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Last night Dustin and I got into Goldenrod so late that we eneded up having to sleep in the park. It wasn't so bad really, in fact, when I woke up this morning I was covered in a blanket of pink petals from the tree were were under. I thought it was pretty cool.
"Got anymore secrets?" Dustin suddenly asked.
I jumped, scattering petals into the air, and turned around. "I think that's it... Wait, no... But I won't tell them willingly..." I smiled.
"Fine with me." Dustin smirked, seeming as though he had a few left himself.
"So, what are we doing today?" I asked.
Dustin shrugged.
"Don't you ever do battle at gyms?"
"I already have all the badges I need this time around." He said with a grin.
For the first time I realized that perhaps I wasn't taking my training serously enough. If Dustin already had eight badges, then he must be a million times stronger than me and my pokemon. If he and I were to battle... I didn't want to think about the humiliation.
"I'll be going then." I said.
"Where to? I wanna come." Dustin replied.
My plan, of course, was to go battle Whittney, the gym leader in Goldenrod City. I would be really nervous if Dustin was there watching me.
"To the gym." I said as if it were of no importance to me or him or anyone.
"Cool. Let's go!" Dustin said, picking up his stuff.
I swallowed hard and sighed slightly, picked up my stuff, and together we walked into the busy street. We had to push our way through the thick crowd just to cross the street, then it was only a short walk to the gym. WHen we finally got there, we discovered that the gym was even more crowded than the streets.
Little girls outside were drooling over a diplay case of cleffa, clefairy, and clefable dolls sold by the gym to earn extra revenue. The inside was loaded with people just standing there talking or trading pokemon, or making threats and propositions. Dustin and I walked past them all and opened a big, pink metal door that looked sort of abandoned compared to the rest of the gym. There was only one person inside the arena, a girl in pink clothes with baseball socks on whom I presumed to be Whittney. She was sitting in a plastic beach chair with a clefable in her lap. Whittney didn't even seem to notice Dustin and I had just barged in, she just kept petting and playing with her clefable.
"Excuse me?" I said, but Whittney didn't repsond. "Hello? Are you Whittney, the gym leader?"
At hearing her name, she finally looked up. "Oh sorry." She said, "I was, sort of daydreaming I guess." Then she gasped, "If it isn't my favorite little pokemon trainer!"
Dustin smiled, "It's been ages, huh Whittney? I'm surprised you recognized me, we haven't seen each other since we were kids."
"Gosh, what have you done to your hair? It used to be so blonde! Now it's black and green!" Whittney excalimed. "But seriously, why didn't you come to visit sooner, I thought you were dead or something!"
"That's what everyone thought." Dustin said with a somewhat grim smile.
"Man, this is great! How long are you sticking around Goldenrod?" Whittney said, beaming.
"Not long, unfortunately. After this battle we may have to split."
"That's too bad. Wait a minute, you want to battle me Dusty?" Whittney said hopefully.
"Not today, I would beat you too badly anyway." He joked.
"Would not!" Whittney shot back.
"This lovely lady over here will be your opponent today. SHe'll probably beat you even worse than I would though." Dustin Motioned to me with the flourish of one of those prize girls on TV gameshows.
"Nuh-uh! No way!" Whittney blurted playfully, she and I shook hands, "Nice to meet you, your name is..."
"Azu."
"Then let's begin, three pokemon each!" She said cheerfully.
We stood on our opposite sides of the field and Dustin sat in Whittney's beach chair off to the side. The bell rang and we each chose our pokemon; mine was Claudia, her's was a blissey.
"Rollout!!!" Whittney called to her pokemon.
Claudia flew up ino the air and avoided the rollout attack fortunately, then she divebombed blissey; dealing out a powerful blow to her back. Blissey flipped out of her rollout from the impact and flopped straight on her face.
'No mercy Claudia, psychic attack!' I instructed in pokemon.
Whittney looked at me funny for saying 'Azu, maaaaarill! Azu Azu!', but it didn't matter to me. Pokenese is a very affective way to throw off your opponents and mask what attack you use next.
Claudia's eyes glowed a bright purple and blissey was lifted off the ground. She began to wriggle wildly, but Claudia held on and drew her attack tighter and tighter.
'I, C-can't hold out!' Blissey gasped. 'Help, Whittney!!'
Claudia squeezed Blissey a little more.
Whittney stared in horror as Claudia pressed the psychic even tighter now; Blissey's egg shattered in the pouch.
'Okay, let go Claudia, set her down.' I said.
Blissey slowly drifted to the floor and slumped over, absolutely unconscious.
Whittney looked terrified and returned blissey to her pokeball. Her next pokemon was miltank.
Claudia zoomed at miltank in an extreme dive. Then she was unexpectedly smashed flat against miltank's powerful barrier attack.
'Ugh..' She groaned as she plopped onto the floor.
Miltank let out a booming cry and rolled up into a ball, then she started at Claudia with her crushing rollout attack.
'Claudia!' I yelled urgently.
Claudia lifted her head slowly and managed a weak psychic barrier around herself. Miltank rushed over her at that very moment. As claudia regained her wits, the barrier grew brighter and she flapped into the air.
Miltank, however, had better training than Blissey and rolled and struck Claudia right out of the air.
"Return." I said, recalling Claudia before she hit the ground; I next chose AJ.
Miltank rolled at AJ swiftly, but AJ stood his ground. When miltank was right in front of him, AJ stabbed into the ball with his horn and lifted upward. Miltank unrolled and skidded to a halt, clutching her leg. The horn hadn't broken Miltank's skin, but poked enough to hurt.
Then AJ charged; his horn injected miltank with poison this time. Miltank looked in shock at the wound in her side, then her eyes began to droop slightly. She swayed and began to stagger towards AJ for another attack, but fell over and passed out. Whittney recalled her promptly.
Next, Whittney chose a nidorina. "Fighting fire with fire, you know. Nidorina against nidorino is a good match."
AJ's eyes widened. 'You!' He said. 'He abandoned you too!'
The nidorina stared at him in terror. 'How do you know this?'
'The more I hear about this old trainer of yours, the more I hate him!' I said to AJ. 'Abandoning his pokemon like that!'
'You had the old trainer I had?' Nidorina asked painfully.
"Nidorina! Begin the battle!" Whittney commanded in annoyance.
'We'll talk later!' AJ said, charging at nidorina.
Nidorina backflipped out of the way, and at the same time, shot poison pins from her mouth.
The pins bounced harmlessly off AJ's skin, but one accidentally ripped right through the cartlidge of his ear. He roared with pain and tackled nidorina to the ground.
Nidorina squirmed helplessly as AJ bit her neck savagely.
'AJ, calm it down!' I yelled.
AJ backed off a few paces. Nidorina was only bleeding a little bit, fortunately. If I hadn't stepped in, I'd of hated to see how far it would have gone. I knew AJ was taking his anger of being abandoned out on her, but it wasn't nidorina's fault. He needed to remember that.
Nidorina then charged at AJ, but he dodged it nimbly and poked her in the side with his horn. Nidorina tried to hit him again, but AJ just dodged and poked her in the other side. It looked like a game to me.
Nidorina tried to tackle AJ again, but this time AJ leapt clear over her and kept running until he was on the completely opposite side of the room. He opened his mouth wide and a white light began to build up in the back of his throat. The light grew until it was amazingly bright; nidorina realized what was happening and ran at AJ to stop the hyper beam, but she was too late. Halfway there, AJ blasted her.
Whittney recalled nidorina, her face blank and pale. "Good game." She sqeaked as she handed out the Plain Badge to me.
"Thanks alot!" I said, "Sorry if AJ went a little too hard on nidorina."
"No Problem." She mumbled numbly.
"It was great seeing you again Whittney, I'll visit sometime." Dustin said, just now walking over. "Shall we go then Azu?" He added somewhat urgently.
"Bye Whittney." I said as we walked off.
When were were safely out of reach of anyone hearing us Dustin said, "You know what I saw out the window just now?"
I shook my head.
"The Saffron police chief talking to the Goldenrod Police chief. I think they're looking for us."
"They wouldn't go through that much trouble just for us would they? I mean, the upgrade isn't that big of a deal is it?" I said hopefully.
"But it is a big deal. Silph hasn't turned out anything new in years, they've only been doing research to start other projects and working on the Ultra Upgrade. That was their first completed product. The first without flaws."
"They would have backed up the info someplace, right?" I said.
"I don't know, but probably not if they're going all out like this to find us. We have to get out of town." Dustin said firmly.
I nodded in agreement and followed him outside. "So what's your plan?" I asked quietly.
"I don't have one." He admitted. "We just need a place to lie low until we can figure something out. For that, I'm thinking the top of that building over there." He pointed to a three story appartment complex.
'Azu.' AJ panted as he jogged alongside to keep up, 'What about the Ilex forest? That place is so dense and dark I doubt they'd ever find us.'
'Good thinking.' I replied. 'I'll tell Dustin when we get to the top of the building.' I felt a twinge of guilt that we couldn't stay behind so AJ could talk to the nidorina, but I'm sure he understood why.
We walked briskly into the ally where the fire escape to the roof of the building was and climbed up.
"Got anything yet?" I asked Dustin as I collapsed to the floor.
"I was thinking the whirl Islands, but they're kind of far..." Dustin mused.
"AJ suggested that we go to the Ilex Forest. It sounds like an excellent hiding spot to me."
"Yeah, it does." Dustin said as he opened one of his solid navy blue pokeballs with the initials D.T.B engraved above the button. A majestic pidgeot came from inside and stetched her wings happily.
"Pick, we need a lift to the Ilex Forest. Can you handle it?" Dustin asked his pidgeot.
'Yes sir!' Pick said with a nod, the only part Dustin understood. She knelt down and spread her wings open so we could get on.
Dustin gave me a leg up and got on behind me. I recalled AJ and then we took off. Pick flew slowly, then faster, the so fast the wind stung my skin. I had a deathgrip on her shoulders and my eyes were only tiny slits.
Finally, we began to slow. I could see the dark trees of the forest whizzing by below us. Pick flew us down closer to look for a place to land; I saw something strange up ahead. A person?
"Pick, land!" Dustin said as he saw what I saw.
There was an teenage boy dressed in red, kicking a whining houndoom that was lying on the ground; I gasped in horror. We landed, Dustin leapt off Pick, and went running at the boy. He hurled a punch at the kid's jaw and picked him up by the front of his shirt when he fell over.
"How dare you!" Dustin sneered at the boy. "You're worse than those team rocket morons!"
The kid grinned crazily and didn't say anything. Suddenly, a shiftry smacked Dustin from behind. The shiftry pinned him to the ground.
I hopped off Pick and ran to help him, but the kid stopped me."Don't come closer, unless you want me to crush his spine!"
"Good work." The kid said to shiftry, then to Dustin he said,"I don't appreciate people meddling in my affairs- this was really none of your business. We could have avoided this confrontation if you kept to yourself and didn't bug me! And punching me like that! Let's see what you might deserve... Shiftry could break your arms for me..."
Pick smashed into shiftry suddenly, knocking him off of Dustin. The kid threw out two pokeballs and two raichus came from inside. They both used their thunder attacks on Pick at the same time and she crashed into the bushes a few feet away. Then they both held Dustin with their numbing thunderwave attacks. I could see the shiftry was up and going for revenge on Pick.
"No!" I cried, throwing out AJ's pokeball. 'Help Pick!'
AJ fired his hyper beam and knocked shiftry out cold. But then AJ's knees collapsed and his eyes widened.
'AJ... What's wrong?' I asked in pokemon.
AJ didn't respond, he seemed to have trouble breathing and he kept staring, wide eyed, in the direction of the boy. 'Him.' He breathed.
The boy was his old trainer! I my felt anger rising. "You!" I yelled. "You poor excuse for a human being!" I was stomping off toward him without knowing it. The two raichu shocked me and the boy laughed.
"So you're a goody goody too? Listen, no one butts in and tries to tell me how to train my pokemon. So this is all you guys' fault really. AAAAAHH!!!" The boy suddenly shrieked. AJ had stabbed him in the leg with his horn.
'Remember me?' He growled.
The raichu started toward him, but he used a sand attack, giving me time to throw another pokeball; Benny came out.
Benny and AJ attacked the raichu together, causing them to faint. Meanwhile, Dustin was fighting the thunderwave paralysis. He had managed to barely crawl a few steps on his hands and knees, but with great difficulty.
I sent out Barbie, Pegasus, and Claudia all at once to wrap this battle up. My pokemon and I surrounded the boy, AJ leading us.
"You don't deserve to roam the earth." I said. "Think of all the pokemon you've hurt, maybe even killed, or abandoned!"
'Especially think of the ones who might come back to get you!' AJ roared, steeping closer to the boy.
"Don't recognize him do you?" I said to the boy.
The boy's eyes widened. "D-don't hurt me Neil!" He pleaded with AJ, "We used to be pals!"
"Used to be!" I snapped. "Until you abandoned him. We ran into an old nidorina of yours too, you know?"
We drew our circle tighter around him. "You're a real slime." I spat.
'Amen to that.' AJ snarled as he took another step closer to the kid; his horn was dripping venom in anger.
"C-come on Neil! You know you don't want to hurt me! Come on! Neil?"
"My name is AJ!" He snarled, lunging forward, but some vines suddenly snapped out and held him back.
I turned around. Dustin was kneeling behind us with his bayleef, Lucy, holding AJ. "I... have better... idea." He managed to say as he struggled to open a pokeball.
An electrode came out and Dustin blurted, "Thunderwave...the boy."
AJ's old trainer was instantaneously paralyzed by the attack. "Free. His. Pokemon." Dustin coughed.
I dug through the boy's bag until I found his pokedex, then I pressed a few buttons, searching for the storage system release option. Then I freed all his pokemon just like that.
"Now. Your xatu! Take him...Police station."
The boy began to mumble loudly in protest.'Go on Claudia, you heard him! The police station.' I said. Claudia picked up the paralyzed kid and flew off toward Azalea Town.
Dustin suddenly collapsed from exhaustion, I saw Pick struggle to lift herself up so she could try and help him.
I pulled a super potion from my bag and sprayed it on Pick. The potion helped, but didn't cure her paralysis. I didn't know if it would work or not, but I sprayed some on Dustin next. His electricity burns mended themselves almost magically, but he didn't wake up; I let him sleep. I figured I'd use some on myself since it worked on him, so I sprayed a tiny bit on a large a scrape I got when I was getting off Pick. All it did was sting a little; maybe it only worked on human boys and not girls for some reason?
A bright yellow pain signal flashed through my thoughts suddenly, then I heard a high pitched whine; it was the houndoom the boy had beat up. All my pokemon were circled around it in concern. I ran to the injured pokemon and sprayed all the rest of the superpotion on him; his cuts and bruises began to heal before my very eyes.
'You okay?' I asked the houndoom.
'Yeah, thanks. I-' Then he looked up and realized with a shock that a human was speaking to him in pokemon. 'I, appreciate your help.'He said, obviously trying to be polite and not bombard me with questions.
'No problem. We had a score to settle with that dirty rat anyway.' AJ said bitterly.
The houndoom scanned around the circle of pokemon around him. 'I'm indebted to you guys. Just do me the favor of treating me as well as you treat the others and I'm yours!' He said to me.
'Do you have a name?' I aksed.
'Lot's of them. Stupid, Idiot, Moron, stinky... I don't really like those too much, so call me the one my mom used to call me, Junior. That one was nice..." He rememberd longingly.
'Okay then Junior...' I said, capturing him. 'We'd better get going.' I said to the others, recalling them.
Pick's paralysis was finally starting to wear off and she walked over to Dustin's sleeping body awkwardly. She peered at him worriedly; I didn't say anything.
'Put him on, let's go.' Pick said, using great effort to spread her wings and kneel down.
'But you're hurt, are you sure we could make it?' I asked.
Pick stared in surprise. 'You understand me, you speak the language!'
'Never mind that, the sound from the battle might've drawn someone's attention. We need to leave, are you sure you feel well enough to make it deeper into this forest?"
Pick nodded and knelt down once more. I hoisted Dustin up with all my might and shoved him on Pick's back the best I could. Then I struggled up behind him and held on tight. Pick stretched her wings out and flexed them a couple of times to make sure they were working properly, then we took off.
As we flew along, rather slowly compared to when Pick was up to full strength, I wondered if I would have to be running like this for the rest of my life...
NEXT
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