Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Fear the Quintet ❯ The Clichés ( Chapter 4 )

Conifer Town, as the professor had called it, was nothing to write home about. It was vaguely rectangular and had a border of luscious green fir trees that swayed in the warm breeze. People were scattered about: some walking alone; some chatting; some exercising their pokemon.

The excitement they all felt whenever they saw a real pokemon was unlikely to wear off any time soon. A lady in a summer dress had a Snubbull on a lead, and there was a man glancing at his watch and holding a bunch of flowers while his Grovyle picked at the bench nearby with a forefinger.

“We need balls,” Matthew said, folding his arms and looking around.

“Speak for yourself,” Scott said cheerily. Matthew glared.

“Pokeballs.”

“Heh, yeah. Come on.” Scott pointed at a building a while away with a noticeably blue roof.

Inside was what you might expect of any shop that was the only one in the town: newspapers and magazines; food, sweets, and then some pokeballs, potions and antidotes.

“What should I name my Cyndaquil?” Scott asked quietly from behind Kitty as she traced the picture of a happy Pikachu on a potion label. She thought about it.

“Dakota,” she said finally.

“Any particular reason?”

“Nope.” She turned to him and smiled, and then picked up some antidotes, paralyze heals and potions to take to the counter along with five pokeballs.

“I actually like it,” he said, paying for his own five.

“I've decided what to call my Sandshrew,” Matthew announced as they waited by the magazine rack for the others to pay.

“What?” Scott felt obligated to ask.

“Krueger.”

“What, like, as in…”

“Yeah. It was either that or Slasher and I thought that was too cliché.” He sent out his pokemon and held it up. “Do you like the name Krueger?” he asked it, obviously feeling very pleased with his own imagination. The Sandshrew squirmed out of his hands and scampered over to the pokétreats.

“Don't think so, Matt,” Scott shrugged, then turned back to the magazines as his friend ran after his pokemon with moaned pleas. “Whoah!” he cried suddenly, then lowered his voice in embarrassment. “Look at the top shelf…”

“Yes, yes, we all know what's kept on top shelves. It's very cool,” Kitty sighed, then “whoah!”

“Is that a Buneary costume?”

“No…” she said, biting her bottom lip. “She's dressed as a Lopunny.”

“I have to catch me one of those…” Scott said hoarsely. Kitty snorted.

“It's a normal type. None of us can catch one. You boys and your silly rules.”

“Damn…” he whispered, then tore his eyes away as Matthew returned with his Sandshrew.

“Um, Matt,” Kitty said, looking at his pokemon as if seeing it for the first time. “Your Sandshrew is…”

“Hmm?” He looked a little flushed. He had obviously been given looks for having such a badly-behaved pokemon.

“It's a… she's… a she.”

“Wha…?” He looked at it accusingly. “Krueger!”

“Ha! You can't call it that any more,” Scott said happily.

“C'mere.” Kitty took her out of Matthew's hands and smiled at her. “You look like more of a…” She thought for a moment. “Candy.”

“Shrew?”

“Candy!” She hugged it. “Candy Candy Candy.”

“Nooo, stop that!” Matthew snatched her back. “Krueger!”

“Sand.”

“Candy!” Kitty squealed.

“Shrew!”

“It's settled, then,” Kitty grinned and walked out as the rest of them finished paying.

“So what are the rest of you going to name yours?” Scott asked them as they pocketed their new pokeballs.

“Something awesome,” Charlie said simply.

“Well, duh…”

“Something, like, Viking or something.” He looked thoughtful. “Thor!”

“You have a Totodile.”

“So?”

“They're not exactly `Thor' material.”

“Fine, then… Ragnorak. What's that?” It's Viking, isn't it?”

“It's the Viking afterlife,” Kitty said. “Which is really quite random.”

“Ok, then… Loki! That's some kind of God of mischief, right?”

“Yeah, and it would fit a Totodile.”

“Not really a Feraligatr name though.”

“Oh well,” Charlie shrugged. “It's a Loki.”

“Lithium,” Saxen said suddenly.

“Hmm?”

“My Absol. I like `Lithium'.”

“That's cool,” Elliot agreed. “I need a name for a Farfetch'd.”

“Negi!” Kitty said almost immediately. “Japanese for onion, which is kind of like a leek.” She grinned. He smiled.

“Ok,” he said slowly. “Negi the Farfetch'd.” Saxen laughed a little, and Kitty turned to Fred and Adam.

“How about you?”

They glanced at each other.

“The only things we could think of were really predictable,” Fred said. “Like calling your Pichu `Sparky'.”

“You should call your Scyther `Slasher',” Matthew said gleefully to Adam who sniggered.

“Exactly. It's hard to think of anything else,” he said. Matt looked confused.

“Why not just call it Sparky?” Kitty shrugged. “Unless you think of something heart-stoppingly awesome.”

“Unlikely,” Fred scratched his ear.

“Oh, the problems we have!' Scott cried at the sky.

They were nearing the forest now. It looked quite dark and spooky, even though the sun was shining everywhere else. The trees were tall enough to block out most light, but the wind still penetrated the canopies, with no sun to warm it. A sign was nailed to a tree close by.

“The Forest of Atra,” Charlie read. “Yes, we go through here!” He nodded and went in, confident that he was leading them the right way.

“Aiight,” Matthew stuck his hands in his fancy jacket pockets and followed, and then so did everyone else. Scott took hold of Kitty's arm gently and she went pink - unnoticeable in the darkness that had already washed over them.

After they had been walking for a few minutes - horror of horrors - Kitty stepped in something damp, and the colour drained from her face. How on earth could she have forgotten?

“Um,” she said loudly. The others glanced at her. “I forgot that… I wasn't wearing shoes.” She laughed feebly and they looked dimly at her feet.

“How could you forget?” Scott asked, but his tone was sympathetic. He looked at his own monstrous feet. “I'd offer you mine, but…”

Kitty looked at them too. “I could live in them.”

“There wasn't a shoe shop back there,” Charlie said seriously, coming from the front of the group. “You'll have to wait til we get to the village.”

“How did none of us notice until now?” Kitty moaned. “Ah, well there's nothing I can do about it yet.” She sighed.

“I'll give you mine,” Matthew said. “I like walking barefoot.”

“But your shoes are too big,” Kitty said guiltily.

“Better than nothing,” Matthew shrugged. “I look like an idiot anyway like this.” He motioned to the fancy clothes his mother had so obviously bought for him for the meeting. He went over to a tree stump and sat down, pulled off his shoes, and after deciding to keep his socks on, he stood up.

“Oddish!” something behind him shrieked. He turned around in fear at the angry pokemon standing on the tree stump with crumpled leaves drooping over its eyes.

“Jesus, Matt, you nearly crushed it,” Scott said, trying not to laugh.

“Wow, at least you missed its head,” Kitty gasped. The Oddish danced about and thousands of tiny spores flew out the top of its head. Matthew leapt back and then sneezed. He turned to Scott.

“Defeat it, please,” he said, rubbing his nose. Scott sent out his Cyndaquil obediently, but then scratched his head.

“Not trained enough to know fire attack,” he said thickly.

“Cyndaaa,” it squealed. They all stood around looking at each other for a while.

“… oh, for the love of crap!” Kitty cried. “Go, Rocky!” Her Eevee erupted out of the pokeball. “Tackle the Oddish.” He didn't break his gait, galloping in an arc and slamming into the opponent at an acute angle instinctively, to do the most damage. The Oddish was knocked onto its back. “Back up a bit,” Kitty ordered. Rocky sprang backwards, not taking his eyes off the enemy. It got slowly to its feet and used what looked like Absorb. “Now Tackle again!” Rocky leapt forwards, this time with a blow to the stomach, and the Oddish fell to the floor. “Great work!” Kitty praised, picking him up. Adam discretely sidled up to the Oddish.

“Um, yeah,” Scott said sheepishly. “I could've done that.”

“Yup,” Kitty grinned. “Too slow.” She retrieved a potion from her carrier bag and sprayed Rocky. He licked her on the cheek as a quick thanks, and a celebration of his first victory, then hopped back onto the floor. Matthew handed her his shoes then frowned as she put them on.

“Why'd you buy that stuff when you can just find it on the floor?”

“I just didn't feel like finding out whether or not trainers literally black out when their pokemon can't battle any mo…”

“YES!”

They all turned in confusion to see Adam holding up a pokeball.

“Uh?” Matt demanded.

“I caught my first pokemon!” he cheered. “I caught the first one out of anyone!”

“You didn't defeat it,” Kitty said grumpily. “Doesn't count.”

“I CAUGHT it. That counts.”

“You threw a ball. That requires no skill. You didn't earn it.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Sshhh,” he shook his head and put the pokeball in his pocket. “Losers weepers.”

“If anyone sees any bird pokem…” Elliot began, then wandered off. Kitty tottered after him, sliding about in Matthew's huge shoes. “Look,” he whispered, pointing at a nest on a low branch. “A baby Spearow.”

“How did you see that from all the way over there…?”

Elliot stood on his tiptoes and peered into the nest. It chirped happily at him. He grinned at it for a while.

“Would it be really bad to catch it?” he asked, chewing his lip. “Would it be cheating? I want it to so bad.”

“Well, someone's already cheated,” Kitty said loudly. “So go on.”

Elliot hesitated; feeling incredibly guilty, then slowly brought up a pokeball and dropped it from a millimetre above the baby bird's head. It bopped it, sucked it up, then rolled into the nest to sit among the unhatched eggs. Just as he reached into the nest to retrieve his pokeball, another, comparatively huge Spearow landed on the edge and jabbed at his hand with its beak. Elliot, to Kitty's surprise, took the hit, and grabbed the ball. The obviously enraged the Spearow and it squawked, ruffling its feathers to make itself look bigger.

“It must think you're taking its eggs,” Kitty commented. Elliot pocketed the ball and smiled weakly at the bird.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. The Spearow would have none of it, though, and shrieked piercingly in anger. There was a stillness; an eerie silence, for just one moment, and then hundreds of bird exploded out of the trees and bushes and flew at them all, pecking and swiping and flapping aggressively. Elliot put his arms in front of his face silently and ran as fast as he could in a random direction.

Kitty squeaked and ran to Scott who wrapped one arm around her and lifted his suit jacket to offer minimal protection, and they all ran desperately through the forest.

Kitty was having lethal shoe troubles, and Scott realised this, finally deciding to pick her up and run his with his head bowed down low and her in his arms. She laughed at this, but felt the shoes slip off her feet. She clenched her toes and squeaked, but Scott kept running.

Oops.

“You ok?” he panted down to her.

“Yup!” she tried not to sound as ridiculous and stupid as she felt.

“This was… kinda predictable, wasn't it?” he managed to say.

“It happened in the TV show, didn't it?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, the shoes are long gone, so I think I can run,” she said, and he, gasping in air, put her down again and grabbed her hand instead. She sprinted alongside him.

All of a sudden, the earth disappeared from under her feet. She scrabbled about in the air for a split-second in a cartoon-like way, until she came tumbling down to the ground with a thud.

“Owww…” someone underneath her moaned. She rolled off him and onto her back, panting and squeezing her eyes shut as the cloud of angry Spearow flew noisily overhead and away again.

“What the hell?” she heard Scott nearby.

“We just fell into some kind of huge hole,” Matthew informed him.

“All of us?”

“Yup.”

Kitty opened her eyes and got to her feet to look around. They were indeed trapped inside an enormous hole. She looked straight up and saw the tops of the Atra trees.

“Don't tell me…” Fred muttered to her left. “Don't tell me Team Rocket's in this universe.”

“Man, would that suck…” Adam leant the back of his head on the wall of soil.

“I think I sprained my ankle,” Matthew sighed.

“Hello?” Charlie started to yell. “Hello??”

But there was nobody there.

Nobody at all.

“Crap,” Saxen quietly summed up everyone's thoughts in one word as they scrabbled fruitlessly at the walls of the largest hole in the world.

Well, at least the Spearows were gone.