Well that depends on if I'm still working on this by next Halloween. After all, I'm getting close having only a hundred Pokemon left to cover.
This story started out one way, but then went another way and turned out a lot better, I think. I did not check actual moves for this one, basing what goes on just by the 'dex entries. And yes, the schedule's a bit weird right now. I have something interesting planned for Christmas that I was going to start this week, but to do it correctly it'll come later this month instead.
On Deck: Swanna/Azurmarill, Golett/Furret/Seadra, Vileplume/Trubbish/Amoonguss, Alomomola/Vigoroth/Darmanitan, Poliwhirl/Mantine/Cofagrigus, Jellicent/Pawniard/Cranidos
Barboach and Shelmet
Mallory woke up that morning with a smile on her face. It was her tenth birthday! And with that, she could become a real Pokemon Trainer with her own Pokemon, not just the ones her parents let her borrow. That was only the beginning though. Once she had a Pokemon of her own, she could opt out of boring school in favor of a grand adventure through Unova, winning battles, becoming popular, being on TV to be loved and admired by everyone... it would be great! She jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, eager for things to get started.
Her mother and grandmother had made a special birthday breakfast for everyone, pancakes with sausage and fruit. They even made sure that Mallory's pancakes had chocolate chips in them, which nobody else got. “Happy birthday, princess,” her father said, hugging her. “We'll be having your party in the evening, but we thought we could give you one present early.”
“Really?” she asked, excited because she already knew what they were doing as she overheard them yesterday. But they wanted it to be a surprise, so she'd be surprised.
“We got this specially for you, from where we live,” her grandfather said, giving her a small rectangle gift box.
“Cool!” Mallory said, pulling off the ribbon so that she could take the top off. Inside, there were two sections to the gift. One side had five Pokeballs. The other side had a single Pokeball, but one that had its status light active. “Yay, I got a Pokemon!” she said, pulling out the one active ball. “And some Pokeballs to get more. Thanks Granpa, Granma!”
“You're welcome,” her grandmother said, smiling warmly. “We hope it's a good friend to you.”
She admired the Pokeball for a moment. It was hers and nobody else's... that was wonderful. “Yeah! What kind is it?” She released it to the floor near her chair, hoping for something cute and fluffy, but mostly unlike anything her classmates would get.
What appeared was quite the opposite of cute and fluffy. It was some kind of fish, with gray scales, small blue fins, and large black whiskers. Making a wet splat as it flipped around on the kitchen floor, it looked up at her with odd black fish eyes. It didn't even make a cute sound; it just looked at her.
“She's a Barboach, quite a useful Pokemon,” her grandfather said. “I remember you admiring the Water Pokemon last time we visited, so I decided to get one of them. This Barboach, if you train her up well, can take you just about anywhere across water, even underwater if you find the right move-teacher machine. Not only that, but they are born from hardened mud, so they can withstand moves that most other Water Pokemon would be badly hurt by. People usually don't expect that.”
“Oh,” did she really want a Pokemon born out of mud? Sure, she had liked some of the Water Pokemon they had seen in the aquarium, but she didn't remember seeing this one. Mallory wasn't sure about this Pokemon, but she didn't want to hurt her grandfather's feelings. “That could help. I guess.”
“Are you sure about this?” her father asked of Grandad. It sounded like he wasn't sure about the gift Pokemon either.
“Certainly,” he said. “It'll give her a tremendous edge over the other kids.”
“But it's...” her father thought about it a second, “more like a boy's Pokemon, isn't it?”
Grandad gave him a dismissive wave of his hand. “Are you so far behind on the times? Stuff like doesn't matter to kids these days, right Mallory?”
“Yeah,” she said, uncertain still. She got out of her chair and went to pick up the Barboach. However, its scales turned out to be slippery and slimy, like soap. Mallory tried again.
“We figured that we'd give your Pokemon to you early, so you could spend the day out with her,” her grandfather said, cheered by her verbal agreement. “And the extra Pokeballs are to help build your team. In fact, if you want to take a little challenge from me, I might give you some more things that will be helpful to a new Trainer.” He winked.
Mallory finally got a hold of the Barboach in both of her hands, picking her up to her chest. She didn't look any better up close, and the Pokemon didn't seem sure about being held. Despite that, the challenge could be interesting. Her grandfather made up lots of fun games. “Sure, I'll try! What do I do?”
“You go out to the places where wild Pokemon are and capture the first Pokemon you see,” he said. “You do remember from the Trainer classes how to do that, right?”
“Right!” Mallory said, hopeful that she might get a nicer Pokemon out in the woods. After all, there were adorable Deerling out there.
Then the Barboach squirmed to escape Mallory's grasp, slithering up out of her arms and slapping her face.
-+-
Midmorning of her tenth birthday and Mallory's excitement was already fizzling. The sky was gray with clouds. Although that wasn't unusual for Driftveil, she had hoped that it would be sunny for her special day. It would've been nice, since she ended up with a mud fish Pokemon as her starter and her best friend had to be out of town for the party. And as she headed out onto Route 6, she had to walk through the muddy forest in order to get to the nearest place she could catch another Pokemon. That meant that she couldn't show off her cute pink skirt and yellow shirt outfit, as she needed to wear her mud boots, rain coat, and rain hat just in case. Although once she was out of her house, she unbuttoned the coat so it didn't look quite as tacky.
But there was still good that could come out of this, she thought. She knew that a Water Pokemon would do well against the local Gym, so she could get a badge soon. Then she could really head out and be free to do whatever. No more sitting around in old classrooms listening to long lectures and taking hard tests. No more having to deal with the school bullies. No more just being a nobody. In time, everyone would be watching her as a great Pokemon Trainer, admiring how well she did and how cute she was. Everyone would know her name. That would be worth a disappointing beginning! Besides, if she got a Deerling out here, nobody outside of her family had to know that the Barboach was the Pokemon she actually started with.
Mallory paused at the start of the tall grass where Pokemon lived. It came up to her chest, with occasional movements showing where the Pokemon were. However, she couldn't see what those Pokemon were. “Please have a Deerling be close,” she said quietly, then walked into the grass holding onto the Barboach's Pokeball. She hadn't wanted to walk through town with the ugly little fish flopping after her.
A few steps in, the toe of her boot hit something hard. Looking down, she saw something metallic in the grass. A lost item? She bent down to pick it up, but then it split in half and something bright pink peered out at her with a large blue eye. It then closed up and hopped away to an open patch of the grass.
That was a Pokemon, a, a... a Shelmet. It was odd, because she had only seen them in pictures before. How come she never saw them on this route before when she took walks with her parents? Or had she just forgotten about it? It was no Deerling, but it wasn't exactly ugly either. Odd looking, that's all it was.
For a moment, Mallory considered just walking on and ignoring the Shelmet in favor of finding a Deerling. But, her grandfather had challenged her to catch the first Pokemon she saw. She could just say that she didn't see this one first. Still, it didn't seem right to lie to Grandad, even if his choice of Pokemon was way off. She could give it a chance (and hopefully keep enough Pokeballs to get a Deerling), so she hurried after the Shelmet.
It stopped in the open patch and turned to open its metal shell up and look at her. Mallory released the Barboach onto the muddy ground. Okay, um, attack it,” she said.
The Barboach twitched her whiskers and looked back at her.
“I don't know how exactly,” she said, pointing to the Shelmet. “Show me what you can do.”
Still hesitating to move, the Barboach looked over at the Shelmet. It lowered the top half of its shell, pulling its pink body back inside. Neither of them seemed ready to fight.
“What is it?” Mallory said, crouching down and prodding her Pokemon. The fish flipped herself around, slapping some mud on her. “Ick, why'd you do that?” she said, getting up. “I'm going to where I won't get muddy.” Then she walked back into the grass.
That seemed to do it, for some reason. When she turned around, the Barboach had slapped a much larger spray of mud at the Shelmet. It tried to keep the mud out, but had to open its shell to spit a gross-looking booger at her. Watching that, Mallory wasn't so sure about getting it again. The Barboach slapped more mud at the Shelmet, then flipped herself around in such a way that she tackled it. This battle seemed a lot more dirty than she had been expecting.
While the Barboach had been hit a couple more times, the Shelmet had definitely taken some hard hits. At least that's what Mallory thought. She dug out one of the inactive Pokeballs while the two Pokemon exchanged a few more attacks. Then she ran out into the small opening again. “Okay, I’ll get it, for Grandad!”
This time, the Barboach actually made a sound, a squelchy kind of squeak. The Shelmet was in the middle of its spitting attack, but got distracted when the girl ran back into the battle. Instead of hitting the mud fish, it hit Mallory's legs through her open coat. Immediately, the Shelmet's eyes widened in panic and it hopped away back towards the bushes.
“That was disgusting!” Mallory said, trying to wipe the booger off. But it was really sticky, clinging to her hand now. “Somebody needs to teach you some manners... hey, come back!” She started to head for the bush the Shelmet had disappeared into. It would be so embarrassing to admit that the first Pokemon she tried to catch had run off.
The Barboach whined, almost like she was worried. She flopped after Mallory, her agitation giving her some quickness. Unexpectedly, the Shelmet emerged back from the bushes, holding something small between the edges of its shell.
“At least you listened that time,” Mallory said, activating the Pokeball she had in hand and tossing it at the Shelmet.
It absorbed the Pokemon, but bounced a bit and got half-coated in mud. After it twisted and got more muddy, it clicked as it locked the Pokemon to it. Not even a struggle. Sighing in relief, Mallory went over and picked up the mucky Pokeball. At least she had met her grandfather's challenge and kept four free Pokeballs to get a Deerling with.
However, the Shelmet soon released itself. “Shhurruu,” it said, trying to hold up the tip of its shell to her. The item was still there, a berry.
“That's a Pokemon berry, not a people berry,” Mallory said. “Don't come out on your own; it's rude. You keep it. We're going to find a Deerling now.” But then the Barboach jumped right in her path, causing her to trip over the fish and fall face first into the muddy ground. That was too much; her face burned in embarrassment and anger. “What was that for?! I never asked for an ugly fish like you. I was supposed to get an awesome cute Pokemon for my birthday and for some reason, Grandad got me you and the first Pokemon I find is some weird bug thing that misbehaves weird. Why do you have to be so mean to me, especially on my birthday? I hate you both! I'm not going to keep either of you! This day couldn't get any worse.” Then she burst into tears.
As if nature was conspiring to make her birthday miserable too, a downpour of rain started without warning over Route 6. Mallory didn't really care and stayed there crying. She didn't want to go back home like this, all sticky and messy and a disgrace. After a moment, the Barboach and the Shelmet both approached her. The fish nuzzled her knee while the odd bug tried to offer her the berry again.
Then someone came up beside her, not dressed for the rain like she was but not bothered by it at all. “Shelmet wants you to eat the berry,” he said, crouching down by her. “She says that she's very sorry for hitting you, as she wasn't expecting you to get in the middle of their battle. She wants to help you now, because you might have gotten poisoned.”
“Huh?” Mallory asked, looking over at the guy. He had long green hair and the face of a nice person, but she didn't know who he was.
“They're trying to help you,” he said patiently. “They want to be your friends.”
For a moment, she wanted to be stubborn and say again that she didn't want either of these messy Pokemon. But then she realized that he might have been right about the poisoning. “I don't feel so good,” she whimpered.
The strange man took the berry from the Shelmet and gave it to her. “Eat that; it should help. I'll take you to the hospital so that they can make sure you're okay.” Once she did eat it, he picked her up and carried her back to Driftveil.
-+-
Mallory's parents and grandparents were all fretting over her when they showed up in the hospital. “I wasn't thinking that something this bad was going to happen to you,” her grandfather said, hugging her.
“I'm okay now,” she said, although feeling a little scared still. She looked over at the two Pokemon sitting on the bed with her. The strange man had left soon after dropping her off, but the two Pokemon had stayed with her the whole time. “This Shelmet made sure of that,” she said, reaching over to her. The bug didn't even hide in her shell, but let her pet her inner pink body.
“That's a good Pokemon,” her father said. “They should help you a lot when you go traveling.”
“Mmmm, I think I’m gonna stay in school for a little while longer,” Mallory said, looking down. That seemed safer, making sure she was better prepared.
And, she thought that she would keep both of these Pokemon too. Even if they weren't what she really wanted, they had both tried to help even though she didn't realize it. They could be good friends too. But what about that strange man? If she saw him again, maybe she could thank him for telling her that. But then how had he known it?
…
Barboach Platinum entry: Its slimy body is hard to grasp. In one region, it is said to have been born from hardened mud.
Shelmet Black entry: When attacked, it defends itself by closing the lid of its shell. It can spit a sticky, poisonous liquid.