when she told Mark to break into the Mew hunter’s gym through the ventilation.
“What was stolen and who did?” asked Officer Jenny.

“I told you then, and I won’t tell you again,” said May coldly. “If you’ve finally gotten some interest in this, you can dig it up yourself.”

“Give me Charmeleon and Quilava,” Officer Jenny said. “Then you can go.”

“Quilava is mine!” May snapped. “Just do an ID number check!”

ID number... this rang a bell in Mark’s head.

“Then I’ll check Charmeleon too,” Officer Jenny said.

Charmeleon! Of course! Charmeleon was originally Taylor’s. Charmeleon had Taylor’s ID number! That explained why Taylor had told the police it was a Charmeleon that was stolen. He knew they might do an ID number check, and he thought May had Charmeleon, so he was going to get it instead.

“No, you don’t need to,” Mark said quickly, “it’s not neccessary...”

“So,” Officer Jenny said, looking at Mark with a gleam of victory in her eyes, “you don’t want me to check the ID number? You obivously have something to hide... give me your trainer license and your pokédexes. Both of you.”

May handed a card to Jenny and her pokédex.

“Here is my pokédex... but license? I... um... sort of... don’t have one,” Mark stammered.

“No license, eh?” Officer Jenny said. “Oh dear, you are in trouble. Stealing... training without a license... you’re in deep trouble...”

“I – I didn’t know I needed a license...” Mark said, sounding very stupid.

“That’s what they all say!” Officer Jenny shouted at him. “I’ll bet you’ve been caught before and your license has been removed. You’ll be put to jail for this, you can be sure of that...”

“No!” Mark yelled. “I found a Charmander on the road, and that’s it!”

“We’ll see about that,” Officer Jenny said. “The boy’s ID number was 02974, and if that is Charmeleon’s number...”

Mark prayed that Officer Jenny remembered Tayor’s ID number wrong as she took Quilava and Charmeleon and pointed something to check ID numbers at them.

“Quilava... 53891. I guess it is yours after all, you can go,” Officer Jenny said to May and handed her Quilava’s pokéball again. “But Charmeleon... look at this... 02974... you are in trouble...”

May looked at Mark in an odd way. Now she knew what Charmeleon really was. And Taylor was about to get him back.

“You can’t do this...” Mark muttered and stared at Charmeleon. Charmeleon stared back.

“Officer Jenny,” May suddenly said, “you’re making a mistake. I met Taylor, the boy who reported us, in Cleanwater city when I had Quilava as Cyndaquil, he challenged me to a one on one battle. He used a – a Pikachu and I used Cyndaquil. Cyndaquil evolved and beat the Pikachu. Then he asked to trade a Charmander for Quilava. He said it was level 15. I accepted and after we traded, he went out. When I was on my way north (Metal city is south of Cleanwater city), I checked Charmander, and it was level five. I got angry, tossed the pokéball to the ground and ran back south. Then, Charmander must’ve gotten out of the ball, and walked farther north, but it rained that evening... I guess Mark here found it then. And he went on a journey without a license... I met him later and had no idea he had that Charmander. So Taylor is lying!”

“Well, maybe I should go and ask him a few questions,” Officer Jenny said.


Taylor was outside the window, listening to the conversation, with his new clone beside him.

“This isn’t going the way I’d have wanted it to go... but I have a secret weapon, don’t I,” Taylor looked at his pokémon, “Mewtwotwo?” He smiled and Mewtwotwo smiled back.


Suddenly, Officer Jenny stopped. “No. Why shouldn’t I trust him? He came here first. I think you are lying. But since there seems to be some confusion with who stole what, I’ll let you go with a warning. Give me Charmeleon’s pokéball.”

Mark had no choice but to recall his friend and hand the ball over to Officer Jenny. She put the ball on the desk.

“I’m going out to find the boy and give him back his Charmeleon. You stay here, okay?” she said and looked at Mark and May. They nodded and Officer Jenny went out. She sort of met Taylor in the door, but didn’t find it suspicious.

“Well, you can take your Charmeleon,” Officer Jenny said to Taylor, “it’s right there on the desk.”

Taylor walked to the desk, picked up the ball and looked at May in a nasty way. “Thanks for catching the thieves for me, officer,” he said and shook her hand.

“Go, then, the police has other stuff to do here,” said Jenny and pointed at the door. May looked coldly at her and looked like she wanted to say “see ya – not”. She went out and Mark followed.

“Let’s go to the gym again, shall we?” May asked. Mark didn’t answer.

“Now Taylor has Charmeleon,” he finally said.

“No, he doesn’t. I switched the balls while no one was looking. Now it’s he who is being tricked,” May said. “This one here is Charmeleon.” She handed a pokéball to Mark.

“What does Taylor have, then?” Mark asked, taking the ball.

“Quilava again,” May answered.

“But I thought you wanted to get Quilava back more than anything else?”

“It was my crime, you shouldn’t suffer for it. Now we’re at the start again, and I will most likely have to steal Quilava later. By the way... why didn’t you tell me that Charmeleon was the Charmander I got for Quilava? Then he really is mine.”

Mark knew it would come. May would now want Charmeleon back. He was sure of it.

“You can take him back then...” he muttered.

“Take him? No. You two are a really good team, and I’ll get Quilava back anyway. You can keep Charmeleon. Even though he’s nasty towards Scyther.”

“How do you...?”

“Do you think I haven’t noticed? Charmeleon hates Scyther a lot. Scyther seemed to hate Charmeleon back first, but now I think Scyther is more “enough is enough” but Charmeleon still really hates Scyther.”

“Well, Scyther has enough hate against Scizors, I guess Charmeleon has nothing else to hate,” Mark said.

“I’m sure they will stop it,” May said. “Sometime...”

“Hey, May, did you notice how Officer Jenny suddenly changed her mind and said Taylor must be telling the truth because he came first and that nonsense?”

“Yes, of course I did! Her eyes went so strange! I wonder what happened?”

“No idea,” said Mark.

[LightNinetales]

That's a good fanfic.^_^
I'm waiting for chapter sixteen^_^
The chapter fourteen was really good.But my favorite chapter is the chapter eleven.

[Dragonfree]

Well, then you won't have to wait. Here's chapter sixteen, it's kind of short (only two pages), but contains one of my favorite made-up pokémon. Also has a character who will pop up a lot around the fic, and sometimes says strange things, as you will notice... he refers to his pokémon as "my precious". I guess I was feeling LOTRingy when I originally wrote this chapter...


Chapter 16: Mutark


When Mark and May came to the gym, they saw Mitch had gone somewhere, to May’s great disappointment.

“What’s the point with a gym if the gym leader leaves while two challengers are minding some business? He has no right to leave the gym like that when he knows of two challengers!”

“I think he can go whenever he wants, May...” Mark said, feeling embarassed for even knowing her.

“I’m going to find him now!”

“I’m not coming with you.”

“Then fine!” May snapped. “Do you really think I care if you come or not? I’m just going to find that... that...”

“May, he saved your life...”

“All right, all right, I won’t call him anything... I’m still going to find him..”

With those words, May went somewhere into the middle of the town.

“Fancy a battle?”

The speaker was a trainer with black hair and black eyes in black clothes. He had a raspy voice and was pretty creepy.

“I’m ready,” Mark said, trying to convince himself that the trainer was just a normal boy.

“One on one,” said the trainer and held out a ball. “Prepare to lose...”

“Oh yeah?” said Mark. “I’m not going to lose to you!”

“We’ll see about that,” said the trainer. “Mutark, go!”

Out of the ball he hurled forward, Mark expected to see something big and ferocious. But it wasn’t. It was a tiny, innocent-looking kitten pokémon.

“Meowwww-tark?” said the kitten and looked at the trainer.

“Uh, did you confuse your pokéballs, or is this actually your send-out pokémon?” Mark asked, finding it unbelieveable that the trainer was so sure to win with such a weak-looking pokémon.

“I don’t confuse my pokéballs,” said the trainer. “You obivously don’t know about the power of Mutark...”

“Go, Sandslash!” Mark said. He wouldn’t need Scyther for such a puny little pokémon...

“Just wait, my precious,” said the trainer sweetly and looked at his Mutark like it was a Mewtwo.

“Sandslash, Earthquake!”

The little cat pokémon fell down and seemed completely helpless.

“And now, Slash!” He looked at the innocent-looking kitten, and then added: “But don’t hurt the poor little thing too much.”

Sandslash scratched the small pokémon and then walked back, waiting for its reactions. The kitten licked the wound painfully, but then all of a sudden it stood still. Its eyes glowed bright yellow. And quickly and smoothly, it grew larger. Like it could just stretch itself out in all directions. The claws and teeth seemed to have grown a lot more, though.

“Okay... um, what just happened?”

The other trainer looked back and smiled. “Something that will be your downfall...”

Mark looked at the menacing pokémon that faced him. It couldn’t have been evolving, it hadn’t glowed white.

“Well, Sandslash, you can still beat it! Slash again!”

Sandslash slashed the catlike pokémon, which was now the size of an ocelot, with more power than before. The cat hissed and attempted to strike Sandslash with its claws, but Sandslash rolled out of the way. The cat pokémon now had the opportunity to lick its wounds again, and again it went stiff, its eyes glowed and it went even larger.

“What’s going on??!!” Mark asked. The trainer laughed softly. Sandslash struck the vicioius pokémon again with its claws, and it didn’t fail that when it had licked the scratches, it grew. It was now the size of a leopard, but looked so menacing and dangerous that Sandslash backed away. With a terrifying roar, it attacked Sandslash. Sandslash slashed it again, it licked the wounds and grew to the size of a lion. Sandslash slashed it again, and it grew to the size of a tiger by licking its wounds, Sandslash leapt on top of it and slashed it even more; the huge pokémon shook it easily off and licked its wounds to grow even larger than before. Now it looked so fearsome Mark didn’t at all like the look of things.

“I – I give up,” he muttered and recalled Sandslash. The big pokémon shrank back to the little kitten seconds after Sandslash had disappeared.

“Meeeeeeowtark,” it meowed happily as the trainer recalled it.

“Now you know the power of Mutark,” the trainer said.

“Why did it grow like that?”

“Mutark mutates at the taste of its own blood,” the trainer explained. “It is a cat pokémon, and as it’s a cat’s nature to lick its wounds, you could say it gains power as it is attacked... it looks weak in its kitten form, and it is weak in its kitten form, but it is very powerful in the largest form, that was the one your Sandslash got it in...”

“That’s good, for a second I thought it could grow forever,” Mark said.

“That’s a nice pokémon,” said a familiar voice behind him. Looked like May was back.

“Thank you,” said the trainer, looking pleased. “Although it’s not very nice... Dark types usually aren’t considered very nice...”

“Where did you find it? I’d like one,” May said, sounding very interested.

Of course you would like one, Mark thought. It’s exactly like you, looks innocent at first, but then suddenly turns into an incredibly dangerous beast when it’s angry or hurt. But he said nothing.

“It is very rare,” the trainer said. “But I am a Dark pokémon trainer, and darkness attracts darkness... my faithful pokémon got it out of hiding...”

The trainer sent out five other pokémon; a Mightyena, a Sneasel, a Houndoom, an Absol and a Sableye.

“Do you have any Dark pokémon? If not, you can just about give up all hope of finding one...”

“I don’t have one,” May said. “But when my Pupitar evolves into Tyranitar, I’m going to catch a Mutark. It looks strong.”

“Good luck,” said the trainer and recalled his pokémon.

“He must be from Hoenn,” May said. “Mightyena, Absol and Sableye can only be found there.”

“Did you find Mitch?” asked Mark, turning the subject away from that trainer.

“Yes, he was at a restaurant, getting something to eat... I wonder why I was in such a bad mood earlier? Guess it was just because of Taylor...”

“Let’s go and battle Mitch, then,” Mark commented.

“Good idea,” said May and they went back to the gym.

[HedgeCat]

This is an AWSOME fic! It's really interesting. Good job, Dragonfree. Crazy version 14 was the best. XD

[Dragonfree]

Whee! Now I have at least one reader who's the insane type... you'll like the crazy version of chapter 22. Chapter 17, one of the very most boring chapter for me to write since it's a gym battle with nothing plotty or anything in it until the very end.


Chapter 17: The battle with Mitch


“Welcome back. I hope your anger has faded,” Mitch shot a quick look into May’s eyes, “and you are ready to battle me for the Venom badge. And you too, of course.” He looked at Mark and showed them a purple badge.

“I’ll battle you first,” said May and pushed Mark back, walking to her place on the arena. Mitch nodded and took his place. “Three on three,” he said.

“Fine. Go, Pikachu!”

“Go, Ariados!”

“Pikachu, Thunderbolt!”

“Ariados, Spider web!”

“CHUUUUUUU!” Pikachu let of a Thunderbolt that was sent flying towards Ariados, which evaded the attack and shot around Pikachu a few times. Pikachu watched it and got dizzy, but now there was a thin web spun all around him.

“Pikachu, Quick attack on the web to get rid of it!”

Pikachu struck the web with a Quick attack, but it was strong and could withstand the attack. However, the thread was sticky and Pikachu was stuck. He struggled to get away, but he just got more and more stuck.

“That was your first mistake,” said Mitch. “Ariados, Poison sting!”

Mitch’s Ariados stung Pikachu with its poisonus stinger. Pikachu whined in pain, and let off a Thundershock, but it wasn’t very powerful, as Pikachu was poisoned and stuck in the web.

“Pikachu, come back, this is hopeless,” May said and recalled Pikachu. “I won’t make another mistake! Go, Pupitar! Rock slide!”

Pupitar emerged from the ball. He sent rocks flying at the Ariados. One landed on its leg and held it down, then another fell right on top of it.

“Ariados, return! Go, Venomoth!”

The purple moth pokémon came out of the ball. “Venomoth!” it cried and flapped its wings.

“Venomoth, Sleep powder!”

The Venomoth flapped its wings rapidly and sent a cloud of dust towards Pupitar. His eyelids started sinking down and he was struggling not to fall; Mark was feeling drowzy too and May yawned, but squinted her eyes and shouted at Pupitar “No! Don’t fall asleep! Then it can finish you off easily!” But Pupitar didn’t take her advice and fell down, fast asleep.

“That was your second mistake,” Mitch said, smiling. “Venomoth, Psybeam!”

The Venomoth fired a purple beam of energy at the sleeping Pupitar, sending him rolling on the floor. He was still just as sleeping.

“This won’t do,” May said and recalled Pupitar. “Go, Skarmory!”

“Skaaaaaaaaaar!” said the steel bird as he came out of the pokéball and stretched out his wings.

“That, however, was a wise decision, because I know that Steel pokémon are immune to poison,” May snapped at Mitch. She obivously felt insulted that Mitch talked about her mistakes. Mitch nodded slowly. “Venomoth, Sleep powder!”

“Skarmory, Whirlwind!” Skarmory flapped his wings fast and blew the powder back at the Venomoth, which fell asleep.

“Skarmory, Drill peck!” Skarmory shot down at the Venomoth, spinning like a drill, and nailed the Venomoth to the wall with his beak. Mitch’s Venomoth fell limply to the ground.

“Venomoth, come back. Go, Beedrill!”

“Skarmory, Drill peck it too!”

“Agility!” The Beedrill became a blur and raced out of the way.

“Skarmory, Whirlwind!” Skarmory flapped his wings like crazy and the Beedrill, being small, was blown towards the wall and hit it on great speed, causing it to fall down, knocked out.

“Beedrill, return,” Mitch said. “You are worthy of the Venom badge. Go ahead and take it,” he then said to May and held forward the same purple badge as he had shown them before.

“You’re up, Mark,” May said. “I better heal Pikachu with my antidotes...” She searched her bag as Mark got ready to battle. He had no Steel pokémon, but he was sure he could win all the same. Mitch put his pokémon in a pocket healer, and Mark saw he had one healthy pokémon which he hadn’t used against May.

“Go, Sandslash!”

“Go, Beedrill!”

It was a wise choice, Mark thought. Beedrill can fly, so Earthquake wouldn’t harm it. He had to use other attacks.

“Beedrill, Twineedle!”

“Beeeeeeezz,” said the Beedrill and shot towards Sandslash.

“Sandslash, slash it down when it approaches!”

However, the Beedrill was fast enough to hit Sandslash with the stingers on its arms before Sandslash managed to Slash it with his claws, but once the bee pokémon was down on the floor, it was easy prey for Sandslash.

“Beedrill, come back! Go, Venomoth, and use Stun spore quickly!”

“Veno!” it cried as it came out of the ball and fluttered its wings, sending a cloud of powder at Sandslash.

“Sandslash, Slash!” Mark shouted at his pokémon. But Sandslash didn’t move. He was badly paralyzed.

“Oh no! Return, and go... um... Jolteon!”

Jolteon came out of the pokéball and seemed in a bad mood. Mark suddenly remembered he hadn’t battled with him in a while. He was just bored.

“Jolteon, Thundershock!”

“Venomoth, Psychic now!”

The Venomoth glowed purple. Jolteon did too. Then Jolteon was levitated a bit off the ground. He used a Thundershock on the Venomoth. It was still fine. Jolteon used another Thundershock, which caused the Venomoth to break the psychic connection and drop him. Unfortunately, it had already got Jolteon pretty high up. When he fell down, he landed on his head and started bleeding. “Jolt...” he said weakly, and then fainted.

“Jolteon, come back! Go, Charmeleon! Fire blast!”

Charmeleon appeared out of the ball and used Fire blast right away so the Venomoth didn’t have time to counter it.

“Venomoth, good job. Go...” Mitch’s hand reached for the fourth pokéball, the one he hadn’t used against May, “...Scorplack.”

“Scorplack? Not the same Scorplack as the one that... um... didn’t kill you?”

Mitch nodded. “Yes, it is. My strongest pokémon and my best friend... Mega sting! Now!”

The Scorplack shot forward at Charmeleon with its tail raised.
“Charmeleon, Fire blast!”

“Scorplack, get out of the way!”

Charmeleon blew a blast of flames at the Scorplack, but it shot to the side and then approached Charmeleon from the back and swung its poisonus stinger at Charmeleon’s tail. Charmeleon stopped cold, and then leapt at the Scorplack and started biting it and scratching it like crazy. Scorplack stung Charmeleon again and again. Mark wondered why Charmeleon hadn’t fainted of the poison yet, Mitch’s Scorplack must be pretty strong, and most likely stronger than the wild ones in the desert, so the poison should work quicker now...

“Of course,” Mitch muttered. “Charmeleon has been stung before... he has gained an immunity to Scorplack venom... Scorplack, try an Irongrip!”

The Scorplack grabbed Charmeleon’s arm with its pincers. Charmeleon roared in pain and bit the Scorplack’s tail and shook it violently. The Scorplack stung its tail end in Charmeleon’s eye and he dropped Scorplack, roaring in pain. Charmeleon swung his tail madly at the Scorplack and sent it flying across the arena, but it quickly rose back up, and came towards Charmeleon. Charmeleon used a Fire blast on the Scorplack and hit it this time. Then Charmeleon put his foot on top of the near-unconscious Scorplack and roared “Admit defeat, you desert slug!”

“Scorplack, return,” Mitch said calmly and beamed his Scorplack back into its pokéball. Mark recalled Charmeleon too. He was sort of disappointed that Charmeleon hadn’t evolved, but he would sometime soon, he was sure....

“Take this venom badge as a proof you beat me,” said Mitch and handed Mark a badge identical to May’s. He noticed May was gone. Maybe she was searching for that Mutark thing. He went outside.

May wasn’t there either. She had completely disappeared. Not that it really mattered. She had never said she’d wait for him. Mark assumed she was off to the next city, Aqua town. He tried to remember what he knew about it. It had a pokémon gym, he knew that. The gym leader was a woman called Marge. What else was there? Oh, of course, he thought, the whole city is underwater! How could I forget?

Aqua town would be interesting to explore. It would at least surely have some pokémon. And Gyarados would have fun.

Mark ran out of Scorpion city and into the wilderness ahead. Three badges up, five to go.


Mark didn’t notice that Mitch had gone out of his gym. He glared after Mark and muttered to himself.

“I have the feeling that we will meet again. Sometime soon. I also have the feeling that something unexpected will happen in Aqua town...”

[HedgeCat]

Good chapter. Charmeleon VS Scorplack was my favourite part of the chapter.

[Dragonfree]

I'm going to post chapters 18 and 19 together, since chapter 18 is a measly one page in Word and has no purpose except talking about a very, very big event in the story that spans five chapters and has some of my very best in it. Chapter nineteen has a bit of blood just because I felt violent when writing it, it's three pages and contains a bit of humour I really enjoyed putting in.



Chapter 18: The pokémon festival


While Mark was running, he heard a familiar voice.

“Great to see you again.”

It was the Mutark guy. Mark stopped.

“What do you want?” Mark said this before he realized that he was being rude. The trainer didn’t seem to care, though.

“I just wanted to talk.”

“Oh.” Mark felt stupid.

“So, are you going to the festival?”

“What festival?”

“The festival in Green town, of course. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”

“No,” said Mark and felt even more stupid.

“Really? Well, there’s going to be a festival in Green town soon – it’s every year because Chaletwo – that super-pokémon – is such a tourist attraction. Everyone’s in Green town these days, because his appearance is drawing nearer, so the hotels and the gym and all that get a lot of money. That money is used to attract more tourists by having a festival for pokémon trainers. Kids can get starting pokémon, there are going to be various contests and stuff, and other things that are supposed to be a surprise. The festival ends on the 25th with the last part of the program: Chaletwo’s appearance. I want to see him, because he’s a Dark type, although I won’t try to catch him – that’s impossible – but he’s surely worth seeing. And everything else in the festival must be interesting too. So my point is, I’m going, but are you?”

“Why do you want to know?” Mark asked.

“Just wondering.”

“Uh... I guess I’m going too, I’m a legendary collector, or just considering the possibility, more like, so I want to see Chaletwo... but I didn’t know there’s a festival.”

“Now you know,” said the trainer.

“Hey, you said you train Dark pokémon?”

“Yes. Only Dark types. Did you know that the 8th gym here is a Dark type gym?”

“No...” said Mark.

“Well, it is, and I’m going to apply for the position as a junior trainer there. By the way, my name is Victor. Yours?”

“Mark.”

Victor looked around, then asked: “Where is that girl? The one who wanted a Mutark?”

“May? She most likely went on to Aqua town,” Mark said, kind of wondering about it himself.

“Oh,” Victor said. “If you see her, would you tell her that I can give her advice about Mutark at the festival, if she’s there too?”

“Sure,” said Mark. “Aren’t you going to Aqua town?”

“No,” Victor said. “The only thing of interest for me there would be a Sharpedo, but I caught one home in Hoenn.”

“Oh. Well, see you at the festival.”

“See you there too.”

Victor walked away. Mark had to admit that Victor was actually pretty nice.




Chapter 19: Underwater journey


Mark soon reached Merville. It was a small town that was basically just a harbor and a few houses. There was a tiny store just by the harbor itself called “Underwater equipment”. There was a large sign that said: “ROUTE 243 – MERVILLE – AQUA TOWN” beside the shop pointing at the surface of the sea. Mark went into the shop right away, because he knew he needed “underwater equipment”.

Inside the shop, there was just a man, seemingly the owner of the shop, sitting by a desk, looking very bored. In fact, bored was not quite the word. Half-asleep would be better. But a second after Mark entered, that man stood beside him, wide awake.

“Welcome! Headed to Aqua, are you? Of course you are! What else would you be doing here? Well, look no further! I’ve got everything you need! First, you’ll need a H2Oxy 3000, the newest and best. Look...” the man put the small tool over his nose, but quickly took it back off, as it looked like it prevented him from breathing, “...you put it on like that, and make sure it completely covers your nose, and then go underwater, and it will work oxygen out of the water. Clever, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure it... works?” Mark asked, not positive about how he could rely on that thing.

“It should do,” said the shopkeeper and put the H2Oxy 3000 in Mark’s hand. “Well, the next thing you need is a Aqua compass. It always points at Aqua town.” Mark watched as the needle turned and pointed straight away from the sea. “But, well, it sometimes works,” the shopkeeper put the Aqua compass in Mark’s hand too, “And now, of course, you need...” He took some kind of a spray and sprayed it at Mark all over, “Now you repel water and you will step out as dry as you are now! Isn’t that great? Then, here I have a Sharpedo-ward. It will release a very bad smelling liquid that will keep any Sharpedo away from you. And then I have this wonderful rock to make it easier to sink to the bottom at a special price, only 5000! I’m sure you’ll visit again, buddy, right? I’m always ready at hand! This will be 50000.”

The shopkeeper had handed Mark everything he had mentioned in his speech and he couldn’t even see the shopkeeper after the rock came on top of it.

“Huh? But I don’t have that much money on me right now... eh, I think I’ll just have to go with the H2Oxy...” Mark said and put down the Aqua compass, the Sharpedo-ward and the rock.

“But you’ve used the water-repelling spray already, and that alone is 10000!” the shopkeeper said. “I can’t just give it to you free, now can I?”

“That’s rubbish! I never asked for it!” Mark said angrily.

“Then I won’t give you any for the way back,” the shopkeeper said grumpily and took the money Mark gave him. Then Mark went outside. As soon as he stepped out, someone touched his shoulder.

“Hey. Kid. Battle?” said a sailor who was standing behind him.

“I guess so,” Mark said. “Now I can use Gyarados. Go!” Mark sent Gyarados out into the water. He roared loudly (although they were just more roars with no meaning) and then looked angrily at Mark like he wanted to say: “Why did you make me wait in my pokéball for so long?”

“Go, Sharpedo!” the sailor said and sent a shark pokémon out into the water.

“Gyarados, Dragon rage!”

Gyarados fired the same weird flames Dratini could use at the Sharpedo. It dived underwater, but being dragon’s fire, water didn’t stop the Dragon rage. The flames turned blue on impact with the water, and kept going. Sharpedo couldn’t avoid those flames.

“Sharpedo, Crunch!” the sailor roared. His shark pokémon shot at Gyarados underwater and sunk its fangs deep into Gyarados’ tail. Gyarados was bleeding, roared in pain and slammed his tail, with Sharpedo stuck on, at the bottom of the water. Sharpedo’s thick skin, though, somehow managed to make it survive that without fainting. Sharpedo let go off Gyarados’ tail, then bit it again, even harder, at the same place. The water was changing to red. But Gyarados had an idea. He remained completely still, enduring the pain...

The thing is that if a shark is held still, water won’t flow through its gills because of how primitive sharks are. Same thing about Sharpedo. Being held still in the water caused it to be unable to get any oxygen at all.

“Sharpedo!” the sailor yelled. “Let him go! Let him go!”

The Sharpedo finally managed to take its teeth out of Gyarados. A plenty of blood leaked out, but the Sharpedo swam a few meters to catch its “breath”, and then shot angrily at Gyarados again.

But Gyarados was ready. When the Sharpedo was at the right place, Gyarados slammed his tail at it and held it tight down to the bottom. Same thing as before, just with a lot of pressure.

“No! I give! Sharpedo, return!” the sailor said and recalled Sharpedo. “That Gyarados of yours is a true monster. He’ll come in handy at the Aqua gym – that’s where you’re heading, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” said Mark.

“Marge – the leader – is very tough. You’ll need quite some pokémon to beat her,” the sailor then said and walked off.
Mark put on his H2Oxy and dived into the water. Good news: The H2Oxy worked. Bad news: He should have taken the Sharpedo ward because the smell of Gyarados’ blood had attracted a whole lot of them.

Mark quickly sent Gyarados out to ward them off. Gyarados shot at the Sharpedos and they spread like a lighting. He followed one and, to Mark’s disgust, caught it. When Gyarados saw him, he gave him a “what, do you have any idea how long it’s been since I last had a decent meal?” look, then made an attempt to rip a chunk of meat out of its prey. Mark turned and kept going, knowing Gyarados would catch up with him and it was probably an unpleasand sight to watch a Gyarados tear a Sharpedo to pieces.

Mark eyed a moving rock. It looked odd, like it was swimming.

Then he realized it wasn’t a rock; it was a Relicanth.

“Wow! They are so incredibly rare! I have to catch it!” Mark thought and reached for a pokéball. He had already drawn Charmeleon’s out when he remembered he was underwater. He’d have to wait for Gyarados.

Like he thought, Gyarados caught up with him. Mark had been following the Relicanth for quite some time, but when he finally came, things could start happening.

“Gyarados, be quiet. See the pokémon over there? It’s a Relicanth. It’s very rare. I just have to catch it. So you’re going to help me catch it, and don’t let it notice us!”

Gyarados nodded, and prepared to launch at the Relicanth. He shot quietly towards the ancient fish pokémon and grabbed it by the tail. Mark threw a pokéball, but as they were underwater, the ball didn’t go far and started sinking. Gyarados let go off the Relicanth and dived after the ball. The Relicanth disappeared, very quickly for a Rock type.

“Gyarados, you idiot!” Mark hissed. “Look what you did! I missed that Relicanth! It takes most trainers many weeks to even see one!”

Gyarados had an angry expression and then went into his pokéball by himself.

Mark swam on. He saw a swarm of Horseas and thought about catching one, but decided he’d better not, he’d got that far, so it would take ages trying to train a low level Horsea against the pokémon in this part of Ouen.

While he was thinking about that, the Horsea swarm swam away and instead there was another Sharpedo swarm surrounding him.
“Gyarados! Attack!” Mark said when he saw the sharks. But nothing came out of the ball. Gyarados was still offended that Mark called him an idiot.

“Oh no! Gyarados, you have to...” But Gyarados still refused to go out of the ball.

I’m doomed, Mark thought as the Sharpedo swarm drew closer. But something came... something that caused the Sharpedos to scatter like coins from a Pay day.

That something was a sea monster. A giant sea monster pokémon that looked like a dragon...

Mark pointed his pokédex at the thing, it was the only thing he could think of although it was a very geeky thing to do.

“Monarking, monster pokémon. This fearsome pokémon is said to be somewhat magical and highly intelligent. It’s a mystery what causes it to trust some people and hate others.”

Trust some, hate others. Well, I hope I’m not one of the hated ones, I can imagine what this thing does to what it hates, Mark thought. The pokémon turned at him and examined him carefully. Then it dived deep into the sea.

Hey! Where do you think you’re going?! Mark thought and swam after it as quickly as he could.


When Mark thought he had lost the Monarking, he saw it again. It looked like it was waiting for him. When it saw him again, it kept going. Mark went after it.

I wonder if it’s just playing a trick on me. Maybe it has a family, and it’s taking me to them so it won’t have to kill me here somewhere and take me to them afterwards, he thought.

Then, he saw lights. And near the lights, the Monarking still waited. Mark swam on towards the lights; it was Aqua town. Under a big glass dome. The Monarking had taken him to Aqua town.


As Mark swam with relief towards the double door on the dome, he could’ve sworn the Monarking was surrounded by other sea monsters, some a little smaller, some a lot smaller and one of the same size, and they all looked at him in the same way, the same look that said, We won’t hurt you, you won’t hurt us.



Chapter 20 is great... I changed the title in the revision, and now it's titled Enemies forever... just thought of that name and had to put it there. It leaves readers with a bit of uncertainity that's still not like a cliffhanger where you're waiting for the next chapter to see what happens, you aren't really waiting for anything special. It's great. Chapter 21 and 22 are pretty nice too.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 20! Three pages, but a lot of things happening. Chapter 21 is this story's main connection to the pokémon animé, and is pretty funny, like I mentioned before if I remember correctly...


Chapter 20: Enemies forever

The first door opened when Mark came near to it. Water flooded into the enterance. The door closed and the water flowed out of the enterance through a pipe in the floor. Then the second door opened and Mark stepped onto the main street of Aqua town.

Aqua town was without doubt the most beautiful city Mark had ever been to. To provide oxygen for all the people, the city had plants and plant pokémon everywhere, all pollution in any form (including pokémon like Koffing and Grimer) was strictly forbidden so there wouldn’t be any unneccessary waste of oxygen and outside the magnificent dome, water pokémon swam freely around.

But Mark was mainly looking for the gym, and May. The gym turned out to be right next to the pokémon center, but it was small and hard to notice. The battle arena couldn’t be full-sized, but it was an official gym nevertheless. He stepped inside to find May and a middle-aged woman handing her a badge. They looked at Mark when he came inside.

“Oh, Mark...” May said. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, I was just excited to get on and your match was (no offense meant) pretty boring...”

“I met the Dark pokémon trainer. The one with the Mutark. He said his name is Victor, and he wanted to meet you at the pokémon festival in Green town that will be held soon to talk to you about Mutark.” Mark tried his best to hide his disappointment, but he still sounded snappy.

“Well, you’d better battle this gym leader. I have to go and heal my pokémon, and then I need to do a couple of things... just so you know. Meet me in the pokémon center after an hour or so.” May then went out and headed towards the pokémon center. Mark walked to the middle of the arena.

“I’d like a battle for a badge, please,” he said to the woman.

“Sure. I am Marge, the Aqua town gym leader. Six per trainer, two on two,” she said. She spoke very fast and her voice was pretty deep for a woman.

“Huh? Do you mean six on six or two on two?” Mark asked, confused.

“I mean that we’ll battle in three rounds of two on two,” Marge said. “Never been to Hoenn, have you? Two on two battles are very popular over there. It’s just like a normal battle, but I use two pokémon and you use two pokémon at a time. A round is over when both of either trainer’s pokémon have fainted.”

“Oh... okay,” said Mark. He had read about two on two battles, but he had never had such a battle.

“Go, Politoed and Vaporeon!” Marge shouted and sent out two of her pokémon.

“Go, Jolteon and Gyarados!”

“Jolteon, Thunderbolt!”

“Vaporeon, quick electric counter!”

This had obivously been practised as what to do when Marge’s Water pokémon were up against Electric types. The Vaporeon leapt in front of Jolteon and melted into a pool of water that touched Jolteon’s feet and also reached the pool Gyarados was in. When Jolteon discharged the electricity, the shock went through Vaporeon and into the pool, hitting Gyarados. No need to tell what happens to a Gyarados hit by an Electric attack.


“Politoed, Perish song! Vaporeon, go into the pool! Cover your ears, trainer.”

The Politoed started screeching a tune that caused Mark to feel like he was being ripped apart, even though he had his ears covered. Jolteon lay down and tried to cover his ears, but couldn’t, screamed “Joooooooolt!” once and then fainted. The Politoed stopped singing, to Mark’s great relief.

“Jolteon, return. Go, Dragonair and Sandslash!”

“Come back, Vaporeon and Politoed! Go, Starmie and Lapras!”

“Dragonair, Dragonbreath on Starmie! Sandslash, Earthquake!”

“Starmie, levitate that Sandslash, and Lapras, use Ice beam on the Dragonair!”

Sandslash was slowly raised from the ground, but hovering in the air, he used a Swift on the Lapras to disturb it. Meanwhile, Dragonair breathed those weird flames at the Starmie so it released Sandslash, enabling him to use a large Earthquake as he hit the ground. The Starmie fell down and that gave Sandslash the opportunity to jump on top of it and slash it vigorously until it fainted. Dragonair, however, got hit hard by Lapras’ Ice beam and fainted too.

“Dragonair, return. Sandslash, Slash it!” Mark roared.

“Starmie, come back! Lapras, Surf!”

Sandslash jumped on the Lapras’ head and started slashing it. It just kept trying to shake Sandslash off, and finally managed to.

“Sandslash, Swift!”

Sandslash fired spikes from his back at Lapras.

“Lapras, Ice beam!”

“Sandslash, Slash!”

Sandslash slashed the Lapras hard. It cried out and then fired an Ice beam, which Sandslash avoided. Then Sandslash unleashed a powerful Earthquake to finish Lapras off.

“Lapras, return! Go, Feraligatr and Quagsire!” Marge shouted. Mark suddenly realized that he was in trouble. His two pokémon left happened to be the rivals Scyther and Charmeleon. Making them battle together in a two on two battle seemed as impossible as making George Bush talk peacefully to Saddam Hussein. But it was his only choice.

“Return, Sandslash! Go, Scyther and Charmeleon!”

When they emerged from the balls, they first looked at each other, Charmeleon with disgust and Scyther just looking puzzled. Then they looked questioningly at Mark.

“Guys, you’re my last pokémon in this two on two battle. You have to work together and win. You just have to be able to pull through one battle in peace. Let’s do this!”

Scyther nodded and turned to Quagsire. Charmeleon grinned broadly and turned to Feraligatr. Maybe this would work after all...

How very wrong he was. Charmeleon used a Fire blast on the Feraligatr, and he just happened to be exactly at the place that caused some of the fire that went past the Feraligatr to hit Scyther. Charmeleon looked at Scyther with an even broader smile than before, then said “Sorry,” as sarcastically as possible. Scyther shared a quick look with Charmeleon, then turned back to Quagsire, flew forward with his scythes raised and slashed at the water pokémon that still just stared forward with a stupid expression.

Now Charmeleon was at the other side of Feraligatr, and when it countered his attack with a Hydro pump, Charmeleon leapt out of the way and Scyther just happened to be in the Hydro pump’s way. He got soaked and forced to the wall. Charmeleon replied to the nasty look Scyther gave him with the words “Didn’t that cool down the burn?”.

After just a few seconds Charmeleon shot a small but very hot fireball straight at Scyther’s left wing, with the excuse “oops, I sneezed” and the grin getting broader than ever. Scyther shot yet another nasty look at Charmeleon, just like the other two times. Except that he didn’t turn back to Quagsire.

Scyther stared as Charmeleon started to laugh. Then suddenly, he roared and shot at Charmeleon as fast as it could. Charmeleon stopped laughing and used a Fire blast which Scyther evaded. Scyther raised his scythe, but never managed to strike because the red beam sucked him back into his ball before he managed to. Mark recalled Charmeleon too.

“I give,” said Mark, “those two aren’t really the best pair in the world...” Then he went to the pokémon center, healed his pokémon, and then told Scyther and Charmeleon off (one at a time, of course).


He started with Charmeleon. As soon as Charmeleon came out of the ball, he said “Did you see that? What did I tell you! That Scyther is dangerous. He would’ve killed me if you hadn’t recalled us.”

“What do you think you’re doing???” Mark spat angrily at Charmeleon. “Don’t aggravate Scyther! He has never done you anything!”

“No, thanks to you,” said Charmeleon. “There you see what Scyther can do. One little joke, and he comes to kill you. Just wait... if you don’t do anything about it, Scyther will kill both of us sometime when we’re sleeping.”

Mark didn’t feel like talking to Charmeleon more about this and took out its pokéball.

“Charmeleon, return.”

“See ya in the afterlife,” were Charmeleon’s last words before it disappeared into the ball.


“Scyther, why did you attack Charmeleon? You can ignore him, you showed it the first two times! Why did you end up attacking? Everything between you two is going to hell!”

“I won’t let myself be humiliated like this anymore!” Scyther hissed. “Charmeleon makes fun of me, and thinks he can do anything to me without me even caring! I can’t stand this any longer!”

“Scyther – I don’t want two of my pokémon fighting,” Mark said to Scyther, calming a bit down because he knew Scyther could be calm.

“This is a private problem, Mark. It’s just between me and Charmeleon. We can handle this ourselves. It’s none of your business.”

“OF COURSE IT’S SOME OF MY BUSINESS!” Mark roared. “YOU’RE MY POKÉMON!”

With an incredibly quick movement, Scyther’s left scythe came flying towards Mark’s face. It stopped about two centimeters from his nose. Mark didn’t dare to move or even breathe. He just stared at the deadly blade that was oh, so close to killing him.

Scyther looked strangely at him, then lowered his scythe slowly. As Mark caught his breath, he fell backwards to the floor. Scyther kept staring at him in that same strange way, then suddenly turned around and said “Sorry... this just... happens... when I’m angry...”

“You gave me a heart attack,” Mark muttered. Scyther turned into a red beam and went into the pokéball by himself. Mark was left on the floor, still getting over the shock, and wondering if Charmeleon was right about Scyther.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter twenty of The Quest for the Legends is now up. It's going fast, isn't it?

[HedgeCat]

Good chapter. I wonder if Mark's gonna try for the Aqua Badge again.

[Dragonfree]

Oh, he will, I assure you Must... get... badges... hehehe. But he'll probably ask for a less than six-on-six battle as he doesn't feel like using either Scyther or Charmeleon right now, together or seperated. And by the way, forgive me, it's chapter 21 that has a crazy version, not 22. Coming soon.

[Dragonfree]

And it's chapter 21! I'm getting sick of posting many times in a row, so I'll post the weird version as soon as someone replies.



Chapter 21: Alan


When Mark started feeling a bit more normal again, he went back to the gym.


“I would like a one on one battle this time, if you don’t mind... I don’t really feel like using all of my pokémon,” he said blankly when he entered.

“Of course,” said Marge. “Go, Feraligatr!”

“Go, Gyarados! Dragon rage!”

“Feraligatr, Hydro pump!”

The two attacks clashed in the middle and eliminated each other.
“Feraligatr, Ice beam!”

The Feraligatr formed a beam of ice in its mouth and shot it towards Gyarados. Gyarados fired a blast of water to counter it. When it came in contact with the Ice beam, it froze and then flew forward and fell on top of the Feraligatr’s head. It shook its head, its fist started sparkling with electricity, but Gyarados fired another blast of water at the Feraligatr, soaking it and causing the electricity to damage it instead. Gyarados then finished it off with a Dragon rage. Marge recalled her Feraligatr, handed Mark a Surf badge and Mark went out to the pokémon center and waited for May.

She turned up pretty soon along with an Exeggcute she held in her arm, carefully making sure none of the eggs would fall down. “Oh, there you are, Mark. I borrowed this Exeggcute here to teleport us to Green town. That’s a good idea, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a long way to Green town from here, it would take ages, and we might miss the festival...”

Mark was relieved that he wouldn’t have to walk one step to get to Green town.

“Ready? Come and touch Exeggcute with me...” Mark grabbed one of the Exeggcute’s eggs, and suddenly they were inside a different pokémon center. They let go off the Exeggcute and it teleported back. Then Mark looked around. There was a clock on the wall that said:


May 14th, 6:47:33 PM


The seconds moved on. Mark also saw a big poster about the pokémon festival on the wall, which May also seemed to have noticed since she was walking up to it already. Mark followed.



THE GREEN TOWN POKÉMON FESTIVAL!

Program:

May 20th
The Pokémon Frenzy Tournament! More info on May 16th, 2 PM.

May 21st
Evolution day! Got a stone-evolving pokémon, but can’t afford a stone? Get it evolved for free along with entertainment! More info on May 16th, 4 PM.

May 22nd
Attack approval! Ever wanted to make your and your pokémon’s unique battling technique official and allowed in the pokémon league? Now is your chance! More info on May 16th, 2:30 PM.

May 23rd
Trainer’s market! Buy rare items, including Master balls, HMs, Itemfinders, Focus bands and more, at less than half price!

May 24th
Starter pokémon giveaway! Anyone ten years or older who hasn’t gotten a pokémon yet can pick one here from a whopping 100 choices of pokémon! More info on May 16th, 3 PM.

May 25th
The big day! Chaletwo’s appearance! Come to the grass outside the city at 4:26:45 PM to see the strongest pokémon in the world!

All these activities except Chaletwo’s appearance itself take place at the pokémon stadium in Green town at two o’clock PM. Note that the Green town pokémon gym is closed during the festival. It reopens on May 26th.


“What could the “pokémon frenzy tournament” be?”

“No idea,” said May. “Um, Mark? I sort of want to challenge the gym now, since it’s closed during the festival...”

“Yeah, just go,” Mark said, “I’d rather challenge the gym after the festival.” He knew the Green town pokémon gym was a Grass type gym, and the pokémon he had intended to use for it were Scyther and Charmeleon. He really didn’t feel like having another gym battle with them for a while.

May looked at Mark like she wanted to say something, but then just went out. Mark walked to the counter, where Nurse Joy greeted him.

“Welcome. Are you here for the festival?”

“Yeah. And a gym battle after the festival.”

“What brings you to the festival?” she asked. “The trainer’s market? The evolution day? Chaletwo?”

“Chaletwo,” Mark answered. “I’m a legendary collector, or well, I meant to be one, but I’m not sure, I mean, Chaletwo is impossible to catch, right? And that one called Molzapart... I read about them in a book called Old and new pokémon legends...”

A boy of around fifteen who had been looking in the other direction suddenly looked at Mark, walked up to him and said: “We need to talk.”

“Huh?” Mark asked, confused.

“I said, we need to talk. Come, I live right next door...”

He walked out and Mark followed, still having no clue what was going on. Green town was really big, but unusually clean and beautiful for such a big city. The boy went to the door of the house beside the pokémon center and turned around. He reminded Mark of some famous person he had seen photos of, but he couldn’t make out who that famous person was.

“Come on,” the boy said, opened the door and went in. Mark came after him.

“My name’s Alan. Alan Ketchum,” he said and smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ketchum?” Mark suddenly remembered what famous person the boy had reminded him of. “You’re not in any way related to Ash Ketchum, are you?”

“He’s my father,” Alan said with a painful expression that told Mark he got that question all the time and hated answering it.

“Your father? You’re Ash Ketchum’s son?” Mark said in disbelief. “You know, that is just so cool. I mean, his Pikachu...”

Alan rolled his eyes.

“...and he saved the world I-don’t-know-how-many times...”

“Uh, what is your name again?” Alan asked to change the subject.

“Mark Greenlet. And then he...”

“Mark, please, I know about everything he has done and I’m sick of hearing it over and over again so there’s no need to tell me. OK?”

“But have you seen his Pikachu?”

“Of course I have. He lives in this house, you know... oh, hi, Pam.”

Alan turned to the staircase, where a Persian was coming down, watching Mark closely.

“That’s Pamela, my Persian. Pam for short. She has this odd thing about judging people from distance... either she hates you and will hiss if you come anywhere near her, or she likes you and has to find out if you smell the same everywhere., which I doubt is any better... uh oh, I think she likes you. Prepare to be sniffed.”

And sure enough, Pamela came down and started sniffing at Mark’s shoes. Then she went gradually up his legs and made a few attempts to stand on her hind legs for his upper half. When that didn’t work, she just wrapped herself around his legs, covering them in hairs, and purred very loudly.

“Er... let’s sit down, shall we?” Alan said and sat down at a large table. Mark took the seat opposite him after getting Pamela off his legs.

“Well, what was that you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yes. That book you read – I know what book it is.”

“Cool! So you’ve read it too?”

“No, not exactly...” Alan said. “Did you read the author’s note? It mentioned a person...”

“...who told the author everything about Molzapart and Rainteicune,” Mark finished for him.

“Yeah. That’s me. I am the person.”

“Huh?”

“I am the trainer who owned Rainteicune and saw Molzapart.”

There was dead silence until from the top of the staircase peeked a head with frilly fins around the neck, on the cheeks and on the top of the head; a Vaporeon. It came a few steps down, followed by a Charmander that seemed nervous and a Grovyle that looked everything but nervous. And through the ceiling floated a Misdreavus. They all stared at Mark.

“Oh. We don’t get any peace...” said Alan. “Well, meet Mist, my Vaporeon, Charlie the Charmander, my Grovyle, Racko, and my Misdreavus, Victoria. She’s called Vicky.”

“Are they all yours?” Mark asked.

“Yeah,” Alan answered. “And then there’s also Diamond...”

“Diamond?”

“She’s a Rapidash, you understand that we couldn’t keep her inside.”

“Don’t they have pokéballs?”

“Of course, but I’m not really a trainer anymore. My first journey was eventful enough... they’re just pets, really. And friends. Pamela was always a pet; I got her from a pet shop as a Meowth before I became a trainer, and she evolved while battling an Arcanine unexpectedly... it’s a long story.”

The pokémon came down and watched Mark and Alan from a safe distance.

“So you kept your Charmander from evolving?” Mark asked. Much to his surprise, Alan wore the same painful expression as before and said: “Well... not exactly... eh... Charlie... just... show him...” Alan looked away from Mark. He seemed to really hate attention, which was quite ironic for the son of a very famous person like Ash Ketchum. Charlie walked nervously forward, closed his eyes and suddenly glowed white. He got larger and a horn formed on his head; he had somehow evolved into a Charmeleon just like that.

“Wow! That’s amazing!” Mark said in disbelief as Charlie glowed white again and changed into a Charizard, then back to Charmeleon and then Charmander again.

“Well, he’s not born like that. It’s a long story...” said Alan, looking at Mark again. “It’s not like he’s a unique mutation or something like that...”

“So what? It’s still cool!” said Mark and stared at Charlie. Charlie didn’t appear to like attention much more than Alan; he turned around and saw something very interesting on the wall he just had to examine from behind the Grovyle, Racko.

“Well, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you for. You said you’re a legendary collector. Do you want to catch Chaletwo?”

“It’s impossible, isn’t it?” Mark asked. “Catching Chaletwo? So I can’t... and I’d need to have a Master ball and...”

“I’m not asking whether you can catch him; I’m well aware that it’s impossible. I’m asking: Do you want to catch Chaletwo? If it was completely your choice, would you want to?”

“Uh...” Mark didn’t really know where Alan was going, “of course I’d want to, but it’s not completely my choice and if you think...”

“No, I don’t think anything!” said Alan annoyed. “I was just asking if you wanted to catch Chaletwo, and you do, so then you should know what the four trainers had in common!”

“What four trainers?” Mark asked, confused.

“The trainers Chaletwo killed.”

This sentence was followed by a silence.

“Did Chaletwo kill some trainers?”

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you hear about it? All newspapers in Ouen were full of it... some people even started saying Chaletwo is evil...”

“If Chaletwo killed four trainers, that sounds evil to me...” Mark said.

“No. Chaletwo isn’t evil. You don’t know, you’ve never seen him, but I’ve gone with Dad every year since I was born, and it’s just... a fact. Chaletwo isn’t evil. You won’t know until you’ve seen him...”

“Well, what then?”

“Well, all those four years, those people started saying Chaletwo is evil and that public shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the place and time, and it at least drew a lot of people away from Green town in late May. But the third year Chaletwo killed someone, one of the leaders of the “Chaletwo is evil” group accidentally let it out that all those three trainers had one thing in common: they had a desire to catch Chaletwo in their hearts which Chaletwo felt, and... apparently didn’t like. So Chaletwo detected them among the crowd, and opened his eyes... I saw it all those times. Chaletwo killed them and then teleported away. The bodies were like stone, cold and completely frozen along with clothes, pokéballs, everything, with a look of terror. Not a pretty sight. It happened again last year, but it was no one’s surprise that she – it was a girl then – wanted more than anything else to catch legendary pokémon. The thing is: if you want to catch Chaletwo, you could be next.”

“Oh... I see,” Mark said, still deep in thought about this. “So is there no way I can see Chaletwo without being in danger of... getting killed?”

“Without being in danger, no,” said Alan. “If you can see Chaletwo, Chaletewo can see you – Death stare you, that is. But you can reduce the danger to almost nothing by thinking enough about what I’ve told you and maybe you’ll be too scared to want to catch Chaletwo by the big day...”

That seemed to be a very good idea. At least the thought of the two strongest pokémon in the world, both murderous and ready to kill anyone who dares wanting to catch them, wasn’t very comfortable. And thinking of Molzapart...

“How – why did you see Molzapart?” Mark asked.

“Uh, it’s a long story...” said Alan.

“That’s the third time you say that! What about just telling me that long story of yours, I’ve got plenty of time. My friend is battling the gym leader, you see.”

“Yes, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you, anyway,” said Alan. “Brace yourself for a long story... it started way back when I was starting my pokémon journey... no, it was before that, it was when... no, no ,no! I guess the very start of it all was when Dad had a dream...”

They were disturbed again. Another pokémon’s head was peeking down from the staircase: a yellow one with red cheeks and long ears with black tips.

“Oh!” Mark said. “Is that... is that...”

“Yeah, that’s Dad’s Pikachu,” Alan muttered and turned away again.

“Oh wow,” Mark said. “Oh wow. The most famous pokémon in the world!”

“Pika?” said the Pikachu and came down. It looked at Mark, then slowly came towards him.

“I’d never have dreamed about this...” Mark whispered, holding out his hand. The Pikachu came and started sniffing at it.

“Uh, Mark... I wouldn’t do that if I were you... you smell of Persians...”

But it was too late; Mark had already received a nice Thundershock that caused him to fall of his chair in a weird pose unable to move. Alan laughed.

“Pikachu! It’s rude to shock guests!”

“Pika...” said the Pikachu and scratched its cheeks. Meanwhile, Mark crawled back up on his chair.

“Sorry, Mark. He does that often – he used to shock Dad all the time...”

“Really?” Mark asked. Alan nodded.

“Yeah, Pikachu’s always had this little attitude problem...”

But he didn’t get any further; an angry “Pika!” came from under the table and Alan got a shock at least as strong as Mark’s.

“Pi pika pikachu!” said the Pikachu and went back up the stairs, looking seriously offended.

“He shocks me a lot, too...” said Alan, getting back on his chair. “He basically hates being insulted in any way and has always been a lot against all Meowths and Persians... shocks them automatically.”

“Well, you were telling me a story, weren’t you? You can go on with it...”

“Yeah, let’s finish it off...”



What's that smell? This chapter smelled a bit of... plot... so will the rest of the story.

[HedgeCat]

Ack! I keep forgeting to read QFTL!

Great chapter with Alan. I pictured him as a mini-Ash, =P.

[Dragonfree]

Well, he isn't that mini, he's older than the animé Ash... but time for the...

CRAZY VERSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Chapter 21: Alan
Weird version: Special crazy edition


When Mark started feeling a bit more normal again, he went back to the gym.


“I would like a one on one battle this time, if you don’t mind... I don’t really feel like using all of my pokémon,” he said blankly when he entered.

“Of course,” said Marge. “Go, Feraligatr!”

“Go, Gyarados! Dragon rage!”

“Feraligatr, Hydro pump!”

The two attacks clashed in the middle and eliminated each other.

“Feraligatr, Ice beam!”

The Feraligatr formed a beam of ice in its mouth and shot it towards Gyarados. Gyarados fired a blast of water to counter it. When it came in contact with the Ice beam, it froze and then flew forward and fell on top of the Feraligatr’s head. It shook its head, its fist started sparkling with electricity, but Gyarados fired another blast of water at the Feraligatr, soaking it and causing the electricity to damage it instead. Gyarados then finished it off with a Dragon rage. Marge recalled her Feraligatr, handed Mark a Surf badge and Mark went out to the pokémon center and waited for May.

She turned up pretty soon along with an Exeggcute she held in her arm, carefully making sure none of the eggs would fall down. “Oh, there you are, Mark. I borrowed this Exeggcute here to teleport us to Green town. That’s a good idea, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a long way to Green town from here, it would take ages, and we might miss the festival...”

Mark was relieved that he wouldn’t have to walk one step to get to Green town.

“Ready? Come and touch Exeggcute with me...” Mark grabbed one of the Exeggcute’s eggs, and suddenly they were inside a different pokémon center. They let go off the Exeggcute and it teleported back. Then Mark looked around. There was a clock on the wall that said:


May 14th, 6:47:33 PM


The seconds moved on. Mark wasn’t sure why the author had decided he’d only been five days on a pokémon journey, but it was up to her, of course. He also saw a big poster about the pokémon festival on the wall, which May also seemed to have noticed since she was walking up to it already. Mark followed.



THE GREEN TOWN POKÉMON FESTIVAL!

Program:

May 20th
The Pokémon Frenzy Tournament! More info on May 16th, 2 PM.

May 21st
Evolution day! Got a stone-evolving pokémon, but can’t afford a stone? Get it evolved for free along with entertainment! More info on May 16th, 4 PM.

May 22nd
Attack approval! Ever wanted to make your and your pokémon’s unique battling technique official and allowed in the pokémon league? Now is your chance! More info on May 16th, 2:30 PM.

May 23rd
Trainer’s market! Buy rare items, including Master balls, HMs, Itemfinders, Focus bands and more, at less than half price!

May 24th
Starter pokémon giveaway! Anyone ten years or older who hasn’t gotten a pokémon yet can pick one here from a whopping 100 choices of pokémon! More info on May 16th, 3 PM.

May 25th
The big day! Chaletwo’s appearance! Come to the grass outside the city at 4:26:45 PM to see the strongest pokémon in the world!

All these activities except Chaletwo’s appearance itself take place at the pokémon stadium in Green town at two o’clock PM. Note that the Green town pokémon gym is closed during the festival. It reopens on May 26th.


“What an awful lot of more info people need to get. And... what could the “pokémon frenzy tournament” be?”

“No idea,” said May. “Um, Mark? I sort of want to challenge the gym now, since it’s closed during the festival...”

“Yeah, just go,” Mark said, “I’d rather challenge the gym after the festival.” He knew the Green town pokémon gym was a Grass type gym, and the pokémon he had intended to use for it were Scyther and Charmeleon. He really didn’t feel like having another gym battle with them for a while.

May looked at Mark like she wanted to say something, but then just went out. Mark walked to the counter, where Nurse Joy greeted him.

“Welcome. Are you here for the festival?”

“Yeah. And a gym battle after the festival.”

“What brings you to the festival?” she asked. “The trainer’s market? The evolution day? Chaletwo?”

“Chaletwo,” Mark answered. “I’m a legendary collector, or well, I meant to be one, but I’m not sure, I mean, Chaletwo is impossible to catch, right? And that one called Molzapart... I read about them in a book called Old and new pokémon legends...”

A boy of around fifteen who had been looking in the other direction suddenly looked at Mark, walked up to him and said: “We need to talk.”

“Huh?” Mark asked, confused.

“I said, we need to talk. Come, I live right next door...”

He walked out and Mark followed, still having no clue what was going on. He also wondered why the author had made him follow a random person he found in the pokémon center. Green town was really big, but unusually clean and beautiful for such a big city. The boy went to the door of the house beside the pokémon center and turned around. He reminded Mark of some famous person he had seen photos of, but he couldn’t make out who that famous person was. Maybe a character in From Rookie to Champion?

“Come on,” the boy said, opened the door and went in. Mark came after him.

“My name’s Alan. Alan Ketchum,” he said and smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ketchum?” Mark suddenly remembered what famous person the boy had reminded him of. “You’re not in any way related to Ash Ketchum, are you?”

“He’s my father,” Alan said with a painful expression that told Mark he got that question all the time and hated answering it.

“Your father? You’re Ash Ketchum’s son?” Mark said in disbelief. “You know, that is just so cool. I mean, his Pikachu...”
Alan rolled his eyes.

“...and he saved the world I-don’t-know-how-many times...”

“Uh, what is your name again?” Alan asked to change the subject.
“Mark Greenlet. And then he...”

“Mark, please, I know about everything he has done and I’m sick of hearing it over and over again so there’s no need to tell me. OK?”

“But have you seen his Pikachu?”

“Of course I have. He lives in this house, you know... oh, hi, Pam.”

Alan turned to the staircase, where a Persian was coming down, watching Mark closely.

“That’s Pamela, my Persian. Pam for short. She has this odd thing about judging people from distance... either she hates you and will hiss if you come anywhere near her, or she likes you and has to find out if you smell the same everywhere., which I doubt is any better... uh oh, I think she likes you. Prepare to be sniffed.”

And sure enough, Pamela came down and started sniffing at Mark’s shoes. Then she went gradually up his legs and made a few attempts to stand on her hind legs for his upper half. When that didn’t work, she just wrapped herself around his legs, covering them in hairs, and purred very loudly.

“Er... let’s sit down, shall we?” Alan said and sat down at a large table. Mark took the seat opposite him after getting Pamela off his legs in a magical way the author simply couldn’t think of.

“Well, what was that you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yes. That book you read – I know what book it is.”

“Cool! So you’ve read it too?”

“No, not exactly...” Alan said. “Did you read the author’s note? It mentioned a person...”

“...who told the author everything about Molzapart and Rainteicune,” Mark finished for him.

“Yeah. That’s me. I am the person.”

“Huh?”

“I am the trainer who owned Rainteicune and saw Molzapart.”

There was dead silence until from the top of the staircase peeked a head with frilly fins around the neck, on the cheeks and on the top of the head; a Vaporeon. It came a few steps down, followed by a Charmander that seemed nervous and a Grovyle that looked everything but nervous. And through the ceiling floated a Misdreavus. They all stared at Mark.

“Oh. We don’t get any peace...” said Alan. “Well, meet Mist, my Vaporeon, Charlie the Charmander, my Grovyle, Racko, and my Misdreavus, Victoria. She’s called Vicky.”

“Are they all yours?” Mark asked.

“Yeah,” Alan answered. “And then there’s also Diamond...”

“Diamond?”

“She’s a Rapidash, you understand that we couldn’t keep her inside.”

“Don’t they have pokéballs?”

“Of course, but I’m not really a trainer anymore. My first journey was eventful enough... they’re just pets, really. And friends. Pamela was always a pet; I got her from a pet shop as a Meowth before I became a trainer, and she evolved while battling an Arcanine unexpectedly... it’s a long story.”

The pokémon came down and watched Mark and Alan from a safe distance.

“So you kept your Charmander from evolving?” Mark asked. Much to his surprise, Alan wore the same painful expression as before and said: “Well... not exactly... eh... Charlie... just... show him...” Alan looked away from Mark. He seemed to really hate attention, which was quite ironic for the son of a very famous person like Ash Ketchum. Charlie walked nervously forward, closed his eyes and suddenly glowed white. He got larger and a horn formed on his head; he had somehow evolved into a Charmeleon just like that.

“Wow! That’s amazing!” Mark said in disbelief as Charlie glowed white again and changed into a Charizard, then back to Charmeleon and then Charmander again.

“Well, he’s not born like that. It’s a long story...” said Alan, looking at Mark again. “It’s not like he’s a unique mutation or something like that...”

“So what? It’s still cool!” said Mark and stared at Charlie. Charlie didn’t appear to like attention much more than Alan; he turned around and saw something very interesting on the wall he just had to examine from behind the Grovyle, Racko.

“Well, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you for. You said you’re a legendary collector. Do you want to catch Chaletwo?”

“It’s impossible, isn’t it?” Mark asked. “Catching Chaletwo? So I can’t... and I’d need to have a Master ball and...”

“I’m not asking whether you can catch him; I’m well aware that it’s impossible. I’m asking: Do you want to catch Chaletwo? If it was completely your choice, would you want to?”

“Uh...” Mark didn’t really know where Alan was going, “of course I’d want to, but it’s not completely my choice and if you think...”

“No, I don’t think anything!” said Alan annoyed. “I was just asking if you wanted to catch Chaletwo, and you do, so then you should know what the four trainers had in common!”

“What four trainers?” Mark asked, confused.

“The trainers Chaletwo killed.”

This sentence was followed by a silence.

“Did Chaletwo kill some trainers?”

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you hear about it? All newspapers in Ouen were full of it... some people even started saying Chaletwo is evil...”

“If Chaletwo killed four trainers, that sounds evil to me...” Mark said.

“No. Chaletwo isn’t evil. You don’t know, you’ve never seen him, but I’ve gone with Dad every year since I was born, and it’s just... a fact. Chaletwo isn’t evil. You won’t know until you’ve seen him...”

“Well, what then?”

“Well, all those four years, those people started saying Chaletwo is evil and that public shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the place and time, and it at least drew a lot of people away from Green town in late May. But the third year Chaletwo killed someone, one of the leaders of the “Chaletwo is evil” group accidentally let it out that all those three trainers had one thing in common: they had a desire to catch Chaletwo in their hearts which Chaletwo felt, and... apparently didn’t like. So Chaletwo detected them among the crowd, and opened his eyes... I saw it all those times. Chaletwo killed them and then teleported away. The bodies were like stone, cold and completely frozen along with clothes, pokéballs, everything, with a look of terror. Not a pretty sight. It happened again last year, but it was no one’s surprise that she – it was a girl then – wanted more than anything else to catch legendary pokémon. The thing is: if you want to catch Chaletwo, you could be next.”

“Oh... I see,” Mark said, still deep in thought about this. “So is there no way I can see Chaletwo without being in danger of... getting killed?”

“Without being in danger, no,” said Alan. “If you can see Chaletwo, Chaletewo can see you – Death stare you, that is. But, I mean, come on, this is a fanfic. Fanfics don’t just end in the middle with the main character getting killed. It just doesn’t happen.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Mark uneasily. “The author was threatening me in the last uncut version...”

“What, do you think she meant that?” said Alan. “She likes you, you know. She wouldn’t get rid of you... but I know she will get rid of...”

The author’s face popped up in mid-air. “Shut up! No spoilers!” she spat. “And go on!”

“How – why did you see Molzapart?” Mark asked.

“Uh, it’s a long story...” said Alan.

“That’s the third time you say that! What about just telling me that long story of yours, I’ve got plenty of time. My friend is battling the gym leader, you see.”

“Yes, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you, anyway,” said Alan. “Brace yourself for a long story... it started way back when I was starting my pokémon journey... no, it was before that, it was when... no, no ,no! I guess the very start of it all was when Dad had a dream...”

They were disturbed again. Another pokémon’s head was peeking down from the staircase: a yellow one with red cheeks and long ears with black tips.

“Oh!” Mark said. “Is that... is that...”

“Yeah, that’s Dad’s Pikachu,” Alan muttered and turned away again.

“Oh wow,” Mark said. “Oh wow. The most famous pokémon in the world!”

“Pika?” said the Pikachu and came down. It looked at Mark, then slowly came towards him.

“I’d never have dreamed about this...” Mark whispered, holding out his hand. The Pikachu came and started sniffing at it.

“Uh, Mark... I wouldn’t do that if I were you... you smell of Persians...”

But it was too late; Mark had already received a nice Thundershock that caused him to fall of his chair in a weird pose unable to move. Alan laughed.

“Pikachu! It’s rude to shock guests!”

“Pika...” said the Pikachu and scratched its cheeks. Meanwhile, Mark crawled back up on his chair.

“Sorry, Mark. He does that often – he used to shock Dad all the time...”

“Really?” Mark asked. Alan nodded.

“Didn’t you see the early episodes? Pikachu’s always had this little attitude problem...”

But he didn’t get any further; an angry “Pika!” came from under the table and Alan got a shock at least as strong as Mark’s.

“Pi pika pikachu!” said the Pikachu and went back up the stairs, looking seriously offended.

“He shocks me a lot, too...” said Alan, getting back on his chair. “He basically hates being insulted in any way and has always been a lot against all Meowths and Persians... shocks them automatically.”

Suddenly, Mark turned around and looked at me.

“Who are you?” he asked, open-mouthed.

“I’m the third person,” I said.

“The what?”

“The third person. This story is in third person’s perspective, and that’s me. I'm telling the story.”

“B-but... it’s from my point of view, or, you know, it tells what I’m thinking... wait a minute, do you read my mind?”

“Yep. It’s tough being the third person, you know. You have to learn mind-reading, teleporting, stealthing, storytelling...”

Mark looked at me, disgusted. “That... was... definetly... not... in the job description...”

“Oh, come on, Mark,” said the author, whose face had just appeared in mid-air again. “All characters in third person stories have to go through this... and third persons are bound by paragraph C of laws about the privacy of fanfic characters...”

Mark still looked disgusted.

“Go on, or you’ll be fired,” said the author and pointed at Mark. “Remember last time...”

“Well, you were telling me a story, weren’t you? You can go on with it...”

“Yeah, let’s finish it off...”


This crazy version was a bit different, more small comments and less big scenes just for the crazy version... and Mark refers to the last crazy version as the "uncut" version because he doesn't want to call himself (let alone the author) crazy.

[HedgeCat]

Good chapter. The crazy version is always the best version. =D