[PW!] Another headache and 'that' Pokédex...

Archived from groups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon (More info?)

The second time Huck woke up was a bit more surreal. He had absolutely no
idea where he was or how he'd got there. Once again, shapes swam in front of
his eyes that hurt his head as opposed to making sense. At least there
wasn't a harsh white light to scour the back of his brain this time.

He looked at his watch. For some strange reason, it was trying to tell him
that two days had passed since he'd looked last. This however, was a minor
head-hurting detail compared to the alienness of his new surroundings. He
found that by holding his head very steady, he could work out the details.

In front of him was a source of light and heat that was coming from wood.
Fire! However, despite not being painful to look at, the light was making
all the other details more difficult to see. Directly above him was a blue
blackness, pricked with tiny little specks of white. Right, okay, that must
be the night sky he surmised. Blocking the edges of the sky were pointy
things that may have been the tops of some fir trees.

He tried to sit up, but his head swam and was forced to make mewling sounds,
so he sat back down. It was then that he realised that he wasn't wearing any
clothes, and that the sleeping bag in which he was presently bagged, had not
been washed in some time. A thousand horrid thoughts began to filter through
his mind. Who was his captor? What had they done when he was out cold? Had
they told the police? What was going on? More to the point, what had they
done with his clothes?

He didn't know. Too weak to carry on worrying, he rolled over to see if
there was anything interesting on his other side. As it turned out, there
were several. Directly in front of him was a small pile of clothes, his, in
fact. Lurking behind it was a person, quite a small person too. A pair of
big eyes glittered at him through the gloom. The figure was sitting down and
looked much accustomed with doing so. The person looked extremely scruffy,
but relatively harmless.

Whoever this person was, he, she or it was looking at him with the utmost
interest and intensity. Huck stretched a bare arm out and grabbed the pile
of clothes. The little person gasped and scrambled back with its arms. Huck
undid the sleeping bag and rather clumsily began pulling on his clothes.
With all the important bits covered he stopped. His aching head was making
this a lot more difficult than it should be and for some reason, tiny pieces
of glass were making it much more uncomfortable. Huck decided to stop, he
flopped his head back down on the impromptu pillow and gazed up.

There came a scuffling, somewhere on his left.

'Hello?' Huck's gluey mouth stumbled.

Or at least he thought he'd said hello, judging by the scattish reaction
from his small guardian, he may well have said 'Glubwurble,' or something
equally nonsensical.

Huck's perfectly nice view of the starry sky was interrupted from the left
by the proximity of the small person's head.

'I said, 'Hello',' Huck repeated, groggily.

'I know,' the small person replied. It was a he and that he was young.

'Isn't it good manners to return the greeting?' Huck asked.

'Oh, er. Hello,' the boy replied meekly.

'Right. Who are you? Where am I? And what happened?' Huck said. Thinking
that getting down to business was the thing to do.

'My name's Arren; you're in a forest, just outside Slateport city; and we
found you in a river.' Arren replied, with a matter of fact air.

'A river?' Huck asked, confused. Then the terrifying fall from the window
came back to him. 'Oh, right. That river.'

'You were nearly drowned. We fished you out and revived you. You had a small
fever yesterday. I cleaned your cuts and your clothes.' Arren replied
eagerly, as if hoping for Brownie Points. Despite this though, Huck felt
that he was holding something back and was unconsciously making it quite
obvious.

'Well, er. thankyou, I suppose I owe you my life.' Huck said, sitting up to
get a closer look at the rather odd boy.

'Yes.' Arren had a penetrating gaze and an odd posture, his back was very
straight and his arms looked strong, but his legs looked completely useless.

'Are you okay?' Huck asked.

'I am fine. Why?'

'You're sitting up like you have gas, besides, you're staring at me and its
making me uncomfortable.' Huck replied, a little more irritably than he
felt.

'I am sorry.' Arren replied, looking away, seemingly oblivious to Huck's
mood. The boy picked up a metal canteen and passed it to him. 'Here, drink
this.'

Huck drank deeply from the flask, the water within was cool and refreshing.
Arren was looking at him again with those big awkward eyes.

'Thankyou,' he said, passing the canteen back. Arren looked as if he was
wrestling with a great dilemma - as it turned out, he was trying to muster
up the courage to ask a question.

'Who are you?' He blurted out, his eyes almost jumping out of his head.
Clearly thinking himself impertinent, he backed away and looked at Huck with
a mixture of tortured curiosity and awe.

'My name's Huck - I'm a Pokémon trainer from Rustboro.' Huck replied, trying
to sound impressive. He didn't have the energy to lie about himself in his
present state, so he just told the truth, 'Not that I'm particularly good.
In fact, I've been looking for a way out for some time now. It's getting
embarrassing. Not even my Bellsprout has any confidence in the things I do.'

Huck felt as if he'd made some serious transgression. Arren looked at him as
if he'd blasphemed.

'But, what about your Pokédex?' He asked quietly.

'What about it?'

'It's complete. How can you be a bad trainer with a complete Pokédex. It
doesn't make sense!' The eyes were jumping out again.

Huck didn't have a clue what he was talking about. His Pokédex was far from
complete - he had about five Pokémon to his name and had only ever
encountered about twenty.

'What are you talking about?' Huck was genuinely bewildered and Arren saw
this.

'Look,' Arren opened the Pokédex and showed him.

'Ah,' Huck said, feeling very awkward, 'That's not my Pokédex.'

Arren was taken aback by this, 'Whose is it then?'

'Err, my uncle's. it must be, seeing as I don't have a complete Pokédex.'

Huck felt quite awkward. He was lying to the boy to whom he owed his life.
Arren, who it seemed was quite inept at sensing emotion missed this one. The
boy went back to staring at the Pokédex, behind Huck there came a low,
unpleasant growl. He looked around, but there was nothing there.

Huck didn't hear the next question, he was too busy looking for the source
of the growl.

'I said, did your Uncle ever tell you about his adventures?' Arren asked,
genuinely interested.

'Erm, yes he did - actually, he was the one that gave me the Bellsprout. I'
ve never been to Kanto - he was a merchant.' Huck felt better, this minor
extension of the lie was actually accurate. He looked around again - nothing
there.

He was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. He needed to get back to see
his boss - he needed to find out more about what happened to his parents.
The owner of the Pokédex's spiteful allusions about them were still drilling
holes in his head. He was getting nowhere talking to this weird little kid.
While Arren oogled the Pokédex, Huck began to pull on the rest of his
clothes.

'Right, where are we exactly?' He asked, getting up.

'Route 103,' came a rumbling voice from behind him. Huck spun around.

'Where did that voice come from?' He asked, more than a little alarmed.

'What voice?' Arren asked. Huck looked down at him - he wasn't lying, he
either hadn't heard or couldn't hear. 'Are you sure you're well enough to
stand up? Hearing things is a pretty bad sign.'

'Someone said we're on Route 103, I wouldn't know that - could I?' Huck sat
back down, his head hurt again.

'All I heard was Scyther grumbling,' Arren muttered.

Huck looked around, squinting into the shadows. Surely enough, sitting
silently in the gloom was a Scyther. Huck fell backwards with surprise. The
Scyther remained calm. Arren looked up with interest.

Huck stared at the scarred, wingless terror of a Pokémon. He had never seen
such a creature, its body was riddled with marks and scratches - some looked
random and others looked like patterns. In the flickering firelight, the
colours of his shell danced like oil.

'It seems,' the Scyther said, 'that you can understand what I say.'

The menacing black eyes glittered in the firelight.

'I do not know how this is possible. But be warned boy, if you lie to Arren
again, I will kill you.'



--
Hem Hem - oiseau bum talent- - JomTones
publicenemanumberone@hotmail.nospam.com