In Progress The Marvelous Epoch of a Champion (An unconventional fanfic in technicolor)

Alright, this is a story for NaNoWriMo 2010, and it's interesting enough that I'll probably continue with it after the month is over. It's a little sloppy now, I admit, but I will be going over to revise it once, well, November is over.

The plot is...well it's a Trainer Fic but it is by no means an ordinary trainer fic. I'd say more but that would kind of ruin the fun of it.

Comment, criticize, and hopefully enjoy it.

Anyways, on with the story.



Chapter One: The Start of a Beginning of a Journey

In the world of Pokemon, there are many regions, akin to the “Countries” of our world. Among these regions, there is one that is much lesser known and, if someone were to list all the regions of the world, would probably come in last. It is the region of Sporuto. It’s government is rather average, and has rather large security issues, which have not, thankfully, been exploited. Yet.

The Pokemon of the region are hardly unique, and the geography is rather unimpressive. There are no celebrities or famous people important to the other regions, and very few people successful in the region ever become anything more than having a minor and rather unimportant job and life.

There was one woman who easily crushed the Pokemon League once. She was a young woman, no older than 18, but she was often mistaken for a very handsome man. This was always interpreted as a compliment to her, and, as she said once in an interview, “I’d rather look like a handsome man than an ugly man.” When she arrived in Snowpoint City of the Sinnoh region, however, a group of Jynx noticed her boyishly good looks, and kidnapped her. She has never been heard from again.

But there is one story to tell. One involving a young boy and his friends, and how they succeeded in stopping the evil Team Proto from succeeding in their villainous plans. It is a tale of friendship, the hardships they must overcome, and hard whiskey. You wouldn’t believe how big of a role the whiskey plays into this story.

So come! Read on, and enter the world of Sporuto during the beginning of its prosperous years, and learn how it went from the least known region of the world, to the one with the highest illegal immigrant rate.

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We start this story on a cool July day in the small town of Tyra, to the far north of the Sporuto region. Tyra is a smaller city that is heavily populated by tourists. There are two primary reasons for this. The first is that Tyra has what is known as the greatest burrito shop in Sporuto. People travel from all around just to get a yummy burrito. The second reason for it being so popular is that it is where Trainers often receive their first Pokemon. While many trainers decide to receive a proper starter Pokemon, there are some trainers who prefer to catch their own, or use one that they have already obtained through other means.

The months of June and July tend to be the starting point for most trainers. It is after the school year has ended, and the Pokemon League tournament and Grand Festival tournament both complete in May. As such, the two months draw the most tourism to Tyra.

Our focus is on a resident of Tyra, Jackson Marks. Jackson had just turned 16, and as such he was finally eligible for his Pokemon Training license. While most people view this to be an exciting moment in their lives, and eagerly look forward to their life with Pokemon, Jackson was not looking forward to that aspect of his Pokemon journey. He had two primary reasons for leaving for his journey.

The first was a simple reason. He wanted to get out of his house. He had lived with his Aunt and Uncle ever since he was 2 years old. His father died before he was born due to an accident involving flan, a potato, seven paper bags, one cardboard box, three and a half pieces of printer paper, and an old typewriter. It is quite a tragic story, but must be told on its own. Jackson’s mother went missing shortly after his 2nd birthday. Most people figured that she left because she didn’t wish to deal with him going beyond the age of 2, but that wasn’t entirely the reason.

Now, his aunt and uncle were very nice people, but generally, Jackson could not stand them. His uncle was massively agoraphobic and, as of when Jackson departed for his trainer license, had never left his house in 27 years. Jackson and his aunt have tried many times to get him out of the house, but these attempts almost always result in his uncle screaming something about yogurt and running back into the house to lock himself in the broom closet under the stairs.

His aunt, on the other hand, often left her house. She was quite a busybody though, as she always found ways to interfere in Jackson’s life. She had, at one point, caused a relationship that Jackson was in to fall apart because she didn’t like the smell of the girl’s hair.

The second reason Jackson wanted to leave on the Pokemon journey was because he had an obsession with collecting wristwatches. While most kids were out playing with friends or Pokemon, Jackson was often on the search for new wristwatches too collect. He had so far established a collection with 127 watches. His aunt and uncle view this habit as being a bit too eccentric, and that he could be doing so many more exciting and better things with his time. Jackson originally wanted to travel the region on his own to collect more wristwatches, but his aunt and uncle said that, unless he went on a journey with Pokemon, he would not be allowed to leave the town. And with that, Jackson decided to pursue a journey with Pokemon, while at the same time looking for wristwatches to add to his collection.

As was mentioned much earlier, it was a cool July day. Or, perhaps morning would be the better term. Jackson was fast asleep in his bed. He was a child of average height, brown messy hair that was neither too long nor too short, and blue eyes. He was neither ugly nor wildly attractive. To say the least, he was average. To say the most, he was monstrously average.

Like most teenage children, Jackson was in the habit of sleeping in very late if not awakened. On this particular day, Jackson had forgotten to set his alarm to wake him up. It currently read 10:07, 7 minutes after his appointment with the city’s professor, Professory Redwood. He awakened to a bright flash of light, and his aunt standing by the window, having just pulled up the shades.

“Someone’s a little sleepy this morning,” she said. Seeing that he was awake, she left his room. Jackson rolled his droopy eyes and looked at his clock, which now read 10:08. Startled, he jumped out of bed and ran to put on a change of clothes. He hastily threw on a pair of dark blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a plaid button-down shirt over that. He ran out of his room, down the stairs, and into his kitchen, where his uncle was seated, eating eggs and mayonnaise, a favorite of his. His aunt was eating a chunk of provolone cheese with sliced salami, a favorite of hers.

“Do you need a ride, dear?” his aunt asked, cutting herself another slice of provolone cheese.

“Considering the fact that I’ve overslept and that the lab is about ten minutes walking distance from here, I’d say I might need a ride,” Jackson said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. His aunt took out a napkin and wiped her mouth.

“Alright, let my get my coat,” she said. However, instead of standing up to grab her coat as most people do when they say that they will get their coat, she instead proceeded to continue eating her provolone and salami.

“How come you never ask me to give you a ride?” Jackson’s uncle asked, sounding surprisingly serious.

“Well, you kind of, um, don’t leave the house,” Jackson answered, rather nervously. It was never a good idea to bring up his uncle’s agoraphobia in conversation. Due to Jackson’s frazzled mind from just being awakened, his mouth was on auto mode and he was saying what he wanted to say, unfiltered.

“Well, I’m sorry that my condition inconveniences you!” his uncle said, throwing down his fork and knife. “I am a major part of this family! I’m the person who brings home the bacon every day!”

This was not true. Jackson’s aunt had made more money throughout her life with her stable and consistent job than his father made as a very unsuccessful writer.

“Well if you feel so strongly about it, then give him a ride,” Jackson’s aunt said, finishing her chunk of provolone cheese.

“Well maybe I will! Today I will finally get out of the house!” Jackson’s uncle snapped back at her. He often promised that he would get out of the house, but he never brought himself to do so.

“You said that yesterday,” Jackson’s aunt said coolly, putting her dish in the sink. “Come on Jackson, lets go.” Jackson breathed a sigh of relief as she put on her light jacket. He followed her as she walked to the door.

“Well this time I mean it! I will go outside!” Jackson’s uncle yelled back to her.

“You said that yesterday too,” Jackson muttered as he shut the door behind him.

The car ride to the lab was rather uneventful. While Jackson’s aunt attempted to make small talk, Jackson shooed these attempts away with one word answers. Thankfully, the ride was only about 3 minutes until she parked right in front of the lab.

“Have fun picking a starter honey,” Jackson’s aunt said as he climbed out the car. He answered with a very muffled “fine” that sounded more like a grunt than anything else.

He looked up at the lab. It was a rather small building, all things considered. It was only two stories tall and the base was about twice the size of an average two story house. The main attraction to the lab, however, was the expansive reserve out in the back of the building. The PC depository system in the region of Sporuto defaulted to depositing the Pokemon to three separate places throughout the region. One of the three places is the area in the back of the lab. Many trainers’ Pokemon reside in the forested area in the back, where they are all away from harm. As long as they aren’t eaten.

Jackson opened the doors to the lab. There weren’t many other trainer applicants, since most had signed up in June. The first floor was simply one large room with bookshelves lining the area, and all sorts of fancy machinery. It was very cluttered, with papers and books strewn all over the floor and tables. There were only four or five people scattered about the room, Jackson figured that the others had important business to attend to. If the certain business involved having sex in a supply closet, then he would be right.

“Are you Jackson Marks?” a female voice called out from the back of the room. Jackson walked towards the back to find a tall woman with long red hair in the back of the room. She had a wonderful and infectious smile. It wasn’t enough to infect Jackson, though.

“Yeah, you’re Professor Redwood?” Jackson asked, as if he had too. The Professor giggled.

“The one and only!”

This is not true. There were actually 3 other Professor Redwoods that were alive at this time. One of them was located in the Hoenn region who spent his life devoted to making a video game about pornography. The end result was absolute crap. The second one was located in the region of Orre, where he was devoted to finding a cure to the common cold. And the final Professor Redwood that existed at this point in time was a prostitute from the Kanto region who constantly dressed up as a Professor.

“Well to preempt your arrival, I’ve already gotten you registered with a trainer card,” Professor Redwood said, handing Jackson something akin to a driver’s license. It had an old and terrible picture of him from the beginning of the last school year. His hair was all messed up and he smiled, which looks very bad on him. His last name was also misspelled, spelled as Marx in stead of Marks. Jackson let out a heavy sigh.

“I know, the cards don’t look to great in green,” Professor Redwood said, turning towards the desk behind her. Jackson looked at his trainer card again. It was actually blue. Jackson rolled his eyes and looked back up to Professor Redwood. She had, in her hands, two half red, half white spheres – Poke Balls.

“Unfortunately, since this is towards the end of the trainer registry season, we have some unconventional choices for starting Pokemon,” Professor Redwood said in a tone that sounded as if she was trying to scold Jackson for being late in registering. “We have a Larvitar and a Zubat to choose from.”

The choice was obvious. Larvitar was a small, reptilian, dinosaur like Pokemon. It evolved into a monstrously powerful Pokemon that would be a vital part of any Pokemon team. Zubat was…well a boring and only slightly useful bat Pokemon. It evolved into a very fast Pokemon, but it overall paled in comparison to Larvitar, especially considering how rare Larvitar were.

“I’ll take the Larvitar,” Jackson said, almost immediately after being asked the question. He held out his hand in anticipation.

“Are you sure?” Professor Redwood asked.

“Yes, I’m completely positive,” Jackson said, his hand still held out in front of him expectantly. Professor Redwood sighed and shook her head derisively.

“This is a big decision,” she said, as if she was trying to get a two year old to understand quantum physics, “You shouldn’t be so rash about it.”

“Just give me the Larvitar,” Jackson said, frustrated. Despite his main reason for going on his Pokemon journey being about wristwatches, he figured that it would be best to have a fighting chance in the Pokemon League eventually.

“One thing people don’t understand is that Larvitar is a very slow Pokemon,” Professor Redwood said, as if she was just rambling off the fact.

“It’s pretty powerful and cool-looking though, so I think its okay,” Jackson said, getting a bit agitated. “Just give me the Pokemon.”

Professor Redwood took a moment, obviously in deep thought about something, before speaking again.

“Pupitar is a very antisocial Pokemon,” she said quickly. “It doesn’t say a thing. So once you evolve that Larvitar you won’t be hearing it say anything.”

“That’s why I have human friends,” Jackson in a way that was almost snobbish, but came out of massive agitation.

“That Larvitar is a slut,” Professor Redwood said suddenly. There was a moment of complete silence between Jackson and her, and then Jackson put his hand down.

“You don’t want me to take that Larvitar, do you?” he asked.

“Oh no!” Redwood said quickly. “No! You can have it! It’s just that sometimes I’ve seen it being flirtatious around a certain someone.” She looked around the room quickly, finally settling her eyes upon a short, fat, balding man next to a desk towards the door. Jackson looked towards him, and turned back to Redwood, who was shaking her head. “Absolutely sickening.”

“Fine, damn it, I’ll take the Zubat,” Jackson said, attempting to restrain himself from calling her a complete douchebag. Professor Redwood happily handed over one of the Poke Balls. “Why did you want me to take the Zubat in the first place?”

“Because I like Larvitar,” she said, as if it was supposed to be common knowledge. “Now out with you! Begone! Enjoy your adventure!”

Jackson glared at her, as he turned around to walk out of the lab. “What nutjob,” he muttered as he walked outside into the blinding sunlight.

Re: The Marvelous Epoch of a Champion

Chapter 2: Departing

As soon as Jackson stepped outside, he had to cover his eyes. The sun seemed to be aimed straight at him, so he immediately faced away. He considered what he had to do next. He had to go home to pack for the journey, stop buy a trainer goods store to buy a few things, and at least once talk to his new Pokemon. He decided that if he walked home, he could eliminate the task of talking to his new Pokemon. He looked at the Poke Ball in his hand, and pressed the grey button in the middle. There was a quick shot of red light, and a blue and purple bat Pokemon appeared in front of him. It lacked any eyes or nose, just a mouth and wings.

One recent development in the world of Pokemon was the innate ability to speak with captured Pokemon. Recent Poke Ball designs have had a way of converting the Pokemon’s speech to a default language. Sort of a translator, if you will. It allowed for trainers and Pokemon to communicate in a much easier way. There once were classes that a person could take to communicate with Pokemon, but this was a much more efficient way of speaking to Pokemon.

Jackson stared at the Zubat for a few seconds. Soon, the silence was broken.

“You look ugly,” Zubat said. “But that’s okay. Ugly people are fun to make fun of.” Suddenly, Jackson realized one of the reasons why Redwood wanted to rid herself of this Pokemon.

“You look uglier,” Jackson retorted. Zubat groaned.

“Oh great,” Zubat said sarcastically, “I’m stuck with a kid with the ability to insult people like a three year old. And he’s ugly.”

“How do you even know I’m ugly?” Jackson asked, the thought suddenly coming to his mind.

“So you admit it!” Zubat said, obviously thrilled, “I was right! You are ugly! And I was just guessing!” He proceeded to do what seemed to be a victory dance of some sort. It involved flying around in circles, and making weird shapes with his legs.

Jackson was already starting to hate his Pokemon journey, and it had only lasted for about five minutes so far. He breathed a deep sigh and returned the “dancing” bat to its Poke Ball.

“This is going to be an incredibly long year,” Jackson groaned.

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It didn’t take long to get home, as the lab was only a few blocks away from Jackson’s house. Upon arriving at home, he found no sign of his aunt or uncle. This was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was a good thing in the sense that Jackson had little desire to see them, but it was a bad thing because Jackson was promised money by both his aunt and uncle for his journey. He mainly just needed it to get essential trainer gear, but having some extra money to throw around would be nice.

He spent the next half hour packing clothes into a backpack he had. He brought along other essential items, such as deodorant and a toothbrush, but aside from that, there was nothing he really needed. At least, that is what he thought. He had of course neglected one necessary thing.

When traveling in the Sporuto region, it is always necessary to bring along a spare pair of scissors. While this seems to be a stupid thing to bring along, it is actually quite the important piece to a traveler’s kit. You see, in the Sporuto region, there was once a war between Pokemon and humans known as the “One Day War”. Contrary to popular belief, it only lasted for 15 hours, 37 minutes, and 53 seconds. It occurred in the city of Peruvia, where many old and wrinkly people reside. On this particular day, a delusional old woman by the name of Maya Ssurts took a dump on a wild Lileep, mistaking it for a toilet. This Lileep, being only recently resurrected from a fossil and released to the wild, took this as a sign of war. Soon, the entire Pokemon surrounding the area attacked the decrepit old people and the other people of less importance in the town. After 14 hours, 57 minutes, and 48 seconds of the war, an old man by the name of Ipe Frelly was enjoying a barbeque outdoors, and thought that the hot dog he was eating was way too long. To resolve this, he cut it with a pair of scissors. The scissors, with lots of ketchup smeared on them, looked as if they were bloodied. At that very moment, a suicidal Rattata jumped out of a tree and onto the ground in front of the old man. The Pokemon saw these ketchup covered scissors and the dead Pokemon beneath them, and realized that if an old man could kill a Pokemon, they were helpless. At last, they all retreated. Ever since then, scissors have been feared region-wide by Pokemon. Whenever one is about to be attacked by a Pokemon, the best thing to do is to hold out a pair of scissors, and the Pokemon will run away, screaming bloody murder. Literally.

Jackson went back downstairs and looked around for his aunt and uncle, his backpack slung around his shoulders. As he looked around the house, he heard whimpering coming from beneath the stairs. He sighed. This could only mean one thing (and if you’re intelligent you can probably guess what it meant).

Jackson walked to the side of the stairs and opened the broom cupboard. It was one of those doors that was hard to open due to something in the door being sticky, so it took him a few minutes to open. When he did, he found his uncle huddled inside, muttering something involving the words “yogurt” “rabbits” and “virginity”.

“Hi, I’m leaving,” Jackson said, ignoring his uncle’s spastic state, “So can I have some money? Please?”

His uncle nodded, still muttering to himself, and took out his wallet. He pulled out a plastic card and gave it to Jackson. Upon closer inspection, Jackson noticed it was a bank card to an account that Jackson was unaware that he had.

“I didn’t know I-” Jackson began, before he was rudely interrupted by his uncle pushing him away and slamming the cupboard door shut. Jackson stared at the closed door for a moment, then to the bank card, then back at the door. “Thank god I’m getting out of here,” he muttered to himself.

He walked to the door, putting his newly acquired bank card into his pocket. He walked to the door and looked at it. He might never have to come to this place again, at least for a very long time. He smiled at the thought. No more agoraphobic uncle, no more busybody aunt, nothing but an adventure to find wristwatches. And become a Pokemon champion, if he could manage. The wristwatches were a bit more important, though. He took a deep breath, and opened the door. He let the sunlight shine down upon him for a moment, and then realized that he needed a hat because it was so damn bright outside. He turned back to the inside of his house for a moment to grab one, only to notice that his uncle’s mutterings were getting creepily louder. He decided that it might be a better option to just buy a hat when he was getting supplies.

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It was a much longer walk to the supplies store, which was very close to the exit of town. It was about 45 minutes of a walk before Jackson finally arrived. The store was small, nothing like a massive department store, but a little bigger than the average convenience store. There was a neon sign over the top of the store. During the day, the letters read “Golden Supplies”. Unfortunately, the neon letters had not been working well for a while, so at night the sign read nothing but “Old Pies”. This is why the store was closed so early at night, which was very inconvenient for any late night passerby.

Thankfully, it was only about 1:00 in the afternoon when Jackson finally arrived at the store. So it was still open. He walked up to the glass door and opened it. Inside were many shelves spread out all over the place. Some of the store had food, some had Pokemon food, some had tents and other overnight supplies, and there was one big section for trainer items. There was a bored looking woman at the counter in the middle of the store, chewing mindlessly on bubblegum. Or at least, Jackson hoped it was bubblegum.

Jackson didn’t intend on spending much time in the store, so he just got the bare essentials. He tried to calculate how much time it might take for him to get to the next city, Colia. He would have to traverse through the Sporulia Woods in order to get there. He heard it normally took most people anywhere from two days to a week to get through. However, there were rest stops throughout the woods themselves, which would serve helpful.

All of Sporuto’s cities were very spread out from one another, and as such, most of them were pretty big. There were roads expanding from each city, and trainers could always hitch rides to get from place to place, but most people frowned upon doing such a thing and thought of it as cheating, so very few people actually hitched rides. Although Jackson was moreso concerned about wristwatches for his journey, he also enjoyed camping, as he had once gone on his school’s end of the year camping trip and thoroughly enjoyed himself. This may have been because there were only two people that signed up, the two of them being him and a very good looking girl, but regardless, he always remembered camping fondly.

Jackson picked up a few days worth of food for him and Zubat. There were so many different flavors of Pokemon food, he just chose the regular kind, as he figured that regular must not taste that bad. He brought some various non-perishable food for him to have, and went off to the trainer supplies section.

Every new trainer could get a Pokedex free of charge, as they were considered essential for finding and capturing Pokemon. Each trainer also had the option of getting a Pokegear, Pokenav, or Poketch to help them on their journeys as well, all three of them being vital for navigation and keeping in touch with other people. Jackson decided to look at them all.

First, he took out the simplest grey Pokedex he could find. Nothing too vibrant or special, just enough, really. He decided that he would set it up outside the store, since he didn’t want to look like an idiot attempting to set it up in the store. He never was technologically inclined.

The first piece of gear he looked at was the Pokegear. It could display a map, receive and give out phone calls. It was nothing more than a small touch screen. Jackson frowned. He might not have picked the most interesting Pokedex, but there had to be something remotely interesting. He moved on.

The Pokenav was similar, but shaped more like a phone, and didn’t have a touch screen. The features, on the other hand, were almost exactly the same thing. Jackson supposed the design looked a bit cooler than the Pokegear, but it still just didn’t seem like something he actually wanted. He moved on once more.

And then he saw it. Sitting wonderfully, placed in its clear plastic case. The Poketch. Jackson’s eyes gleamed at the sight of it, and he dropped the food he was holding in his hands. It was beautiful. A wristwatch, with touch screen controls, and all sorts of neat and nearly useless features. It was like what we know as an iPhone, except in wristwatch form! Jackson immediately grabbed the one closest to him. He tore open the cardboard box, ready to try it on. The plastic wrapped around the box meant nothing to him, he must have it! The beautiful sleek design! The overall epic wristwatchness of it all! It was so-

“Hey!” the cashier shouted, “You gotta pay for that, you know!”

Jackson sighed, but stared at the boxed watch on more time. “Soon, very soon,” he said, picking up the things he dropped, and walked up to the counter.

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It had been nearly a half an hour before Jackson finally left the store. The sun was still shining bright , as afternoon was in its peak. Jackson had gotten himself a new light-blue hat with a picture of a certain variety of Poke Ball on it. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but he really didn’t care. His backpack was massive, and felt as if it was going to break his back in half, but he figured he would get used to it. He was stocked up on everything from water to Poke balls. He looked down the road leading out of town. He breathed in deep, and began walking.

Re: The Marvelous Epoch of a Champion

Chapter 3: Sporulia Woods

As children, the people of Sporuto were often told wonderful tales about the Sporulia Woods. Most of them were about how the legendary Pokemon that guards forests, Celebi, gave Sporulia her blessing. Because of this, Sporulia Woods was supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the world, and the Pokemon there were gentle and kind to all around them due to having such wonderful living conditions.

Whoever uncovered those beautiful stories was most likely on crack.

Sporulia Woods was actually a rather icky place. This was partially due to the movement made a few years prior about where landfills ought to be placed. Some very misguided person complained about how her city smelled awful due to the landfills and dumps around her house. Due to this, the government relocated most landfill and dumps out in the middle of nowhere, or in this case, the middle of a forest. Therefore, the woods had the horrid stench of molding grossness, and gross moldness. The Pokemon who had to live in these conditions either had strange mental defects, or were just plain unpleasant. This is where having scissors came in particularly useful, as most of the Pokemon in the forest were just downright pissed off at everything.

Jackson began to be aware of this as he approached the forest, as he had only passed through the forest through car before, only getting a small whiff of the bad stench. Now he was getting a full whiff of it as he was approaching the tree shrouded forest. Eventually he had to stop. He felt that if he pressed on anymore, his nose may very well stop functioning.

Despite the fact that Jackson left for his Pokemon journey seeking out his own solidarity, he was already only a few hours into his journey, and he was already starting to feel lonely. He took out the Poke Ball from his pocket and enlarged it. Despite Zubat being quite the nuisance, he could still provide a decent amount of company. Jackson looked off into the distance, where the stench of the forest awaited him. He looked at the Poke Ball.

“Maybe the stench will kill me,” he muttered, and put the Poke Ball back into his pocket.

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While Jackson was having troubles with loneliness as he was proceeding through the forest, there was another trainer who had progressed into the forest herself.

Her name was Sarah Gordon. She was a gorgeous 15 year old girl with long blonde hair held back in a ponytail. She had deep brown eyes, and stood at an unusually tall height for a girl of her age. At the moment, she was wearing a pair of blue shorts, a white t-shirt with the picture of a rose on it, almost entirely covered by the red jacket that she was wearing. She also had made a proper precaution before entering the forest, and had a clothespin attatched to her nose, as not to smell the horrendous odors that poured throughout the forest.

She had made her journey through the forest earlier that week, but returned to look for a new Pokemon. She had her one and only Pokemon at the moment outside of its Poke Ball, the overgrown baby chicken known as Torchic. They were deep in the middle of the forest surrounded by nothing but trees. Having a great sense of direction and been through the forest before, they knew exactly where they were heading.

“I think we’re lost,” the Torchic, a female, stated.

“Nonsense!” Sarah said, not bothering to look down to her Pokemon. “With the Pokenav and the fact that we have navigated the forest before, I know exactly where we are!”

“Then where are we?” Torchic asked. Sarah stopped for a moment, and looked around her.

“In a forest,” she said, and continued weaving around the tall trees. The Torchic sighed and continued to follow her master. “I don’t even understand why you want a Grimer anyways. They’re smelly and icky and purple.”

“Well you’ll just have to suck it up and go on with your life,” Sarah scolded. “You know, maybe if you weren’t such a wuss all the time, I wouldn’t have to get a new Pokemon.”

“I completely demolished that trainer with the Croconaw in Colia!” Torchic exclaimed. She had won a marvelous victory against a Croconaw, a crocodile-esque Pokemon that another trainer owned in Colia. What Torchic didn’t know was that the Croconaw was morbidly depressed and that its loss to the mere Torchic, over which it had a type advantage, it had attempted suicide and was currently in critical condition.

Luckily for Torchic, her trainer was unaware of this as well. This allowed their arguments to continue for the next hour or so. What began as questioning Torchic’s battle ability eventually turned into a conversation about the proper way to make a taco.

“I’m telling you,” Torchic said, exasperated, “You want to put the sour cream all around the outside of the taco. It holds in all the juices and good stuff.”

“How would you know?” Sarah asked, “You don’t even have hands to use for eating tacos!”

“Well you gave your retardedly long reason on why the Pokemon food you got for me tasted amazing without you even tasting it,” Torchic snapped back. “I think its okay for me to talk about tacos.”

“No!” Sarah shouted, turning back at the Torchic, “You do not have the right to talk about tacos in front of me! It is hypocrisy to be spreading these lies about one of the most glorious foods known to mankind! You don’t even to deserve to utter its name!” Sarah rubbed her eyes and continued walking. There was silence for a few moments, but then Torchic snickered.

“Tacos,” she said menacingly. Sarah stopped dead in her tracks and turned around.

“What did you say?” Sarah’s voice shaking with rage. Torchic looked around innocently.

“What, me?” Torchic asked. “I was trying to talk about tacos.”

“I told you never to speak of them again in front of me!”

“Tacos.”

“No! You must listen to me! You’ve never even had a taco before in your life!”

“Yes I have.”

This revelation startled Sarah, who, only moments earlier, was scolding Torchic about her hypocrisy towards tacos. Was she wrong?

“Then,” Sarah asked slyly, “what was in the tacos?”

“Meat, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, and cheese,” Torchic answered, emphasizing each word in the most hurtful way possible. Sarah stepped back for a moment.

“No, I will not believe it!” she shouted. “You lie!”

Suddenly, a voice crying out for help could be heard deeper into the forest.

“What on earth is that?” Sarah asked, completely ignoring the taco argument she was just having. She quickly ran off to the cry for help. Torchic just stared off at her master as she ran away.

“But our argument was getting so good!” she shouted. Upon there being no response, she sighed and followed after her master.

---------

Now let’s rewind the clock back about 3 minutes. You may be wondering, ‘what on earth happened to Jackson?’ Well, about the same time that Sarah and Torchic first began their argument, Jackson finally decided to let Zubat out of its Poke Ball due to the growing loneliness he was feeling. For a full hour, they were arguing at each other just as Sarah and Torchic were. Jackson and Zubat’s argument had eventually turned into an argument about whether butter of cooking spray was more effective in making things not stick to pans while cooking.

“I’m just saying,” Jackson said, “that butter is highly more effective because it does exactly what cooking spray does, but it adds flavor to the food.” Zubat made a derisive noise.

“That sounds just like something an ugly person would say,” he said, pitying Jackson’s ugliness. Of course, Jackson really wasn’t that ugly, but he and Zubat had already argued about that roughly 47 minutes earlier. They even repeated the argument again about a half an hour after first arguing about it.

“I don’t even know why I sent you out of your Poke Ball in the first place,” Jackson said, sighing. He took out Zubat’s Poke Ball from his pocket and pressed the outer button. Despite Zubat not having any eyes, Jackson could tell that he was glaring at him. It was very creepy. Zubat dissolved into a red light, and then into the Poke Ball. Jackson looked down as he put his Poke Ball in his pocket. Suddenly, he felt something cold splash against his hand. He looked up.

In front of him he saw a pile of sludge. With a mouth. And eyes. It was like something that might be in a horror movie, were it a low budget horror movie with an incredibly stupid looking model for the monster. Yes, it was indeed a Grimer. This one, in particular, did not look very pleased.

“Um…hi? Jackson said, at a loss of words. “Do you want to battle or something?”

The Grimer held on to its displeased look.

“Because, you know, I’ve got a Poke-”

The Grimer’s continuingly displeased look caused Jackson to cease talking. Jackson slowly put his Poke Ball into his bag and began to walk away.

“Grimer,” the pile of sludge grumbled angrily. Jackson rolled his eyes and continued walking.

“Muk,” he heard a low, craggy voice say from behind him. He turned. Where the Grimer was, he now saw two much larger piles of sludge along with it. The three of them did not look happy.

Now you may be wondering why these Pokemon were so displeased. The answer is really quite a simple one. These three Pokemon had long since bore a grudge against all humans, due to an unfortunate accident involving Christmas lights and automatic sprinklers that took the life of a barely used garbage truck. That, however, is a story to be told another day. They had come across very few humans who stepped into their territory, but due to the inaccuracy of the Poketch map that Jackson had, he was going off in some very bizarre directions in order to get to Colia. That is how he wound up in the dwelling area of these angry Pokemon.

Jackson quickly turned away from the three Pokemon, realizing that he should probably be leaving, only to find himself staring into the eyes of yet another Muk.

“Oh…shit…” Jackson said, realizing he was trapped. The piles of sludge began to inch closer and closer to him. He tried to think of what to do. Zubat probably wouldn’t be able to touch him because of how weak he was at the moment. He did the only thing he could think of.

“Help!” he shouted. “Someone! Anyone! Help me!”

And at that precise moment, Sarah Gordon heard that precise call for help just as Torchic was arguing her very precise point on tacos. Precisely.

Within moments, Sarah burst through the trees.

“Oh thank god someone was there!” Jackson exclaimed, surrounded on all sides by the angry Pokemon, only noticing Sarah out of the corner of his eye. “I thought I was a-”

“Hey that’s a Grimer!” Sarah said excitedly. “I wanted one of those.” With that, she suddenly forgot about the endangered teenager and began to rummage around her bag for a spare Poke Ball. In the meantime, Jackson was noticing that there his ways of escaping were getting smaller.

The piles of sludge, being incredibly slow, had taken almost 3 minutes to move about 2 feet. Jackson, not being the most intelligent child on the planet, didn’t realize that he could have run away rather efficiently. However, now he was unable to run away due to the small gaps of escape. Jackson did the only thing he could. He took out the Poke Ball from his pocket and sent out the bat Pokemon of which he often disagreed with.

“Help?” Jackson requested. Zubat looked around.

“Shit man, you’re on your own,” the Zubat said, flying to the Poke Ball. But suddenly, he noticed a new presence in the area. Using his amazing echolocation skills, he noticed the presence of a Torchic, a gorgeous female one, nonetheless. Suddenly, testosterone flew through his body, and the urge to impress a potential mate overwhelmed him. He turned towards the biggest Muk of the group. “Eat this asshole!” Zubat shouted, charging straight for it, wings extended, preparing for a powerful wing attack. Jackson smiled at the sight, the first time he had ever smiled at something Zubat did.

That smile didn’t last long however. The Muk stared up blankly at Zubat. As he approached, the Muk did the most sensible thing possible. He lifted his large, sludgy hand and swatted Zubat, knocking him to the ground unconscious.

“Oh shit,” Jackson muttered.

While this was going on, Sarah was searching through her bag. Torchic finally arrived on the scene, a little late.

“Oh my god!” Torchic exclaimed. “That kid’s in trouble! We need to do something!” Torchic turned to Sandra, who was looking at an MP3 player she had found in her bag.

“I didn’t know I even had one of these,” Sarah said curiously. “Ah whatever.” She threw it back into her bag and continued searching for the Poke Ball that she knew she had picked up earlier.

“Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, help this kid?” Torchic asked.

“I will once I find a Poke Ball.”

“There are four Pokemon there. You can’t take care of them with one Poke Ball,” Torchic said, emphasizing with her voice that anyone with a quarter of a brain should know this.

“Well you’re fat,” Sarah said immediately, not looking up from her search. She pulled out a pair of vibrant, pink scissors. “When did I get these? I hate pink!” She threw the scissors over her shoulder and continued searching.

If you will recall the little piece of history a pages back, you will remember that scissors are feared by all wild Pokemon of the region of Sporuto. Well, this played into Jackson’s advantage on this day. As the Pokemon closed in and the only person who could help Jackson remained blissfully unaware of his peril, a pair of scissors thrown by her flew in his general direction. Jackson at this point was attempting to kick and punch the piles of sludge, however the only effect that this was having was that his shoes and hands were getting smelly and filthy. As he raised his right arm to attack the Muk nearest to it, the scissors perfectly landed in his hand. Suddenly, the Pokemon’s movement stopped.

“Muk!” one of the large piles of sludge screamed, close to the sound of a little girl. Quickly (or rather quicker than they were moving before), they moved away from the boy with the scissors, knowing that if they stayed, they could easily be killed. The last thing Jackson ever saw of them was one sludgy middle finger pointed in his general direction as they moved away into the forest.

Re: The Marvelous Epoch of a Champion

This is one of the best NaNoWriMo Pokemon fan fiction I've read in awhile. I love the conversational style of narration, how delightfully quirky everything is (Scissors, scourge of Pokemon everywhere!), and the very odd priorities of your protagonists that make them seem more realistic somehow (Pokemon journey for wrist watches, anyone?). You sir, are awesome. Please meet your word quota, as I am enjoying every word of it! ^.^

Re: The Marvelous Epoch of a Champion

Chapter 4: The Crazy Ones

Jackson looked at the scissors in his hand. They were entirely pink, and curved at the end, obviously children’s scissors. He looked up and over to Sarah, who was still rummaging through her things, unaware that the chaos had subsided. Torchic glared at her, and moved over to Jackson.

“Please forgive her,” she said casually, “She’s a little, ah, stupid.”

“I heard that!” Sarah shouted. She looked up to shoot a glare at Torchic, and then a wave of realization went over her face. “Hey! That Grimer is gone!” She turned to Jackson. “When did YOU get there?”

Indeed, Sarah had entirely forgotten Jackson’s presence upon seeing that a Grimer was present, despite having a brief conversation with Torchic about whether or not to save the boy. Being a rash girl of 15, she immediately jumped to the most logical conclusion.

“Did you find a sharp knife and a piece of wood and carve a life size replica of the human foot and cover it in vinegar and sharp rocks in order to stab and kill the Grimer that was there?” she ask, or, rather demanded.

“What?” Jackson and Torchic said in unison. Sarah stared at the two of them for a good minute or so, before responding.

“It’s a reasonable concern.”

It really wasn’t.

“Anyways,” Torchic said slowly to Jackson, as Sarah began to repack her things, “I’m sorry about her behavior and I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive her.”

“Um, I really don’t care,” Jackson said, obviously meaning it. Torchic looked back at Sarah, who was still packing up her things, and then looked back at Jackson and sighed.

“Listen,” Torchic pleaded, “You have no idea what I have to put up with. She is one of the worst and just intolerable human beings on the planet. Would you just humor me here and pretend to be hurt by her actions so that just MAYBE she’ll learn something?”

Jackson looked at Sarah, who was at this moment shouting expletives at the top of her lungs upon finally discovering where her spare Poke Ball was.

“No,” he said sternly. Torchic grunted.

“You are so unhelpful,” she said, before walking back over to her master, who was putting her backpack back over her shoulders.

Jackson looked to the ground in front of him. He realized that he had entirely forgotten about his one and only Pokemon, which was, at this moment, lying on the ground unconscious.

“You’re going to need a revive for that,” Sarah said.

“Hey, you’ve got a spare revive,” Torchic said happily, “Why don’t you give it to him?”

Sarah glared at Torchic, and suddenly their enmity towards one another was very apparent to Jackson.

“No thanks, I’m good,” Jackson said loudly, returning his Zubat into its Poke Ball.

“How dare you suggest that I give a perfectly good revive to a stranger!” Sarah said, nearly steaming with anger.

“Well if you were a good person I wouldn’t have to suggest it, now would I?” Torchic said, as if she had already won the argument.

“Are you calling me a bad person?” Sarah demanded.

“I’m not calling you a good person,” Torchic said, “So, you do the math.”

“No, don’t bring math into this argument!”

“Why not?”

As their argument escalated, Jackson decided that it might be the best decision to just simply leave them alone. He looked at his Poketch to see how much longer it would take to get to the nearest rest house. Instead, he was greeted by the time display.

“7:45 already?” he said loudly, very startled. Sarah and Torchic looked away from their argument and towards Jackson.

“Oh, you can read time!” Sarah said mockingly. “I’m so happy for you!” Torchic jabbed her knee, causing Sarah to stop.

“I don’t think that either of us, really, could make it to the rest stop before the night hits,” Jackson said. “Would you be okay camping in the same proximity as me?”

Sarah had a disgusted look on her face.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” she demanded.

“What? No, I-”

“Let me tell you something boy, what if I’m not interested in a relationship, huh? You boys all think that you’re entitled to everything because you’re guys. Well you know what? I am absolutely disgusted by your audacity!” Sarah picked up the remainder of her stuff and walked to the distance, and then turned back around to face Jackson. “Rot in hell, bitch!” she shouted, before walking away into the distance. Torchic looked back at Jackson.

“I think I see what you mean,” Jackson said.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Torchic said. “Good luck!” she said, before running off after her deranged master.

---------

Fear is a strange thing. Some fear is rooted in the history of someone’s life, with things they are brought up to believe, or other things from their past experiences. Other fears are incredibly irrational and have no solid reason for why they exist.

This applied to a new friend of whom Jackson was about to meet.

Jackson had multiple things strewn all over the ground, as he had spent some time looking for the tent in his bag that he knew that he had bought. At the moment, he was reading the directions on how to set it up. Yes, he had set up a tent before in his life, but it had been a long time ago and he had long forgotten.

As he was using the last of the day’s sun to read the very small directions, he heard something moving around him. He looked up. Around him, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He looked back to the directions, figuring that it must have just been something in his head. Then he heard movement again. He looked up and around once more. Nothing. Jackson took out the pair of scissors he had taken from Sarah out of his pocket, ready to defend himself. He looked around, completely alert, and waiting for something to happen.

And then something did.

A Pokemon consisting of leaves, roots, and a bell shaped head came running out from behind a tree, screaming at the top of its lungs. Jackson also started screaming, unaware of what this Bellsprout wanted. It was nothing but a bunch of screaming for a few moments. The Bellsprout ran around in circles in the clearing while Jackson, scissors held out straight in front of him, watched the Bellsprout. When the Bellsprout saw this, it grew even more scared and screamed even louder. Jackson, not putting two and two together to realize that it was scared of the scissors, thought that the Bellsprout was about to do something. The screams continued for what seemed like forever, until the Bellsprout looked back into the forest, got even more scared, and ran towards Jackson’s bag. It touched the button of an empty Poke Ball, and dissolved into it. Jackson stopped screaming and stared. The Poke ball wobbled four times, before sending out a quiet “ping!” sound.

Jackson picked up the Poke Ball, thoroughly confused as to what just happened. Hesitantly, he sent out his newly acquired Pokemon. As soon as the Bellsprout left the Poke Ball, it turned back to Jackson, clicked the button on the Poke Ball, and returned back inside it. Jackson sent out the Bellsprout again, only for it to return itself once again.

Once more, Jackson sent out the Bellsprout, but this time held the Poke Ball higher so that the Bellsprout would not be able to reach it. The Bellsprout tried to reach for it, and whimpered.

“Why did you just allow yourself to be captured?” Jackson asked.

“Get me away from here!” the Bellsprout cried. “I want to get out of this terrible place.”

“Why?” Jackson asked. “What is so bad about this forest?”

“It’s everywhere! It’s all over the place! It’s watching me!”

“What is watching you? What is everywhere?”

“It’s there! And there! It’s everywhere!”

“What in the name of all that is good and holy are you talking about?” Jackson demanded, tired of this confusing guessing game. The Bellsprout looked around nervously, and then beckoned Jackson to come closer. Jackson put his head down close to the Bellsprout’s level.


“It’s,” the Bellsprout whispered directly into his ear, “the wood.”

“What?” Jackson asked, confused.

“The wood!” Bellsprout cried. “It’s all around us! It wants to destroy us all!”

“It’s just…wood,” Jackson said simply. The Bellsprout squeaked upon hearing Jackson say that.

“Don’t say that!” the Bellsprout said. “They can hear you!”

“Let me get this straight,” Jackson said, “You are afraid of wood.”

Bellsprout nodded his head nervously. Jackson sighed and returned Bellsprout into his Poke Ball.

“I’ve got a Zubat who is always arguing with me, and a Bellsprout that’s afraid of wood,” he muttered. “If I was a serious Pokemon trainer, I think I might be crying right now.”

This is very great, and funny, too! I love how quirky it is as well! Keep up the good work!

Chapter 5: Flirtatious Behavior

Jackson awoke, stuck inside some sort of plastic casing. Immediately, he panicked. What had happened? Who had taken him? Why was he taken? Would he die here? Would he ever get to finish his wristwatch collection?

And then he realized that his tent had collapsed on him and that he could take it off of him with a simple movement of his hands.

The sky was bright with the morning light. Jackson looked at his watch.

“6:52. Hmm,” he said, considering whether he should try to sleep a bit more or continue onwards.

“Hello!” he heard a voice shout from far away. He looked around. He could make out a small figure off in the distance in the forest. He decided that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep in now. He began to put things back into his bag as the figure drew closer. Once he had most of the stuff put in his bag, he looked up. His jaw dropped.

Standing in front of him was a woman, only slightly shorter than him. She had long, dyed dark green hair that was up in a ponytail. Her face wasn’t particularly exciting, and was a little bit scrunched up, but was only noticeable if you paid close attention to it. Paying close attention to it, however, was hard to do.

The thing about this woman was, to be blunt, her breasts. While not hanging out or anything, each of them seemed to be the size of an average person’s head. Whether a person liked boobs or not, it was hard not to look at them because of how big they were. Jackson tried to gaze into the girl’s face, but found his attention being drawn to the boobs like a fat child to an ice cream sundae.

“Um, excuse me, my eyes are up here,” the woman said, in a shrill voice. Jackson looked up to her. “Thank you.”

“Boobs! Er, I mean, hi!” Jackson said, trying very hard to restrain himself from looking at the freakishly large boobs.

“The rest house heard some screams last night and so I came to check if things were okay,” she said.

“Wait, how far away is the rest house?” Jackson asked, desperately trying to get his mind off of the boobs.

“Not too far,” the woman said, turning to point in the direction that she came from, in the process, shaking her body slightly. “Just a few minutes that way.”

“I guess my Poketch is very inaccurate,” Jackson muttered. “Wait, if you heard screams, why didn’t you come here when you first heard them.”

“Um, we had guests,” the woman said hesitantly. She was lying. The real reason that no one came to help was because she was banging the owner of the rest stop, but that was beside the point.

“Did you get, by chance, a very strange girl by the name of Sarah and a Torchic?” Jackson asked, legitimately curious.

“No,” the woman answered. There was a pause, as the woman couldn’t think of anything else to say, and Jackson was exerting most of his energy trying not to look at the woman’s breasts.

“Well, thanks for your concern,” Jackson said, “but I’m fine.”

“Great!” the woman said. “Well, if you want, feel free to stop by the rest house.” The woman began to turn away. And then Jackson could no longer stop himself.

“When you jump, do those hit your face or something?” Jackson blurted. “Do you have to make your own bras? Have you ever accidentally suffocated someone with those things?”

---------

After being yelled at by the very well endowed woman, Jackson trekked through the rest of the forest. It took most of the day to traverse, but eventually he surfaced out of the forest and its very bad smells, and arrived in the city of Colia.

Colia was an excellent city, the first official city of a Pokemon trainer’s journey. As such, it had many excellent businesses, and was one of the more successful cities in the Sporuto region, since people were always coming and going to and from the city.

Jackson had one major thing to attend to first; he had to find a Pokemon Center. His Zubat was still unconscious, and his Bellsprout was pretty injured. Not from any Pokemon battles, despite fighting a few, but injured from trying to run away from the trees that were all around him in the woods.

Jackson looked at the map on his Poketch, which he was finding to be more and more inaccurate. It now read that he was in the middle of the ocean.

Maybe there was a reason most people chose Pokegears than Poketches.

Jackson sighed and looked around the city for any sign of a Pokemon Center. All he could see were the busy streets filled with people and cars, and the buildings towering over him. Jackson sighed, and realized that he was going to have to navigate the city on his own. He sighed, and turned around a small café onto the next street. He suddenly collided into something, and felt some incredibly hot liquid splash over his shirt. He jumped back and began to incessantly apologize.

“YOU!” he heard the person say. Unfortunately he recognized the voice.

“How dare you?!” Sarah Gordon shouted, obviously quite angry. Her Torchic emerged from behind her and sighed. “I say that I won’t go out with you, and this is how you react? You try to murder me with my own coffee? The nerve!”

“I’m sorry,” Jackson said once more, “I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t mean to try and kill me?” Sarah asked, still shouting, causing more people from inside the café and outside it to look. “This is the reason I didn’t accept when you asked me out on a date!”

“But I didn’t-”

“Yeah, you didn’t! You didn’t think about my feelings! And now here you are, threatening me with a boiling hot liquid just so that you can get in my pants!” The people staring at them all gasped at once.

“No, I don’t want to get in your pants!” Jackson said defensively.

“Oh, so I’m not good enough for you, huh?” Sarah continued to shout. “Is that what this is about?”

Jackson almost said something, but then decided that it might be easier to shut up. He made eye contact with Torchic, who shrugged as a form of apology.

Sarah continued to lecture Jackson for a few more minutes, before people finally began to dissipate from the area. Finally, she looked around, and, seeing the lack of people, grabbed Jackson’s arm and pulled him down the street with her. Finally, when they were away from most people, she stopped, and turned to Jackson.

“Sorry about back there, I was just keeping up appearances,” she said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jackson demanded, now venting his anger at her, “You embarrassed me in front of all those people out there, you bitch!” Torchic stared at him, wide-eyed with admiration. He had just called Sarah what she had wanted to call her for the past week.

“Well of course, I have to act like a bitch!” Sarah said nonchalantly. Jackson and Torchic were quiet, stunned that she did not react how they thought she would. Jackson took a second and composed himself.

“Wait, why do you have to act like a bitch?” Jackson said, thoroughly confused.

“It’s a long story,” Sarah said, but she proceeded to tell it anyways.

Sarah’s father, as it happened, was a singer named Michael Gordon. He was an average singer, and toured about the Sporuto region every now and then. He was neither very popular, nor very unpopular. He fit pleasantly into the world of music. Sarah, however, thought her father was a superstar, and felt that, in order to fit in with other celebrity daughters, she had to act like a diva and an all-around bitch. She continues to live under the delusion that she needs to act like a diva in public in order to maintain her image and standards of being a celebrity’s daughter which, of course, she wasn’t. She explained that when she first met Jackson, she wasn’t sure if he had heard of her or not, so she acted like a bitch to him to maintain her image. Realizing that he had no idea who she or her father was, she decided to drop the act in front of him.

“So you’re essentially an attention whore?” Jackson asked, once Sarah’s lengthy monologue was finished.

“Hey, I didn’t ask for this life,” Sarah said, her temper rising, “Do you think I want to be a bitch? I just can’t control it!”

“Calm down diva, you don’t need to make another scene,” Torchic said. Sarah took a moment to compose herself.

“Sorry, sometimes I forget that I can just be normal every now and then,” Sarah said.

Suddenly, she spotted someone who was in the crowd watching the fight earlier. Instinctively, she smacked Jackson right across the face. “Get away from me you bastard!” she shouted, and proceeded to turn away from Jackson and walk down the street. Torchic did not follow.

Once Sarah was gone, Torchic turned to Jackson.

“Would you be so kind as to steal me from my trainer?” she asked. Jackson chuckled and shook his head.

“Shouldn’t you go follow her?” he asked.

“I could, but that would probably end in another annoying disagreement or something,” Torchic said, sighing. There was a bit of an awkward silence as they continued to watch Sarah storm off. She was taking an awfully long time to walk away from them.

“Hey, do you know where to find a Pokemon Center?” Jackson asked, remembering the unconscious Pokemon and the wood-fearing plant.

“Yeah,” Torchic said, turning towards him. “If you follow this street to the end, then take a right, you should see it to your left towards the end of the street.” Torchic looked back to her master, who was still storming away slowly. “Have fun. I think she wants me to follow,” she said, in a half fearful half annoyed tone of voice. She ran off after her attention seeking trainer.

And once more, Jackson was alone. Well, alone in the sense that he had no one to talk to. The city was bustling with people at the moment, which wasn’t too much of a surprise, since most people were just getting out of work. He figured that he could ask around about any wristwatch stores while his Pokemon were being healed. Without further ado, he followed Torchic’s directions.

Chapter 6: The Blacker Market of Pokemon

The Black Market for Pokemon was very deceptively named, at least in the Sporuto region. In fact, the Black Market for Pokemon was sometimes government funded so that some trainers could get some rare and powerful Pokemon and, hopefully and eventually, become successful and make a name for the region. Unfortunately, that had yet to happen.

The Black Market had its name because the government thought that, due to its rebellious sounding name, that young people would be naturally attracted to it. However, a group of intelligent young people saw right through this scheme, and formed the Blacker Market of Pokemon, which was not government sanctioned by any means. The Pokemon given out ranged from being really bad to average.

The government, in retaliation, sanctioned a new Blackest Market of Pokemon, which had inconceivably shady people as the sellers, and Pokemon that could be found nowhere in the region. Not necessarily good Pokemon, but rare Pokemon. The government put out a fake ban on these rare Pokemon, hoping that this would cause rebellious young people to buy these Pokemon even moreso. The youth of the region retaliated again by setting up the Blackest Possible Market of Pokemon, which sold incredibly common Pokemon at ridiculously low prices.

Eventually, the retaliations continued. Technically, in the Sporuto region, due to these retaliations, every Pokemon except Electrike is outlawed. There are actually specific Black Markets devoted to only one kind of Pokemon. The region really screwed that whole business up.

Now, back to our little story. Jackson was following the route that Torchic gave him, but did not find himself anywhere near a Pokemon Center. Instead, he found himself in a trashy part of the city with deteriorating houses and homeless fish. It smelled of old feet and burnt eggs. Indeed, Jackson realized that either Torchic gave him the wrong directions, or he has no sense of direction.

“Pssst, hey, kid,” a scratchy voice whispered. Jackson jumped, startled, and turned. He found himself facing a man with a baseball cap and scarf covering his face, and a long black trench coat. “Wanna buy a Pokemon?”

“Um,” Jackson said, cautiously, “exactly which form of the Black Market are you from?”

“The Dissidents of the New Black Market Republic Mark XIV,” the man said, as if he had spent a remarkably long time rehearsing it. Jackson tried to think of which Black Market that was, but there were so many that he really had no idea.

“Well, what Pokemon do you have?” Jackson asked. The man took a Poke Ball out of his pocket.

“A Togepi,” the man said, his scratchy voice making the name sound very funny. “Do you want it or not? It’s a bargain.”

“How much is a bargain?” Jackson asked. Togepi was a decent Pokemon. It could learn a variety moves, or at least that’s what Jackson remembered from watching Pokemon trainer matches in his spare time.

“I’ll give you $10 if you take it,” the man said.

You see, as the Black Market wars continued, the newer Black Markets began to sell things for less and less, until eventually they ended up paying the customer instead. It was really quite illogical, but neither of the involved parties wanted to admit that they were wrong.

“Is there anything wrong with it?” Jackson asked.

“Nothing what so ever,” the man answered. “Do you want her or not?”

Jackson shrugged. “Sure,” he said, deciding that it would be good to get another Pokemon. The man handed over the Poke Ball and $10. Jackson said thanks and walked away. Not before getting correct directions to the Pokemon Center though, of course.

----------

As the sky was beginning to dim, Jackson finally made it to the Pokemon Center. It was a red roofed building, with glass windows covering the front half. The back half was the actual hospital part of it, and only had a few windows around it. Jackson stepped through the automated doors, and took a look around inside.

It was mostly empty, probably because it was about time for dinner, and people were away. There were only a few other people in the waiting room. There were a variety of seats and tables all around, and a TV was playing some boring sitcom. The floor was a dull orange color. There were two stairs on opposite sides of the back of the room. Jackson stepped up to the pink counter between those flights of stairs, and over to the receptionist, a black haired girl not much older than Jackson, who was not so secretly reading a porn magazine.

“Um,” Jackson said, startling the girl, who dropped her magazine and looked up, alert as ever.

“Hi,” she said, “Can we bang you? Er, help you?” she asked, trying to conceal her embarrassment.

“Yeah,” Jackson said slowly, “I need my Zubat and Bellsprout looked at. My Zubat is unconscious and my Bellsprout is…well you’ll see soon enough.”

The girl nodded. Jackson handed her the two Poke Balls, and she departed to the back of the Pokemon Center through a door.

Jackson looked around. There were three people at a table near the TV, obviously a group, who were just chatting. There was someone else, a guy with bright, tight blue jeans, a tight pink shirt, and hair that looked like it had been made up like a beauty salon master. However, he was taking up space sleeping on three chairs. Jackson sighed and sat in the chair closest to the desk, which was only about two feet away. It was right next to a table, so Jackson folded his arms up and rested his head in them. It had been a long day, and it looked like he wasn’t going to get a chance to eat, at least not for a few more minutes.

Yet as much as he tried, he found himself completely unable to fall asleep. Maybe he was too tired to fall asleep. It had happened to him before.

Jackson sighed. What could he do to kill time? No one there seemed interesting enough to talk with. And even if he wanted another dosage of crazy, he had no way of contacting Sarah at this time.

Then he remembered about the new Pokemon he just got. With any luck, this Togepi wouldn’t be as abrasive as Zubat, nor as phobic as Bellsprout. Part of Jacson didn’t want to meet this new Pokemon, fearing that something would be wrong with it, but the other part of him that just didn’t care took out the Poke Ball, and released the Togepi.

The colorful eggshell Pokemon shook itself off, and looked up at Jackson. It didn’t look to happy.

That’s because it wasn’t.

“Hi,” Jackson said, trying to ignore the discomforting gaze of general dissatisfaction from the Togepi, “I’m your new train-”

“You suck,” Togepi said suddenly. “I hate you almost as much as I hate flowers.”

Jackson was taken aback by this. Generally, the Togepi species was viewed as always being happy. Not liking flowers and having such a discontent expression pointed towards this Togepi not being happy at all.

“Um, what did you say?” Jackson asked, hoping that it had been his imagination. The Togepi sighed, glaring at Jackson all the while.

“I hate you,” she said, with almost no trace of emotion in her voice. “I hate everything. I hate life. I cut myself to relieve stress.”

Jackson stared at the Pokemon wide-eyed, and somewhat fearful. Now he actually noticed very slight scars on the eggshell of the Pokemon. The Togepi stared back, showing no emotion what so ever.

“Do you, ah, like battling?” Jackson asked, thinking that he had to connect with this Pokemon on some level.

“I love it,” she said, still emotionless and cold. Jackson stared at her expectantly, thinking that she was going to say something else, but she didn’t. Jackson didn’t know if he even wanted to know why she liked battling.

“Are you, like, depressed or something?” Jackson asked, somewhat worried, moreso fearful. “Should you see a psychiatrist, or something?”

“I had a psychiatrist once,” Togepi said, making frightening eye contact with Jackson. Jackson tried to get away from the glare given off by Togepi, but found himself trapped between it and the back of his chair.

“He’s dead now,” Togepi said, referring to the psychiatrist.

Jackson quickly took out her Poke Ball and recalled her. He sighed, recovering from the fear that Togepi induced in him. How is it that Sarah, being a complete nutjob, could get a perfectly normal Pokemon such as Torchic, and yet out of his three Pokemon, he had yet to encounter just one?

“Sir!” the girl behind the desk said, motioning for Jackson. He got out of his chair and walked towards her. She took out two Poke Balls from beneath the counter and held them out for him.

“They’re all good,” she said as Jackson took them from her hands. “Nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, really.”

Jackson flinched at the word “cuts”, after having had his uncomfortable conversation with Togepi only a few minutes earlier. He nodded as a sign of thanks towards the woman, and began to turn around.

“Wanna get it on?” the girl asked. Jackson turned back towards her, as she stood behind the desk, looking very desperate all of a sudden. “I haven’t been laid in months! I’m desperate! You’re the first good looking guy I’ve seen in a while!”

While it was nice to be called good looking, Jackson was intimidated by this girl’s advances. She seemed a little too desperate.

“I’ll do anything! I’ve got costumes and all that shit!” she said, more desperate than before. “Do me! Right here!” She climbed over the counter and grabbed his arm, and began to lick it.

This was enough for Jackson to see that this probably wasn’t the best place to be hanging around at, considering how crazy this girl was. He tried to tear his arm away, but the girl held tighter.

“Don’t leave me!” she begged. Jackson could feel his arm going numb. He tried pulling his arm away, but with every attempt he just found his arm having a tighter grip on it.

“Step away from him,” a high pitched, yet masculine, voice erupted from behind Jackson. He turned to see the kid who was sleeping on the chairs before, now standing up.

“What are you going to do about it?” the woman asked angrily. Jackson could sense some sort of friction going on between them. There was an incredibly awkward silence as the two people attempted to stare each other down. After what seemed like hours, the girl’s grip on Jackson’s arm began to loosen, until she completely let go of it. Jackson was finally able to move his arm around again, and it no longer felt numb. The girl moved back behind her desk, and began to read her porn again. Jackson turned to the kid who helped him.

“Ah, thanks for helping out there,” Jackson said. The boy smiled.

“Glad I could help,” he said. Now that he was standing up, Jackson could tell that he was about his age, maybe a little older. “It always makes me feel good to help out a cute guy in need.”

As if the tight clothing and the flamboyant voice weren’t a dead giveaway, Jackson now had reaffirmation that this guy was gay.

“Um, thanks,” Jackson asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable, but only slightly.

“The name’s Terry,” he said, holding out his hand, “Terry Valencia. I’m from Lake City.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jackson said, shaking Terry’s hand. Terry had a nice firm handshake, he noticed.

“So, where are you staying?” Terry asked. “Unless, of course, you live here.”

This was an excellent point brought up to Jackson, as he just realized that he needed to find a hotel to stay at. He really didn’t want to though, all things considered.

“A good looking guy like you shouldn’t be stuck out on the streets for a night,” Terry said. The smile on his face widened. “Tell you what, if you need a place to stay, I’ve got a free bed in my hotel room.”

Jackson sighed. “I’m straight,” he said flatly.

“I wasn’t hitting on you,” Terry said defensively.

He was flirting with Jackson, however, and it was obvious.

“Well anyways,” Jackson said, “I think I’d rather get my own room tonight. I’m ah, looking for a friend.”

“What’s this friend’s name?” Terry asked. Jackson was finding it increasingly awkward how interested in his life Terry was.

“Sarah Gordon,” Jackson blurted out, Sarah’s name being the first name to pop into his head.

“Oh,” Terry said, not hiding his disappointment well, “she’s your girlfriend I imagine?”

“Yes,” Jackson said immediately, not thinking of the repercussions that this might have on him in the future. There was a bit of an awkward silence.

“Well, it was nice talking to you,” Terry said quickly, reaching his hand out to shake hands with Jackson again. They shook hands once more. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again. I think we could be good friends.”

Jackson nodded with a slight smile. Terry smiled back, and turned back to the chairs where he was sleeping earlier, where he quickly lied down again.

While most straight men might be afraid, Jackson was actually rather excited to have a gay friend. He never had any gay friends, as his aunt and uncle were strongly against gay marriage and forbid him from having any gay friends. Jackson felt rebellious, and cool, to finally have a friend who was gay.

The flirting, however, would have to stop.

Chapter 7: The Moral Compass (or Lack Thereof)

Finding a suitable hotel for the night wasn’t very difficult. There was a whole street filled with hotels right next to the Pokemon Center. As it was approaching night time, most people were heading back to their homes or hotels as well. Jackson looked around at all the hotels on the street, and decided that the least busy one, the Pokinn, seemed like a good choice.

It wasn’t.

During the night, Jackson had to deal with the noise of a couple making extremely passionate and loud love in the room next to him, and then had to listen to them argue for what seemed like days. They were loud enough to even be able to drown out the sound of the TV. Around one o’clock in the morning, he heard their argument escalating into a bunch of screams before there was finally silence. He slept peacefully after that.

---------

There was a loud knock on the door that woke Jackson up. He looked at the clock. 8:03. Jackson sluggishly got out of bed and went to the door. He found himself looking right into the eyes of a police officer.

“Can I help you with something?” Jackson asked hesitantly.

“We’re looking into the assault that occurred next door last night,” the officer said sternly, “the two victims were put into comas and near death due to the attack.”

“Oh, that’s why they got quiet all of a sudden,” Jackson said out loud, accidentally.

“Excuse me?” the officer asked.

“Well they were arguing very loudly-” Jackson began.

“And you killed them?”

“What? No! They were really loud and suddenly they were quiet and I fell asleep,” Jackson said quickly.

“Would you be willing to take a lie detector test to that extent?” the officer asked. Jackson sighed. Maybe he should have stayed with Terry.

--------

One lie detector test later, he emerged from the back of the police station.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience, sir,” the very fat and stern receptionist said as Jackson walked by. Jackson rolled his eyes, and in the process noticed an unusual face sitting in the lobby of the police station. After mulling it over for a second, Jackson really wasn’t surprised.

“Sarah?” he asked. She was sitting, legs crossed, reading a Reader’s Digest. She looked up, and around the room, presumably to see if there was anyone there who might recognize her. She immediately went back to her magazine, but tapped the chair next to her, motioning for Jackson to sit down. He did so.

“Pick up a magazine and pretend to read it,” she said, not looking away from her magazine which she most likely wasn’t reading. Without looking, Jackson grabbed a magazine from the table next to him, opened it, and held it out in front of his face, pretending to read it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh, some kid and I got in trouble for being a public nuisance or some shit,” Sarah said nonchalantly. “They just talked to me, and they’re talking to the kid right now. They want me to wait out here.”

“Why do you feel the need to get into all of these arguments with random people?” Jackson asked.

“For the record, this kid deserved it,” Sarah said, flipping backwards a page in her magazine.

“Oh really?” Jackson said disbelievingly. “Did he look at you funny, or trip you on purpose or something?”

“He called me a slutty whore and a bunch of big words I didn’t understand after he attempted to con me into giving him my Pokemon,” Sarah said, without much of a departure in her tone of voice. There was a bit of a pause. Jackson was kind of surprised that Sarah did have a bit of a reason to have acted irrationally. Then again, he hadn’t known her long, so maybe stuff like this had happened before.

As they sat there reading their magazines and generally ignoring each other, Jackson realized that he was reading a bridal magazine, which explained the weird look he was getting from the receptionist. He put the magazine down quickly, and stood up, ready to leave. However, he was immediately pulled back down to his seat by Sarah.

“You ain’t going nowhere kiddo,” Sarah said .

“Why not?”

“Because I’m bored and when that kid comes out I need him to see that I’m not a single emo whore that will never find love.”

“You want me to pose as your boyfriend?”

“No, I was going to display you as a good friend, but you being a boyfriend actually makes more sense.”

Jackson sighed, and regretted acknowledging her presence in the first place.

---------

Meanwhile, far off from where Jackson was having a terrible day, there were three people, two of which Jackson did not know, who were having a very in depth conversation about him. A green haired woman and a short haired blonde man were sitting in chairs next to one another. The woman was wearing a black t-shirt and dark blue jeans, while the man was wearing a yellow t-shirt and blue skirt. They were looking a dark haired man who was sitting behind a desk, looking very displeased.

“You two are terrible,” the man said, very displeased. “I gave you the simple task of kidnapping a government employee, and you failed. What were you thinking?”

“Well,” the woman, named Jeanette Rousseau, answered, “I thought that the best way to take him was by the way of taking him by surprise. What other way would be as surprising as crossdressing?”

“I just wanted to wear a pretty skirt,” the manin the skirt, Calvin Peroli, said.

“It’s not only that mission though,” the man said, disregarding what the two of them had just said in their defense. “You have been unable to steal Pokemon from 10 year olds, win a Pokemon contest in an undercover operation, defeat any gym leaders to earn trust, or outsmart that waitress at Dairy Farm.”

“For the record, that waitress is a bitch,” Jeanette said.

“She gave me mustard when I asked for ketchup, and when I tried to correct her, she said that I owed her 39.86!” Calvin said.

“That was the bill, dumbass,” Jeanette snapped.

“Regardless,” the man said angrily, “you have time and time again proven yourselves to be complete failures in nearly every mission you have been tasked with.”

“I apologize sir,” Jeanette said, obviously meaning it. “Maybe if I had a better partner, things would be going along much more smoothly.” She heavily emphasized the last sentence.

“I agree with Jeanette!” Calvin said furiously, “you should assign her with a better partner! Then maybe the two of us will do better in the field!”

“Therefore,” the man said forcefully, obviously trying to ignore what the two of them just said, “I have one final mission for you. If you fail, you are both fired.”

Jeanette and Calvin gasped in unison.

“Please sir, give us one more chance!” Calvin begged. Jeannette and the man glared at him.

“Your task,” the man continued, ignoring Calvin, “is so easy that someone with a negative I.Q could successfully pull it off.”

“What do you want us to do?” Jeanette asked.

“Have either of you heard of Jackson Marks?” the man asked.

Both Jeanette and Calvin obviously were trying to think as hard as possible of who Jackson Marks might be.

“Good, neither of you have,” the man said. Jeanette and Calvin sighed in relief. “He is an up and coming Pokemon trainer making his journey throughout the region. I want you to tail him on his journey, and slow him down if you can.”

“Why?” Jeanette asked, “what about this kid makes him a threat to Team Proto?”

The man sighed, and took out a small piece of paper. He put it on the edge of his desk. Jeanette grabbed for it, but was beat to it by Calvin. She looked over his shoulder as he read it. A look of realization came over their faces.

“Oh,” they said in unison.

I only read the first few chapters, but this is REALLY excellent. I was smiling pretty hard the whole time, and even laughed out loud once or twice - which is very rare for "humorous" fanfiction and me.

I would offer some constructive criticism, but pretty much everything you are doing "works" for you. I especially like the way you constantly cut aside to unrelated but humorous information - really helps paint a picture of a living, breathing region. Not only that - it's really funny. The first time it happened (with the masculine elite four champion) I was wtfing, but it was a wtf very much spurred by amusement. The good kind.

I would say "cut down on the 'random' humor" because "random" humor is in general a very trying-too-hard not good attempt at being funny, but one of the moments that I laughed out loud at was the one where you first revealed Jackson's interest in wristwatches. So. Although the uncle's obsession with yogurt was one of the parts I think didn't work out so well.

My favorite parts were the part about the pokemon war, the "this larvitar is a slut", the argument between him and his uncle, and the part where he found the poketch - which I saw coming just a second before I read it, making it even more hilarious.

My only concern is that your irreverent style might become a bit grating and redundant over time, for both you and the reader, but I haven't gotten to that point so I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you keep it up over time.

I liked this, and I will probably read more later.

Holy crap, Jackson sure did suddenly get a harem didn't he? And I wonder if the new characters will be apart of it.

Alright, NaNoWriMo is over, and I wrote a few more chapters before my inevitable failure towards the end. I'll post those in a bit.

One thing I definitely do notice about the following chapters is that they're kinda crappy. I definitely want to go back and rewrite them later, but I can promise you that, since I won't be pressed for time with writing anymore, the next chapters I write will be better.

I'll post the next ones in a few minutes.

Chapter 8: Sarah and the Brain

The region of Sporuto was very unexciting. The region’s established news channel had to switch to being a nature channel because of how little was going on in the region. Therefore, whenever even the littlest exciting thing occurs, the region is abuzz.

This is how the story of Derek Riviera became well known.

Derek Riviera was, in a word, a prodigy. He was born in the well known Kanto region where, at the age of 8, he had nearly completed school and was giving advice to gym leaders there. He had placed at least 2nd in the Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh Pokemon league tournaments, and had built quite the name for himself. He recently decided to go to the lesser known region of Sporuto for his next journey, at the age of 13. The region buzzed over his arrival, however the buzz died down shortly afterwards. He arrived in Lake City in May, where he visited with family, and began to plan out his team. He set out on his journey only a week or so before Jackson.

Despite his celebrity status, or maybe because of it, he was quite an asshole.

Jackson, however, was unaware of this.

“There he is!” Sarah whispered. Out of the back of the police station walked a boy much shorter and younger than Jackson with a backwards baseball cap, black jeans, and a plain white t-shirt. He had very large, square glasses on, and was very thin.

“I apologize for the inconvenience mister,” the boy said. His voice was almost like punishment to the ear. It sounded like his congestion was congested while he had a nasally voice with two plugged noses. It was almost unbearable to listen to.

“Just try not to do this ever again, Mr. Riviera,” the police officer said, before walking to the back of the station again. As Derek approached the door, Sarah threw down her magazine, and almost literally jumped out of her chair, pulling Jackson up with her.

“Hey you!” Sarah shouted to the kid. “So you think I can’t love, huh? Well take a look at this, my boyfriend!”

Derek turned.

“I have no quarrel with you of feeble mentality,” he said. Jackson flinched as he spoke.

“I’ll feeble mentality your ass, bitch!” Sarah shouted angrily. Derek shook his head in disapproval.

“Why take up arms towards me? What profit me to bleed?” he asked.

“It’ll make me happy!” Sarah yelled.

“Please, calm down!” the receptionist pleaded.

“Shut up fat ass!” Sarah commanded. The woman glared at her, got out of her chair, and ran around her desk, anger seething out of her eyes.

“ME SQUASH YOU!” she shouted. There were obviously a few screws loose with this lady. She charged towards Sarah, who took Jackson, ran towards the door, pushed Derek in the path of the obese receptionist, and ran outside. She sighed out of relief, ignoring the nasally scream inside.

“You really need to, I don’t know, not encourage people to attack you or get angry at you like that,” Jackson said.

“You really need to, I don’t know, shut up,” Sarah mocked. She looked around for any sign of people. “Hey, why were you in the police station.” Jackson chuckled.

“It’s kind of a funny story. You see, I was-”

“Fascinating. Hey when are you leaving for Gondo?” Sarah asked, immediately changing the conversation topic to something that had some application to her.

“Um,” Jackson said, taken off guard. Come to think of it, he really hadn’t decided when he was leaving for the next city, and the first city with a gym. He meant to spend today sightseeing and maybe look for some wristwatches. He checked his watch. 11:54. He still had time. “Probably tomorrow,” he said, in response to her question.

“Really?” she asked. “Me too! I got this new friend who’s participating in a Pokemon Contest here today. He and I are going to head out to Gondo tomorrow after he hopefully wins the contest.”

Pokemon contests were alternatives to battling Pokemon, where the style of Pokemon was graded much more highly than their battle ability.

“He’s really talented. He’s as good at Pokemon contests as I am at battling!” Sarah said, making sure not to take too much attention away from her. “Say, what time is it?”

“Almost noon,” Jackson said immediately, “I just checked my watch.” Sarah jumped.

“Eek! His contest starts soon! I better set off,” she said, running off to the distance, “Meet us at the Armed Fence Jumper restaurant at around 3 if you want!” she shouted as she ran away.

Jackson was a little surprised at how nicely Sarah was treating him, despite her still being quite an attention whore. He was pleased by this turn of events, and was happy that perhaps he had finally made a good friend on his journey, despite her many unusual habits and behaviors.

Chapter 9: The Case of the Missing Bellsprout

An hour after Sarah took off, leaving Jackson on his own, Jackson was having no luck locating a wristwatch store. And, stranger yet, it seemed that, after spending a decent amount of time with Sarah recently, he found himself feeling a bit alone.

His legs were getting tired from all the walking that he had been doing so far, so he located the nearest park bench and sat down in an area on the edge of an empty soccer field. He sighed, and sent out his three Pokemon. Zubat appeared to be sleeping in midair, Bellsprout was looking around nervously, and Togepi was sending a fierce and intimidating glare in Jackson’s direction.

“Zubat, Bellsprout,” Jackson said in as good of a tone of voice as possible, “this is our new team member, Togepi.” Zubat and Bellsprout did nothing. Jackson turned towards Togepi. “I think they’re a little shy.”

“I hate them already,” she said darkly.

“I assumed that might be the case,” Jackson said. He yawned, and propped his feet up on the bench in order to lie down. Suddenly, Bellsprout screeched.

“DON’T DO IT!” he shouted. Jackson quickly got up and looked at Togepi almost immediately. She shrugged, and pointed to Bellsprout, who was backing away slowly from Jackson.

“Don’t do what?” Jackson asked.

“Oh no!” Bellsprout said. “They’ve gotten to you! I can’t trust you! I can’t trust anyone anymore! You’ve been corrupted by the wood!”

“Wood?” Jackson said, looking around. There wasn’t a tree to be seen, only hedges and bushes surrounding the field.

Then he looked down.

The bench he was sitting on was, indeed, made of wood.

Jackson sighed and looked up.

“If it’s that big of a deal I’ll just send you back in your Poke Ball.”

But Bellsprout was nowhere to be found.

Jackson looked around the soccer field, looking for any sign of the flower Pokemon, but found nothing.

“Zubat? Togepi?” he asked.

“Mmmfff wha?” Zubat said, just waking up.

“I hate you,” Togepi said, still glaring at Jackson.

“Do either of you see Bellsprout anywhere?” Jackson asked.

“Probaly an way,” Zubat muttered groggily.

“I hate you,” Togepi said, yet still glaring at Jackson.

“Guys, this is serious,” Jackson said, standing up, frantically scanning the field. “He could have been stolen or something.”

“Is at aba thing?” Zubat asked.

“I hate you,” Togepi, position still not changing.

Jackson groaned and returned the two unhelpful Pokemon into their Poke Balls. He immediately began to walk about the field, looking around frantically from the missing plant root. He spent the next ten minutes searching every nook and cranny of the field, and continued to find nothing. Despite the fact that he really didn’t feel and major bond with his Pokemon, he was still worried about what had happened to Bellsprout. His phobia of wood could get him into some pretty big trouble out into the world, and that was the last thing that Jackson wanted on his mind.

Jackson went to examine a hedge on the northern side of the field, when suddenly, two mysterious people jumped out of them, one of which pinned Jackson to the ground with his foot. They were none other than Jeanette and Calvin, however Jackson was unaware of this.

“Ahahahaha!” Jeanette chuckled evilly. Through the corned of his eyes, Jackson could see that she held in her hands his Bellsprout, who was frantically trying to break itself free.

“They pinned me against a tree!” he screamed. “I’m gonna die I’m gonna die I’m gonna die!”

“Who are you?” Jackson asked, genuinely curious. “And what on earth would you want with that Bellsprout in particular?”

“The Bellsprout?” Calvin asked. “Why, we want nothing with the Bellsprout. What we want is from you.”

“And what do you want from me?” Jackson asked, a bit intimidated by these two strangely dressed people. They were still wearing their attire from their earlier meeting, and because of Calvin’s current position of holding Jackson down with his foot, Jackson was not getting a pretty view of things.

“To slow you down, but of course!” the two of them said almost in unison.

“Direct orders from the leader,” Jeanette said, beginning to circle around Calvin and Jackson.

“You definitely don’t want to cross him,” Calvin said immediately afterwards.

“Our leader is scary when he’s mad.”

“You should have seen him last year at the Christmas party when-”

“Calvin there’s no need to bring that up,” Jeanette said quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Jackson said, thoroughly confused. “What exactly are you talking about?”

“Are you saying that you don’t recognize us?” Calvin asked, startled.

“Should I?” Jackson asked. Calvin and Jeanette stared at each other for a moment, and then both broke out into laughter.

“Oh, oh that’s funny,” Jeanette said, between laughs. “You said, you said you don’t know who we are!”

“That’s because I truly don’t,” Jackson said, “and can you move your foot? My chest is starting to hurt.”

“Are you saying that you’ve never heard of Team Proto?” Calvin said, shocked by this revelation.

“What’s a Team Proto?” Jackson asked. Calvin and Jeanette gasped, and looked at each other, and then looked back at Jackson.

“You don’t know what Team Proto is?” they both asked in unison.

“How have you not heard of us?” Calvin asked, not really directing his question at Jackson, but really to the whole area in general.

“For you information,” Jeanette said angrily, kicking Jackson’s leg, “we are a revolutionary organization maintaining our position in the Sporuto Region. We are here to revolutionize the government by putting our intellectual and supreme leader in charge of everything.”

“And it’s not just Sporuto,” Calvin said excitedly, “eventually our reach will extend to the regions around us.”

“Soon, our group will have the whole world in our grasp to do our bidding!” Jeanette said, also very excited.

“That sounds fantastic and all,” Jackson said, “but why exactly are you trying to slow me down if I know absolutely nothing of your organization? How on earth do I pose a threat to you.”

Jeanette and Calvin looked at each other.

“He has a point,” Calvin said, after a moment.

“He’s lying!” Jeanette shouted.

“The wood has gotten to him!” Bellsprout exclaimed, still trying to wriggle himself free. “He can speak nothing but lies now!” Jackson rolled his eyes.

“Obviously he knows who we are,” Jeanette said, “he’s just trying to throw us off.”

“Except I’m not,” Jackson said. “Who names a group ‘Team Proto’ anyways? It’s really quite a stupid name.” Jeanette and Calvin gasped.

“Are you insulting our leader’s judgement?” Calvin asked, completely shocked.

“I guess so,” Jackson said.

“How dare you!” Jeanette said. “If I felt like bending down and had a spare hand, I would bitchslap you!”

“Can you just let my insane Bellsprout go please? I need to attend to some business before I meet my insane friend for dinner,” Jackson said, very exasperated with these antics at this point. He was no longer intimidated by the two of them, as at this point he simply viewed them as a couple of idiots.

“Never!” Jeanette said. “Without this Bellsprout, you won’t have a Pokemon with a type advantage over the next gym, a grass type gym! Which means you will have to go out of your way to catch a Pokemon like that! Which means that you will be slowed down!”

“I have a Zubat,” Jackson said. Jeanette and Calvin looked at each other again.

“Dammit, I asked you if he had anymore Pokemon!” she raged.

“I’m sorry! I thought it was dead!” Calvin said. “I guess it was only sleeping!”

“Well,” Jeanette said, turning away from Calvin to look at Jackson on the ground, “you’ll still need a grass type eventually.”

“Not necessarily,” Jackson said. Suddenly, he heard Jeanette scream.

“OUCH!” she shouted, grabbing at her wrist, Bellsprout no longer in her hands.

“What happened?” Calvin asked.

“That damn Bellsprout whipped my arm with its freaking leaf!” she shouted. “Man that hurts!”

Suddenly, the foot on top of Jackson was released, and he heard a very girly scream erupt from Calvin.

“He whipped me in the Charlie Browns!” Calvin said, on the verge of tears and holding his crotch. Jackson felt himself getting pushed up. He looked and saw Bellsprout behind him.

“I thought I was ‘one with the wood’” Jackson said.

“No time to explain,” Bellsprout said in a surprisingly normal tone of voice. “We must get out of here! Immediately!” Bellsprout returned himself into his Poke Ball. Jackson turned and saw Jeanette’s face turning an unnatural shade of red as she began to storm after Jackson.

“You’ll pay for that you little piece of shit!” she shouted, rubbing her hand. Jackson jumped a little bit out of surprised, and, filled with a sudden adrenaline burst, ran away very quickly from the two dimwits. One of which was still screaming like a woman in pain, and the other one who was approaching rather fast.

“Ninjask, get him!” she shouted, throwing a Poke Ball into the air. Out of it came a very speedy fly Pokemon, which locked its eyes upon Jackson and immediately zoomed after him. Jackson hastily grabbed the first Poke Ball he found in his Pocket.

“Please be Zubat,” he said, as he stopped running.

Of course, it wasn’t.

Out of it came the scary and morbidly depressed Pokemon that beared an abnormal hatred towards Jackson.

“Dammit!” Jackson shouted, rummaging around his pockets.

“I hate you and your buzzing ass!” Togepi said angrily. Jackson stared at her as he watched her open her mouth and send out a pillar of flames at the buzzing fly Pokemon. Being a bug type Pokemon and weak to a fire-type attack like that of flamethrower, the Nincada screeched in pain, and went flying back to its master, who stomped her feet in rage.

“How dare you!” she shouted. “You will pay for this you bastard! No one hurts a beautiful lady like me and gets away with it!”

Before she even finished that sentence, however, Jackson was entirely out of earshot from her. He had returned Togepi, and had run to the sidewalk at the entrance to the park. He was now a fence and many yards away from the two crazy people there. He took a moment to catch his breath, as the mixture of running fast and him not really being in shape made him struggle for breath for a few moments. He sat down on the ground, leaning against the fence, and slowly caught his breath.

Chapter 10: The Importance of P.O.O.P

About 15 minutes later, Jackson was at a single table on the patio outside a coffee shop, drinking a cup of hot coffee with a dash of chocolate sauce. It was his comfort food, to put it lightly. Whenever he was discomforted or anxious, his problems always seemed to melt away with every sip of the delicious drink.

He kept replaying what had just happened in his mind. Two random people he did not know from an organization he had not heard about had assaulted him because apparently he was a threat to this organization he had never heard about. None of it made any sense whatsoever, and Jackson found it a bit irritating, to say the least.

One other piece of strangeness that occurred was that his Bellsprout had suddenly shown a sign of sanity, something that Jackson didn’t even know existed in that Pokemon’s abysmal brain. He decided that it might be a good time, while he was calming down with his delicious drink, to ask his Pokemon exactly what just happened. Within moments, Bellsprout emerged on the ground right next to him.

“What’s up with you?” Jackson asked. “I thought you were nuts? Or was that just a random act of sanity?”

Bellsprout stared at him blankly for a few moments.

“This is the most sane I’ve seen you act in the past 48 hours,” Jackson said, “I think you’d better tell me what is going on.” There was a short pause, before Bellsprout sighed, and gave in to Jackson’s request for answers.

“Alright, I’m not really insane like you think I am,” he said.

“Then why are you acting insane?” Jackson asked.

“It was the only way to be captured by you,” Bellsprout said without hesitation.

“Wait, you wanted to be captured by me?” Jackson asked, rather surprised. “Why? Why me specifically?”

“I’m working with the Pokemon Organization of Ordered Persistance, or POOP for short,” Bellsprout said in all seriousness. Jackson’s inner 8 year old couldn’t help but laugh. “Let me remind you that I saved your ass out there.”

“Good to know that POOP saved my ass,” Jackson said, not able to turn down this opportunity.

“We can stand here all day and make jokes like this, or I can give you answers,” Bellsprout said in all seriousness. Jackson composed himself and took another sip of his warm beverage.

“Go on,” Jackson said.

“Alright,” Bellsprout said. “It’s time I tell you a brief history of POOP. POOP was formed and is maintained by multiple groups of Pokemon throughout the world. I am one of the major POOP captains of the Sporuto region, as it happens. You may have heard of evil organizations such as Team Rocket, Team Magma, Team Aqua, Team Galactic, and Team Plasma, correct? Well POOP is an ordered group of Pokemon that does their best to maintain the order against these evil teams just as much, if not more, than the humans do.”

“So you’re like some sort of Anti Terrorist organization formed solely by Pokemon?” Jackson asked.

“Precisely,” Bellsprout said. “In the Sporuto region, over the past few years, the underground organization to undermine the government, Team Proto, has been gaining notoriety. Despite some of their bumbling underlings, most of them are highly skilled and very intelligent. Their main goal is to take over the government of this region, and eventually gain control of the world. While this seems like some stereotypical motivation for a villain, this has a great chance of taking place. The leader of Team Proto, Salazar Respiro, is known for being incredibly ruthless in getting what he wants, and will stop at nothing to do so. He is very cunning and intelligent, as are many of the head honchos and even some of the grunts in the group. This is one of the few organizations in the world that actually poses a threat.”

“Are you serious?” Jackson asked doubtfully. “After what I saw, I think the only threat they pose is their children’s impact on general stupidity in the world.” Bellsprout chuckled.

“Those grunts obviously aren’t some of the better ones,” he said.

“Why are they after me, though?” Jackson asked, as it was one of the major questions pressing on his mind. “How do I pose a threat to a group that I had no idea existed until less than an hour ago?”

“A few of our field agents discovered that Respiro has been tracking you for quite a while now,” Bellsprout said. “Apparently, he views you as some sort of threat to his team, though we of POOP are all equally as confused as you. However, because he does view you as a threat, we decided to try and figure out why this is so. I was chosen to follow you on your journey in order to gain answers to this question.”

“But why did you have to act nuts?” Jackson asked.

“Would you really have captured a random Bellsprout that didn’t somehow force its way into your possession?” Bellsprout asked.

“If I had a choice, I’d just be on a journey to find a few neat wristwatches,” Jackson said, remembering what his original objective for the day was, until he was sidetracked by the two certifiably insane people.

“Wristwatches?” Bellsprout asked, confused. Jackson just shook his head.

“Never mind,” he said. “I need to find the Armed Fence Jumper. I’m supposed to meet Sarah and her friend there in a little less than an hour for lunch.”

“Have fun with that,” Bellsprout said. “Call me if you need me.” Jackson sighed and returned the plant to its Poke Ball. For some reason, he missed the Bellsprout just being completely nuts.

Chapter 11: The Contestant

The Armed Fence Jumper was a small restaurant in the northern part of town, only about 20 minutes away from where Jackson was at present. Its focus is what we in this world would call “Mexican Food”. It wasn’t a particularly great restaurant, but it wasn’t all too bad of a restaurant either.

Jackson arrived about 10 minutes early, only to find Sarah already sitting at a table near the front of the restaurant, seemingly alone. Jackson went and sat down in one of the two empty chairs. Sarah was helping herself to some chips and salsa that was placed in the center of the table as a pre-appetizer appetizer.

“How dare you sit down without asking, you whore!” she shouted, causing much of the restaurant to turn towards her. When most of them looked away, she whispered to Jackson. “But really it’s okay since I invited you here.”

“Why are you here so early?” Jackson asked.

“Better question, why are YOU here so early?” Sarah asked.

“It’s a long story,” Jackson said. “You see-”

“If it’s a long story, then I don’t want to hear it, obviously,” Sarah said. Jackson sighed.

“Where’s your friend?” Jackson asked.

“Oh, the appeal rounds got done a little early,” she said. “He’s getting changed back into his regular clothing and should be here in a few minutes.”

“Do you like him?” Jackson teased.

“In a friendly way, yes,” Sarah said, enjoying that the conversation was focusing on her.

“Does he like you?” Jackson teased again.

“Let’s keep the focus on me, please,” Sarah asked, a little frustrated that the conversation had so hastily been taken from her.

They spent the next few minutes eating chips and salsa in silence, waiting for Sarah’s mysterious guest to arrive. Jackson had to wonder who this person is, and how on earth he got mixed up into being Sarah’s friend. Jackson knew that, for him, it was an encounter with a group of angry piles of sludge that induced his first encounter with the nut job. But how had she met this other guy?

“There he is!” Sarah said eagerly, pointing behind Jackson, presumably to the door. Jackson took a sip of water as Sarah stood up. “Hey Terry! Over here!”

Jackson nearly spit out his drink upon hearing the name. “Terry?” he asked, very astonished. Terry wasn’t exactly a popular name, so he had an idea that this person was possibly the same Terry who had flirted with Jackson the night before at the Pokemon Center.

Indeed, it was.

Terry Valencia sat down in the seat beside Sarah, and across from Jackson. His face showed complete joy upon seeing Jackson.

“Oh, so this is your friend!” he said excitedly, reaching his hand across the table to, once again, shake hands with Jackson. His handshake was still quite firm.

“You two know each other?” Sarah asked. “I knew you were gay!” she said, immediately turning to Jackson.

“Oh no, he’s straight,” Terry said. “He turned down my advances last night.” Sarah gasped.

“How rude of him!” Sarah exclaimed, shooting a glare at Jackson.

“It’s not my fault I’m not gay,” Jackson said.

“Please Sarah, being straight is not a choice,” Terry said, taking a chip and dipping it in salsa. “I thought that was a common fact.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you’re right,” Sarah said. “But still! I think that was pretty rude of him.”

“I’m straight!” Jackson exclaimed.

“That’s what you think,” Sarah said. “How did you two even meet?” she asked Terry.

“Oh, that slutty Pokemon Center receptionist was coming onto him, so I stopped her,” Terry said, very proud of himself. He took another chip and dipped it into the salsa.

“Oh, her,” Sarah said disapprovingly. “She doesn’t look slutty on the outside, but I think she was flirting with me when I went up to the counter.”

“Wait,” Jackson said, a little confused, “are you gay too, Sarah?”

Sarah and Terry gasped in unison. Sarah, wasting no time, immediately smacked him across the face.

“Are you saying that just because I have a gay friend that I’m gay too?” Sarah asked. “How dare you!”

“Yes, how dare you!” Terry said in agreement.

“Sorry, geez, I was just a little confused for a moment,” Jackson said, rubbing the right side of his face where he was smacked.

“You better be sorry,” Sarah said. “Anyways, Terry, I think you did remarkably well in the appeal round today,” she said, changing the conversation topic.

“Yeah,” Terry said in agreement, “I got one of the highest-”

“Did you hear me cheering in the crowd?” Sarah asked, noticing the extreme lack of herself in the conversation.

“Yes, you were very loud,” Terry said. Sarah smiled.

“I was cheering my hardest!” Sarah said. Suddenly, her stomach growled. “Hold on a moment boys, looks like I need to move on out to the bathroom.” She got out of her seat and calmly walked to the back of the restaurant, and turned out of their sight. Jackson took another sip of the water in front of him.

There was a bit of an awkward silence between the two of them. Jackson quickly tried to think up of a topic for conversation, but was beaten to the chase by Terry.

“Isn’t she such a bitch?” he asked, drinking some of the soda that the very hot waitress had just placed in front of him.

“Um,” Jackson said, taken by surprised by this change in topic, “well, ah, sorta.”

“She needs every conversation to be about her, her, her. It’s really quite annoying.” Terry said.

“I think it’s kinda entertaining,” Jackson said.

“Oh it most definitely is,” Terry said, “It’s just annoying and bitchy as all hell.”

There was no dissidence to Terry’s remark.

“So, you like Pokemon Contests, then?” Jackson asked, quickly changing the topic again. Terry smiled.

“Oh most certainly. I’ve always been in love with the stylistic art of Pokemon contests since I was a little boy,” Terry said, in a trance of sorts as he recollected his younger days. He took another sip of his soda.

“Who’s your favorite coordinator?” Jackson asked, not really caring, but not really wanting another awkward silence to fill the table in Sarah’s absence.

“Harley of the Hoenn region,” Terry said immediately. “He’s such a great symbol for the gay community. If it weren’t for all those annoying 10 year old wannabees in his way, he would have won that competition too. He’s won quite a few Grand Festivals recently, though.”

Jackson nodded in acknowledgement, drinking another sip of water. He looked around the room. Sarah finally emerged from the bathroom, and walked towards the table. He turned towards Terry, who suddenly reached across the table, grabbed Jackson’s face, and began to kiss him. Jackson fought back, and eventually pushed him away, Sarah looking on, jaw completely dropped open.

“What the hell man,” Jackson said, wiping his mouth. “Didn’t I tell you that I’m straight?”

“I know, I know, it’s just that you were sending off all these vibes that were just telling me to go for it so, well, I went for it.” Terry said, with very little shame in his voice.

Sarah was angered by this as Terry and Jackson continued to argue, mainly about boundaries and things like that. She was angered that she was not involved in this conversation in the least bit. The hot waitress walked towards the group’s table with the food that Sarah and Jackson had ordered while waiting for Terry. Sarah had an idea.

“Hey guys, I’m gay too!” she said desperately, grabbing the hot waitress and immediately kissing her. The waitress immediately slapped her.

“What the hell?” the woman asked. “I’m straight.”

“That’s an insult to gay people!” Terry said. “We don’t just go around making out with people we find attractive.”

“Oh really?” Jackson asked.

“You know what?” Terry said, standing up. “You really need to learn that, if you don’t want gay people to fall for you, then you really shouldn’t lead them on.”

“Lead them on?” Jackson said, standing up. “I was merely making small talk! Since when is that leading people on?”

“WHY IS NO ONE PAYING ATTENTION TO ME?” Sarah shouted.

“Oh, so asking me about the things that I like is just small talk?” Terry asked.

“That’s kind of the definition of it,” Jackson said.

“I’d like to consult Webster’s about that statement,” Terry said.

“I had sex with Webster once,” Sarah said, desperate for ways to get attention. “It was too wordy though.”

“Listen, Terry,” Jackson said calmly and carefully, knowing that what he was doing was like treading on shark infested waters, “You’re a nice guy, I really do think that, and if I was physically attracted to men, I might consider dating you.” Terry’s eyes lit up. “But I’m straight.” Jackson added quickly. Terry sighed, and looked around the restaurant. The people who were still in the restaurant were partially staring at the group, as Jackson and Terry had just had a rather loud argument, and Sarah was still looking for ways to attract the attention that was diverting from her.

“Well,” Terry said, obviously a little frustrated, “eventually you’ll realize what you’re missing.”

The rest of the lunch was spent in an incredibly awkward silence, as the group mulled over what had just occurred. Jackson was a little confused, as when he kissed Terry, he neither felt repulsed or compelled to continue. When Sarah kissed the random waitress, she felt the same way. Terry was, in the meantime, contemplating strategies for the contest, which was to resume at 4:30. Come 4:00, the group finally decided to part ways.

“Well,” Terry said, breaking the lengthy silence, “while this certainly was…interesting, to say the least, I’m going to have to go. Preparations for the next round begin soon.” Terry stood up, put some money down on the table to pay for his share of the bill, and walked out of the restaurant. Sarah stared at the money on the table.

“What are you looking at?” Jackson asked. Sarah seemed completely enthralled by the money.

“You know what we could do,” Sarah said slyly, “we could steal the lunch.”

“What?” Jackson asked, confused.

“We can take this money and walk out of here without paying!” Sarah said. “It’ll be easy! We’ll just act like we paid!” Sarah seemed to be getting pretty excited over the whole idea of it.

“But, that’s breaking the law,” Jackson said, not really wanting to be on the wrong side of the law.

“But it’s so easy and rebellious!” Sarah said. “Watch, I’m going to do it right now!” With that, she picked up her things, and walked out of the restaurant. She shot a quick smile at Jackson before she passed through the door, and then ran incredibly quickly down the sidewalk away from the restaurant.

It took Jackson a few moments to realize that she wasn’t coming back, and had left him with the bill.

Blaziking the Black Mage said:

“Let me remind you that I saved your ass out their.”

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THERE.

Otherwise, it's incredibly hilarious. Please write more, I implore you!