"Spring Field is a very, very, very lovely little town. It's located in the middle of four hills, covered by pine trees and colorful flowers, with a small river passing through the center. The people here are really friendly. On top of the west hill stood fifteen wooden windmills where they get their electricity. The electric company in AceWood finds it difficult to put power lines from their plants to this town, because of all the forested hills, they had to go up and down and up and down. Or, they could put it up on the sides of the swirly path at the bases of the hills, but, damn, I don't think they're willing to do it. And that is why the people of this town built those windmills. Wild POKéMON are also free to roam around the town. You could say that this is a perfect and lovely town, except for one little thing..."
It's a sunny morning in Spring Field, and Joseph is sitting under the shade of a tree a few feet away from a wooden fence of a ranch, and meters away in front of the town's gym. He was writing on his newly bought green-covered journal with the five Eeveelutions as the front cover's design. Rose is grazing on the grass with the Miltanks and Tauroses in the ranch. Joseph is now staring at a little girl in front of the gym's doors. She has a long and pink hair, wearing a white kid-sized shirt and white shorts and pink shoes, and was busy happy-chatting with trainers there. She suddenly ran towards a middle-aged couple who just bought a bag of bread from a local bakery, probably greeted them good morning, as what Joseph concluded.
"That little girl. She's crazily-hyper! She runs around town, calling everyone she meets as her big sister or her ..."
"Hi big brother! Good morning!" a pink-haired girl's head suddenly popped in front of his sight, scaring his soul away and loosing his grip on his pen. She quickly ran towards an old man who was watching over the cattle in the ranch while Joseph angrily glared at her, and went back to writing his journal after he picked his pen back.
"...big brother... What a bother. She just scared the sh** out of me... Anyway, that's the only reason, for me at least, that made this town almost-perfect. Hm... Come to think of it, I do think she's the only reason why this town is not perfect. After seeing those trainers in front of the gym, I just remembered." he looked at the trainers in front of the gym with pity. They're waiting for the gym leader to battle them, but, "Trainers need, and I mean that trainers REALLY need to be REALLY REALLY friendly to her if they want to get a chance to battle and get the town's gym badge. But if they won't, then that little girl will hate them forever and they're completely doomed, for she will never-ever battle them. Yep, that little brat is this lovely town's gym leader, and she's a big headache for the POKéMON League, I assume. Heh, they're probably receiving a lot of complaints from trainers because of her."
He suddenly took a look at the gym after noticing an awkward silence. Earlier, he can hear the trainers there whispering, and since there were a lot of them, their little whispers reached his ears. The pink-haired girl was already walking towards them from...the bakery, he thought.
"Our region has eight gym leaders, like Kanto, and other regions, and she's the seventh. Trainers need all eight badges for them to challenge the POKéMON League's Elite Four. But right now, the league, from what I heard, are about to have a regional tournament for eight-badge-holding trainers, and whoever they find worthy, they'll appoint them as the new Elite Four, I think..."
Joseph noticed his sudden change of topic, but, "Oh, what the heck." he said as he closed his journal and put it inside his backpack. He then wore his backpack and stood up. "This is MY journal, anyway."
He walked towards the fence and saw Rose, still grazing on the grass.
"Rose." she turned to him, still on the same spot, chewing. "I'll go and check the center. Back in a few, 'kay?"
'Mmmkay. But I'm almost done, so, I guess I'll just catch up.'
"Heh..." he grinned, "don't get pregnant by the cows."
He heard the old man chuckled a bit while Rose gave him a very nasty glare as she uses her psychic power to create a ball made out of grass and quickly threw it at Joseph's face. She quickly followed it with another grass ball, and another, and another, until Joseph was out of sight.
"Hey honey," A Tauros approached her, chuckling a bit from what she did to her trainer, "you look miiiiiiiiiiighty beautiful, I say."
"Touch me, and you'll kiss the moon."
"You look like a grass monster." Krystal laughed. Joseph was running away from Rose, and stopped in front of the bakery where Krystal just bought two pieces of Oran Bread. She hands him one after he got all the grass off him.
"Thanks." and he took a bite. "So, you got your badge?"
"Eew... Don't talk when your mouth is full!" she said in disgust as they walk towards the Pokémon Center. "But no... I lost..." she took a small bite. "Glaiza and I agreed on a one-on-one battle, since I only have my Wartortle with me..." and she took another small bite.
"Wartortle's a water-type POKéMON, so of course you'll lose. Why not try and catch a flying-type?"
"Yeah, I've thought about it, but I don't really like flying-type POKéMON..." she sadly replied, eyes down on the ground.
"Oh? Why's that?" he asked, failing to notice her sad expression, since he was looking ahead.
"When I was young, I almost died from a flock of Fearows in Route 1..." that made him quickly turn his head to her.
"Oh, um...I'm---sorry to hear that..." he turned his sight to the ground, sad. "I... I didn't know."
"I was kidding." she laughed after softly punching Joseph's shoulder, which surprised him.
"And I was fool to believe such a story..." he replied, disappointed and annoyed.
"Anyway, I don't like flying-types. I don't know why, but I just don't..."
It seemed familiar. He hates the town's gym leader without any logical explanation. Some people must hate things without really any particular reason.
'Hello.' Rose greeted him as she caught up beside him.
"Oh, hey Rose. Pregnant yet?" he joked.
Rose replied with an evil glare and walked ahead, allowing her tail to snatch and swallow Joseph's remaining Oran Bread he was holding.
"Wha---hey!" Joseph said as Krystal chuckled.
'Ha-ha! Good one, Lyn!'
Lyn is the name they gave to Rose's tail. In Rose's early years, her tail was really passive, until one day, it suddenly started talking to her, and asked what was her(the tail) name. Since then, it grew a mind of its own, but doesn't really talk much, nor do almost anything, making Joseph often times forget Lyn's very existence.
The three reached the POKéMON Center, where a blue dumbtruck was parked in front of it. Joseph and Rose recognized the driver, and greeted him.
"Hey dad!" Joseph happily said while Rose gave him a friendly growl. Krystal stood behind the two.
"Oh, hey son!" his dad poked through the open window in the driver's seat. "Hello Rose. Oh? Son, this here's your girlfriend?"
"NO!" both Joseph and Krystal shouted in unison after a momentary shock.
'Ooohhh... Joseph has a girlfriend...' Rose teased as she gave him a naughty look.
"Shut up, Rose."
'Hurry up and make her pregnant~' Rose sang as she gave him a naughty grin.
Joseph pushed Rose away while Krystal, earlier was feeling embarrased, now was finding it odd that Joseph was talking to his Girafarig, as if Rose said anything at all. Rose couldn't help but laugh.
"Anyway, dad, this is Krystal, a friend of mine."
'For now...' Rose quietly said as she looked away, ignoring Joseph's evil stare.
"Well, how ya doin' Krys? The name's Joseph!" Krystal was confused while Joseph laughed. "Yep, father and son, same name." he winked with a big smile.
"Oh, so you're like senior and junior."
"Well, more like 'the first' and 'the second'." Joseph (the son) explained. "Dad doesn't really like the whole senior-junior thing." and he then went close to her ears and whispered: "he said it makes him sound old."
The POKéMON Center's glass door slides open, and a black-dressed lady, almost covering her whole body, came out and stopped after taking a number of steps outside, and turned to face them. She's probably around her twenties, or maybe she's an old lady, but just applied make-up to make her look young, as Joseph thought. Joseph doesn't really understand women and make-up and...Rose silenced his crazy thoughts.
She was about to say something when a pink-haired girl suddenly dashed behind Joseph, Rose and Krystal, and ran and hugged the black-dressed woman.
"Big sis, don't leave!" she cried.
"Glaiza, my dear!" she said in surprise. "I'm sorry but I need to." and she was soon freed from the hug.
"Hey brat," Joseph's dad said, grabbing her attention, "send my regards to your parents."
"She's a gym leader." the black-dressed woman said, "You should treat her with respect."
"She's a kid," he corrected her with a smile, "so I'll treat her like any other kid."
She didn't say a word as she went and hopped on the passenger seat while Krystal pats Glaiza's head and Joseph, along with Rose, was giving his dad a skeptical look.
"We'll be going now son. See ya soon!"
"Sure thing dad, but uh," he crossed his arms. "who's she? Why's she going with you? And where are you two going?"
"Hey hey hey hey hey...! You act like your mom; jumping to conclusions like that. She's---"
"My name's Samantha, hello. I'm WindString Town's gym leader, and we are to deliver the corpses to their resting place." she interrupted him. Joseph and Rose were convinced that there was nothing going on with them.
"She's also an expert on spiritual healing." his dad added as he started the engine.
"I see. Oh, but dad, inside a dumbtruck, really?" Joseph awkwardly said.
"This here truck is the only truck available in the whole town, son."
"It may be a disrespect to the dead, we had no other option." Samantha explained. "Anyway, we're wasting time."
After saying goodbye, the truck went north to the curvy and earthy road of Route 8, heading to WindString. Joseph, Krystal and Rose went inside the POKéMON Center.
"You have a great kid." Samantha suddenly said, breaking the boring silence. The truck's radio was broken.
"Oh, thanks." he replied awkwardly. "But I wish I could have spent more time with him though... I feel like I'm a bit far away from him, and to my other kids..." he said smiling, though his tone was mixed with bitter sadness, Samantha sensed.
Inside the POKéMON Center, bug and flying types were talking to each other. Four police officers were inside, probably to keep an eye on all these wild POKéMON around. Krystal was grossed out after seeing a crawling Caterpie and went back outside as Joseph went through the crowd of POKéMON to the counter. Rose just stood near the entrance.
On the counter, a green and cheerful Celebi was sitting down on the desk, talking to it's POKéMON friends.
"Is Celebi okay now?" it was clearly obvious that Celebi has fully recovered, but he asked anyway, feeling a bit stupid about it.
"Yes, Celebi has fully recovered." the nurse smiled.
Celebi turned to him and quickly flew around his head, brii-ing something that would probably means that it was thankful for him for the rescue.
The POKéMON Center's glass door slides open once again and Joseph came out, and he was followed by the floating Celebi and the group of wild POKéMON. Some trainers who were near the area where stunned to see such a large number of POKéMON, and the legendary Celebi. Some of them quickly took out their PokéDexes to take the Celebi's picture. They were soon controlled by the police. Joseph managed to get out of the trainers' captured photos by going with the crowd of trainers. Celebi slowly flew towards the forest backwards as it waved goodbye to Joseph, who in turn waved goodbye as well. Some trainers waved goodbye as well, so it was safe to do so.
After the crowd cleared, Joseph, Krystal and Rose were standing in front of the Pokémon Center, where Joseph took a Pokéball and sent out a Chansey. The wounded and near-death Chansey is now a fully healed, wrinkled-yet-jolly Chansey.
"Hello there." Joseph pats its head as Rose went beside him, ready to translate. "Sorry if I forced you to be captured, but now, I can set you free."
Chansey's smile quickly turned up-side-down. It said something that Joseph didn't understand. He looked at Rose.
'She doesn't want to go.' Rose then faced Joseph, 'She likes you. She is very thankful that you saved her, so she wants to go with you...us, I mean.'
Joseph faced the Chansey, "You sure?" and after Rose translated and Chansey said something, Rose faced him and nodded her head. "Well, why not? Welcome to the team...of...two...?" he scratched his head. "So Rose, what's the Chansey's name?"
'Chance...'
'I asked the obvious...' both Rose and Chance laughed.
Celebi and its wild Pokémon friends went back to Spring Woods. Glaiza and a number of POKéMON Rangers went to the said forest to see how they can prevent the same event from happening again. They planned on building a number of outposts in the forest for the rangers to monitor the area.
Later, an hour after noon, the police invited Joseph to answer some questions. He was accompanied by Krystal and Rose. The police station was two buildings away from the POKéMON Center.
"So, you didn't see anyone there?"
"No. There was no other person there when Rose and I got there..."
"So, how's the investigation?" Krystal asked the officer.
"Well, we did find signs of battle, and I suppose that was obvious. We also found a footprint from a shoe, but none of the shoe companies recognizes the pattern, so it was probably made from another region. It's still under process. Also..." the officer opened his drawer and took a transparent plastic bag and puts it on the table. Inside the bag was a broken purple-colored Pokéball.
"A...masterball...?" Joseph guessed. It looks really identical to the masterball he once saw on the internet in their home. He thought masterballs were not real, only made from imagination, but look here, right in front of him, a masterball.
"Correct. Whoever owned this must be seriously wanted to capture Celebi, and is probably the one responsible for the massacre. Unfortunately, we traced no fingerprints on it..."
"Well, that sucks..." Joseph sighed as he faced Rose. "What about you Rose? Were you able to go in Celebi's memory?"
The evening Joseph got to the POKéMON Center, he asked Rose to try and see the grass-type's memory.
'Yes, but it was all black and blurry... But there was a weird red symbol that she saw before she fainted...'
"Really?" he said, and he then faced the officer. "My Girafarig saw a symbol in Celebi's memory. Maybe that could give us a lead."
"Any information would be very helpful right now." he nodded.
"You know..." Krystal slowly said, making Joseph and Rose look at her, "I've been wondering for a while now, but, are you...able to understand Rose?" she asked, looking really curious.
"Yeah, but only through minds." he replied with a smile, and then he faced Rose. "Okay Rose, show me what happened..." and they both closed their eyes and concentrated.
Joseph is seeing the gloomy forest, but it was rushing towards him so fast. Rustling and slashing noises echoed though. The vision looked behind, two pursuers, but black and blurry. Fear must've made it unable to focus, and it quickly looked ahead. Finally, a clearing, where they found Celebi, but suddenly, everything went black after a very loud pound-like sound echoed from above. He then heard something hit the ground hard. The eye-like vision opened slowly, and two blurry human silhouttes approached. Everything was starting to turn black, but something on the chest of those two humans glowed in bloody red. He couldn't believe it, even after he opened his eyes.
"A red letter 'R'. Team Rocket's back..."
---oOo---
"
May 9th, 2012, 06:21 PM
#7
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