FicWad

Anuthor's Note: Whoa, fast update. You guys didn't even have to wait a week. This chapter might seem a little truncated, and kind of pointless. However, the Viridian Forest chapter is going to be LONG (I'm covering about two days worth of action in one chapter and it took me 9 chapters to cover 1 day before, so obviously two days would be pretty long). Therefore, I decided to turn this into it's own chapter, as it could stand alone, and give you all something to tide you over.

Um, Tommy, a character introduced here, is a little shady in my opinion. Not only does Mel act a little too adult for her age in introduction, but he's a pretty sketchy kid. As for the Mel "adult" moment, can we all agree that any kid who is considered responsible enough to run around on their own at age ten would probably be pretty mature? Other than that there is no real excuse for Mel's actions, other than the fact that I can't write believeable ten-year olds. As for Tommy, the weird little child, originally he was going to be a main character-ish. However, a friend mentioned that he was written rather like the nice version of Wrath from Fullmetal Alchemist. Now, while I love FMA, and Wrath is one of my favorite characters (or prehaps because of this) I don't want to make a character in a pokemon story act like him. So I'm right now up in the air as to whether he'll come back into the story. Either way, when you read his part imagine Wrath's voice from the American dub. It definitely fits his personality.

"Everyone's dead. Will you play with me?"
~ Wrath when he's still an innocent little kid

As a final note for all you Tolkein buffs out there: I hope you grin when Matt finally comes up with a name for his bulbasaur. It just works for her character, which I promise to develop more. For the non-JRR fans, I did explain it in an oblique way. Hey, they sing lullabyes in Feanorean Elfish in my pokemon universe! (grins)

Warning: Sticks are not nice toys to play with!

Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon. If I did, mewtwo would so kick more ass than he already does. And AmberTwo never would have existed. Death to saccharine sweet wittle girls.



When Mel woke up it was to an unfamiliar ceiling, with unfamiliar shadows on it. She panicked, and nearly fell out of bed until she heard a loud thump and a drowsy "Squirtle?" from Lapis.

In the next room Scott had fallen from his bunk bed, and was now staring around him surprised to find himself in the same room and three of his class mates. The fellow class mates didn't look any more comfortable in this state of uncertainty, and bleary eyed wakefulness. Adam, who had the top bunk above Scott continued to sleep, as both Matt and Alex looked around suspiciously, before the morning amnesia wore off.

"I call bathroom first," Scott declared, before stumbling out into the hall.

Matt peered down from the top bunk and muttered something inaudible, before seeing Corazon sleeping peacefully on the floor.

"Oi! What are you trying to do, burn the pokemon center down around our ears?" the boy accused Alex.

"Corazon doesn't like her pokeball," Alex was getting out of bed calmly, dressed in PJs that were, surprise, surprise, black.

"Yeah, but with that tail if she so much as twitches in her sleep she could set the place ablaze," Matt's tone was aggressive.

"So? Charmander manage to go to sleep in the wild without starting any fires. Do you want to know how?" Alex passed his fingers gently through the flame at the end of Corazon's orange tail. "See? No hotter than sticking your hand over a stove. They can control the temperature of their flame even at a young age. I'm just surpised how low they can get it without letting it go out."

"Wouldn't that make more sense?" Matt grumbled, climbing down from the top bunk, interested despite himself.

"When a charmander's flame goes out they die," Alex told Matt, disgust radiating from his voice at Matt's suggestion. The Johtoan stood around, looking vaguely disgruntled. "How on earth did Scott think of calling the bathroom?" he said at last, to say something.

"Scott has more sisters than he can use," Matt shrugged. "He's probably used to fights over the bathroom. Look just because he called it, doesn't mean that he can get it."

Matt stumped out of the room, looking like a pale imitation of Alex in his dark brown hair, and loose grey pajamas.

Alex realized that with Adam asleep in the top bunk, and Corzon still dozing, he wasn't going to enjoy much company. Not that he wanted company, but early in the morning, after waking up in a strange room, it was nice to be disdainful of the presence of others in the presence of others.

Deciding to think laterally, he concluded that there must be more than one bathroom in the pokemon center, and that while Matt and Scott fought he would use that bathroom.

So, instead of turning to the left in the direction of Matt's loud complaints to one side of the bathroom door when he exited the room, Alex headed right. And lo and behold, after seven steps he found another bathroom. He knocked, just incase someone else was occupying it. The door opened, and The Girl stuck her head around the crack, toothbrush in her mouth.

Alex glared, seeing that she was already dressed. He turned on his heel, and stalked back to his room, deciding that if he could not get his teeth brushed and wash his face, then at least he could get dressed. Even after shutting the door with a bad tempered smack the other human occupant of the room remained oblivious to the world. In fact, Alex thought that Adam's soft snores were growing louder.

These facts, coupled with the fact that Matt had been foiled in his bathroom takeover, although not before throughly insulting Scott, meant that the only cheerful trainer who came down the stairs that morning, was Mel, with Lapis gingerly climbing down backwards after her.

Alex, in a really bad mood, didn't talk to anyone but the lunch lady, and that was to request a bowl of oatmeal. Scott was grumbling about Matt, and Matt was scowling at Corazon again. His bulbasaur was upstairs, still asleep, along with Scott's Nocturne, who was happily hanging on to the underside of Adam's bunk. However, Matt seemed to have gained the idea that Corazon was evil incarnate for having attacked his pokemon during the battle of the previous day.

Mel glanced around Matt, who had occupied one of the window seats, and sighed when she saw a light, misty drizzle that continued to fall outside. She was going to the secondhand store after breakfast and buying a cheap raincoat.

She went back to spooning in her hot oatmeal, picking out the rawst berries, since she had an mild alergy to them, and feeding them to Lapis, who sat beside her. Alex was doing the same for Corazon, although he had no alergy, and was eating half of the rawst berries himself. Scott was trying to discourage his pidgey from nibbling at his breakfast, pointing out, quite rightly, that he had his own food bowl. However, the bird seemed to be quite bold, especially for one of his kind, and ignored him.

"What is your pidgey's name?" Mel asked, when the opressive silence got to be too much.

"Seed," Scott replied from across the table. "Did any of you catch what Chris named his pokemon? Sinslither, and Darkfang. Slither and Fang for short - I think he's trying to annoy his abra."

Mel giggled, as Matt snortted with amusement.

"So, when are you three planning on meeting up?" Mel was curious.

"Well," Scott began.

"I'm leaving after breakfast. The other two have their own plans, I'm certain," Alex interrupted.

"Er, I guess we'll catch up," Scott muttered, looking out at the drizzle, and sighing just as Mel had done.

"And what about us?" Mel turned to Matt.

The boy shrugged. "Well, if we have to wait for sleeping beauty, then we have to wait."

"I need to buy a raincoat, anyway," Mel commented.

"Fine," Matt was obviously uninterested in her plans.

He was only going along with this because he knew that Adam and Mel would catch up anyway. Besides, Adam was easy-going, and fun to be around if you were in the right mood, and Mel probably had brought food with her in the Pack of Doom that she carried. All-in-all independence was a small price to pay for better living than traveling on his own.

They finished their breakfasts in relative quiet. Alex was the first to leave. He returned Corazon to her pokeball, and then ran upstairs to get his pack. Scott, not to be out done, swiftly followed. Mel was looking in her wallet, a small frilled pink thing that Ora had gotten her for her eighth birthday. She didn't carry much, and she knew how much an old second hand raincoat should cost. She had gone bargain hunting with her mother enough times to know how to argue that point.

Matt noticed that she had her pokedex in her other pocket. What, did she think she was going to run into wild pokemon in the middle of Viridian? As Matt shrugged, and climbed the stairs to get his stuff pulled together, Mel set out for the store, Lapis in tow.

The grey drizzle was fresh on her face, and the way Lapis was acting he must be enjoying it, too. Mel, who had been initially depressed by the onslaught of rain now realized that it might be a good thing with her water pokemon. Actually, it might be a good thing in general, as the rarer kinds of pokemon that lived in Viridian forest were mostly grass types and would come out in this weather. Mel was playing with the idea of catching a paras, which were hard pokemon to find, but not impossible. Of course, the downside was that any flying pokemon, which according to Jack she did need to catch, wouldn't be out in this weather.

As she sloshed through the grey streets she chatted with Lapis, a little disappointed that Chrono couldn't come out and join them.

"Listen, Lapis, what do you think, should we try to challenge the Cerulean gym after getting through Pewter? They say that the gym leaders at Cerulean like to attack really hard, and I know you don't have a type advantage, but in this weather we're certain to come across an oddish that we could use, or a paras. I've always wanted one, they're really sweet."

"Squir squirt, tle squirt squirt tle," Lapis commented, with a shrugg of his shell to indicate that he was fine with the arangement, although he personally thought, after having seen Mel's aiming ability, that she would have to practice throwing her pokeballs a bit before she made too many over confident claims about oddish.

"Alright, and after we've taken on Cerulean I think we can continue onto Vermilion - remind me to catch a ground type in Mt. Moon. If there isn't a ground type in my party by the time we reach Vermillion I think I'll give that gym a pass, and we can catch a boat to Cinnabar. After that I think we'll have to wait and see.

"The boat ride from Vermillion to Cinnabar would take about two days, and the road from Cerulean to Vermillion takes about two weeks on foot. From Cerulean to the base of Mt. Moon is usually a four day journey. Going through Mt. Moon, assuming we don't get lost inside, takes only one day, while climbing the summit, or going around it can take three. And from Pewter to Mount Moon, that's five more days, and from Viridian to Pewter, going through the Viridian Forest, that's a whole other week," Mel counted up weeks on her fingers. She looked at them in dismay.

"That's almost five weeks, maybe longer if we stop for training breaks, and who knows how long it's going to take us to prepare in the towns to challenge the gyms. And it would be very easy to get off the beaten track in both the Viridian Forest and Mount Moon - It could take us months before we get back from Cinnabar!"

"Squirtle squirt," Lapis told her pragmatically.

"Is that you're way of saying 'That's how the cookie crumbles'?" Mel asked.

Lapis looked impressed, and nodded. Perhaps his trainer wasn't as thick as he had thought.

"Well, I suppose so. It's a good thing that we're not going to be able to participate in the league for another year after all, maybe," Mel conceeded, before looking around, and noting that they seemed to be in a residential neighborhood with it's own small playground. "Hey, is it just me, or have you seen zero shops here? I could have sworn this was the way on the city map in the pokemon center. Did I take the wrong turn?"

Lapis, who had glanced at the image with the lines and shapes by the desk of the pokemon center, but hadn't really understood any of it, shrugged. These magical map things were some sort of device that humans seemed to rely on over much.

"Hey, there's a kid, perhaps we can ask him," Mel suggested, seeing an indistinct shape in the playground off to their left.

It turned out to be a younger boy playing with a couple of caterpie. Well, the word playing was a little off. The boy had a stick and he chased after the caterpie, whacking them with said stick when ever he caught up.

"Hey, you shouldn't do that!" Mel exclaimed, catching the stick as the boy stumbled past her, chasing a bruised caterpie. The caterpie's partner was hiding in the shadow of the swing set, looking tired, and greatful for the repreive as the boy chased its friend around and around the wet playground.

"Heeeeey!" the boy couldn't be older than six, Mel decided, listening to him bawl. "That's mya stick. Mine! Mine!"

"And are those your caterpie?" Mel asked.

"Mine! Mine! Miiiiiiine!" the boy continued to shriek.

"Okay, okay," Mel resisted the urge to cover her ears. Why were his parents letting him roam freely like this? He was a loose cannon. She decided to take him to his house. His mother, at least, shouldn't have let him out in this weather, and Mel was also pretty certain that such a young boy shouldn't have been given two pokemon that he obviously didn't know how to take care of.

"Hey, Lapis, can you get those bug pokemon to come here?" Mel asked, feeling very responsible in her position as a wise ten-year-old. "Listen, where do you live?" she asked the boy during a lull in the crying. "It's too wet out for you to be playing."

The boy reached for the stick. "Gimme! Gimme!"

"Will you tell me where you live if I give this to you?" Mel wanted to know.

"Uh-huh," snot was coursing from the up-turned nose.

Mel handed him the stick, wishing that she had a kleenex or something. He was such a grubby little thing.

And vicious, as it turned out. When he grasped a hold of the stick he whacked Mel around the shins soundly, laughing. "C'mon, play with me, play with me!"

Mel dove for the stick again, just as Lapis, who was a squirtle sheild for the caterpie cowering in his shadow, arrived. The stick lunged out, and bopped the water pokemon on the head.

Enraged, Lapis blew a stream of bubbles into the boy's face. Mel used the distraction to wrest the stick from his hand once more.

"All right, that is it!" Mel yelled. Her shins were throbbing. "I'm reporting you to the police for pokemon abuse, and I hope your parents spank you when they find out!"

The boy's face crumpled, and he began to blubber again. Mel breathed out, her childish temper dieing slightly. "Now look, tell me where you live, and I won't report you to the police."

"But - but, I don't wannnnnnna be spaaaaaaaanked," the boy continued to wail.

"That won't happen if I don't report you. Now come on! Where's your home?"

The boy sniffed, and wiped his runny nose on the sleeve of his raincoat. He pointed to a green and brown house with a picket fence around it, and some toys in the yard.

Mel took his hand, and marched him over to the house, ignoring the mud getting on her socks as she crossed the lawn. Lapis followed behind, rubbing his head occassionally, and glaring at the boy. The caterpies made up the rear of the procession, heads down, and inching along tiredly.

When Mel rang the doorbell there was a long pause. After waiting for three minutes in the rain, which was steadily soaking into the sweatshirt she had worn that day, she rang it again, more impatiently.

Finally a man with a gotee and mustash poked his head around the door. "Yes - oh Tommy, there you are. I was wondering why the house was so quiet."

"I found him in the playground, sir, running around and attacking his caterpie," Mel said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," was the absent minded reply, "he's not meant to do that. Do come in."

Mel tossed Tommy's stick by the door, and then walked into the house. It was covered in papers, most of these turned out to be sheets of music. There was a sonata playing in the background, and she caught a glimpse of a piano before being hustled into the kitchen.

"I just wanted to say," Mel began, tearing her eyes away from the sprawling mess, "That Tommy shouldn't be allowed to have pokemon until he grows up enough to take care of them properly, or at least learns that whacking pokemon with big sticks isn't a fun game."

"But, but I want my cate'pie!" Tommy began to snivel.

"Now, now, Tommy, be quiet for the young lady," his father said. "She has something important to say."

"Well, I'd turn him in for pokemon abuse if this is allowed to continue. Can't you keep the caterpie away from him?" Mel asked, realizing with a shock that she was ordering this grown up around, and that it was easy to do so. It probably wouldn't have been half so easy had this man been a strict parent and agreeing with her. "He's only six, he can't possibly know how to take proper care of them."

"Seven," the father corrected. "Tommy's always been a rambuntious child though, and boys will be boys."

"But he was hurting them!" Mel exclaimed.

"But pokemon bounce back, don't they?" the father looked distressed, he began to pace. "Perhaps you'd like some tea?"

"No thank you. And pokemon don't all bounce back. Don't you have an older more responsible neighbor who could take care of the caterpie, and let Tommy play with them at certain times as a reward?" Mel suggested.

"Squir squirt tle tle squir," Lapis put in. Mel looked blankly at the squirtle, but Tommy's wails grew louder.

"But I don't wannnnnnnna send them back to the for-resssst!"

The father raised his hands quickly. "Don't worry! Please. You won't have to, Tommy, they're your pets," he continued to soothe the child until Tommy stopped crying. "Please, young lady, thank you for bringing the problem to my attention, but there's really nothing more that can be done. Those caterpie are his. His mother caught them for him. Thanks for bringing him in out of the rain. It's no weather for a child - what can I have been thinking?"

He walked Mel to the door. The young girl tried to protest, but it was drowned in the ramblings of the man. Lapis followed, shooting glances at the boy. "Tle squir squir squirtle squirt?"

"Yes! Yes!" the boy shrieked, excitement overwhelming misery. Both the father and Mel looked at Tommy, confused. "Will you come back and play with me?" He asked.

Thinking over her bruises, and the way he had hit Lapis on the head Mel felt no difficulty in saying no. "You see, I'm on a pokemon journey," she told the boy proudly, as she stood just inside the front door, ready to step out into the drizzle once more. "Because I'm re-spon-si-ble and I don't hit pokemon with sticks."

"Well, good luck then," Tommy's father told her, before looking out at the weather. "Oh dear, do you have a rain coat?"

"Well, no I was going to find a shop -," Mel began.

"Wait here, I think I have an old one of Elysa's," the father hurried back inside.

"Can I come with you on your journey?" Tommy asked as soon as his father disappeared. "Can I, can I?"

"Um, you can't go until you're ten," Mel said quickly.

"But wh-ai-ai?" Tommy complained. "I wanna go!"

"Because you're not old enough yet. Uh, who's Elysa?" Mel quickly tried to change the topic.

"She's my older sister. You can see her if you go to the cemetary," Tommy grinned innocently. "She's there with Mommy. Daddy says they're in Heaven, but you can see them in the cemetary. They have rocks with their names and everything. They're there."

"Oh," Mel backed up a pace, feeling ashamed. "I'm sorry."

"Why? They're happy!" Tommy exclaimed. "Since they're in Heaven they've got everything they could want, so Daddy says. Except us, but since we're all going there one day that doesn't matter!"

"Right," Mel tried to smile encouragingly.

No one was more happy than she was when the father came back with the large blue rainjacket. It was closer to a windbreaker than anything, but Mel slipped it on greatfully, said her thank yous and good byes, and quickly left for the pokemon center. She felt vaugely ashamed that she had brought things up, but she couldn't put her finger on exactly why.

Outside, in the rain, she caught sight of Matt and his bulbasaur, sitting on a fence by the center. Well, Matt was sitting as he talked to his bulbasaur, who was on the ground. Ocassionally things fired from the bulb on her back.

"Again, that was too far too the right."

"Buuuuuulba," she growled at her trainer, before seeds shot out at a mound of rubish.

Mel watched in facination as the seeds exploded into tangling vines covered in a golden green energy. They writhed viciously for a few seconds before shivelling and shrinking. Mel saw that the bannana peel which they had implanted in withered away as the vines grew.

"Wow, that's um, creepy," Mel told Matt.

"Leech seed," Matt shrugged along to the minimum of sylables.

"Oh, remind me not to battle you. Is Adam up?"

"No," a pause, and then, "I left a note. If he's not up in a few more minutes we leave."

"There's no need to rush," Mel began, but stopped as she caught sight of the bulbasaur. "Wow, how did that happen?"

The grass pokemon had the normal blue green skin, and the deep green blotches of most bulbasaur, but Matt's now sported a burst of pale green and watery gold across her face. It looked a little like the old fahsioned compasses on maps, a spikey circle with longer spikes spreading out from the four points. The "North point" was the longest, cleanly bisecting her broad forhead and zooming over the back of her head and down her back in a straght line until it encountered her bulb. The "South point" was the smallest, reaching only to the tip of the bulbasaur's nearly nonexistant chin, just under the jutting of her upper lip. Both "East and West" were thicker, looking more like firey rays of a sun that flowed over her cheeks, and even the bottom lids of her eyes, to streak over the saurian's shoulders and terminate in flecks of true gold that looked like a shower of sparks.

"That's the scar from Corazon's ember," Matt growled.

"That's a scar? It's so pretty though," Mel bent down to pat the spring green and gold mottled forehead. The bulbasaur snapped her jaws viciously, and Mel only escaped from losing a few of her fingers through reflexes she didn't know she had.

"It's also painful. Don't do that," Matt's voice was flat with only a hint of anger.

Mel backed up hastily, although she didn't show any other signs of fear. Lapis stamped in front of his trainer and began to berate the bulbasaur, who in return gave as good as she got.

"Have you named her yet?" Mel wanted to know.

"No."

"Oh, um, do you want some help?" Mel realized this was the wrong way to ask things of Matt, as he opened his mouth to say "no" again. "Only, what about Jade?" Mel asked hurridly.

"She's not Jade colored," Matt replied.

"Or Bonsai?" Mel continued. "That's a kind of small tree."

"She's not a tree, she moves," was the grumbled counter.

"Gold Leaf?"

"Does she look like a leaf to you?" Matt narrowed his eyes.

"Okay," Mel said slowly, "What about Rose? It goes with her face, because the scar is the shape of a compass rose."

There was a strangled cry of "Saur!" just as Matt yelled: "I'm not naming any pokemon of mine /Rose/!"

The grass pokemon breathed out a sigh of releif, and went to stand closer to her trainer. Not to show solidarity or anything, but to nip him in the ankle if he considered a stupid name.

"Um, Thorn, then?" Mel suggested, thinking about roses.

"Tried it already," Matt replied. "She bit me."

"Stubborn? Biter?" Mel thought both names exceedingly practically and useful.

"I don't like the look she's giving my boot," Matt was watching his pokemon carefully, ready to sidestep.

"Anor?" Mel half remembered something out of a nursery rhyme about the sun. Looking at the bulbasaur, she was relieved to see a nod of assent.

Matt just scowled. "It's a boy's name, and she's a girl."

"Um, Tirith?" that had been the title of the song, /Tirith Anor: Guard of the Sun/.

"Tirith," Matt glanced down at his pokemon. "Yeah, that'll do," he said, noting Tirith's shrug. "She can keep Anor as a last name if she wants," he added, just to make certain that he didn't need to worry about any nasty bites.

The door to the pokemon center burst open, and Adam ran out pulling on a yellow rain coat. Bolt was scampering around his feet excitedly, and Dive was complaining bitterly about the fact that her claws had no purchase on the slick plastic.

"What'd I miss?" he asked breathlessly.

"About half the day," Matt snarled, sounding annoyed. In reality it was only 8:45. "Let's go."

All three trouped off in the direction of the Viridian Forest.