Hear the Ocean

Ch. 4 My First Battle. Unintentionally.

I wish I hadn't thrown up all that food. I needed some chow to hurl right then.

I screamed as the flaming horse charged towards me. I leapt out of the way in a panic. It turned and charged again, nearly catching me. This continued for what seemed like ages. I finally built up enough courage to do something.

"Cut it out!!"

Hey. I didn't say it was something necessarily brave.

Thankfully I somehow instinctively knew how to switch to speaking like a Pokemon. The horse gave me a weird look. "What?" It asked me, and slowed down significantly.

"I mean stop! Hang on a sec!"

"Why? What's going on with you?"

"Listen, it's a really long story, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

It shrugged. "Seems like an excuse to me."

"What? NO!!"
It charged me again, and I gulped and ducked out of the way. I turned around, and my building frustration combined with my overwhelming desire to barf resulted in my expelling a powerful blast of water at the Pokemon. It wasn't the most impressive thing, but it got the job done.

It spun a little and fainted. I smiled and began doing a (probably embarrassing) little dance.

I turned when the man recalled his Pokemon and sent another one out. This time it was a Delcatty.

I smiled. "Hey. After this, you wanna eat even more food? I hear this place is great." I realized immediately how stupid that sounded, and also that I was flirting with a Pokemon.

It looked me in the eye, and a masculine voice replied, "Dude. What the hell?"

I took a step back. "Oh, my gosh I am so sorry about that, uh, I just kind of assumed, that, like, all of you, you know, Delcatty were...I dunno...girls..."

He looked at me with a dead serious expression.

"Yeah, let's just forget that happen-HOLY CRAP!!!" I screamed as a pair of claws flashed towards me. Now, I was cowardly when I battled that Ponyta, but this time was just pure terror. I tried to avoid him, but sometime he was so much worse than the flaming horse. I took several claws to my face and a few other areas I would not like to mention. Long story short I was taken down very easily.

Turns out, fainting is pretty lame. It's not quite as dramatic as they say. You just kinda don't feel like going anymore.

Anyway, yeah. I fainted.

I groaned as I rolled over on the ground. And, at long last, I hurled the last of my dinner.

And then some.

I managed to drag myself back to the table as the other man recalled his Ponyta. He looked at Ed and smiled. "Well then! Fine match, I suppose."

Ed nodded. "I suppose it wasn't too good. I'm only on my way to the first Pokemon gym in Oreburgh City."

The man nodded. "Really? Well, with Pokemon like that I'd say you've got a decent chance. By the way, I suppose I never got your name."

"Oh yeah. It's Ed." He smiled.

"Ed, hmm? Well, nice to meet you then, Ed. My name is Ismael. I hope you do well on your journey, then!"

"Yes, thank you!" Ed finally began walking over to the table. "Are you alright?"

"No. I've thrown up twice in the last ten minutes, almost got burnt to a crisp, then actually did get my face clawed off. Oh yeah, and I was betrayed. That sucked."

"I'm sorry, I just, you know, didn't know what to do. I didn't wanna just lose like that."

"Buddy. My goal is to get home quickly. Right now, I'm worried if the real challenge will be getting back alive."

"But-"

"Just get me to a Pokemon Center. NOW."

The guy's voice rang out again. "Excuse me, but might you want to visit a Pokemon Center after that? Because the hotel has a free Pokemon healing service."

"Really?" Ed replied, standing straight up, "well in that case I suppose we will be going there right away."

He started walking towards the door. I gave a noise that he would recognize, but hopefully could be discerned by others to just be a Pokemon noise. He turned around, and when he saw me, snapped his fingers. "Right." He picked me up in his arms and carried me out.

I sighed as I sat there curled up. I gotta admit, this wasn't all that bad. I still wouldn't do that again, but at least I tried it.

We walked into the hotel lobby, where a man smiled at us as we entered.

"Welcome to the Grand Lake Hotel! Would you be interested in getting a room here?"

"No thank-" I gave him a look that told him exactly what I thought. If I was gonna be stuck going home with this guy, then I was sure as hell gonna mooch off of his wallet while I was at it.

"Well, I suppose we could stay for one night." He corrected.

"Excellent!" The cashier replied. "Please, if you could give us some payment information..."

I then slipped off into dreamland while they blathered their brains out about money. When I opened my eyes again, he had just gotten our key, and finally seemed to remember I was there. "Oh yes! Could you please help my Pokemon? We recently had a battle, and someone told me you could."

"Oh, of course. That is one of many services we proudly offer."

Ed handed me and his Pokeballs over. "Oh, and please keep the Vaporeon out of a Pokeball. He just doesn't like it."

"Not a problem, sir." He carried us through the door. He opened the Pokeballs and Geodude and Shieldon emerged. I lay back and waited for what would probably be the weirdest experience of my life.

---

I woke up after a very restful sleep to hear a voice talking to me.

"Hey, are you awake? Yo, you, you awake yet?"

I groaned and got up and saw Shieldon looking at me. I recalled that I could understand Pokemon. "What's up?"

"Nice to meet you! I'm Shieldon."

"Yeah. I couldn't have figured that out." I rolled my eyes. "What did you want?"

"I wondered when you'd wake up. I guess you're the new guy, huh? I always wondered when the big man would add someone new to the team, but I guess I never thought it'd be a guy like you. Haha, you're really different from what he's used to, I think. I saw a bit of your fight with that Ponyta, you really were impressive, like when you ran around avoiding all those attacks, and when you..."

I laid back down and hoped he would get the hint.

The little son of a ***** didn't.