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- Seen Sep 20, 2015
Chapter 1
A balloon and a hippo intercept a snail which was once a human
"…Halloo?..." came a hazy and lofty call from somewhere above the extreme nausea and turmoil of the brain. He couldn't focus for the life of himself, and he rolled around in the dream without a dream while being momentarily serenaded by the call.
"…Hellooo?..." it called again, similar to the first call but more urgent; he could now derive that the voice was quite phlegmatic and lofty sounding coo of a voice. He could suddenly feel the muscles in his eyelids and tried to flutter them open…when he did, all he could make sense of was bright light coming in grills contrasted by utter darkness; quite curious. Why couldn't he see? "Hey buddy~…" greeted the mystery speaker from seemingly ahead; he couldn't tell though due to a lack of spatial intelligence. Though along with the voice's call came the rustling of tall grass and rippling of water. To be honest, he was feeling quite impatient at how relentless and dull the voice sounded. He tried vocalizing in reply "G-go…away please," he reluctantly mumbled, though he realized that his phrase echoed mutely back at him; apparently his face was being covered.
"Awww naw." Chirped the voice in reply, just as dully. "I'm not gonna do that buddy." Outside of his ablation came the gentle thunder of approaching footsteps on marshy ground. Between the slits on his 'mask' which allowed him to see what was apparently the outside atmosphere became clouded with a pinkish, stubby figure. "Here…maybe dis help you." A protrusion from the figure, presumably its arm, suddenly pushed against the cover on his face, which from the sound it made was apparently hard and robust. It somehow reached underneath the crack which separated his cover from a similarly constructed lower half of the mask and lifted it up, letting the pink figure tower over him unexpectedly. His vision was still hazy, but at this point he knew that it was in fact a figure but far from human; its big egg-colored maw smiled inanely as its black pupils made warm eye contact with him. It raised a stubby arm tipped with a paw of sorts and waved it in greeting. "Hallo!~"
Almost instantly he called on a reflex previously unused to clamp his shell-…mask shut in defense towards the apparently aberrant, pink tubby blob. Oddly enough, he didn't use his arms to slam his face covering shut; come to think of it, he couldn't feel his arms at all. He was too busy being gripped by fear and anxiety to think about missing appendages, for this thing was likely to kill him. "G-go away now!!" he screeched as he winced out of terror at the ultimately harmless slowbro. "O-or I'll spit at you!" he wasn't sure how the second half of his interjection made sense, but he was going off of instinct at this point, and spitting on enemies in defense was one of the many new habits that had somehow implanted themselves into his subconscious.
"Awwwr…Doncha be that way, buddy." The pink creature, now easily visible due to his eyes adjusting to the light, knelt beside the covered boy intently, keenly staring at the trembling eyes of his in between the apertures of his cover.
"I-I'm not y-your buddy...w-what the hell e-even are you?" whimpered the boy in between soft little sobs of panic.
"Huh?.. Ah, I'm Paul!" said the hippo-otter thing gleefully, letting a big smile bend on his face as he announced his name cheerfully. "Imma slowbro! Good tah meetcha!" there was something about the slowbro's peculiar way of tact that the boy found adorable. "Do you gotta name, buddy?"
"N-no! I don't have-…" The boy's train of thought suddenly crashed dead in its tracks. Since when did the boy not know his own name? If he could remember right, he had a very good memory, so why didn't it work to remember something as fundamental as what those around him addressed him as? The boy paused for a few moments, gazing at the pink behemoth and coming to the conclusion that it was probably too stupid to even know what killing was. He took the gamble and lifted his 'mask' without aid of arms. "I-I…I d-don't remember, s-sir." The boy's pathos and empathy for the slowbro gave way to his caution; he rationalized that he was probably harmless and the only solution to his sudden discrepancy of memory. He shouldn't have been so expectant of an answer however, as the stupid slowbro simply stared at the boy for a few seconds, giggling errant at times. "W-what's so funny…d-don't laugh at me!" suddenly defensive towards what was apparently an assault on character, the boy winced and felt a familiar feeling of dread come over his mind; this happened when people criticized him.
"Naw…it's just funny to me how big shelmet lips are. Hehe…always wanna kiss someone doncha?" the nameless boy furrowed his brow at how incoherent and offensive that statement sounded, but before he could open his lips in protest he noticed that his lips protruded from his face and were in vision; they were also comically enormous. The boy eeped at how alien he had become and finally came to the realization that he was far from human.
"W-what?!...W-why..." said the boy as he stuttered gently in shock, sniffling as well and nearly on the verge of tears. He lowered his bevor into the marsh and let his eyes sag and accumulate with tears. He felt awful and claustrophobic suddenly realizing that he wasn't a human anymore; in fact, being a human was one of the only things he could remember about his past.
"Hey Buddy!" suddenly yelped Paul with an inherent pity in his voice "Wassa problem? You don't sound too happy." In reply, the shelmet simply whimpered and burst out into big bawls of despair. "Naw…buddy doesn't need tah cry…" the shelmet felt Paul grasp his lower half and lift his body into his arms, after which the slowbro began softly petting the open, slimy muscle inside the shelmet's armet. The green cheeks of the shelmet blushed softly (which wasn't typical for him); being pet shouldn't have felt so gratifying~. "Duzzat make ya feel awright, buddy?" in spite of himself, the little shelmet nodded, replacing his sobs with a very slight, guttural purr. The new shelmet suddenly realized that this could possibly progress...negatively (at least in his mind), and he promptly vocalized his discomfort.
"Cut it out!" he blurted, hoping to get the pink, sweaty imbecile to stop caressing him. Abruptly, he was dropped, causing discomfort on what would be his behind. It was only mitigated by the shell which provided protection to him. It suddenly dawned on him that staying clamped in his shell would provide the greatest comfort and might solve his problem. He could feign being unconscious by shutting his shell. After all, a fall from that relative height would probably give the average joe a concusion. He shut his eyes and groaned convincingly enough to make Paul stare curiously. The slowbro clearly showed some concern and nudged the shelmet with his stumpish leg. "Aw Naw!" he suddenly yelped, face growing distressed as he put his hands to his face in shock. "Ah knocked him out!" it had worked.
Nevertheless, the shelmet was still picked up by the big, crude hands of Paul the slowbro, clenched snugly, but not uncomfortably, around his waist. "Oh Goodnuss, lookie there!" Paul suddenly spotted something which induced inconceivably crippling fear in his gut... the funny thing was that it stood under 2 feet.
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Roland was content with trotting along the murkier quagmire of the road to "coax" food out of Carson, the bidoof resident to a dam about a kilometer north of his parent's den. The means to the end of begging tribute wasn't particularly just. In fact, the rambunctious karrablast got a huge kick out of his art of "persuasion" which involved threats to beat Carson up in his sleep if he didn't hand over his supply of cranberries to the mean-spirited beetle. In spite of his malintentions, Roland was still a connoisseur to the landscape of Forellenburg lagoon, and as he paced with his heart set on threatening an inept and aloof beaver, he sometimes eyed how the sun was cast across the lagoon.
He suddenly heard errant, dopey bleats up in the distance. Great: it was that retard hippo. His mate Alfonso thought that it would be a good idea to bite the nitwit's tail as a harsh joke, and to his dismay, it backfired. Not only was Alfonso suddenly enamored with biting onto Paul's tail, it made Paul even more stupid and annoying. The idiot began to approach Roland; it probably wanted to say hi to his "buggy friend". It was worth enduring the humiliation of being in proximity to Paul to salute Alfonso.
Roland saw the whites of Paul's eyes, the puny, unfocused pupils staring into seemingly nothing as it continued towards Roland with its heavy, wobbling gait. "Hello buggy!" said Paul quite contently, failing to display a complementing facial expression because of how seemingly stupid the Slowbro was. Roland glanced at his friend on the end of Paul's tail; Alfonso looked as traumatized as ever. He nodded sorrowfully, empathetic to how awful being near someone so stupid must be.
"Hllp mmihh," came muffled in between jaws from Alfonso. Everytime Roland and Alfonso met, the shelder would make that same plea, and it had yet to be heeded from Roland.
"Howzit go Buggy?" Paul inquired as he lurched his upper body towards Roland, who cringed as his personal space was violated.
"What the hell do you want this time?!" came from Roland, irate and disgusted with Paul, trying to pace around him to continue on his walk.
"Oh. I just wanted tah introduce youh to a friend here." stated Paul as he torqued around to reach into a bit of marsh, placing Alfonso closer to Roland and allowing him once more to plea for help.
"Plllshh." he implored, tilting his brows up in peril. He was unheeded once again. With that, Paul swiveled back towards Roland with a decently sized casquette, in it was the shelmet who he had just met.
"Dis guy here wants a new friend," chirped Paul as he pointed towards the shelmet in his paws. "Gohead and say hi to buddy."
But Roland didn't want to say hi to "buggy". Roland felt something much more primordial and urgent rise up in his instinct. Paul was holding a shelmet, and every karrablast on the face of the planet knew quite plainly that one needs a shelmet to evolve and that they're very tasty. Roland felt the rage to be conserved for Carson well up uncontrollably towards the scrumptious snail. He inhaled and exhaled noticeably. "Y-yeah...go ahead...and set him on the ground...Paul." said a Roland through his gritted teeth, suddenly very very hungry; his parents would be proud of him for killing a shelmet.
"Kay!" he dropped the shelmet on the ground, inciting a grunt from the covered bug. Suddenly, the shelmet felt unsafe in the presence of the karrablast, and Paul was stupid enough to leave him out in the open.
Suddenly Roland clenched the shell and swung it around so that it could be easily bashed away from Paul, and Roland began prodding the shelmet virulently with his horn in an attempt to sunder the shell <<peck>>. Of course, the shelmet was suddenly terrified beyond belief, but was also glad that his shell was excellent at fending off the aggressor. His blows still hurt, though, and the anxiety welled up to a point where he began to cry like an infant. Relucatantly, the shelmet sobbed.
"YEAH YOU WHINE LIKE THE LITTLE BITCH YOU ARE!! GET OUT OF THAT SHELL, WHIMP AND FIGHT ME LIKE YOU'VE GOT A DICK!!" Roland had the heart of a poet when particularly enraged.
For some reason, the snail was compliant towards Roland's challenge and stood up for himself unconsciously, and in a split second, the shelmet had lifted its hood in between the viscious prods by the beetle, spitting a purple ooze into the eyes of Roland and stunning him momentarily <<acid>>. After he did, the iron gastropod closed his hood shut and watched the karrablast cover his eyes and waltz around in a daze, yelling profanities carelessly. It was a shame that the shelmet felt no pride in his victory over the malicious beetle; it was drowned out by how virulently Roland had spoken to the shelmet.
Roland stumbled a bit, still blinded and desperate to regain vision. He bumped into something fleshy and quite tall, falling on his face afterwards. The dirt cleared his eyes of the corrosive venom, though Roland suddenly realized that he stood in the shadow of something huffing loudly and vehemently. He looked up. Paul had a sour look on his face as he towered over the crass karrablast. Roland was picked up so that Paul could be more personal with his adamant eye contact. "LET ME GO , ASSHAT!"
"Alright, meanie!" Roland's wish was granted. He was tossed up, airborne for 5 seconds to allow the suddenly angry slowbro to focus. Paul's scalp radiated with energy as he hummed in meditation. The moment Roland was in Paul's reach, the slowbro smacked the bug type visciously with his noggin <<zen headbutt>>. Roland flew into a clay escarpment, making a dent into thick clay which was 10 meters away from Paul. Alfonso and the shelmet stood shocked at how suddenly powerful Paul had revealed himself to be. The slowbro wiped his mitts off and nodded at himself, then walked towards a traumatized shelmet. "Buggy is a big meanie." absolutely no sound came from the other, less aggressive bug type, though Paul was successful in interpreting the snail's silence as PTSD. "Don' worry snail pal," Paul picked up the shuddering bug once more and set off down the trail. "We gunna find you anuther friend rainow." and with that, Alfonso and Paul set out unwillingly to a stray willow tree up ahead. Roland groaned, still freshly bashed by Paul's unperceived power. It was going to be a while before he could tribute berries from Carson.
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Pascal had just been woken up and startled, straining the tether to the aromatic willow tree. It was a shame, too; he was certainly having one of those rare, uncannily pleasant dreams. He might have even had some jurisdiction over what flashed by his subconscious in his sleep; maybe he gorged himself on aethereal oran berries in his imagination, which he could otherwise not eat because Pascal was a balloon (balloons don't eat). Bittersweetly, however, his dream was impeded by a familiar mongoloid calling: "Wakeup B'lloon!" and if there was one thing Pascal hated, it was being called a stupid nickname in a stupid voice by a stupid, particular slowbro.
After the rousing scare from a delightful nap, Pascal's little, dottish eyes slanted down and contorted out of dismay and the searing brightness of a freshly dawned sun. Trying to tuck his stunt of vision and goodwill away, he said: "What do you want, Paul?" quite angrily, figurative veins bulging from his silky, round, drifloon skin. "Will you piss off if I let you carry me around?"
"It's ok b'lloon pal. I came widda friend tahday." dictated the matter-of-fact slowbro. At first, Pascal the drifloon took Paul's implication with a very measly grain of salt. Having disclosed feelings for a need of friends inadvertently during his walks with Paul, and having a modicum of gratitude for Paul's attempts to help pascal, Paul probably wanted to help his "friend". The slowbro's attempt was probably very shabby, though. In all likelyhood, Paul had brought him a rock or twig or something else which would insult Pascal's intelligence to the balloon.
Nonetheless, the little beads of Pascal's eyes could widen, for the sun's daily brightness had duly become accustomed to by the eyes of a grouchy looking, animate balloon. He first saw the contrast of a pristinely still and azure back bay next to a border of murky, soiled bog packed with algae. Pascal tried to in take the placent atmosphere and almost felt the circumfrence of ephemeral nirvana; he inhaled deeply, feeling his body expand, to immerse himself zenfully with the nature of the vast, inland lagoon. He was interrupted, however, by a sudden blatant blurb from the blaring slowbro: "C'mon! See your friend, B'lloon!"
"For the last time, my name is Pascal Jean-Pierre Montaigne the 4th Veillure! I'm not b'lloon. Get that in your dense skull already!" trumpeted the loud mouthed little balloon as he swooped in front of a big grinned hippo otter with what would be a scowl (if he had the facial features to accommodate; Pascal was a balloon, after all). As usual, Paul could roll with the punches of criticism because he was too dopy to give a shit. He just smiled and kept avid eyes on the lavender body of Pascal. Without words to focus on, Pascal's eyes drifted around, and spotted the hunk of keratin and metal in Paul's white-fingered mitts. He had brought a rock; go figure. There was something curious about the rock, though; Pascal could sense that something was inside! Pascal then tilted his light, airy body to the side in curiosity. "Uh...what's that?" inquired a suddenly invested, uncannily earnest Pascal.
"Ah. Dis yer friend." declared Paul. He set the husk on the ground. He turned around and then paced away from the willow tree. "You both can say hallo. Den I come for da walk. Seeya." and with that Paul's footsteps decreased in volume ever so slowly as he ambled away. Soon he was in the distance, out of sight and clearly considerate to a privacy necessary for the synthesis of synergy. Now there was just pascal and the shell.
Pascal could clearly deem the husk, in fact ,was not a rock, but a sort of shelled pokemon. Pascal didn't have a lick of experience with grounded pokemon. Furthermore, he did not have experience with shy individuals approaching him. Usually, the dull or malevolent were the people who would take the initiative to accost a seemingly bitter and unassuming pokemon. This time, however, Pascal had met a creature even more timid and shy than he. The balloon had to call the extrovert inside of him to try to address the potential friend.
*Poke*
Pascal's noodly cord lurched out across the void of air and "poked" the sizable shell bluntly, though with not much impact. However, it caused the organism inside to grunt nervously and shiver, with an unexpected bass in his voice (it was easy to tell that whatever was inside was in fact male). This was going to be tricky.
Pascal could see through grills in the shell a pair of quivering, tense eyes. "Jesus, man, I'm not gonna eat you or anything. I haven't eaten a thing in my life." only more timid whimpers from the bug ensued. No cigar. "You can at least see me, right?"
After a few moments, the shell rocked back and forth as if to nod: Progress.
"Do you at least want me to talk to you? I'm more than willing to let you sit there, but in all honesty you'll make yourself look like an imbecile if you keep your trap shut." came haughtily from Pascal, his modicum of French accent twanging on the back of his voice, making sure to sound somewhat condescending. Of course, Pascal didn't mean to be mean-spirited. He only wanted to yank an answer out of the snail with a bit of reverse psychology. The shell rocked back again in a hesitant nod.
"Alright, I'll tell you what." began Pascal, the french accent still very faint behind his voice causing Pascal to continue to sound narcissistic in his speech. "I'll talk to you if you talk to me. I want you to tell me your name." Pascal waited for a reply, and then...
"...I-I..d-don't have o-one." came in muffled, little stutters. Curious indeed; nearly everyone Pascal had met had some type of nomination.
"Well, why not?" inquired Pascal. Another 10 second wait ensued.
"...C-can't rememb-ber..."; goodness;Pascal was befriending an amnesiac!
"Huh. Well then..." Pascal dictated, blind sided by his friend's lack of memory (odd; Pascal described the shell as a friend at this point; he was never that swift to presume friendship) "A name is fairly necessary... Would you like a name?" the little thing nodded. "Remember, I'm not gonna respond to ya if you don't use your words.~" said Pascal teasingly.
"C-could you give me a name...please?" the shelmet asked soft spokenly.
"Alright." Pascal affirmed "What are you aiming for in a name? I don't imagine you would want something as inane as shelly." Pascal was conscious to the fact that he was trying to make a joke by suggesting shelly, but a chuckle from Pascal didn't ensue. Pascal was adherent to the philosophy that one should never laugh at their own joke; it would make one seem absorbed in how funny they were.
"W-well... I shouldn't ask...I'd probably want something really cool for myself...a-and I don't deserve a cool name." he laid his head down shamefully.
"Alright." suddenly interjected Pascal, sounding quite irked. "Listen up, scooter. I'd prefer if you didn't play the pity card on me; I feel sad too sometimes, but a person has to learn that sadness isn't exclusive to you or I. It's something that we all feel and there's no point in wallowing around in pity. It makes things worse and it doesn't send off a good impression." While Pascal lectured aggressively, he could observe the eyes in the grills tilt upward in sadness and fear. Stuttered sniffles. He was making the bug cry. Damnit.
Pascal sighed gently and figured that he had to clean up the mess he made. He subtly floated closer and called on a more sympathetic tone of voice. "Hey...there's no reason that we can't be sad sometimes. Like I said, I'm sad often because of how hard I can get hit with the shit stick sometimes...I mean, the closest thing I have to a friend is a pink idiot who walks me around and then you. Pretty much everyone is occupied, and for the most part they aren't keen to be friendly with a runt."
The shelmet sobbed gently, tilting his eyes towards Pascal after his second speech, which had considerably more pathos than his first. "I-I'm yer friend?" muttered the shelmet with a deep but shaky voice.
"Uh..." in his heart Pascal knew he had an earnest affection towards the shelmet. "Sure."
"A-alright...I'm sorry that I have to be sad"
"Don't be." Pascal tweeted phlegmatically. "you didn't do anything wrong; it's ok to be sad sometimes, we just can't be that way all the time."
"Well I sure as hell must have done something to deserve getting called a bitch by a beetle!" Finally, the shelmet imploded into loud bawls and wails.
"Oh..." Pascal was doubly dissapointed; he had just let his friend burst into tears, which he set out to avoid. Also, the snail's melancholy cries were unbearable. Time to bring out the big guns.
*hug *
Pascal did his best to wrap his strings around the wailing snail and to apply pressure in a makeshift hug. Somehow, Pascal was able to put his dignity at the bottom of his priorities.
"Shhhhh..." whispered Pascal, inducing the shelmet to try to suck up his tears. "You're fine with me...you can cry all you want...promise me that you'll be better after you do, though."
"W-w-why?..." the shelmet uttered in between quivering sniffles.
"Because I can't stand to see you sad." Pascal clenched the bug type more passionately and tenderly (the hug was completely platonic. This isn't going to progress into something corrupt. Please continue reading and understand that sometimes friends have to comfort eachother) "Do you wanna talk about what happened anymore?"
"Y-yuhuh..."
"Go ahead, then."
The sober snail breathed deeply, mustering composure. "W-well...I was told that I was gonna make a friend today...but that idiot Pink-thing wound up putting me with a beetle that tried to beat me up like a punching bag! It w-was really scary!" the shelmet had spoken his peace, and could continue sobbing like an 2 year old without a pacifier, and he did.
"Oh..." Pascal knew exactly who he was talking about: Roland the karrablast. "I think I know who you're talking about. His name is Roland and he's generally cruel to everyone. It's not because of you; I think you'd still get on his bad side even if you weren't a...bug type." the bug type's relentless cries were beginning to ebb.
"Y-you think so?..."
"Absolutely. Really, who cares about those sorts of people? If you have at least one person that means well, nothing that anybody else does really matters."
the shelled pokemon found that he could now withdraw his sorrow indefinitely. He couldn't believe that a complete stranger had done an excellent job of soothing what was once overbearing and crippling to the shelmet. "T-thankyou."
Pascal unwrapped his strings around the bug type and floated in front of the pokemon. "Feel better now?"the shelmet nodded coyly in reply. "Excuse me, I don't understand nods, remember?~" this time, the shelmet was more appreciative to Pascal's playful teasings. He smiled in his shell, and when Pascal saw that he had made the little snail smile, the balloon instantly felt gratified.
"I just feel pissy for how much of a downer I was for a little while there."
"Don't feel bad for that. After all, I feel sad, and sometimes all it takes to not be sad is to talk for a little bit." explained Pascal. "and if you ever feel that upset again, promise me that you'll come to Pascal first." the snail nodded, feeling content in being a gastropod for the first time and entrusting his feelings to a complete stranger.
"Alright," said Pascal as he straightened himself inadverdantly haughtily and tucked away his sentimental side, "we still have to give you a name...and to your request I won't make it too utterly impressive." The shelmet nodded, somewhat less ginger now that he had gotten what had happened off of his shoulders. Pascal nodded as well and had a long, pensive "hmmm" that was vocalized as he paced around through the air. The name Roland stuck around in his head somewhat; he was familiar with it from a certain story that he heard around the evening campfire like a runt squeezing its head in between its brothers to get food (it was a shame; Pascal was very fond of stories). He couldn't remember the exact context of the name, but Roland was described as a big, powerful knight; he was probably a really cool pokemon, too, and that made the fact that a belittling beetle was named Roland seem kinda petty. Pascal also remembered, though, that in the stories, Roland's close friend was named....ulivieur? It sounded foreign, but the shoe fit at least in the balloon's mind. The name seemed a little bit pathetic, like Winston or Herman, but also hinted at being somewhat cool and edgy, and it provided a fitting contrast to the friendship that Ulivier and Roland might have shared; the two bugs clearly dislike eachother! "How about Ulivier?" asked Pascal.
The shelmet stared with timid eyes at the balloon; his eyes twitched around anxiously, nervous that the world might explode if he chose wrongly. "...s-sure..." said Ulivier.
"Alrighty." Pascal nodded approvingly, providing defusal to Ulivier's fear of the world exploding.
"B-but please...make sure you call me my full name if you uh...do call me."
"What do you mean by that?"
"W-well...it's a little pet peeve of mine," pragmatically stated Ulivier, "I can't stand it when people don't call me by my full name. Diminutives diminish, after all." Pascal caught wind of Ulivier's little motto; he too was frequently upset by folks addressing him with stupid nicknames (namely "b'lloony, there was a stupid nickname). He nodded again in consent
"Sure. I don't even think that you can make a nickname out of Ulivier."
"T-thankyou." murmured Ulivier, once again his eyes drifted around nervously, keen to avoid the eye contact which he deemed unsettling. "Sorry for troubling you, sir."
Mildly frustrated with Ulivier's general demeanor, the balloon sighed. "You don't have to say sorry and you don't have to say sir. I'm your friend. I'm more than willing to lend a hand." Pascal realized that he didn't exactly have limbs or hands outside of his little strings. "Strings I mean," Pascal blurted,"...you get the picture."
"Thanks."
From there, a long silence predominated the shade under the tree which housed the snail and balloon.
"Don't you get sweaty from being stuck under that helmet all the time?"
"Not really; it's kinda comfy actually." Ulivier shifted around in his shell a bit, to maximize the mentioned comfort, "I'm not gonna lie, though. It is kinda hot and slimy in here."
"Why don't you open up?"
Confronted with a sudden challenge to his literal comfort zone, Ulivier gasped under his breath, his pupils shrinking in fear for a brief moment. Something inside of his new, unmastered instinct put him against letting his helmet lid up. "I'm afraid something will eat me." Ulivier put that instinct into words.
Pascal's beady eyes flattened in dismay. His patience was being stretched. "Hey Ulivier."
"Y-yes?"
"Do me a favor."
Ulivier nodded.
"Take a look around for anything that might go ahead and eat you."
Ulivier swiveled around on his stumps the best he could.
"Do you see anything that could possibly eat you?"
"You."
Pascal screamed inside, only sighing on the outside and barely hanging onto his composure. "I'm a damn balloon. Escargot isn't exactly appetizing to ghost types, or any food for that matter because we're dead. Tu comprends?" Pascal uttered the last two words dans Francais masterfully, both with pronunciation and a typically French disgust towards both foreigners and plebian incompetence.
"O-ok."
"So if I'm not going to eat you and there's nothing else that might eat you, what's the point of clamming up?" Ulivier didn't know.
"I dunno."
"What do you have to lose then? Open up; I'm interested in seeing what's inside that shell of yours."
There was no doubt in Ulivier's mind that his inhibitions were rooted in his self. It was time to pull his panties up and come out of his shell. Closing his eyes and somehow ignoring the tremendous apprehension in his id, he slowly hoisted up his helmet lid like a heavy drawbridge. Pascal could now see the green and red flesh in his body, and the outrageously puckered and huge lips connected to a slender proboscis. Pascal chuckled silently; restraining himself from calling his snail-pal on kissy lips in fear that he'll feel embarrassed, and will proceed to clamp up and/or cry.
"See? That wasn't too difficult," said Pascal as agreeably as his voice would allow him to sound. He allowed Ulivier to adjust to being out of his shell, noticing how he shifted around to view the area. "How is it?"
"Uh...to be honest it's pleasant." Ulivier shifted his eye contact towards Pascal. "It certainly isn't as damp."
"Good." cheeped Pascal happily. It took a while before either had anything furthermore to say; Pascal was the one to break the intermittent silence. "So...is there anything aside from your little scuffle from Roland that you remember?"
"Not much...I met that Paul guy a little while back." again, silence between the two pokemon lingered. "Uh...do you know what a human is?"
Inquisitively, Pascal's brow tilted at the mention of the word. "Human? I've heard the term before...come to think of it my big brothers mention the word frequently."
"Uh...big brothers?" Ulivier presumed that 'big brother' implied something unsettling.
"Yes, drifloons don't have progenitors; either we capture souls and convert them into more drifloons or somehow become animate. One way or another, however, my tribe finds new members." Ulivier nodded in reply after the explanation.
"Uh...real quick...what's a drifloon?"
Pascal was confused for a few moments, but then remembered that he was dealing with an amnesiac. "Well...you're looking at one!" Pascal's eyes flared up with cheerful pride as he pointed his tendrils towards himself. "I'm a balloon pokemon, of course. I was brought into the world some 18 years ago." Pascal presumed that Ulivier understood all of the above, and once again, silence sailed because of how generally passive to conversation he was. The relationship would be tricky if Pascal wasn't a master at sparking up conversation.
"Jog my memory again...what exactly is a human?" began Pascal, thirsty for clarification.
"Well...its sorta foggy but I'll try my best to remember." Ulivier looked away and hummed pensively, pacing about some and trying to gather the details up. "They walk on two legs...they don't have any fur or scales or anything...they can write...and they wear clothes for some reason."
"Clothes?!" suddenly blurted out Pascal. "Who would have the indecency to do such a thing?! It's unnatural!" another awkward silence
"S-sure." uttered Ulivier.
"Come to think of it," restarted Pascal," There's this guy up in Bailegna that uh...is sort of a guru on pretty much everything; he's really smart, even by reuniclus standards. Dr...," Pascal's memory of idolized thinkers never failed him, he only feigned forgetfullness to seem coy. "Seamus Carrol."
"So he'll know a thing or two about what a human is?"
"Absolutely!"
"How far away is Bologna-...Bail..egna?" Ulivier subtly blushed as he fumbled on pronunciation
"Well...its a few hundred kilos northwest of here, actually." Pascal scratched the back of his head nervously.
"Then how the hell are we supposed to get there?"
"That's the thing; we don't get there." said Pascal confidently. "All we have to do is send a letter up there. The pelliper service is great in prinemport; and its a 3 hour walk from here to the post office, tops."
"Uh...that Paul guy mentioned that he was gonna take you 'on a walk' or something like that." interjected Ulivier phlegmatically.
"Yeah...I'm not all that partial to that habit of his." said Pascal, wincing through the way he spoke. "All he does is carry me by my string and walk with me he's a three year old; we talk sometimes but its ultimately very humiliating. Pretty much everyone has a bad impression of me and my big brothers don't exactly admire me for being an idiot's plaything. It isn't like they did before but..." Pascal nipped the bud quite well. Had he talked any further he would have surely felt terrible about himself. "Anyway, I imagine that we're on the same page on our thoughts about Paul?" inquired the nearly depressed balloon.
"He's definitely a weirdo, yeah." agreed Ulivier slowly, "He blared on about how much he liked pecha berries for what...15 minutes? I don't even know what a pecha berry is. I'm not really in the mood to say hi to that guy again."
"I'll tell you what," Pascal said. If Ulivier had ears, they would have perked up in curiosity. "It's not that long of a walk to prinemport and we can probably sneak by Paul easily enough because of uh...how imperceptive he is."
"How'd he spot me lying in the middle of a bog then?" Pascal wasn't in the mood for deep thought, moreover to think about Paul outside of the context of getting away from him.
"We'll ask questions later, but chances are that if we walk now, he'll miss us and spend the entire day waiting for us to 'come back' for our walk. Alright?" Pascal performed his signature nod-rock. "What are we waiting for then? Allons'y!" and with that, Pascal drifted away moderately, suddenly realizing the freedom of floating around. The shelmet could only yelp in reply and realize that it wasn't exactly easy to walk quickly on 2 little stumps. In spite of how slow the two might have gone, they had easily evaded Paul, who was busy tearing grass from the ground and snacking on it.
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Roland the karrablast wasn't sure how long he had been out cold for, but he certainly ached in a few places after waking up. Fainting was never pleasant for any pokemon, and unfortunately, whenever Roland was stood up to, he usually fainted. Therefore, the karrablast went through the motions of being obliterated whenever someone had the guts to grind him into a pulp. Only when he rolled over and looked at the comically accurate imprint of him on the hard clay did he realize how hard he had been pummeled by Paul.
Footsteps caught the attention of the disagreeable beetle, and he rolled over once more to try to see the source of humble little waddles. Oh goodness. It was the shelmet. He was with that asshat b'lloonie that hung out with Paul. Not surpising that he took to another of his tools. Round 2 was impending as he stood up and charged once more at the duo, though not too close. Roland understood that attacking from close got him nowhere. However, when he yelled visciously at the little ass, he got results. He stood from the fringe of the road...
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"HAVIN' FUN WITH YOUR LITTLE FRIEND THERE, NOBHEAD?!?!" came demeaningly from Ulivier's side. The shelmet glanced in spite of himself, and with big, flat eyes came a familiar menace to the shelmet. Ulivier abided completely by the instinct that the karrablast wanted to eat him in addition to making him feel awful. "WANNA STAY OVER THERE AND COWER FOR YOUR WEAK MOTHER?!?! Y'ALL AIN'T SHIT, YOU HEAR!!!!" Roland certainly didn't have the nerve to use that mouth around anyone else, in fact, Roland abhored foul language typically. Then again, Roland was presently a very hungry little bug. He continued very intense and spooky eye contact with Ulivier <<Leer>>. Ulivier clamped up and shuddered, nearly crying.
"Shit..." muttered Pascal concernedly, turning to the once again incapacitated snail. "I'll handle this. Sit tight and before you know it he'll be running for the hills. All you have to do to deal with Roland is give him a challenge." Ulivier nodded as The drifloon floated towards the karrablast, looking down at the petty bug.
"Listen here, scooter." this time, Pascal tried to sound as indignant and french as possible, to come of prissy and above karrablast (and Pascal was). "I'm in no mood to fight, but If you're up to see stars, then you can go ahead and try to get by me."
"HAH!" Roland smiled and pointed his stubby arm at Pascal. "YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH NOBHEAD, NOW AREN'T YOU?!?! SOME STANDARDS YOU'VE GOT PASCAL, AIN'T THAT RIGHT, STUPID?!" Roland eyed Ulivier maliciously again at the end of his rant <<Leer>>.
"Fine." Pascal swiveled around the beetle, giving him a direct path to Ulivier, who stared at Roland like a stantler in the headlights. "It's your choice, you can go toe to toe with mon amie if you so wish." Roland yelled as he charged towards Ulivier.
"I'll even give you a boost." Roland suddenly felt an overwhelming draft come behind him, which only grew as time went on. He moved faster, certainly, but as Roland exerted air on him further, he was lifted on his feet and overshot his target by about 50 feet <<gust>>. Roland landed in the middle of the lagoon, and struggled to swim in the murky water on the border of the lagoon. "Have fun swimming with the magikarp; they've got quite the taste for karrablast!~" and with a that bit of sarcasm the duo trotted off quite contently. It would take about 30 minutes for Roland to doggy paddle back to the slimy, marsh, if he wasn't eaten by fish before he got to shore. The joke was on him, he realized this as he clambered for air and struggled for land; eating shelmet was the last thing on his mind.
It would be 3PM by the time that Ulivier the shelmet and Pascal the drifloon would find themselves at the gate of Prinemport.
A balloon and a hippo intercept a snail which was once a human
"…Halloo?..." came a hazy and lofty call from somewhere above the extreme nausea and turmoil of the brain. He couldn't focus for the life of himself, and he rolled around in the dream without a dream while being momentarily serenaded by the call.
"…Hellooo?..." it called again, similar to the first call but more urgent; he could now derive that the voice was quite phlegmatic and lofty sounding coo of a voice. He could suddenly feel the muscles in his eyelids and tried to flutter them open…when he did, all he could make sense of was bright light coming in grills contrasted by utter darkness; quite curious. Why couldn't he see? "Hey buddy~…" greeted the mystery speaker from seemingly ahead; he couldn't tell though due to a lack of spatial intelligence. Though along with the voice's call came the rustling of tall grass and rippling of water. To be honest, he was feeling quite impatient at how relentless and dull the voice sounded. He tried vocalizing in reply "G-go…away please," he reluctantly mumbled, though he realized that his phrase echoed mutely back at him; apparently his face was being covered.
"Awww naw." Chirped the voice in reply, just as dully. "I'm not gonna do that buddy." Outside of his ablation came the gentle thunder of approaching footsteps on marshy ground. Between the slits on his 'mask' which allowed him to see what was apparently the outside atmosphere became clouded with a pinkish, stubby figure. "Here…maybe dis help you." A protrusion from the figure, presumably its arm, suddenly pushed against the cover on his face, which from the sound it made was apparently hard and robust. It somehow reached underneath the crack which separated his cover from a similarly constructed lower half of the mask and lifted it up, letting the pink figure tower over him unexpectedly. His vision was still hazy, but at this point he knew that it was in fact a figure but far from human; its big egg-colored maw smiled inanely as its black pupils made warm eye contact with him. It raised a stubby arm tipped with a paw of sorts and waved it in greeting. "Hallo!~"
Almost instantly he called on a reflex previously unused to clamp his shell-…mask shut in defense towards the apparently aberrant, pink tubby blob. Oddly enough, he didn't use his arms to slam his face covering shut; come to think of it, he couldn't feel his arms at all. He was too busy being gripped by fear and anxiety to think about missing appendages, for this thing was likely to kill him. "G-go away now!!" he screeched as he winced out of terror at the ultimately harmless slowbro. "O-or I'll spit at you!" he wasn't sure how the second half of his interjection made sense, but he was going off of instinct at this point, and spitting on enemies in defense was one of the many new habits that had somehow implanted themselves into his subconscious.
"Awwwr…Doncha be that way, buddy." The pink creature, now easily visible due to his eyes adjusting to the light, knelt beside the covered boy intently, keenly staring at the trembling eyes of his in between the apertures of his cover.
"I-I'm not y-your buddy...w-what the hell e-even are you?" whimpered the boy in between soft little sobs of panic.
"Huh?.. Ah, I'm Paul!" said the hippo-otter thing gleefully, letting a big smile bend on his face as he announced his name cheerfully. "Imma slowbro! Good tah meetcha!" there was something about the slowbro's peculiar way of tact that the boy found adorable. "Do you gotta name, buddy?"
"N-no! I don't have-…" The boy's train of thought suddenly crashed dead in its tracks. Since when did the boy not know his own name? If he could remember right, he had a very good memory, so why didn't it work to remember something as fundamental as what those around him addressed him as? The boy paused for a few moments, gazing at the pink behemoth and coming to the conclusion that it was probably too stupid to even know what killing was. He took the gamble and lifted his 'mask' without aid of arms. "I-I…I d-don't remember, s-sir." The boy's pathos and empathy for the slowbro gave way to his caution; he rationalized that he was probably harmless and the only solution to his sudden discrepancy of memory. He shouldn't have been so expectant of an answer however, as the stupid slowbro simply stared at the boy for a few seconds, giggling errant at times. "W-what's so funny…d-don't laugh at me!" suddenly defensive towards what was apparently an assault on character, the boy winced and felt a familiar feeling of dread come over his mind; this happened when people criticized him.
"Naw…it's just funny to me how big shelmet lips are. Hehe…always wanna kiss someone doncha?" the nameless boy furrowed his brow at how incoherent and offensive that statement sounded, but before he could open his lips in protest he noticed that his lips protruded from his face and were in vision; they were also comically enormous. The boy eeped at how alien he had become and finally came to the realization that he was far from human.
"W-what?!...W-why..." said the boy as he stuttered gently in shock, sniffling as well and nearly on the verge of tears. He lowered his bevor into the marsh and let his eyes sag and accumulate with tears. He felt awful and claustrophobic suddenly realizing that he wasn't a human anymore; in fact, being a human was one of the only things he could remember about his past.
"Hey Buddy!" suddenly yelped Paul with an inherent pity in his voice "Wassa problem? You don't sound too happy." In reply, the shelmet simply whimpered and burst out into big bawls of despair. "Naw…buddy doesn't need tah cry…" the shelmet felt Paul grasp his lower half and lift his body into his arms, after which the slowbro began softly petting the open, slimy muscle inside the shelmet's armet. The green cheeks of the shelmet blushed softly (which wasn't typical for him); being pet shouldn't have felt so gratifying~. "Duzzat make ya feel awright, buddy?" in spite of himself, the little shelmet nodded, replacing his sobs with a very slight, guttural purr. The new shelmet suddenly realized that this could possibly progress...negatively (at least in his mind), and he promptly vocalized his discomfort.
"Cut it out!" he blurted, hoping to get the pink, sweaty imbecile to stop caressing him. Abruptly, he was dropped, causing discomfort on what would be his behind. It was only mitigated by the shell which provided protection to him. It suddenly dawned on him that staying clamped in his shell would provide the greatest comfort and might solve his problem. He could feign being unconscious by shutting his shell. After all, a fall from that relative height would probably give the average joe a concusion. He shut his eyes and groaned convincingly enough to make Paul stare curiously. The slowbro clearly showed some concern and nudged the shelmet with his stumpish leg. "Aw Naw!" he suddenly yelped, face growing distressed as he put his hands to his face in shock. "Ah knocked him out!" it had worked.
Nevertheless, the shelmet was still picked up by the big, crude hands of Paul the slowbro, clenched snugly, but not uncomfortably, around his waist. "Oh Goodnuss, lookie there!" Paul suddenly spotted something which induced inconceivably crippling fear in his gut... the funny thing was that it stood under 2 feet.
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Roland was content with trotting along the murkier quagmire of the road to "coax" food out of Carson, the bidoof resident to a dam about a kilometer north of his parent's den. The means to the end of begging tribute wasn't particularly just. In fact, the rambunctious karrablast got a huge kick out of his art of "persuasion" which involved threats to beat Carson up in his sleep if he didn't hand over his supply of cranberries to the mean-spirited beetle. In spite of his malintentions, Roland was still a connoisseur to the landscape of Forellenburg lagoon, and as he paced with his heart set on threatening an inept and aloof beaver, he sometimes eyed how the sun was cast across the lagoon.
He suddenly heard errant, dopey bleats up in the distance. Great: it was that retard hippo. His mate Alfonso thought that it would be a good idea to bite the nitwit's tail as a harsh joke, and to his dismay, it backfired. Not only was Alfonso suddenly enamored with biting onto Paul's tail, it made Paul even more stupid and annoying. The idiot began to approach Roland; it probably wanted to say hi to his "buggy friend". It was worth enduring the humiliation of being in proximity to Paul to salute Alfonso.
Roland saw the whites of Paul's eyes, the puny, unfocused pupils staring into seemingly nothing as it continued towards Roland with its heavy, wobbling gait. "Hello buggy!" said Paul quite contently, failing to display a complementing facial expression because of how seemingly stupid the Slowbro was. Roland glanced at his friend on the end of Paul's tail; Alfonso looked as traumatized as ever. He nodded sorrowfully, empathetic to how awful being near someone so stupid must be.
"Hllp mmihh," came muffled in between jaws from Alfonso. Everytime Roland and Alfonso met, the shelder would make that same plea, and it had yet to be heeded from Roland.
"Howzit go Buggy?" Paul inquired as he lurched his upper body towards Roland, who cringed as his personal space was violated.
"What the hell do you want this time?!" came from Roland, irate and disgusted with Paul, trying to pace around him to continue on his walk.
"Oh. I just wanted tah introduce youh to a friend here." stated Paul as he torqued around to reach into a bit of marsh, placing Alfonso closer to Roland and allowing him once more to plea for help.
"Plllshh." he implored, tilting his brows up in peril. He was unheeded once again. With that, Paul swiveled back towards Roland with a decently sized casquette, in it was the shelmet who he had just met.
"Dis guy here wants a new friend," chirped Paul as he pointed towards the shelmet in his paws. "Gohead and say hi to buddy."
But Roland didn't want to say hi to "buggy". Roland felt something much more primordial and urgent rise up in his instinct. Paul was holding a shelmet, and every karrablast on the face of the planet knew quite plainly that one needs a shelmet to evolve and that they're very tasty. Roland felt the rage to be conserved for Carson well up uncontrollably towards the scrumptious snail. He inhaled and exhaled noticeably. "Y-yeah...go ahead...and set him on the ground...Paul." said a Roland through his gritted teeth, suddenly very very hungry; his parents would be proud of him for killing a shelmet.
"Kay!" he dropped the shelmet on the ground, inciting a grunt from the covered bug. Suddenly, the shelmet felt unsafe in the presence of the karrablast, and Paul was stupid enough to leave him out in the open.
Suddenly Roland clenched the shell and swung it around so that it could be easily bashed away from Paul, and Roland began prodding the shelmet virulently with his horn in an attempt to sunder the shell <<peck>>. Of course, the shelmet was suddenly terrified beyond belief, but was also glad that his shell was excellent at fending off the aggressor. His blows still hurt, though, and the anxiety welled up to a point where he began to cry like an infant. Relucatantly, the shelmet sobbed.
"YEAH YOU WHINE LIKE THE LITTLE BITCH YOU ARE!! GET OUT OF THAT SHELL, WHIMP AND FIGHT ME LIKE YOU'VE GOT A DICK!!" Roland had the heart of a poet when particularly enraged.
For some reason, the snail was compliant towards Roland's challenge and stood up for himself unconsciously, and in a split second, the shelmet had lifted its hood in between the viscious prods by the beetle, spitting a purple ooze into the eyes of Roland and stunning him momentarily <<acid>>. After he did, the iron gastropod closed his hood shut and watched the karrablast cover his eyes and waltz around in a daze, yelling profanities carelessly. It was a shame that the shelmet felt no pride in his victory over the malicious beetle; it was drowned out by how virulently Roland had spoken to the shelmet.
Roland stumbled a bit, still blinded and desperate to regain vision. He bumped into something fleshy and quite tall, falling on his face afterwards. The dirt cleared his eyes of the corrosive venom, though Roland suddenly realized that he stood in the shadow of something huffing loudly and vehemently. He looked up. Paul had a sour look on his face as he towered over the crass karrablast. Roland was picked up so that Paul could be more personal with his adamant eye contact. "LET ME GO , ASSHAT!"
"Alright, meanie!" Roland's wish was granted. He was tossed up, airborne for 5 seconds to allow the suddenly angry slowbro to focus. Paul's scalp radiated with energy as he hummed in meditation. The moment Roland was in Paul's reach, the slowbro smacked the bug type visciously with his noggin <<zen headbutt>>. Roland flew into a clay escarpment, making a dent into thick clay which was 10 meters away from Paul. Alfonso and the shelmet stood shocked at how suddenly powerful Paul had revealed himself to be. The slowbro wiped his mitts off and nodded at himself, then walked towards a traumatized shelmet. "Buggy is a big meanie." absolutely no sound came from the other, less aggressive bug type, though Paul was successful in interpreting the snail's silence as PTSD. "Don' worry snail pal," Paul picked up the shuddering bug once more and set off down the trail. "We gunna find you anuther friend rainow." and with that, Alfonso and Paul set out unwillingly to a stray willow tree up ahead. Roland groaned, still freshly bashed by Paul's unperceived power. It was going to be a while before he could tribute berries from Carson.
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Pascal had just been woken up and startled, straining the tether to the aromatic willow tree. It was a shame, too; he was certainly having one of those rare, uncannily pleasant dreams. He might have even had some jurisdiction over what flashed by his subconscious in his sleep; maybe he gorged himself on aethereal oran berries in his imagination, which he could otherwise not eat because Pascal was a balloon (balloons don't eat). Bittersweetly, however, his dream was impeded by a familiar mongoloid calling: "Wakeup B'lloon!" and if there was one thing Pascal hated, it was being called a stupid nickname in a stupid voice by a stupid, particular slowbro.
After the rousing scare from a delightful nap, Pascal's little, dottish eyes slanted down and contorted out of dismay and the searing brightness of a freshly dawned sun. Trying to tuck his stunt of vision and goodwill away, he said: "What do you want, Paul?" quite angrily, figurative veins bulging from his silky, round, drifloon skin. "Will you piss off if I let you carry me around?"
"It's ok b'lloon pal. I came widda friend tahday." dictated the matter-of-fact slowbro. At first, Pascal the drifloon took Paul's implication with a very measly grain of salt. Having disclosed feelings for a need of friends inadvertently during his walks with Paul, and having a modicum of gratitude for Paul's attempts to help pascal, Paul probably wanted to help his "friend". The slowbro's attempt was probably very shabby, though. In all likelyhood, Paul had brought him a rock or twig or something else which would insult Pascal's intelligence to the balloon.
Nonetheless, the little beads of Pascal's eyes could widen, for the sun's daily brightness had duly become accustomed to by the eyes of a grouchy looking, animate balloon. He first saw the contrast of a pristinely still and azure back bay next to a border of murky, soiled bog packed with algae. Pascal tried to in take the placent atmosphere and almost felt the circumfrence of ephemeral nirvana; he inhaled deeply, feeling his body expand, to immerse himself zenfully with the nature of the vast, inland lagoon. He was interrupted, however, by a sudden blatant blurb from the blaring slowbro: "C'mon! See your friend, B'lloon!"
"For the last time, my name is Pascal Jean-Pierre Montaigne the 4th Veillure! I'm not b'lloon. Get that in your dense skull already!" trumpeted the loud mouthed little balloon as he swooped in front of a big grinned hippo otter with what would be a scowl (if he had the facial features to accommodate; Pascal was a balloon, after all). As usual, Paul could roll with the punches of criticism because he was too dopy to give a shit. He just smiled and kept avid eyes on the lavender body of Pascal. Without words to focus on, Pascal's eyes drifted around, and spotted the hunk of keratin and metal in Paul's white-fingered mitts. He had brought a rock; go figure. There was something curious about the rock, though; Pascal could sense that something was inside! Pascal then tilted his light, airy body to the side in curiosity. "Uh...what's that?" inquired a suddenly invested, uncannily earnest Pascal.
"Ah. Dis yer friend." declared Paul. He set the husk on the ground. He turned around and then paced away from the willow tree. "You both can say hallo. Den I come for da walk. Seeya." and with that Paul's footsteps decreased in volume ever so slowly as he ambled away. Soon he was in the distance, out of sight and clearly considerate to a privacy necessary for the synthesis of synergy. Now there was just pascal and the shell.
Pascal could clearly deem the husk, in fact ,was not a rock, but a sort of shelled pokemon. Pascal didn't have a lick of experience with grounded pokemon. Furthermore, he did not have experience with shy individuals approaching him. Usually, the dull or malevolent were the people who would take the initiative to accost a seemingly bitter and unassuming pokemon. This time, however, Pascal had met a creature even more timid and shy than he. The balloon had to call the extrovert inside of him to try to address the potential friend.
*Poke*
Pascal's noodly cord lurched out across the void of air and "poked" the sizable shell bluntly, though with not much impact. However, it caused the organism inside to grunt nervously and shiver, with an unexpected bass in his voice (it was easy to tell that whatever was inside was in fact male). This was going to be tricky.
Pascal could see through grills in the shell a pair of quivering, tense eyes. "Jesus, man, I'm not gonna eat you or anything. I haven't eaten a thing in my life." only more timid whimpers from the bug ensued. No cigar. "You can at least see me, right?"
After a few moments, the shell rocked back and forth as if to nod: Progress.
"Do you at least want me to talk to you? I'm more than willing to let you sit there, but in all honesty you'll make yourself look like an imbecile if you keep your trap shut." came haughtily from Pascal, his modicum of French accent twanging on the back of his voice, making sure to sound somewhat condescending. Of course, Pascal didn't mean to be mean-spirited. He only wanted to yank an answer out of the snail with a bit of reverse psychology. The shell rocked back again in a hesitant nod.
"Alright, I'll tell you what." began Pascal, the french accent still very faint behind his voice causing Pascal to continue to sound narcissistic in his speech. "I'll talk to you if you talk to me. I want you to tell me your name." Pascal waited for a reply, and then...
"...I-I..d-don't have o-one." came in muffled, little stutters. Curious indeed; nearly everyone Pascal had met had some type of nomination.
"Well, why not?" inquired Pascal. Another 10 second wait ensued.
"...C-can't rememb-ber..."; goodness;Pascal was befriending an amnesiac!
"Huh. Well then..." Pascal dictated, blind sided by his friend's lack of memory (odd; Pascal described the shell as a friend at this point; he was never that swift to presume friendship) "A name is fairly necessary... Would you like a name?" the little thing nodded. "Remember, I'm not gonna respond to ya if you don't use your words.~" said Pascal teasingly.
"C-could you give me a name...please?" the shelmet asked soft spokenly.
"Alright." Pascal affirmed "What are you aiming for in a name? I don't imagine you would want something as inane as shelly." Pascal was conscious to the fact that he was trying to make a joke by suggesting shelly, but a chuckle from Pascal didn't ensue. Pascal was adherent to the philosophy that one should never laugh at their own joke; it would make one seem absorbed in how funny they were.
"W-well... I shouldn't ask...I'd probably want something really cool for myself...a-and I don't deserve a cool name." he laid his head down shamefully.
"Alright." suddenly interjected Pascal, sounding quite irked. "Listen up, scooter. I'd prefer if you didn't play the pity card on me; I feel sad too sometimes, but a person has to learn that sadness isn't exclusive to you or I. It's something that we all feel and there's no point in wallowing around in pity. It makes things worse and it doesn't send off a good impression." While Pascal lectured aggressively, he could observe the eyes in the grills tilt upward in sadness and fear. Stuttered sniffles. He was making the bug cry. Damnit.
Pascal sighed gently and figured that he had to clean up the mess he made. He subtly floated closer and called on a more sympathetic tone of voice. "Hey...there's no reason that we can't be sad sometimes. Like I said, I'm sad often because of how hard I can get hit with the shit stick sometimes...I mean, the closest thing I have to a friend is a pink idiot who walks me around and then you. Pretty much everyone is occupied, and for the most part they aren't keen to be friendly with a runt."
The shelmet sobbed gently, tilting his eyes towards Pascal after his second speech, which had considerably more pathos than his first. "I-I'm yer friend?" muttered the shelmet with a deep but shaky voice.
"Uh..." in his heart Pascal knew he had an earnest affection towards the shelmet. "Sure."
"A-alright...I'm sorry that I have to be sad"
"Don't be." Pascal tweeted phlegmatically. "you didn't do anything wrong; it's ok to be sad sometimes, we just can't be that way all the time."
"Well I sure as hell must have done something to deserve getting called a bitch by a beetle!" Finally, the shelmet imploded into loud bawls and wails.
"Oh..." Pascal was doubly dissapointed; he had just let his friend burst into tears, which he set out to avoid. Also, the snail's melancholy cries were unbearable. Time to bring out the big guns.
*hug *
Pascal did his best to wrap his strings around the wailing snail and to apply pressure in a makeshift hug. Somehow, Pascal was able to put his dignity at the bottom of his priorities.
"Shhhhh..." whispered Pascal, inducing the shelmet to try to suck up his tears. "You're fine with me...you can cry all you want...promise me that you'll be better after you do, though."
"W-w-why?..." the shelmet uttered in between quivering sniffles.
"Because I can't stand to see you sad." Pascal clenched the bug type more passionately and tenderly (the hug was completely platonic. This isn't going to progress into something corrupt. Please continue reading and understand that sometimes friends have to comfort eachother) "Do you wanna talk about what happened anymore?"
"Y-yuhuh..."
"Go ahead, then."
The sober snail breathed deeply, mustering composure. "W-well...I was told that I was gonna make a friend today...but that idiot Pink-thing wound up putting me with a beetle that tried to beat me up like a punching bag! It w-was really scary!" the shelmet had spoken his peace, and could continue sobbing like an 2 year old without a pacifier, and he did.
"Oh..." Pascal knew exactly who he was talking about: Roland the karrablast. "I think I know who you're talking about. His name is Roland and he's generally cruel to everyone. It's not because of you; I think you'd still get on his bad side even if you weren't a...bug type." the bug type's relentless cries were beginning to ebb.
"Y-you think so?..."
"Absolutely. Really, who cares about those sorts of people? If you have at least one person that means well, nothing that anybody else does really matters."
the shelled pokemon found that he could now withdraw his sorrow indefinitely. He couldn't believe that a complete stranger had done an excellent job of soothing what was once overbearing and crippling to the shelmet. "T-thankyou."
Pascal unwrapped his strings around the bug type and floated in front of the pokemon. "Feel better now?"the shelmet nodded coyly in reply. "Excuse me, I don't understand nods, remember?~" this time, the shelmet was more appreciative to Pascal's playful teasings. He smiled in his shell, and when Pascal saw that he had made the little snail smile, the balloon instantly felt gratified.
"I just feel pissy for how much of a downer I was for a little while there."
"Don't feel bad for that. After all, I feel sad, and sometimes all it takes to not be sad is to talk for a little bit." explained Pascal. "and if you ever feel that upset again, promise me that you'll come to Pascal first." the snail nodded, feeling content in being a gastropod for the first time and entrusting his feelings to a complete stranger.
"Alright," said Pascal as he straightened himself inadverdantly haughtily and tucked away his sentimental side, "we still have to give you a name...and to your request I won't make it too utterly impressive." The shelmet nodded, somewhat less ginger now that he had gotten what had happened off of his shoulders. Pascal nodded as well and had a long, pensive "hmmm" that was vocalized as he paced around through the air. The name Roland stuck around in his head somewhat; he was familiar with it from a certain story that he heard around the evening campfire like a runt squeezing its head in between its brothers to get food (it was a shame; Pascal was very fond of stories). He couldn't remember the exact context of the name, but Roland was described as a big, powerful knight; he was probably a really cool pokemon, too, and that made the fact that a belittling beetle was named Roland seem kinda petty. Pascal also remembered, though, that in the stories, Roland's close friend was named....ulivieur? It sounded foreign, but the shoe fit at least in the balloon's mind. The name seemed a little bit pathetic, like Winston or Herman, but also hinted at being somewhat cool and edgy, and it provided a fitting contrast to the friendship that Ulivier and Roland might have shared; the two bugs clearly dislike eachother! "How about Ulivier?" asked Pascal.
The shelmet stared with timid eyes at the balloon; his eyes twitched around anxiously, nervous that the world might explode if he chose wrongly. "...s-sure..." said Ulivier.
"Alrighty." Pascal nodded approvingly, providing defusal to Ulivier's fear of the world exploding.
"B-but please...make sure you call me my full name if you uh...do call me."
"What do you mean by that?"
"W-well...it's a little pet peeve of mine," pragmatically stated Ulivier, "I can't stand it when people don't call me by my full name. Diminutives diminish, after all." Pascal caught wind of Ulivier's little motto; he too was frequently upset by folks addressing him with stupid nicknames (namely "b'lloony, there was a stupid nickname). He nodded again in consent
"Sure. I don't even think that you can make a nickname out of Ulivier."
"T-thankyou." murmured Ulivier, once again his eyes drifted around nervously, keen to avoid the eye contact which he deemed unsettling. "Sorry for troubling you, sir."
Mildly frustrated with Ulivier's general demeanor, the balloon sighed. "You don't have to say sorry and you don't have to say sir. I'm your friend. I'm more than willing to lend a hand." Pascal realized that he didn't exactly have limbs or hands outside of his little strings. "Strings I mean," Pascal blurted,"...you get the picture."
"Thanks."
From there, a long silence predominated the shade under the tree which housed the snail and balloon.
"Don't you get sweaty from being stuck under that helmet all the time?"
"Not really; it's kinda comfy actually." Ulivier shifted around in his shell a bit, to maximize the mentioned comfort, "I'm not gonna lie, though. It is kinda hot and slimy in here."
"Why don't you open up?"
Confronted with a sudden challenge to his literal comfort zone, Ulivier gasped under his breath, his pupils shrinking in fear for a brief moment. Something inside of his new, unmastered instinct put him against letting his helmet lid up. "I'm afraid something will eat me." Ulivier put that instinct into words.
Pascal's beady eyes flattened in dismay. His patience was being stretched. "Hey Ulivier."
"Y-yes?"
"Do me a favor."
Ulivier nodded.
"Take a look around for anything that might go ahead and eat you."
Ulivier swiveled around on his stumps the best he could.
"Do you see anything that could possibly eat you?"
"You."
Pascal screamed inside, only sighing on the outside and barely hanging onto his composure. "I'm a damn balloon. Escargot isn't exactly appetizing to ghost types, or any food for that matter because we're dead. Tu comprends?" Pascal uttered the last two words dans Francais masterfully, both with pronunciation and a typically French disgust towards both foreigners and plebian incompetence.
"O-ok."
"So if I'm not going to eat you and there's nothing else that might eat you, what's the point of clamming up?" Ulivier didn't know.
"I dunno."
"What do you have to lose then? Open up; I'm interested in seeing what's inside that shell of yours."
There was no doubt in Ulivier's mind that his inhibitions were rooted in his self. It was time to pull his panties up and come out of his shell. Closing his eyes and somehow ignoring the tremendous apprehension in his id, he slowly hoisted up his helmet lid like a heavy drawbridge. Pascal could now see the green and red flesh in his body, and the outrageously puckered and huge lips connected to a slender proboscis. Pascal chuckled silently; restraining himself from calling his snail-pal on kissy lips in fear that he'll feel embarrassed, and will proceed to clamp up and/or cry.
"See? That wasn't too difficult," said Pascal as agreeably as his voice would allow him to sound. He allowed Ulivier to adjust to being out of his shell, noticing how he shifted around to view the area. "How is it?"
"Uh...to be honest it's pleasant." Ulivier shifted his eye contact towards Pascal. "It certainly isn't as damp."
"Good." cheeped Pascal happily. It took a while before either had anything furthermore to say; Pascal was the one to break the intermittent silence. "So...is there anything aside from your little scuffle from Roland that you remember?"
"Not much...I met that Paul guy a little while back." again, silence between the two pokemon lingered. "Uh...do you know what a human is?"
Inquisitively, Pascal's brow tilted at the mention of the word. "Human? I've heard the term before...come to think of it my big brothers mention the word frequently."
"Uh...big brothers?" Ulivier presumed that 'big brother' implied something unsettling.
"Yes, drifloons don't have progenitors; either we capture souls and convert them into more drifloons or somehow become animate. One way or another, however, my tribe finds new members." Ulivier nodded in reply after the explanation.
"Uh...real quick...what's a drifloon?"
Pascal was confused for a few moments, but then remembered that he was dealing with an amnesiac. "Well...you're looking at one!" Pascal's eyes flared up with cheerful pride as he pointed his tendrils towards himself. "I'm a balloon pokemon, of course. I was brought into the world some 18 years ago." Pascal presumed that Ulivier understood all of the above, and once again, silence sailed because of how generally passive to conversation he was. The relationship would be tricky if Pascal wasn't a master at sparking up conversation.
"Jog my memory again...what exactly is a human?" began Pascal, thirsty for clarification.
"Well...its sorta foggy but I'll try my best to remember." Ulivier looked away and hummed pensively, pacing about some and trying to gather the details up. "They walk on two legs...they don't have any fur or scales or anything...they can write...and they wear clothes for some reason."
"Clothes?!" suddenly blurted out Pascal. "Who would have the indecency to do such a thing?! It's unnatural!" another awkward silence
"S-sure." uttered Ulivier.
"Come to think of it," restarted Pascal," There's this guy up in Bailegna that uh...is sort of a guru on pretty much everything; he's really smart, even by reuniclus standards. Dr...," Pascal's memory of idolized thinkers never failed him, he only feigned forgetfullness to seem coy. "Seamus Carrol."
"So he'll know a thing or two about what a human is?"
"Absolutely!"
"How far away is Bologna-...Bail..egna?" Ulivier subtly blushed as he fumbled on pronunciation
"Well...its a few hundred kilos northwest of here, actually." Pascal scratched the back of his head nervously.
"Then how the hell are we supposed to get there?"
"That's the thing; we don't get there." said Pascal confidently. "All we have to do is send a letter up there. The pelliper service is great in prinemport; and its a 3 hour walk from here to the post office, tops."
"Uh...that Paul guy mentioned that he was gonna take you 'on a walk' or something like that." interjected Ulivier phlegmatically.
"Yeah...I'm not all that partial to that habit of his." said Pascal, wincing through the way he spoke. "All he does is carry me by my string and walk with me he's a three year old; we talk sometimes but its ultimately very humiliating. Pretty much everyone has a bad impression of me and my big brothers don't exactly admire me for being an idiot's plaything. It isn't like they did before but..." Pascal nipped the bud quite well. Had he talked any further he would have surely felt terrible about himself. "Anyway, I imagine that we're on the same page on our thoughts about Paul?" inquired the nearly depressed balloon.
"He's definitely a weirdo, yeah." agreed Ulivier slowly, "He blared on about how much he liked pecha berries for what...15 minutes? I don't even know what a pecha berry is. I'm not really in the mood to say hi to that guy again."
"I'll tell you what," Pascal said. If Ulivier had ears, they would have perked up in curiosity. "It's not that long of a walk to prinemport and we can probably sneak by Paul easily enough because of uh...how imperceptive he is."
"How'd he spot me lying in the middle of a bog then?" Pascal wasn't in the mood for deep thought, moreover to think about Paul outside of the context of getting away from him.
"We'll ask questions later, but chances are that if we walk now, he'll miss us and spend the entire day waiting for us to 'come back' for our walk. Alright?" Pascal performed his signature nod-rock. "What are we waiting for then? Allons'y!" and with that, Pascal drifted away moderately, suddenly realizing the freedom of floating around. The shelmet could only yelp in reply and realize that it wasn't exactly easy to walk quickly on 2 little stumps. In spite of how slow the two might have gone, they had easily evaded Paul, who was busy tearing grass from the ground and snacking on it.
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Roland the karrablast wasn't sure how long he had been out cold for, but he certainly ached in a few places after waking up. Fainting was never pleasant for any pokemon, and unfortunately, whenever Roland was stood up to, he usually fainted. Therefore, the karrablast went through the motions of being obliterated whenever someone had the guts to grind him into a pulp. Only when he rolled over and looked at the comically accurate imprint of him on the hard clay did he realize how hard he had been pummeled by Paul.
Footsteps caught the attention of the disagreeable beetle, and he rolled over once more to try to see the source of humble little waddles. Oh goodness. It was the shelmet. He was with that asshat b'lloonie that hung out with Paul. Not surpising that he took to another of his tools. Round 2 was impending as he stood up and charged once more at the duo, though not too close. Roland understood that attacking from close got him nowhere. However, when he yelled visciously at the little ass, he got results. He stood from the fringe of the road...
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"HAVIN' FUN WITH YOUR LITTLE FRIEND THERE, NOBHEAD?!?!" came demeaningly from Ulivier's side. The shelmet glanced in spite of himself, and with big, flat eyes came a familiar menace to the shelmet. Ulivier abided completely by the instinct that the karrablast wanted to eat him in addition to making him feel awful. "WANNA STAY OVER THERE AND COWER FOR YOUR WEAK MOTHER?!?! Y'ALL AIN'T SHIT, YOU HEAR!!!!" Roland certainly didn't have the nerve to use that mouth around anyone else, in fact, Roland abhored foul language typically. Then again, Roland was presently a very hungry little bug. He continued very intense and spooky eye contact with Ulivier <<Leer>>. Ulivier clamped up and shuddered, nearly crying.
"Shit..." muttered Pascal concernedly, turning to the once again incapacitated snail. "I'll handle this. Sit tight and before you know it he'll be running for the hills. All you have to do to deal with Roland is give him a challenge." Ulivier nodded as The drifloon floated towards the karrablast, looking down at the petty bug.
"Listen here, scooter." this time, Pascal tried to sound as indignant and french as possible, to come of prissy and above karrablast (and Pascal was). "I'm in no mood to fight, but If you're up to see stars, then you can go ahead and try to get by me."
"HAH!" Roland smiled and pointed his stubby arm at Pascal. "YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH NOBHEAD, NOW AREN'T YOU?!?! SOME STANDARDS YOU'VE GOT PASCAL, AIN'T THAT RIGHT, STUPID?!" Roland eyed Ulivier maliciously again at the end of his rant <<Leer>>.
"Fine." Pascal swiveled around the beetle, giving him a direct path to Ulivier, who stared at Roland like a stantler in the headlights. "It's your choice, you can go toe to toe with mon amie if you so wish." Roland yelled as he charged towards Ulivier.
"I'll even give you a boost." Roland suddenly felt an overwhelming draft come behind him, which only grew as time went on. He moved faster, certainly, but as Roland exerted air on him further, he was lifted on his feet and overshot his target by about 50 feet <<gust>>. Roland landed in the middle of the lagoon, and struggled to swim in the murky water on the border of the lagoon. "Have fun swimming with the magikarp; they've got quite the taste for karrablast!~" and with a that bit of sarcasm the duo trotted off quite contently. It would take about 30 minutes for Roland to doggy paddle back to the slimy, marsh, if he wasn't eaten by fish before he got to shore. The joke was on him, he realized this as he clambered for air and struggled for land; eating shelmet was the last thing on his mind.
It would be 3PM by the time that Ulivier the shelmet and Pascal the drifloon would find themselves at the gate of Prinemport.