Theoretically, if Arbok venom was a neurotoxin, it would cause paralysis, right? I figure it'd be more hemotoxic, but Arbok's a cobra sorta, so I went with the Neurotoxin xD;
“Hun?” The male glanced dimly over his shoulder, blinking in surprise and rushing to the van at the sight of the purple mass writhing on the ground. “Hah! What’ve we got here? Good boy, Arbok!” the Rocket operative sneered at the sight of the entangled interloper being crushed in the snake’s grip.
Molly struggled to breathe against the pokemon’s crushing grasp, breath coming in short, panicked gasps as the Arbok wound itself tighter in response. “You never give Arbok enough credit,” Ed chastised in the other’s direction. “Alright, so he can’t put anything to sleep, but you tell him to guard the van, he sure guards the van.”
Kelly pushed herself languidly to her feet with a heavy sigh, picking her way through the long grass towards a stirring Kangaskhan Molly recognized instantly as M-12. “Last one, then we get out of here,” she called back, lifting the baby from the pouch with an enraged shriek as it fell with a thump to the ground.
“N-no!” Molly squealed, leaving her mouth as a kind of choking whimper. The arbok flared it’s hood and hissed at her.
“Ugh, damnit Ed, these little things weigh a ton. What are you standing around for? Give me a hand.”
M-12 groaned in her sleep at the sound of it’s baby’s distressed cries, and though the two Team Rocket members flinched, and cowered for a moment, she did not wake and they resumed the dragging distance to the van.
“What do we do about the nerd?” The man asked between panted breaths, glancing in her direction as a sickly cracking sound accompanied the Arbok’s constrictions.
“Get rid of her,” the woman suggested with a shrug as they dumped the mewling baby into the trunk. “‘S your Arbok. You do it.”
“Fine, fine,” he sighed, and wearily gave the order. Struggling against the crushing coils and her cracked rib, Molly tried to squirm her way free, but the Arbok hissed, reared it’s head, and struck, burying long, curved fangs into the flesh of her shoulder.
***
It was with a spring in his step that Liam made his way towards the check in kiosk, humming contentedly under his breath as he clutched the package of prefect pink poffins securely in his arms.
“E-excuse me...?” Liam called as he pushed open the cabin door, and made his way into the office only to be glared at immediately by a much older man behind the front desk.
“Park’s closed, son,” he intoned almost- no, very– menacingly, hand trailing to what Li realized with a squeak appeared to be a firearm. “Go home.”
“Easy,” Li muttered, backing away against the wall. “I don’t mean any trouble, honest. I just wanna deliver this to Miss Cedar. Well... her Doduo, at least.” The man eyed him warily, but said nothing, and so Liam crept forward, and set the poffins down on the desk, sliding them timidly towards the Warden.
“You a.... friend of hers, kid?”
Liam nodded emphatically. “You could say that sir.”
“Cedar’s not here right now.”
“What?”
The warden, eyes still narrowed, scratched at the back of his grey haired head, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Left this morning, never came back. There are always lab-types here, they’re a funny bunch. She probably just found some parasects to stare at, I don’t know.”
Li furrowed his brow, and nodded, slowly backing away from the armed warden, who’d thrown open the box of poffins and was prodding at them suspiciously. “T-thank you, sir.”
The cold night’s air was a shock after being inside the heated cabin, and he shivered despite himself. What if Miss Cedar was out cleaning up his mess at the campsite? He thought he’d done well enough tidying, but she had certainly seemed preoccupied with the park’s well being... He gazed guiltily at the expanse of sleeping grassland, and made a face. The grimace, however, turned into stunned silence as something began to move in the distance, a growing ball of something whizzing towards him and against his better judgement, the trainer ran to meet it.
As he’d hoped, it was indeed the redhead’s Doduo sprinting towards him, but as he drew nearer, Li could see that something was very wrong. It’s feathers were fluffed in distress, and he was alone, screeching to a stereo-honking halt before the vaguely familiar human face. “Woah, woah, easy, big fella... Where’s Mary?” The pokemon screeched emphatically at him from both long throats, nipping and insistently at his clothing with both beaks. Liam’s stomach churned uneasily. “Something’s wrong, ain’t it?” The doduo crouched, and nipped at his feet until the man got the hint, and clambered hesitantly onto his back, grasping desperately at the thick brown plumage as it took off at top speed, leaping and flapping to glide short distances rather than fly. Li was a bit too big for the bird, but it’s powerful legs carried them swiftly none the less as he held on for dear life.
Something like a strangled scream met his ears, and he risked opening his eyes only as the Doduo began to grind to halt, bursting through a path of trees and shrubs. Li clattered to the ground, rolling a few paces after an ungraceful fall that knocked the wind from his lungs and left him coughing and gasping for breath. The doduo shrieked, and cleared him in one powerful jump, lashing out at something with it’s taloned feet and beaks.
“Miss Cedar!” The man pushed himself to his feet, and took in the scene before him in a terrible instant. The doduo had successfully pried off or distracted the Arbok that had been ensnaring Mary, but the patch of blood seeping through her lab coat warned him that she was not out of danger yet. “Miss Cedar,” He repeated breathlessly as he knelt beside her trembling form, eyeing her injured shoulder anxiously. “Don’t move!” he stammered when she attempted to sit up. “At least, I don’t think you should....” He narrowed his eyes at the poachers, drawing the appropriate pokeballs from his belt, and letting them fly. With hastily barked orders and their own intuition, the onix curled itself protectively around the van while the machoke set to hurling rocks at the venonat.
“L...Liam? Is that you?” She squinted at him, trying to force the swimming patch of blurred colours before her eyes into some recognizable form.
“Yes!” he said, with less than absolute certainty. “I’m going to get you help, Miss Cedar, don’t you worry...”
“The kangaskhan...”
She could make out the motion as he nodded emphatically. “What do I need to do to help you, miss?”
“Arbok venom is a neurotoxin...” she mumbled, head lolling to the side, leaving Li confounded. He wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but it didn’t sound good and he would be sure to tell the hospital once he got her there. She continued to murmur under her breath, and he caught something that sounded like his name and worry, but her speech was growing clumsy, and he had no intention of running away. “You’re not going to get away with this,” he snarled at the other two humans, who exchanged a glance and laughed.
“Yeah,” the woman said, “like we’ve never heard that one before.” She snickered as the Doduo was sent scuttling away from the hissing snake frantically; however, the machoke quickly stepped in, grappling with and effectively pinning the wriggling serpent. The onix filled in for it’s preoccupied teammate, a flick of it’s massive tail knocking the moth from the air. Both pokemon retreated hastily to the safety of their pokeballs, leaving both criminals wide eyed and uneasy.
“As for you two...” Liam pushed himself to his feet, and turned his body sideways in a well practiced motion. “I’ve never been the type of coward who’d sick him pokemon on a human who can’t fight back,” he grit his teeth, and swung his body into a solid fighting stance, meeting Ed’s eyes unwaveringly. “So I’m just gonna have to deal with you myself. Leave now.”
“H-he...He’s kidding, right?” Ed set to chuckling nervously, glancing back at his partner, and then without warning, he was blinking at the starry sky overhead, the wind knocked forcefully from his lungs as he hit the ground. “Oww...” he groaned, thrashing against the solid hold pinning him to the ground, before sighing and planting his face in the dirt in defeat. “Kelly, do something!” came the muffled cry.
“Uh....” The tiny woman grit her teeth, and ran at Liam, lashing out at his face with the heel of her shoe, which he caught easily in a large, strong hand. Kelly hopped backwards pulling her foot from the boot, and growling at him. “Just get out of our way, dunderhead! Those Kangaskhan are ours, we stole them fair and square.” She teetered uneasily on the one remaining heel, and ripped that boot off to match, hurling it at the blackbelt’s head.
Li ducked the incoming footwear, rolling away from the pinned poacher, and the makeshift projectile whizzed over his head, striking a Kangaskhan squarely between the eyes. Dead silence fell immediately as all eyes turned slowly, and horror stricken, towards the pokemon, who stirred. A roar shook the clearing, as the angry pokemon’s eyes flew open in earnest.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
I drew a Li, and a Leik XD
Liam, (he looks way to young in the second one xD; just a doodle to test his shirt~)
and Leik xD Tom's significant other/happy-go-lucky destroyer of worlds.
I try really, really hard to make them look different xD;
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Molly and Li 5
She broke off, skipping ahead a few steps increasing her pace and proceeding in silence towards the Fuchsia city limits. Li would smile, and open his mouth to speak, but always thought better of it until the chainlink fence at the very edge of the park came into view.
“It sure is great to see you, ma’am,” he offered in a low voice that barely carried across the length of chilled air between them. “I mean, a fella gets awful lonely wand’rin’ around all by him self, and–” he buried his face in his large, battered hands, and shook his head frantically at the sight of her expression. “That... that didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean anythin’ less than proper, miss Cedar, honest. It’s mighty nice to have somebody to talk to, and it’s awful kind of you to show me the way out of there. I’m gonna make it up to you, promise–”
“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s no trouble, really. I had to head back anyway, and I’m staying just over there.” She gestured to a light in the distance, mounted on the porch of the run-down building attached to the check-in kiosk where visitors had to register. “There,” she said, as they came to a stop beside the entrance to the park, chilled fingers tangling into the chainlink fence as she pointed out a particular building in the city sprawling out before them. “That’s the most affordable hotel I can think of. Lots of passing trainers stay there, you should definitely be able to find a place for the night. Pokemon center’s right over there.” She pushed herself away from the fence started abruptly for the check in station, though, something compelled her to walk far more slowly than usual– the cold, or exhaustion from a day of crouching and walking, she couldn’t be sure– and strolled lazily back towards her room, with the occasional, inexplicable glance over her shoulder. She paused, and half-turned.
Liam hadn’t moved, and stood, rooted to the spot before the park exit, shuffling his weight anxiously from one bare foot to the other. “I...uh...” he began, with the faltering grin she was beginning to grow very familiar with. “Thanks, Miss Cedar!” he called, before taking a false start towards the city, and halted, blinking at her.
She resisted the smile threatening to spread across her face and forced herself to start off again at a quicker pace. “No problem.”
She sighed, shaking her head as she trudged up the gently sloping hill towards the cabin, clutching her lab coat tightly closed around her, the air still and silent save the far off groan of bellowing Tauros; however, just as she neared the circle of light the cabin’s lamps threw over the grass, another sound caught her ears. It was an out of place, mechanical sound, and, she realized, with a raised red eyebrow, that it was most reminiscent of a slamming car door, somewhere in the distance.
Molly furrowed her brows, and drew the single pokeball from her belt. “Come on,” she said, a well practiced hop planting her solidly on the Doduo’s back. “Let’s check it out.”
***
Fuchsia city was, thankfully, smaller than Vermilion had been, and the ex...well, hiatus-ed black belt felt more at ease, oblivious to the odd looks he received as he passed people in the street, dusty, barefoot, and shivering as he made his way towards the hotel.
He dragged his feet, lingering as the building approached. It was late, and the few stars bright enough to overpower the city lights were shining overhead, but he had no desire to sleep. The air was icy, biting and nipping at his damp, exposed skin, but he had no desire to be indoors, and so he took unnecessary turns, and veered off towards shop windows and vendor’s carts as he dallied, accidentally-on-purpose prolonging the short journey to the hotel.
His thoughts trailed back to the park, and he found himself smiling wistfully at the thought of the previous hour’s events, though something about the encounter did not quite sit right with the young man, something in his chest constricting uneasily. He had ruined her research, he concluded with a heavy sigh, as guilt constricted his stomach. He didn’t know anything about Kangaskhan, or studies in general, and couldn’t dream of ever helping her reestablish her proximity to the herd. It felt wrong, though, leaving things the way they were, and he shook his head as he turned trinkets from booths lining the streets over in his hand, in search of anything the wronged scientist might like. It was stupid– he didn’t know the first thing about the young woman, let alone her tastes, and so he broke off the search with a groan and a grimace.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. Something akin to hope flickered inside his chest as a sign across the street caught his eye, and a smile split his face as he skipped towards the sign, emblazoned with large garish letters advertising the newly opened building behind. He did know something about her, and his heart leapt as he pushed the still-open poffin house’s door open, and stepped inside. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
In a moment, he found himself dumping a handful of pecha berries into a pot of batter, stirring haphazardly. He wasn’t sure if Doduo liked sweets, but these were the nicest of the berries rattling around in the outside pocket of his duffel bag.
***
The breeze carried over a scent all too familiar to the Celadon-raised girl, and she recognized the acrid, organic smell of biological sedative dispersed in the air as Doduo pattered to a halt at the edge of the tree line, all too close to a all too familiar clearing.
The sound had indeed been the slamming of a vehicle– a dark van–door, and the offending machinery was parked in the middle of the flat expanse of land, amidst the hulking, dark shapes she knew would easily tear it to shreds under normal circumstances. A venonat hovered over the clearing, and while a common sight in the Safari zone, this one was both far from it’s normal habitat and hovering unnaturally in one place, above the sedated Kangaskhan. Molly crouched low in the underbrush, gasping when she caught sight of two shapes, moving between the pokemon and van, dragging something behind them. Her heart caught in her throat as she caught a glimpse of the cargo: slumbering joey-kangaskhan.
“Poachers,” Molly hissed under her breath, turning her attention to the doduo hiding beside her. “Go back and get the warden,” she instructed, frowning as the birds honked in protest. “You run faster than I can.”
One of the uniformed poachers leapt to her feet and spun on her heel at the rustling, but sighed, and returned to her seat atop a rock set into the grassland. “Nevermind. ‘S just a Doduo. False alarm, Ed, carry on.” Her male counterpart groaned as he lifted the baby from it’s mothers pouch. “Lift with your legs, come on.”
“You know, Kelly,” the gaunt blond man grunted, “These things are really, really heavy. If you could... you know... maybe actually help me out, here?”
The petite woman frowned, crossing her arms across her chest and sniffing indignantly. “Oh come on. I’m supervising.” He glared and opened his mouth to protest, but his short haired partner shushed him with a wag of a condescending finger. “It’s my venonat. I supply the sleepy, you handle the heavy lifting. You’ve got to do your share too.”
Ed rolled his eyes, but said nothing as he dragged what she recognized as M-13 towards the van’s gaping trunk. Molly bit her lip, tracing the tree-line as it curved along the clearing. There was no sight of a ranger anywhere in the distance, and though she continued to watch anxiously, it became very clear that Doduo would take a while to return. Slowly, carefully, holding her breath for fear of drawing their attention, the researcher crept closer, on her hands and knees.
They’d begun to bicker between themselves, and the shrill complaints grew clearer as she drew closer, and closer to the van. The driver’s side door was wide open and facing her across several open metes of grass, and she moved as quietly as she could, in silence towards the keys hanging in the ignition.
It was just as her fingers closed around the dangling bits of metal that she heard the hissing, and a bolt of purple coiled in the backseat launched itself towards her.
“It sure is great to see you, ma’am,” he offered in a low voice that barely carried across the length of chilled air between them. “I mean, a fella gets awful lonely wand’rin’ around all by him self, and–” he buried his face in his large, battered hands, and shook his head frantically at the sight of her expression. “That... that didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean anythin’ less than proper, miss Cedar, honest. It’s mighty nice to have somebody to talk to, and it’s awful kind of you to show me the way out of there. I’m gonna make it up to you, promise–”
“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s no trouble, really. I had to head back anyway, and I’m staying just over there.” She gestured to a light in the distance, mounted on the porch of the run-down building attached to the check-in kiosk where visitors had to register. “There,” she said, as they came to a stop beside the entrance to the park, chilled fingers tangling into the chainlink fence as she pointed out a particular building in the city sprawling out before them. “That’s the most affordable hotel I can think of. Lots of passing trainers stay there, you should definitely be able to find a place for the night. Pokemon center’s right over there.” She pushed herself away from the fence started abruptly for the check in station, though, something compelled her to walk far more slowly than usual– the cold, or exhaustion from a day of crouching and walking, she couldn’t be sure– and strolled lazily back towards her room, with the occasional, inexplicable glance over her shoulder. She paused, and half-turned.
Liam hadn’t moved, and stood, rooted to the spot before the park exit, shuffling his weight anxiously from one bare foot to the other. “I...uh...” he began, with the faltering grin she was beginning to grow very familiar with. “Thanks, Miss Cedar!” he called, before taking a false start towards the city, and halted, blinking at her.
She resisted the smile threatening to spread across her face and forced herself to start off again at a quicker pace. “No problem.”
She sighed, shaking her head as she trudged up the gently sloping hill towards the cabin, clutching her lab coat tightly closed around her, the air still and silent save the far off groan of bellowing Tauros; however, just as she neared the circle of light the cabin’s lamps threw over the grass, another sound caught her ears. It was an out of place, mechanical sound, and, she realized, with a raised red eyebrow, that it was most reminiscent of a slamming car door, somewhere in the distance.
Molly furrowed her brows, and drew the single pokeball from her belt. “Come on,” she said, a well practiced hop planting her solidly on the Doduo’s back. “Let’s check it out.”
***
Fuchsia city was, thankfully, smaller than Vermilion had been, and the ex...well, hiatus-ed black belt felt more at ease, oblivious to the odd looks he received as he passed people in the street, dusty, barefoot, and shivering as he made his way towards the hotel.
He dragged his feet, lingering as the building approached. It was late, and the few stars bright enough to overpower the city lights were shining overhead, but he had no desire to sleep. The air was icy, biting and nipping at his damp, exposed skin, but he had no desire to be indoors, and so he took unnecessary turns, and veered off towards shop windows and vendor’s carts as he dallied, accidentally-on-purpose prolonging the short journey to the hotel.
His thoughts trailed back to the park, and he found himself smiling wistfully at the thought of the previous hour’s events, though something about the encounter did not quite sit right with the young man, something in his chest constricting uneasily. He had ruined her research, he concluded with a heavy sigh, as guilt constricted his stomach. He didn’t know anything about Kangaskhan, or studies in general, and couldn’t dream of ever helping her reestablish her proximity to the herd. It felt wrong, though, leaving things the way they were, and he shook his head as he turned trinkets from booths lining the streets over in his hand, in search of anything the wronged scientist might like. It was stupid– he didn’t know the first thing about the young woman, let alone her tastes, and so he broke off the search with a groan and a grimace.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. Something akin to hope flickered inside his chest as a sign across the street caught his eye, and a smile split his face as he skipped towards the sign, emblazoned with large garish letters advertising the newly opened building behind. He did know something about her, and his heart leapt as he pushed the still-open poffin house’s door open, and stepped inside. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
In a moment, he found himself dumping a handful of pecha berries into a pot of batter, stirring haphazardly. He wasn’t sure if Doduo liked sweets, but these were the nicest of the berries rattling around in the outside pocket of his duffel bag.
***
The breeze carried over a scent all too familiar to the Celadon-raised girl, and she recognized the acrid, organic smell of biological sedative dispersed in the air as Doduo pattered to a halt at the edge of the tree line, all too close to a all too familiar clearing.
The sound had indeed been the slamming of a vehicle– a dark van–door, and the offending machinery was parked in the middle of the flat expanse of land, amidst the hulking, dark shapes she knew would easily tear it to shreds under normal circumstances. A venonat hovered over the clearing, and while a common sight in the Safari zone, this one was both far from it’s normal habitat and hovering unnaturally in one place, above the sedated Kangaskhan. Molly crouched low in the underbrush, gasping when she caught sight of two shapes, moving between the pokemon and van, dragging something behind them. Her heart caught in her throat as she caught a glimpse of the cargo: slumbering joey-kangaskhan.
“Poachers,” Molly hissed under her breath, turning her attention to the doduo hiding beside her. “Go back and get the warden,” she instructed, frowning as the birds honked in protest. “You run faster than I can.”
One of the uniformed poachers leapt to her feet and spun on her heel at the rustling, but sighed, and returned to her seat atop a rock set into the grassland. “Nevermind. ‘S just a Doduo. False alarm, Ed, carry on.” Her male counterpart groaned as he lifted the baby from it’s mothers pouch. “Lift with your legs, come on.”
“You know, Kelly,” the gaunt blond man grunted, “These things are really, really heavy. If you could... you know... maybe actually help me out, here?”
The petite woman frowned, crossing her arms across her chest and sniffing indignantly. “Oh come on. I’m supervising.” He glared and opened his mouth to protest, but his short haired partner shushed him with a wag of a condescending finger. “It’s my venonat. I supply the sleepy, you handle the heavy lifting. You’ve got to do your share too.”
Ed rolled his eyes, but said nothing as he dragged what she recognized as M-13 towards the van’s gaping trunk. Molly bit her lip, tracing the tree-line as it curved along the clearing. There was no sight of a ranger anywhere in the distance, and though she continued to watch anxiously, it became very clear that Doduo would take a while to return. Slowly, carefully, holding her breath for fear of drawing their attention, the researcher crept closer, on her hands and knees.
They’d begun to bicker between themselves, and the shrill complaints grew clearer as she drew closer, and closer to the van. The driver’s side door was wide open and facing her across several open metes of grass, and she moved as quietly as she could, in silence towards the keys hanging in the ignition.
It was just as her fingers closed around the dangling bits of metal that she heard the hissing, and a bolt of purple coiled in the backseat launched itself towards her.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Molly and Li 4
Little bit more~
Long pale fingers wound into copper hair, as the researcher adjusted one of her pigtails, chewing on her lip anxiously. “I’ve...never actually met Professor Oak...” She’d only made things worse, and undid the unevenly tied shock of red hair, and combed through it quickly with chilled fingers, elastic clenched between her teeth. “I mean, he lectured at Celadon University all the time, but...”
She sighed, pulling her hair back into a pigtail. Without the sun, the air had a distinct chill, and Molly could feel it biting at her nose and fingers. She drew them securely inside the sleeves of her lab coat, glancing, with a pang of concern, at the bare, scratched feet poking out from beneath the dusty hem of his white uniform pants. She sighed, pulling her arms tighter around herself to fight off the cold, the exhaled breath a visible puff of air that dissipated into the night sky. “Why did you leave Cianwood?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged, teeth chattering audibly, though he did nothing to warm his bare arms or feet. “just couldn’t take it anymore, you know? Trainin’ at the gym, you take on all sorts, from all over, who wanna face the leader. An’ I get to thinkin’ ‘bout where they’ve been and what they’ve seen... there’s a great big world out there, and I’ve never been off the island.” He scratched at the back of his head, wet hair drying into unruly raven spikes. “So, I decided to take a little break, and do a bit of explorin’. Besides...” The knuckles of the large hand he brought unconsciously to the coarse stainless steel chain around his neck were bruised and scarred. “I wanted to go back to Vermillion after training a bit, to take on Lieutenant Surge– or d’you think they’d just let me talk to the fella? Probably, right? I just want a word...” He toyed mindlessly with the thing, and it fell from the collar of his shirt with the dim clatter of metal on metal. It was a set of dog tags, far too old to be his own. He stuffed them hastily back into the safety of his shirt, hands shaking in the wintry air, but she’d been able to catch a glimpse of the name worn into the metal: Daniel Cole. Her curiosity was stirred, tugging intently at her lips, but she thought better of it, and said nothing. “But research– you must go all over, Miss Cedar. Sound’s lovely.”
“Not really,” she confessed, ducking her head. “I grew up in Celadon city. I’ve been between there and Vermillion, and went to Pallet town once. That’s about it. I didn’t even have to leave Celadon for that field research– Grimer everywhere.”
Long pale fingers wound into copper hair, as the researcher adjusted one of her pigtails, chewing on her lip anxiously. “I’ve...never actually met Professor Oak...” She’d only made things worse, and undid the unevenly tied shock of red hair, and combed through it quickly with chilled fingers, elastic clenched between her teeth. “I mean, he lectured at Celadon University all the time, but...”
She sighed, pulling her hair back into a pigtail. Without the sun, the air had a distinct chill, and Molly could feel it biting at her nose and fingers. She drew them securely inside the sleeves of her lab coat, glancing, with a pang of concern, at the bare, scratched feet poking out from beneath the dusty hem of his white uniform pants. She sighed, pulling her arms tighter around herself to fight off the cold, the exhaled breath a visible puff of air that dissipated into the night sky. “Why did you leave Cianwood?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged, teeth chattering audibly, though he did nothing to warm his bare arms or feet. “just couldn’t take it anymore, you know? Trainin’ at the gym, you take on all sorts, from all over, who wanna face the leader. An’ I get to thinkin’ ‘bout where they’ve been and what they’ve seen... there’s a great big world out there, and I’ve never been off the island.” He scratched at the back of his head, wet hair drying into unruly raven spikes. “So, I decided to take a little break, and do a bit of explorin’. Besides...” The knuckles of the large hand he brought unconsciously to the coarse stainless steel chain around his neck were bruised and scarred. “I wanted to go back to Vermillion after training a bit, to take on Lieutenant Surge– or d’you think they’d just let me talk to the fella? Probably, right? I just want a word...” He toyed mindlessly with the thing, and it fell from the collar of his shirt with the dim clatter of metal on metal. It was a set of dog tags, far too old to be his own. He stuffed them hastily back into the safety of his shirt, hands shaking in the wintry air, but she’d been able to catch a glimpse of the name worn into the metal: Daniel Cole. Her curiosity was stirred, tugging intently at her lips, but she thought better of it, and said nothing. “But research– you must go all over, Miss Cedar. Sound’s lovely.”
“Not really,” she confessed, ducking her head. “I grew up in Celadon city. I’ve been between there and Vermillion, and went to Pallet town once. That’s about it. I didn’t even have to leave Celadon for that field research– Grimer everywhere.”
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Molly and Li, 3
“It’s real nice to meet you, Miss Cedar,” Li said between swallowed mouthfuls of egg and cheese. “I feel right awful about your study, though. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“You didn’t mean it,” she replied, shaking her head. “It was me who panicked. Geeze, my first big assignment, and I mess it all up...” She smiled weakly. “I spent my last undergraduate year shadowing a field researcher studying a colony of Grimer and Muk. Maybe I’ll get used to the smell more quickly this time...”
“You’ll win ‘em back, Miss,” Li protested. “If there’s anythin’ at all I can do to help...”
“No, no,” the researcher repeated firmly. “You’re going to clean this up, and get out of the park before the warden or any of the rangers catch you.”
“Oh,” he ducked his head, gulping down the last bit of his makeshift meal. “If you say so ma’am. Uh... D’you know which way it is?” His meek expression brightened when she offered to show him to the edge of the park, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
Night had fallen over the park, and the only light cast over the clearing was from the campfire between them, casting fluid shadows through the trees and rocks that withered and died with an angry hiss as Li drowned the flames with a pot full of pond water and stirred the soupy ashes with the charred branch. He became little more than a sturdy shadow in the darkness, as he gathered his things and reached for the pokeballs attached to the second belt worn beneath the thicker black cloth tied blatantly around his hips.
“Right y’all,” he called to the domesticated Pokemon, who responded and made their way back towards him. “Everybody in. We don’t wanna overstay our welcome.” The mankey screeched in protest, but he, like the others, retired to the capsule as he’d asked, and the two made their way, the man following the woman’s lead, through the trees and back towards the plain. A dull glow over the horizon indicated Fuchsia city’s lights, and she strode quietly towards them.
“It’s quite a ways, but we should walk,” she informed him. “Doduo doesn’t like strange people on his back.”
‘’Course not,” he replied with a chuckle. “I sure wouldn’t.” Liam cocked his head to the side, eyes trailing over the level expanse of grassland, towards the hulking shape of sleeping Kangaskhan silhouetted in the distance. “So, d’ya just watch them, Miss Cedar? Must get mighty lonely all by your self out there all day.”
She shook her head, sleek red pigtails swinging with the motion. “Not really. I love it,” she confessed, as a tiny smile began to stretch across her lips. “I get really caught up watching them... You sort of forget about time. It’s a kind of, trance, I guess you could call it.”
“Oh!” Liam grinned, snapping his fingers as a thought struck him.“So, it’s kinda like meditating, hun?” Molly raised an eyebrow. “You know, where you just sit an’ clear your mind right out. ‘S real good for your head. Mister Chuck’s a real believer in it.”
“Chuck?”
Li nodded emphatically. “The leader of the Cianwood gym. I was one of his students– real great guy, taught me everything I know about pokemon.” He chuckled blithely, but caught himself, and the laughter became more sheepish. “Guess you could say he’s my Professor Oak.”
“You didn’t mean it,” she replied, shaking her head. “It was me who panicked. Geeze, my first big assignment, and I mess it all up...” She smiled weakly. “I spent my last undergraduate year shadowing a field researcher studying a colony of Grimer and Muk. Maybe I’ll get used to the smell more quickly this time...”
“You’ll win ‘em back, Miss,” Li protested. “If there’s anythin’ at all I can do to help...”
“No, no,” the researcher repeated firmly. “You’re going to clean this up, and get out of the park before the warden or any of the rangers catch you.”
“Oh,” he ducked his head, gulping down the last bit of his makeshift meal. “If you say so ma’am. Uh... D’you know which way it is?” His meek expression brightened when she offered to show him to the edge of the park, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
Night had fallen over the park, and the only light cast over the clearing was from the campfire between them, casting fluid shadows through the trees and rocks that withered and died with an angry hiss as Li drowned the flames with a pot full of pond water and stirred the soupy ashes with the charred branch. He became little more than a sturdy shadow in the darkness, as he gathered his things and reached for the pokeballs attached to the second belt worn beneath the thicker black cloth tied blatantly around his hips.
“Right y’all,” he called to the domesticated Pokemon, who responded and made their way back towards him. “Everybody in. We don’t wanna overstay our welcome.” The mankey screeched in protest, but he, like the others, retired to the capsule as he’d asked, and the two made their way, the man following the woman’s lead, through the trees and back towards the plain. A dull glow over the horizon indicated Fuchsia city’s lights, and she strode quietly towards them.
“It’s quite a ways, but we should walk,” she informed him. “Doduo doesn’t like strange people on his back.”
‘’Course not,” he replied with a chuckle. “I sure wouldn’t.” Liam cocked his head to the side, eyes trailing over the level expanse of grassland, towards the hulking shape of sleeping Kangaskhan silhouetted in the distance. “So, d’ya just watch them, Miss Cedar? Must get mighty lonely all by your self out there all day.”
She shook her head, sleek red pigtails swinging with the motion. “Not really. I love it,” she confessed, as a tiny smile began to stretch across her lips. “I get really caught up watching them... You sort of forget about time. It’s a kind of, trance, I guess you could call it.”
“Oh!” Liam grinned, snapping his fingers as a thought struck him.“So, it’s kinda like meditating, hun?” Molly raised an eyebrow. “You know, where you just sit an’ clear your mind right out. ‘S real good for your head. Mister Chuck’s a real believer in it.”
“Chuck?”
Li nodded emphatically. “The leader of the Cianwood gym. I was one of his students– real great guy, taught me everything I know about pokemon.” He chuckled blithely, but caught himself, and the laughter became more sheepish. “Guess you could say he’s my Professor Oak.”
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Molly and Liam part 2
Little bit more done~ xDD I need nicknames for his Onix (a girl) and the Mankey (a boy) xD the Machoke is 'tiny'.
Despite herself, she let out a airy chuckle. “It’s the babies they’re worried about.”
“So, miss,” he began, voice muffled as he pulled the shirt over his head, “what’re you doin’ out here? ”
“Research,” she began toying with the end of one of the rusty pigtails over her shoulders, “innate and learned behaviour. If I can watch them while they’re newly hatched– see if there’s anything the babies just sort of do without any of the adults demonstrating it first...” She sighed, heart plummeting into her stomach.
The young man paused as he, now decent, stepped over towards the fire, and circled to face the scientist who shuffled around to avoid him.“Is somethin’ the matter, ma’am?”
“I screwed up,” she admitted with a miserable little groan. “I sort of freaked when I saw smoke, and took off over here really suddenly. I scared off the Kangaskhan, I’ll be lucky if they ever let me within binocular distance ever again, and I–”
“Wait, wait,” the man, dripping a puddle into the sand beneath him, stammered “I didn’t wreck your study, did I?”
She crossed her arms across her chest, striding away from him and towards the fire. “Everything in the park is protected by law,” she began sternly, ignoring his concern. “If you’re cooking something you caught...”
“No, no!” he blurted, a note of panic in his voice. “I’m boilin’ an omelet in a plastic baggie miss, honest. Farm raised eggs, powdered miltank milk and cheese, all from Vermillion city, all legit!” The man plunked down in front of the fire, and nudged the pot out of the fire using a blackened stick. “It ain’t much, but you’re sure welcome to some of it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a tanned hand prod the lid off of the steaming pot of water, and cautiously remove what was indeed a sort of solid egg mess in a plastic bag with a fork.
She opened her mouth to remind him once again that he would half to leave, but Dex and Sunny seemed to have other plans. The doduo had forgotten his wariness, and plunked down in a fuzzy heap beside the Machoke, and extending his long neck, plucked an apple from his arms. The Machoke noted, but made no protest, and dropped the fruit between them, as the mankey descended upon the food instantly. Reluctantly, Molly searched for a dry patch of grass, and folded her legs beneath her beside her pokemon. She glanced up across the campfire, and for the first time, really got a look at the young man. The young man’s shoulder length hair was pushed partially away from his face by a bright red headband, though there were still unchecked tufts of black hair sticking through, falling into his eyes. He was tall, powerfully muscled, but built in and slender, rather than outward or hulking– undoubtedly an athlete’s figure, strong but still lithe enough to be both flexible and quick.
He would have been profoundly intimidating, were it not for the meek ducking of his head, and nervous aversion of his warm brown eyes when he noticed her gaze on him. “I’m Liam, ma’am,” he offered with a hesitant smile. “Or, Li, if you’d like.”
“Mary,” she replied against her better judgement. “Mary Cedar.”
Despite herself, she let out a airy chuckle. “It’s the babies they’re worried about.”
“So, miss,” he began, voice muffled as he pulled the shirt over his head, “what’re you doin’ out here? ”
“Research,” she began toying with the end of one of the rusty pigtails over her shoulders, “innate and learned behaviour. If I can watch them while they’re newly hatched– see if there’s anything the babies just sort of do without any of the adults demonstrating it first...” She sighed, heart plummeting into her stomach.
The young man paused as he, now decent, stepped over towards the fire, and circled to face the scientist who shuffled around to avoid him.“Is somethin’ the matter, ma’am?”
“I screwed up,” she admitted with a miserable little groan. “I sort of freaked when I saw smoke, and took off over here really suddenly. I scared off the Kangaskhan, I’ll be lucky if they ever let me within binocular distance ever again, and I–”
“Wait, wait,” the man, dripping a puddle into the sand beneath him, stammered “I didn’t wreck your study, did I?”
She crossed her arms across her chest, striding away from him and towards the fire. “Everything in the park is protected by law,” she began sternly, ignoring his concern. “If you’re cooking something you caught...”
“No, no!” he blurted, a note of panic in his voice. “I’m boilin’ an omelet in a plastic baggie miss, honest. Farm raised eggs, powdered miltank milk and cheese, all from Vermillion city, all legit!” The man plunked down in front of the fire, and nudged the pot out of the fire using a blackened stick. “It ain’t much, but you’re sure welcome to some of it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a tanned hand prod the lid off of the steaming pot of water, and cautiously remove what was indeed a sort of solid egg mess in a plastic bag with a fork.
She opened her mouth to remind him once again that he would half to leave, but Dex and Sunny seemed to have other plans. The doduo had forgotten his wariness, and plunked down in a fuzzy heap beside the Machoke, and extending his long neck, plucked an apple from his arms. The Machoke noted, but made no protest, and dropped the fruit between them, as the mankey descended upon the food instantly. Reluctantly, Molly searched for a dry patch of grass, and folded her legs beneath her beside her pokemon. She glanced up across the campfire, and for the first time, really got a look at the young man. The young man’s shoulder length hair was pushed partially away from his face by a bright red headband, though there were still unchecked tufts of black hair sticking through, falling into his eyes. He was tall, powerfully muscled, but built in and slender, rather than outward or hulking– undoubtedly an athlete’s figure, strong but still lithe enough to be both flexible and quick.
He would have been profoundly intimidating, were it not for the meek ducking of his head, and nervous aversion of his warm brown eyes when he noticed her gaze on him. “I’m Liam, ma’am,” he offered with a hesitant smile. “Or, Li, if you’d like.”
“Mary,” she replied against her better judgement. “Mary Cedar.”
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Molly and Liam Part 1
No real title for this yet xD; Just a little thing I'm typing up for fun. So, Mina, this is Molly and Li xD This is all I have done, will post the rest when I finish it.
For some weird reason, I always picture Li with some kind of southern accent. I have no idea why, so I just went with it.
This, she concluded, was how it felt to be a Metepod. She wasn’t sure if she could move now, even if she had wanted to. Crouched motionlessly, and as inconspicuously as she could manage, every motion slow, and controlled, her breath forced to a steady crawl, she sat, and she watched. She kicked herself internally for all the time she had wasted inadvertently over the last week, hidden in the underbrush. They’d known she was there the whole time– of course they had– and it had only made them more wary.
Molly was almost certain that she’d forgotten how to blink. Slowly, over the past few days, the researcher had been creeping closer, and closer to the firmly huddled herd of Kangaskhan, and now, finally close enough to survey them without binoculars, she couldn’t bear to look away. Night was falling over the grassy plains of Kanto’s Safari Zone, and it would soon be too dark to read the notebook in her lap, filled with hastily jotted notes on any and every tiny observation. Reluctantly, the young woman would have to concede, and admit that it was time to call it a night– but not quite yet. One of the adults had let her baby clamber out of her pouch, and Molly watched, a tiny smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, as it plopped gracelessly to the ground on stumpy, unpracticed legs.
Her first days at the park had been spent glancing continuously through her binoculars to the Pokemon, to the identification sheet she’d stapled into the cover of her notebook, and then back again. Now, she’d committed them to memory. The kangaskhan had been assigned identification numbers as they’d hatched by the researchers present last breeding season, and the season before that, and before that. She recognized the mother now watching warily as her baby stumbled gleefully around her feet, chirping a shrill imitation of what would one day be a bloodcurdling roar. M-12 was a young adult, hatched six years earlier, and this season, Molly had dubbed her newly hatched joey M-13.
It was safe to assume that such close proximity to a mother kangaskhan’s newly hatched baby, and the mother’s potentially deadly fury would set anyone in their right mind to trembling; nevertheless, Molly was perhaps now the picture of contentment– and if that made her insane, so be it. She couldn’t recall a scientist worth her salt who wasn’t at least a touch loopy.
She tore her eyes away from her research subjects as something nipped at the sleeve of her mud streaked lab coat. Molly had begun to speculate that it was really to her companion that she owed her recent success approaching the herd. It was only a hypothesis, but perhaps they’d noticed the harmless doduo willingly sharing her space, and that had helped to calm them. The head on the right, Dexter, was nipping at the pocket of her coat. “I don’t have anything in there for you right now,” she replied under her breath, with as quiet a giggle as she could manage. Not a particularly creative name, she’d admit, but infinitely better than his counterpart’s. At the time, it had seemed an excellent way for her to identify them for study; of course, she’d soon grown to adore him as a companion rather than a research subject, and ‘Sinister’ simply would not do. ‘Sinny’ had somehow deteriorated into ‘Sunny’ and the name had stuck. While Dexter pecked idly at the ground beneath them, Sunny slept, his long neck curved to bury his head into their shared coat of fluffy feathers. Suddenly, the left bird’s eyes opened, and he raised his head, both halves staring intently at something behind her.
Molly blinked, and looked up. The herd had paused, sniffing the air, and a glance over her shoulder revealed the draw. A thin wisp of smoke rose into the darkened sky through a thick cluster of trees in the distance, nearing the outskirts of the park.
The red head strangled a cry, scrambling to her feet as she hastily shoved her notebook into a pocket. “No, no, no, damn it!” She squeaked, hopping onto the doduo’s back. There were no fire types native to the area, and no sign of any lightning that could have explained the smoke. Her panic only mounted as the dried grass crunched underfoot as the bird pokemon dashed towards the source. It had been dry for weeks. She grit her teeth, and held tight to Dex’s neck. Hopefully, it was simply a lost charmander, or a wild vulpix, and nothing more malicious. She’d been warned that poachers were rampant, and while there were indeed rangers patrolling, the park was huge... M-12 hurried her baby back frantically into her pouch, growling at the parting researcher and Doduo. She’d spooked them. Molly sighed and kicked herself internally, choking back the painful lump of disappointment blocking her throat and blurring her vision.
The streaks of green as they flew over the plain melted back into focus as doduo halted at the tree line, and changed his pace, picking more carefully between the roots and trees now littering the way. Molly let out a sharp breath, raising her downcast eyes from the warm brown feathers around her to the forest ahead. She, and her companions noted the deviation at the same time, and stopped dead, brows furrowing.
The cluster of trees had formed around a craggy sort of plateau. Snaking its way through the boulders littering the ground lay an enormous anomaly. There certainly weren’t any onix native to this area, but there it was, chomping away contentedly at the stones. It paused, and slowly lifted it’s head to eye the pokemon and human gaping at it. Molly braced herself against Dex and Sunny, in preparation for a necessary bolt, but the thing never charged, and instead returned to it’s snacking with a groan. “A domesticated onix,” the young woman puzzled, her ginger eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
Her companions raised their heads simultaneously, catching a sound in the distance, and setting off at a trot towards the noise, which grew to a crackling that she could hear as well. “Ah,” she frowned, though the panicked knotting in her chest eased when she caught sight of a well made fire pit, and not the attempted arson she’d been dreading. The forest thinned out alongside a large, deep pond, and a tiny pot had been set up over it, a warm, inviting smell of cooking food wafting over the clearing. Molly grit her teeth. This was a pokemon sanctuary– if there was anything like a goldeen in that pot, someone was about to pay.
Molly dismounted, and set to examining the camp more closely. She caught sight of someone seated behind a boulder, obscured by a worn duffle bag. “Excuse me–” she began, trailing off as she rounded on the set of legs that wasn’t. It was just a pair of pants– white pajamas, or something similar, discarded haphazardly beside a grey shirt. She scowled at them, vexed, and glanced up suddenly as a screech tore through the air, and a Mankey hopped atop the boulder chattering at her furiously.
“Uh, ‘scuse me miss...? What’r you doing with my stuff...?” Molly whirled on her heel, gaze dropping to the surface of the water. The young man, perhaps in his early twenties, had apparently just surfaced, voice inhibited by gasps for air, black hair plastered to his face. “Aw, knock it off,” he called over her shoulder, to the Mankey who skulked away from the scientist with one last scathing glare over his shoulder at her.
“I’m sorry,” she informed him, as her Doduo trotted closer to her, wary of the massive Machoke wandering back towards the camp with an armful of apples. “This section of the park is closed to the public until further notice, and besides, you’re required to keep your pokemon inside their pokeballs while in the park. You’re going to have to leave now.”
“‘Park,’ miss?” he replied, tilting his head to the side, and quirked a muddled little smile. “I’m real sorry, but I don’t follow.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No ma’am.” The man shook his head wet hair sticking across his face, and he dunked himself momentarily to push it away. “I’m from Cianwood, miss,” he said brightly. “This is my first time off the island. So far so good! ‘Cept, uuuhh... Well, I got off the boat in Vermillion....”
“And then?”
“I was looking for somewhere for me and my pokemon to train. You know, some awesome waterfalls to meditate under or something. And well.... I got lost, and now I’m here. Where’s ‘here’ exactly?”
She folded her arms across her chest, expression softening slightly. “This is the Safari Zone– a pokemon reserve. It’s illegal to catch pokemon here without registering and using the approved methods and equipment. Right now, the park’s closed, so you really can’t be here right now. Fuchsia City’s just south of here, you can definitely find somewhere to spend the night over there.” He said nothing, and refused to budge from where he was treading water. “I’m sorry, but the park is closed to the public. You have to leave now.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Uh...” he sank lower in the water, and with a bashful grimace, pointed to the pile of clothes abandoned behind her.
“Oh.” She made a face and turned away, pale hands clasped firmly over her eyes as she wandered away from the pond.
“Much obliged,” he replied with a grateful sigh, and she could hear him move through the water, and pull himself back up onto the shore. “Uh, so doctor...? Professor...?”
“Neither yet,” she corrected.
“Alright then. Miss, why is the park closed, anyhow?” he asked, hopping hurriedly into his gi bottoms.
“The herd of Kangaskhan here laid eggs that hatched a while ago. The babies are just getting old enough to leave their mothers’ pouches, so this is when they’re at their most aggressive,” she replied. “They can’t have people running around here right now throwing rocks.”
“Ma’am,” he replied sheepishly, “I reckon anybody who throws a rock at an angry Kangaskhan deserves whatever they get.”
Despite herself, she let out a airy chuckle. “It’s the babies they’re worried about.”
For some weird reason, I always picture Li with some kind of southern accent. I have no idea why, so I just went with it.
This, she concluded, was how it felt to be a Metepod. She wasn’t sure if she could move now, even if she had wanted to. Crouched motionlessly, and as inconspicuously as she could manage, every motion slow, and controlled, her breath forced to a steady crawl, she sat, and she watched. She kicked herself internally for all the time she had wasted inadvertently over the last week, hidden in the underbrush. They’d known she was there the whole time– of course they had– and it had only made them more wary.
Molly was almost certain that she’d forgotten how to blink. Slowly, over the past few days, the researcher had been creeping closer, and closer to the firmly huddled herd of Kangaskhan, and now, finally close enough to survey them without binoculars, she couldn’t bear to look away. Night was falling over the grassy plains of Kanto’s Safari Zone, and it would soon be too dark to read the notebook in her lap, filled with hastily jotted notes on any and every tiny observation. Reluctantly, the young woman would have to concede, and admit that it was time to call it a night– but not quite yet. One of the adults had let her baby clamber out of her pouch, and Molly watched, a tiny smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, as it plopped gracelessly to the ground on stumpy, unpracticed legs.
Her first days at the park had been spent glancing continuously through her binoculars to the Pokemon, to the identification sheet she’d stapled into the cover of her notebook, and then back again. Now, she’d committed them to memory. The kangaskhan had been assigned identification numbers as they’d hatched by the researchers present last breeding season, and the season before that, and before that. She recognized the mother now watching warily as her baby stumbled gleefully around her feet, chirping a shrill imitation of what would one day be a bloodcurdling roar. M-12 was a young adult, hatched six years earlier, and this season, Molly had dubbed her newly hatched joey M-13.
It was safe to assume that such close proximity to a mother kangaskhan’s newly hatched baby, and the mother’s potentially deadly fury would set anyone in their right mind to trembling; nevertheless, Molly was perhaps now the picture of contentment– and if that made her insane, so be it. She couldn’t recall a scientist worth her salt who wasn’t at least a touch loopy.
She tore her eyes away from her research subjects as something nipped at the sleeve of her mud streaked lab coat. Molly had begun to speculate that it was really to her companion that she owed her recent success approaching the herd. It was only a hypothesis, but perhaps they’d noticed the harmless doduo willingly sharing her space, and that had helped to calm them. The head on the right, Dexter, was nipping at the pocket of her coat. “I don’t have anything in there for you right now,” she replied under her breath, with as quiet a giggle as she could manage. Not a particularly creative name, she’d admit, but infinitely better than his counterpart’s. At the time, it had seemed an excellent way for her to identify them for study; of course, she’d soon grown to adore him as a companion rather than a research subject, and ‘Sinister’ simply would not do. ‘Sinny’ had somehow deteriorated into ‘Sunny’ and the name had stuck. While Dexter pecked idly at the ground beneath them, Sunny slept, his long neck curved to bury his head into their shared coat of fluffy feathers. Suddenly, the left bird’s eyes opened, and he raised his head, both halves staring intently at something behind her.
Molly blinked, and looked up. The herd had paused, sniffing the air, and a glance over her shoulder revealed the draw. A thin wisp of smoke rose into the darkened sky through a thick cluster of trees in the distance, nearing the outskirts of the park.
The red head strangled a cry, scrambling to her feet as she hastily shoved her notebook into a pocket. “No, no, no, damn it!” She squeaked, hopping onto the doduo’s back. There were no fire types native to the area, and no sign of any lightning that could have explained the smoke. Her panic only mounted as the dried grass crunched underfoot as the bird pokemon dashed towards the source. It had been dry for weeks. She grit her teeth, and held tight to Dex’s neck. Hopefully, it was simply a lost charmander, or a wild vulpix, and nothing more malicious. She’d been warned that poachers were rampant, and while there were indeed rangers patrolling, the park was huge... M-12 hurried her baby back frantically into her pouch, growling at the parting researcher and Doduo. She’d spooked them. Molly sighed and kicked herself internally, choking back the painful lump of disappointment blocking her throat and blurring her vision.
The streaks of green as they flew over the plain melted back into focus as doduo halted at the tree line, and changed his pace, picking more carefully between the roots and trees now littering the way. Molly let out a sharp breath, raising her downcast eyes from the warm brown feathers around her to the forest ahead. She, and her companions noted the deviation at the same time, and stopped dead, brows furrowing.
The cluster of trees had formed around a craggy sort of plateau. Snaking its way through the boulders littering the ground lay an enormous anomaly. There certainly weren’t any onix native to this area, but there it was, chomping away contentedly at the stones. It paused, and slowly lifted it’s head to eye the pokemon and human gaping at it. Molly braced herself against Dex and Sunny, in preparation for a necessary bolt, but the thing never charged, and instead returned to it’s snacking with a groan. “A domesticated onix,” the young woman puzzled, her ginger eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
Her companions raised their heads simultaneously, catching a sound in the distance, and setting off at a trot towards the noise, which grew to a crackling that she could hear as well. “Ah,” she frowned, though the panicked knotting in her chest eased when she caught sight of a well made fire pit, and not the attempted arson she’d been dreading. The forest thinned out alongside a large, deep pond, and a tiny pot had been set up over it, a warm, inviting smell of cooking food wafting over the clearing. Molly grit her teeth. This was a pokemon sanctuary– if there was anything like a goldeen in that pot, someone was about to pay.
Molly dismounted, and set to examining the camp more closely. She caught sight of someone seated behind a boulder, obscured by a worn duffle bag. “Excuse me–” she began, trailing off as she rounded on the set of legs that wasn’t. It was just a pair of pants– white pajamas, or something similar, discarded haphazardly beside a grey shirt. She scowled at them, vexed, and glanced up suddenly as a screech tore through the air, and a Mankey hopped atop the boulder chattering at her furiously.
“Uh, ‘scuse me miss...? What’r you doing with my stuff...?” Molly whirled on her heel, gaze dropping to the surface of the water. The young man, perhaps in his early twenties, had apparently just surfaced, voice inhibited by gasps for air, black hair plastered to his face. “Aw, knock it off,” he called over her shoulder, to the Mankey who skulked away from the scientist with one last scathing glare over his shoulder at her.
“I’m sorry,” she informed him, as her Doduo trotted closer to her, wary of the massive Machoke wandering back towards the camp with an armful of apples. “This section of the park is closed to the public until further notice, and besides, you’re required to keep your pokemon inside their pokeballs while in the park. You’re going to have to leave now.”
“‘Park,’ miss?” he replied, tilting his head to the side, and quirked a muddled little smile. “I’m real sorry, but I don’t follow.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No ma’am.” The man shook his head wet hair sticking across his face, and he dunked himself momentarily to push it away. “I’m from Cianwood, miss,” he said brightly. “This is my first time off the island. So far so good! ‘Cept, uuuhh... Well, I got off the boat in Vermillion....”
“And then?”
“I was looking for somewhere for me and my pokemon to train. You know, some awesome waterfalls to meditate under or something. And well.... I got lost, and now I’m here. Where’s ‘here’ exactly?”
She folded her arms across her chest, expression softening slightly. “This is the Safari Zone– a pokemon reserve. It’s illegal to catch pokemon here without registering and using the approved methods and equipment. Right now, the park’s closed, so you really can’t be here right now. Fuchsia City’s just south of here, you can definitely find somewhere to spend the night over there.” He said nothing, and refused to budge from where he was treading water. “I’m sorry, but the park is closed to the public. You have to leave now.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Uh...” he sank lower in the water, and with a bashful grimace, pointed to the pile of clothes abandoned behind her.
“Oh.” She made a face and turned away, pale hands clasped firmly over her eyes as she wandered away from the pond.
“Much obliged,” he replied with a grateful sigh, and she could hear him move through the water, and pull himself back up onto the shore. “Uh, so doctor...? Professor...?”
“Neither yet,” she corrected.
“Alright then. Miss, why is the park closed, anyhow?” he asked, hopping hurriedly into his gi bottoms.
“The herd of Kangaskhan here laid eggs that hatched a while ago. The babies are just getting old enough to leave their mothers’ pouches, so this is when they’re at their most aggressive,” she replied. “They can’t have people running around here right now throwing rocks.”
“Ma’am,” he replied sheepishly, “I reckon anybody who throws a rock at an angry Kangaskhan deserves whatever they get.”
Despite herself, she let out a airy chuckle. “It’s the babies they’re worried about.”
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