Well, the new chapter is up. I'm sorry it took so long, but the original copy of this chapter was lost due to general incompetence. A backup was prepared, but that was also lost, once again due to general incompetence. After several hours of procrastination and wondering how I was so incompetent, I eventually rewrote it. This copy was also lost due to general incompetence. I then relocated the first copy, (which was the best one anyway) so here it is.
Chapter Ten: General Stupidity, But With Water This Time
“Christy! Get up!” Jake shook his traveling companion awake, and she yawned groggily.
“What? Is the forest on fire?” Christy sat up to find that it, in fact, was not.
“No, but we ought to get moving. We’ve spent too long on route three already. Eventually, the author’s going to run out of ideas, and then the fic will be over and we’ll be out of a job!” Jake said in a cheap attempt to get reviewers by breaking the fourth wall.
“Okay, I’m coming.” Christy got out of her sleeping bag and the two packed up the camp.
Heading west, the path was fairly uneventful. After a while, the two young trainers and their pokémon reached a fork in the road. One path led south, and the other continued west, up a hill.
“We’d better check the map to see which way to go.” As Christy pulled out her pokénav, a blue frog walked out of the woods. Jake and Christy pulled out their pokédexes, which spoke simultaneously.
“Croagunk; the toxic mouth pokémon. It rarely fights fairly, but that is strictly to ensure survival. It is popular as a mascot.” Before they could make am move, the croagunk had stolen Christy’s pokénav and run along the path to the south.
“Get back here!” Christy, Jake and their pokémon chased the croagunk, but it disappeared into the underbrush. “Why is it that pokémon always steal my stuff? Can’t they take your stuff for once?” she complained, looking at Jake.
“Well, we know which way to go now,” Jake said.
***
As the group walked along the path, they came across a huge lake with a bridge all the way across it. On the beach before the bridge, something glimmered in the sunlight.
“I think that’s your pokénav, Christy!” Leaf ran towards it with the others in tow to find that her assumption was correct.
“How did it get here?” Tails wondered. The group all looked up to see the croagunk unconscious underneath a tree, apparently having run into it while it was looking in the opposite direction.
“Serves it right for stealing my pokénav.” Christy looked satisfied to see the pokémon that had robbed her knocked out on the beach. She looked thoughtful for a moment, and seemed to come to some kind of decision. “Hey, Jake, it’s only four, and Nacrene city is just past that bridge. We’ve been working ourselves to death, and I was thinking that maybe we should just spend the rest of the day at the beach. What do you think?”
“Say yes! Say yes! I want to go swimming!” Tails was jumping for joy, and though Leaf was silent, she clearly wanted to relax too.
“Sure, why not? I think we’ve earned a day of rest.” This response was met with cheers from everyone.
“Great! I’ll go change into my swim suit!” Christy grabbed her bag and ran in to the bushes. Going off into the bushes in another area, Jake went off to change into his own swimwear, leaving Leaf and Tails alone on the lake shore.
“I don’t get this obsession humans have with clothes. We pokémon are perfectly fine without them.” Tails threw a stone across the lake’s surface, and it skipped several times before plopping into the water.
“Tell that to sawk, throh, gardevoir, hitmontop, hitmonchan, hitmonlee, jynx-”
“Okay, point taken.” Tails hurled another rock across the lake. As he did so, both trainers came out from the bushes. As Jake saw Christy in her two piece bathing suit, his chin hung down a bit.
“Close your mouth, psyduck boy. You’ll catch venonat.” Christy said as she passed him. She pulled a towel from her bag and lay down on it to get some sun.
As Jake pulled his eyes away from his suddenly attractive companion, he saw Tails looking at him funny. “You’re acting weird, Jake. Maybe a swim would help.” With this, his pokémon dragged him into the water.
What’s wrong with me? Christy isn’t hot, she’s…well, she’s Christy! Jake decided that a good swim would help him. “Hey, Tails, I’ll race you to that piece of driftwood floating out there!”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Tails agreed as he eyed the floating stick about twenty yards away. The two swam as fast as they could towards the branch. They were fairly evenly matched, as Tails wasn’t a water type, and Jake ended up making it there first.
The girls watched from the shore, and once Leaf was sure they were out of hearing range, she spoke to her trainer. “Really nice with the suit,” she commented sarcastically.
“What do you mean?” Christy asked her snivy.
“Come on,” Leaf laughed. “We both know why you chose that particular bathing suit, and that’s to impress Jake.”
“Why would I want to impress him?” Christy said, struggling to keep her voice down. “He’s barely even my friend, let alone someone I would want to ‘impress’!”
“Keep telling yourself whatever you want to believe. I know what I know, and you know what you know. I’d never fall for a boy that way though.” Leaf lay back down and went back to sunbathing.
“You mean like Tails?” Christy said playfully.
“What? N-no, of course not! Don’t be ridiculous!” Christy could tell that she had caught her pokémon off guard.
“Oh, come on. Do you honestly think that I haven’t noticed the way you look at him?” Christy giggled as she saw Leaf flinch.
“Why don’t we let George and Stinger out? They’d enjoy the beach too.” Christy saw right through Leaf’s pitiful attempt to change the subject, but decided to cut the poor snivy a break, plus she was right about them enjoying the beach.
As Christy pressed the button to open the pokéballs, a gligar and pansear popped out of them.
“Hooray! I love the beach!” George laughed, followed by using his ember attack to superheat the sand into glass. Viewed from above, the words ‘the game’ were visible.
“Oh, cool! Let’s make sandcastles!” Stinger sat on the ground and started forming the sand into a mound that had very little in common with a castle.
As the group went about their various activities, a tadpole-like pokémon leapt from the water to smack Jake in the face with its tail. “Ow! What was that for?” he said, rubbing the spot where he was hit. Christy jumped up and pulled out her pokédex.
“Tympole; the tadpole pokémon. By vibrating its cheeks, it emits sound waves imperceptible to humans. It uses the rhythm of these sounds to talk.”
“I have a grass type and a fire type pokémon, so a water type would be good to have If I can catch it! Come on Leaf!”
“Eh, I needed a swim anyway.” The snivy jumped into the water at her trainer’s side, and the two swam out to where the pokémon was. It jumped again, and Christy took the opportunity.
“Keep it out of the water with vine whip!” Before the tympole could fall back in the lake, vines shot from Leaf’s shoulders and held it suspended in the air, squeezing it at the same time.
“She’s a really good battler,” said Jake to himself.
“Then why don’t you watch the battle instead of her? Besides, Leaf’s doing all the work.” Tails stared at the snivy intently, waiting for her next move.
Before she had a chance to choose the next attack, a mud shot flew from the pokémon’s mouth, hitting Leaf in the face. “Gah! That’s disgusting!” Leaf said, wiping the mud out of her eye, while still holding the wriggling tympole and staying afloat.
“Try leaf tornado, but don’t hit your vines!” Leaves started appearing above Leaf in a vortex that flew at the tympole. It couldn’t break free of Leaf’s grasp, and was hit head on with the attack. It was weak and tired, and didn’t look like it could fight anymore.
“Go, pokéball!” as Christy threw the red and white sphere at the pokémon, it was immersed in red light, and it disappeared inside the ball. It wiggled once, then twice, a third time, and then clicked.
“Yes! I caught a tympole!” Christy high fived Leaf, then they left the water with the pokéball in Christy’s hand.
“Great job Christy!” Jake and Tails had followed them out.
“Well, leaf did most of the work,” Christy said, slightly embarrassed. “All I did was through the ball.”
“Still, you had a good battle strategy. Anyway, we should get going now. It’s getting late.” After Jake and Christy changed back into their clothes, they continued along the bridge and into Nacrene City, their journey unfolding ahead of them, and the author continuing to write an unbelievably cheesy chapter ending.