Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Fear the Quintet ❯ The Professor ( Chapter 2 )

Part Two

It was a dream. It had to be. These things didn't happen to ordinary teenagers like them. Kitty refused to open her eyes. She knew it would just be her bedroom.

She tried to ignore the wet grass under her head, and the occasional gust of wind through her hair.

“Kitty,” Scott shook her gently. “Come on.” Kitty stood up uncertainly. She looked around, not letting go of him.

Soft green grass. She rubbed her toe on it. Oh no… she had forgotten her shoes. She looked in the sky. The portal!

“I wanna go back,” she said quietly, but before her eyes, the rip faded and disappeared completely. She could see her dad in her mind, shouting out and banging the controls.

“Sorry,” Scott said, unsure. “But we should carry on. We need to get that thing away from our world.” Kitty sighed, and looked at the rest of the boys.

Where was Elliot?

“Who's seen Elliot? Did he come with us?” she asked.

“Yeah, he was just here.”

“Well, where is he now?” Kitty asked loudly.

“There's a big house there,” Matthew said.

“Doesn't really look like a house,” Fred answered.

“It's a different universe, dimwad.”

“Shut up.”

“Stop it! Where's Elliot?” Kitty demanded. “We're stuck in another world and he's lost! What if something kidnapped him? You saw the thing that came from here; this place is dangerous! “

“Alright, let's go in that building,” Charlie said. “C'mon.”

They all went slowly, terrified, up to the building and gingerly knocked, half expecting some freakish five-headed creature to open the door.

“Hey,” Elliot said from behind them. “Where are you going?”

“We're looking for…” Charlie span around. “Uh, you.”

“Oh,” Elliot said.

“Can I help you?” They all turned slowly back around to the door again. It was just an old man. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

“We were just… wondering where we were,” Kitty said.

“This is Conifer Town,” the man said, looking tired, but jolly. “I'm professor Redwood, and this is my lab.”

“Lab?” Charlie repeated. “You're a scientist?”

“A professor, yes,” Redwood answered, frowning a little. “A professor of pokemon.”

“Pokemon?” all eight children shrieked at once.

“Why, yes,” Redwood said. “Are you all looking to be Trainers?”

“Actually, we came here because…” Kitty began.

“Yes!” Scott shouted.

“Can we?” Charlie pleaded.

“Of course, come in!” Redwood said warmly. He led them into his well-lit lab and rummaged around in some filing cabinets for a while. “Here we are. Eight trainer licenses.” He passed them out and they filled out the forms as quick as a flash.

“Ok, now… I'm afraid I don't have enough equipment on me to give to all of you. I can give you a PokeDex each, and 20,000AD to share.” He fed their papers through a machine and 8 black leather squares popped out. “Inside each is your PokeDex, trainer identification, and slots for badges.” He smiled kindly. “Any questions?”

“Do we get…” Charlie was the only one that could still find words. “A starter pokemon, then?” The old man's eyes lit up.

“Of course! Silly me.” He rearranged his glasses briefly. “Each of you pick a first evolution and I'll tell you if I have any in stock.”

“Out of which three?” Matthew asked. “Which region are we in?”

“Sorry?” the professor asked. “You're in Aerei, of course.”

“So it's a new region?” Matthew rubbed his head. Kitty elbowed him discretely.

“Can we see the pokemon we can choose from?” she asked. He smiled.

“I'm afraid I don't have the time to show you around a hundred pokemon.”

“Wha…?”

“I thought we could only pick from three `starter' pokemon,” Charlie said.

“What would give you that idea?” the professor asked, looking a little confused. “I've never heard of that being the case.”

“Woooow,” Kitty whispered. “In that case, I'd like an Eevee, please!” Her heart swelled with the excitement.

“Of course,” he said, “But I'll have to root around a bit. It's been a while since we had any new trainers, you see. I'm sure you know why.” He looked grim for a moment, but then smiled and went into the back room.

The eight of them were left standing alone in front of his desk. There was a flustered silence for a while, then they all burst into meaningless sound.

“OH MY GOD,” Matthew cried.

“How freaking awesome is this?” Charlie leant on the desk, but his hand slipped and he caught himself at the last moment. Nobody else could even bring themselves to laugh. They were in too much shock.

“Wait,” Scott said suddenly. “Sorry to be annoying, but… how do we know this is the pokemon world as we know it? There's already been one major difference, and this is a region we've never heard of. What if he comes back with some kind of freakish creature that isn't an Eevee… or if trainers don't battle, or something? I dunno.”

“Hmm…” Matthew seemed to be thinking about this for a moment. “Shut up. You're ruining the fun.” Scott smirked.

“Yeah, ok, sorry,” he said. “Let's do some planning, then. If we're going on a journey together.”

“I think we should all have a set type and only catch those!” Elliot said suddenly.

“Yeah!” Fred cried. “I CALL ELECTRIC!”

Kitty looked at him with fear, then back at the others. “But… I love them all so much…”

“I call fire,” Scott said, straightening up to his full - immense - height, which he generally did if he said something that may cause any sort of an argument.

“Damn!” Matthew yelled. “Then I get ground or rock.”

“I want water,” Charlie said, grinning.

“Grass!” Adam said cheerily.

“Then I want flying,” Elliot said, glad that no one else had taken his favourite.

“Ok, can I have dark?” Saxen asked.

“Then what…” Kitty sighed.

“You can have normal,” Matthew suggested. “Or if you evolve your Eevee to…” he went over all the Eeveelutions in his mind. “You can have psychic!”

“I don't want psychic! I want them all!” She huffed.

“You can have whichever you want,” Scott laughed.

“But you'd be ruining the fun,” Matthew grouched.

“Ok!” Kitty gave them a thumbs-up.

“Alright, here's your Eevee,” the professor arrived again with what looked like a remote control. Scott hung his head, as if sorry for being right. “I'll just plug this in to the main computer.” Scott's head came back up again with some new hope. “Here we go…” he muttered. “E… e… eeee… Eevee! Here we are.” He pressed a button and a pokeball popped out of a little tube. He handed it to Kitty proudly. “Take care of him!”

“Of course!” she squealed, taking the pokeball and gaping at it.

“So what do the rest of you want?” he looked around. They all started yelling at the same time. “One at a time, please!” he raised his hand.

“Cyndaquil!” Scott was the first in. The professor did some tapping and handed his pokeball to him. Scott took it and gripped it hard, staring at the tiny red sphere, wondering whether what was inside was actually a Cyndaquil, or some kind of space demon.

“Sandshrew?” Matthew was the second. He too received his pokeball.

“A Pichu?” Fred asked, then took his pokeball.

“Scyther!” Adam cried.

“Totodile!” Charlie squeaked.

“Absol, please,” Saxen said softly.

When they had all received their pokeballs, everyone turned to Elliot who was lost in thought.

“And for you?” the professor asked. He chewed his lip.

“Uh… a… Farfetch'd, please,” he said finally.

“Certainly.” And Elliot too received his first pokemon. They stood there, looking at their new pokeballs and then at each other, waiting for somebody else to check what was inside theirs.

“Well,” Kitty said, feeling the cold ball in her fingers. “I guess…” She stood back a little and chucked out her pokeball. “Go, Eevee?” she said half-heartedly. An orange light spilled from the ball as it enlarged and then opened up. It formed itself into the familiar fox-like shape on the shape, and then colour filled it.

“Vee?”

“Hello,” Kitty said quietly. She kneeled down and put out her hand. He eyed her nervously, bending his tiny legs, long ears twitching. He tentatively sniffed her hand and then took a step forward. She reached forward and touched him on the top of his head. He flinched a little, but didn't move away. She stroked him slowly from the top of the head down to the back. He nuzzled her with his nose. She grinned and scratched him behind the ear. “Hey.”

Encouraged by this, the others all released their own pokemon and, when greeted with the relieving sight of the pokemon they had been expecting, they bent down to mimic Kitty, but their pokemon, surrounded by so many others, began to freak out a little and hissed and snarled and growled and snapped at everything and everyone around them, eventually leading them into a full-scale battle, with no league-approved attacks. There was biting, yapping, kicking and screeching, and soon there was a flurry of movement as the boys struggled to contain their own pokemon. Kitty quickly snatched up her Eevee and backed away, wide eyed.

“Hey,” she whispered to it. “Do you know Sand Attack?”

“Vee,” it said. She took it for a yes, and let it onto the floor.

“Use it to calm everyone down,” she said softly.

The Eevee looked at her for a moment, then to the scuffle, growing in violence every second. Luckily there had been no bloodshed yet. It took a few steps forwards, turned around and scrabbled its paws on the ground. Even though there was no sand around, it flew with force into the centre of the fight, and the pokemon soon retreated, coughing and wheezing and blinking out sand furiously. Kitty picked him up again.

“Now,” she said sternly, addressing both her friends and their pokemon as they rubbed their eyes and sneezed foolishly. “Everybody, behave, ok? We're about to take a long and scary journey together, and we're going to have to rely on each other a lot, so be nice.” She looked at every one of the pokemon. “Are you all alright?” They stared at her carefully, and she assumed that they were. “Come on then,” she said.

“Make sure you give your parents the numbers for your Dexes,” the professor said suddenly. “So they can contact you on your journey.”

Kitty was reminded, unfortunately, of why they had come there in the first place. She looked at her Eevee with great sorrow. “Um, professor,” she asked slowly. He smiled at her. “Do you know anything about a creature that…” she wondered how to word it. “It looks like a black horse with wings.”

The professor went a little pale. “Of course I have…” he whispered. “What about it?”

“Can you… tell us what it is?” she asked.

“How on earth can you not have heard about Morbidark?” the professor asked, confused.

“We're… not from around here…” Kitty said sheepishly.

“Well, yes,” he nodded. “I can tell.”

“If this creature were to be let loose in, say, a city or a village, what would you do?” Scott asked, resting a hand on Kitty's shoulder.

“Well, I hope we'll never have to think about that happening,” the professor said. “But if it did, I suppose the only thing to do would be to defeat it with pokemon so it either fled that area or fainted, and then capture it, but it has never ever been done before.” He sighed. “Of course, there is…” he scratched his head. “If you really want to know, it will take a bit of time to explain everything, so I understand if you want to start your adventure instead of listening to the tales of a very old man.” He smiled.

“No, we want to hear the story,” Kitty said urgently. “Please tell us.”

“Fine,” he said. “Then come into the other room where we can all sit down.” He led the way out of a door. They all returned their new pokemon and followed after him, nervous at the pressure on them to listen to all of this information and use it to save their families and friends back in their own world.