Categories > Anime/Manga > Pokemon > Xanthic Growlithe Contract
"Thank you so much!" gushed the girl. She was a teen, perhaps fifteen years old, the upper end of the trainer spectrum. Her hair was a dirty blonde, her eyes a dark shade of hazel, and she was dressed casually, in shorts and an unadorned shirt. There was nothing in her appearance to dissuade viewers, attracted by the noise, of the childishness her voice projected. There was also no way of telling what she was thanking the Joy so happily about. A single pokeball had been handed over, but the Joy hadn't said a single word about irresponsible battling, so it didn't appear her pokemon was badly hurt. The watchers looked back to whatever they were doing originally. There was nothing of interest or significance here.
"You may want to avoid battling with it for a few days," said the Joy, but there were no longer listeners to think to themselves, how strange.
*
Elliot was not skipping - boys don't skip, he believed. He was, instead, doing everything but skip as he walked out. He had won his first battle and gotten his first badge in one single, brilliant fight. He could still scarcely believe he had actually won against a gym leader, even with the proof held tightly in his fist. And on his first try, just like the trainers in stories.
He hadn't eaten lunch - how could he, with the Cerulean Gym right there? - and now he began to look for something to eat.
Cerulean had plenty of indoor restaurants, most selling cheap, simple meals. Elliot wasn't interested in going into one of them to eat, though. He was too excited to sit still inside for a meal. Luckily, despite the abundance of traditional restaurants, there were also strangely plentiful roadside stalls, and it was from one of these that Elliot bought a hamburger.
Chewing it happily, he wandered, as lost as before. He didn't mind. With every bite he was reminded that he had gone and bought something himself. At home, he had eaten what his mother made for him without much choice in the matter. Now he was grown-up and could eat whatever he wanted.
It had still not occurred to him that he should ask for directions. Even when it finally did, he would probably still refrain. Only children had to ask for directions.
He was looking for a Pokemart, and, as luck might have it, he found one without much trouble. Inside, he purchased another bag of pokemon food.
Pokemon feeding, like everything else, had a set of advice that trainers weren't seriously expected to follow. Most were fed intermittently, which did not seem to have any ill effect.
The advice given on the matter, though, was commonly repeated and there were no conflicting versions circulating to confuse matters, so Elliot, like most new trainers, understood he should feed his pokemon regularly.
Elliot, his supplies replenished, bought popcorn from another vender and went into a park.
The park was rather like an inverse of the forest. The grass, trees and bushes were all the same, but now, there was a greater percentage of open space and a correspondingly smaller percentage of trees. Elliot did not find this noteworthy. He did not even notice.
"Go!" he shouted.
His growlithe appeared, tail wagging. It barked, jumping up against him.
The meowth's response was far less exuberant. A lot of the water seemed to have vanished and it noticed it was nowhere near the cold, strange-smelling pond, but its fur was still damp and mussed. An instant later, it noticed the fire pokemon and stiffened. The growlithe was big. The meowth was not in its territory. It was tired. It did not want to fight.
The puppy paid less attention to its surroundings. It took a moment before it realized there was another pokemon. It did notice this was the same one it had attacked before. It got off Elliot and went over to sniff the new arrival.
The meowth froze, tense, as the growlithe's huge muzzle filled its vision. In a moment, it would fearfully lash out.
Before that could happen, the growlithe sat back on its haunches. Its head cocked to the side. What was this creature and why wasn't it doing anything?
The meowth took the opportunity to do what it wanted to do to start with. It ran.
But not far. A quick sprint took it to the nearest tree, and, feeling safer, it looked back, to see the growlithe had not moved, and was merely watching it with the same puzzled look.
Somewhat mollified, the meowth turned to the vital and pressing matter of its fur. It began to lick the fur on its back meticulously, fluffing and flattening the hairs into the correct arrangement.
Elliot missed the finer facets of this interplay. He saw only that the two had met, and that the meowth seemed aloof and not interested in making friends.
The meowth, of course, had no concept of 'friends'. The thought that the growlithe wished to be friendly did not occur to it. As a kitten, it had been with littermates, but it was older now. They had split up and gone their separate ways, and the part of its life where it had companions was over.
But it still was young enough to remember them. The growlithe was an alien thing, but as it grew more familiar, the meowth would accept it, then accept its overtures. It would treat the growlithe as another, odd sibling.
Not yet, though. And Elliot didn't understand this. He got bowls from his backpack, and then the bag of food. He placed a handful in each bowl.
The growlithe came over immediately. It began chewing at the pellets with apparent enjoyment.
The meowth sniffed. It smelled the food, but it was not what the meowth thought of as food. The pellets were not pure meat - they might not, for that matter, have any kind of meat in them. The meowth couldn't tell what they were supposed to be. But it did see the growlithe was eating.
Although the pellets did not look appetizing to Elliot, he thought the reason the meowth did not approach was that it was still being standoffish. He decided to try to make friends by offering it the food directly. He picked up the bowl and approached.
The meowth responded strangely. Had the growlithe done this, the meowth would doubtlessly have reacted violently. Yet as the boy came closer, it did no more than watch warily. When Elliot offered the dish, it shrank back momentarily, but then leaned forward and sniffed the food. Elliot set the bowl down, and the meowth took a tentative bite.
It tasted...odd, just like it smelled. But it was not unpalatable, and the meowth, in the wild, ate whatever it could get. The quantity of the food, and having it all to itself, was what was important. After the first few bites the meowth sped up, until it was barely chewing. This, by Elliot, was taken as acceptance, and that was not too far off.
The pokemon played for a while as Elliot finished his popcorn. Or rather, the growlithe played and the meowth watched warily, still unsure of how to deal with this vastly new situation.
Elliot stood and brushed himself off. "Return, Howler," he said. The growlithe turned a bright red in mid-twist and vanished. The meowth was not alarmed by this. Scarcely noticing the growlithe's disappearance, it inspected the boy.
"You need a name too," Elliot said thoughtfully. He held out his hand to the meowth, and instead of swatting at this apparent attack, the meowth held still, then sniffed. After a moment, it rubbed against his hand timidly. He petted it, feeling the gold charm on its forehead. "Charmer," he said. "That's your nickname. Okay?"
Charmer, who had no idea what he was saying, made no objection. Elliot recalled it. It was getting late now, starting to grow cool and dark, and he headed back toward the Pokemon Center.
It didn't take quite as long to go back to the Pokemon Center as it did to get to the park, but he still wandered a bit and took a few wrong turns. When he got inside, he learned that the meal would be ready soon, and there was room for him to stay the night. He called his mother on one of the video phones - she'd made him promise he'd call her the moment he got to the next town, but he'd forgotten in the excitement - and told her he'd gotten a badge and a new pokemon, who he showed her. She seemed happy, either not noticing or not caring about the implied fact that he must have gotten there earlier if he already had a badge. By the time he finished talking to her, the food was ready.
He sat down on one of the benches with his bowl of soup and bread.
There was a boy sitting nearby. "Hey," he greeted.
"Hi." Elliot sat.
"You're a new trainer, aren't you?"
"Y-yeah, I guess," said Elliot, wondering if he'd done something wrong. "Why did-?"
"You've got the look."
"The look?"
"You stare like everything's new. You've only got two pokemon, and low-level at that."
"Oh." Elliot couldn't decide if that was bad. He took a bite of bread instead. "Why are you here?"
"The badge, of course."
Elliot thought. This hadn't occurred to him before, but - "How long have you been a trainer?"
"Four years now." The boy smiled. "Wondering what took me so long?"
"Well..." Elliot felt almost embarrassed, as if he'd mentioned something he shouldn't have..
"I started over in Johto. Got the eight there, fought a bit."
"Oh," said Elliot. That made sense. "I just went to the gym here."
"And won, right?"
Elliot nodded. "Yeah. It was really close."
The other boy sighed, covering his face with his hand. "With what? I probably don't want to know."
"My meowth," Elliot said, pointing at it lying on his backpack.
The boy groaned. "That's a new one."
"What?" Elliot was baffled.
The boy glanced around absently. "How long've you had it?"
"I caught it yesterday."
The boy choked on his soup. "Yesterday?" he repeated. "That's gotta be a new record."
Elliot was getting more and more confused. "Is - that bad?"
The boy glanced around again. He didn't look particularly nervous, but Elliot couldn't tell why he was doing it. "No," the boy said flatly. He was staring at the Joy behind the counter on the other side of the room. "No."
The boy introduced himself as Michael. He'd been traveling in Kanto for about a year and a half. He'd gotten the badges of Johto with relative ease, something he attributed to 'challenging Pryce and Clair first', whatever that was supposed to mean. Elliot didn't want to ask. He thought it might be something everyone was supposed to know, and he didn't want to admit he didn't.
"Have you gone to the gym?" Elliot asked.
The boy seemed distant, like he was thinking about something, weighing his options. "I'm planning to go to a tournament in Saffron," he said. "It'll be held soon."
"Cool. Is it hard? Do you have to have badges or anything?"
"Not really. You should enter. You'll probably do fine."
"Really?" said Elliot.
"Sure. I'm almost curious to see how far you'll get."
"You may want to avoid battling with it for a few days," said the Joy, but there were no longer listeners to think to themselves, how strange.
*
Elliot was not skipping - boys don't skip, he believed. He was, instead, doing everything but skip as he walked out. He had won his first battle and gotten his first badge in one single, brilliant fight. He could still scarcely believe he had actually won against a gym leader, even with the proof held tightly in his fist. And on his first try, just like the trainers in stories.
He hadn't eaten lunch - how could he, with the Cerulean Gym right there? - and now he began to look for something to eat.
Cerulean had plenty of indoor restaurants, most selling cheap, simple meals. Elliot wasn't interested in going into one of them to eat, though. He was too excited to sit still inside for a meal. Luckily, despite the abundance of traditional restaurants, there were also strangely plentiful roadside stalls, and it was from one of these that Elliot bought a hamburger.
Chewing it happily, he wandered, as lost as before. He didn't mind. With every bite he was reminded that he had gone and bought something himself. At home, he had eaten what his mother made for him without much choice in the matter. Now he was grown-up and could eat whatever he wanted.
It had still not occurred to him that he should ask for directions. Even when it finally did, he would probably still refrain. Only children had to ask for directions.
He was looking for a Pokemart, and, as luck might have it, he found one without much trouble. Inside, he purchased another bag of pokemon food.
Pokemon feeding, like everything else, had a set of advice that trainers weren't seriously expected to follow. Most were fed intermittently, which did not seem to have any ill effect.
The advice given on the matter, though, was commonly repeated and there were no conflicting versions circulating to confuse matters, so Elliot, like most new trainers, understood he should feed his pokemon regularly.
Elliot, his supplies replenished, bought popcorn from another vender and went into a park.
The park was rather like an inverse of the forest. The grass, trees and bushes were all the same, but now, there was a greater percentage of open space and a correspondingly smaller percentage of trees. Elliot did not find this noteworthy. He did not even notice.
"Go!" he shouted.
His growlithe appeared, tail wagging. It barked, jumping up against him.
The meowth's response was far less exuberant. A lot of the water seemed to have vanished and it noticed it was nowhere near the cold, strange-smelling pond, but its fur was still damp and mussed. An instant later, it noticed the fire pokemon and stiffened. The growlithe was big. The meowth was not in its territory. It was tired. It did not want to fight.
The puppy paid less attention to its surroundings. It took a moment before it realized there was another pokemon. It did notice this was the same one it had attacked before. It got off Elliot and went over to sniff the new arrival.
The meowth froze, tense, as the growlithe's huge muzzle filled its vision. In a moment, it would fearfully lash out.
Before that could happen, the growlithe sat back on its haunches. Its head cocked to the side. What was this creature and why wasn't it doing anything?
The meowth took the opportunity to do what it wanted to do to start with. It ran.
But not far. A quick sprint took it to the nearest tree, and, feeling safer, it looked back, to see the growlithe had not moved, and was merely watching it with the same puzzled look.
Somewhat mollified, the meowth turned to the vital and pressing matter of its fur. It began to lick the fur on its back meticulously, fluffing and flattening the hairs into the correct arrangement.
Elliot missed the finer facets of this interplay. He saw only that the two had met, and that the meowth seemed aloof and not interested in making friends.
The meowth, of course, had no concept of 'friends'. The thought that the growlithe wished to be friendly did not occur to it. As a kitten, it had been with littermates, but it was older now. They had split up and gone their separate ways, and the part of its life where it had companions was over.
But it still was young enough to remember them. The growlithe was an alien thing, but as it grew more familiar, the meowth would accept it, then accept its overtures. It would treat the growlithe as another, odd sibling.
Not yet, though. And Elliot didn't understand this. He got bowls from his backpack, and then the bag of food. He placed a handful in each bowl.
The growlithe came over immediately. It began chewing at the pellets with apparent enjoyment.
The meowth sniffed. It smelled the food, but it was not what the meowth thought of as food. The pellets were not pure meat - they might not, for that matter, have any kind of meat in them. The meowth couldn't tell what they were supposed to be. But it did see the growlithe was eating.
Although the pellets did not look appetizing to Elliot, he thought the reason the meowth did not approach was that it was still being standoffish. He decided to try to make friends by offering it the food directly. He picked up the bowl and approached.
The meowth responded strangely. Had the growlithe done this, the meowth would doubtlessly have reacted violently. Yet as the boy came closer, it did no more than watch warily. When Elliot offered the dish, it shrank back momentarily, but then leaned forward and sniffed the food. Elliot set the bowl down, and the meowth took a tentative bite.
It tasted...odd, just like it smelled. But it was not unpalatable, and the meowth, in the wild, ate whatever it could get. The quantity of the food, and having it all to itself, was what was important. After the first few bites the meowth sped up, until it was barely chewing. This, by Elliot, was taken as acceptance, and that was not too far off.
The pokemon played for a while as Elliot finished his popcorn. Or rather, the growlithe played and the meowth watched warily, still unsure of how to deal with this vastly new situation.
Elliot stood and brushed himself off. "Return, Howler," he said. The growlithe turned a bright red in mid-twist and vanished. The meowth was not alarmed by this. Scarcely noticing the growlithe's disappearance, it inspected the boy.
"You need a name too," Elliot said thoughtfully. He held out his hand to the meowth, and instead of swatting at this apparent attack, the meowth held still, then sniffed. After a moment, it rubbed against his hand timidly. He petted it, feeling the gold charm on its forehead. "Charmer," he said. "That's your nickname. Okay?"
Charmer, who had no idea what he was saying, made no objection. Elliot recalled it. It was getting late now, starting to grow cool and dark, and he headed back toward the Pokemon Center.
It didn't take quite as long to go back to the Pokemon Center as it did to get to the park, but he still wandered a bit and took a few wrong turns. When he got inside, he learned that the meal would be ready soon, and there was room for him to stay the night. He called his mother on one of the video phones - she'd made him promise he'd call her the moment he got to the next town, but he'd forgotten in the excitement - and told her he'd gotten a badge and a new pokemon, who he showed her. She seemed happy, either not noticing or not caring about the implied fact that he must have gotten there earlier if he already had a badge. By the time he finished talking to her, the food was ready.
He sat down on one of the benches with his bowl of soup and bread.
There was a boy sitting nearby. "Hey," he greeted.
"Hi." Elliot sat.
"You're a new trainer, aren't you?"
"Y-yeah, I guess," said Elliot, wondering if he'd done something wrong. "Why did-?"
"You've got the look."
"The look?"
"You stare like everything's new. You've only got two pokemon, and low-level at that."
"Oh." Elliot couldn't decide if that was bad. He took a bite of bread instead. "Why are you here?"
"The badge, of course."
Elliot thought. This hadn't occurred to him before, but - "How long have you been a trainer?"
"Four years now." The boy smiled. "Wondering what took me so long?"
"Well..." Elliot felt almost embarrassed, as if he'd mentioned something he shouldn't have..
"I started over in Johto. Got the eight there, fought a bit."
"Oh," said Elliot. That made sense. "I just went to the gym here."
"And won, right?"
Elliot nodded. "Yeah. It was really close."
The other boy sighed, covering his face with his hand. "With what? I probably don't want to know."
"My meowth," Elliot said, pointing at it lying on his backpack.
The boy groaned. "That's a new one."
"What?" Elliot was baffled.
The boy glanced around absently. "How long've you had it?"
"I caught it yesterday."
The boy choked on his soup. "Yesterday?" he repeated. "That's gotta be a new record."
Elliot was getting more and more confused. "Is - that bad?"
The boy glanced around again. He didn't look particularly nervous, but Elliot couldn't tell why he was doing it. "No," the boy said flatly. He was staring at the Joy behind the counter on the other side of the room. "No."
The boy introduced himself as Michael. He'd been traveling in Kanto for about a year and a half. He'd gotten the badges of Johto with relative ease, something he attributed to 'challenging Pryce and Clair first', whatever that was supposed to mean. Elliot didn't want to ask. He thought it might be something everyone was supposed to know, and he didn't want to admit he didn't.
"Have you gone to the gym?" Elliot asked.
The boy seemed distant, like he was thinking about something, weighing his options. "I'm planning to go to a tournament in Saffron," he said. "It'll be held soon."
"Cool. Is it hard? Do you have to have badges or anything?"
"Not really. You should enter. You'll probably do fine."
"Really?" said Elliot.
"Sure. I'm almost curious to see how far you'll get."
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