Hear the Ocean

Ch. 6 Awkward...

...

I was waking up. That was good.

I felt like I was on fire. That was not good.

I groaned as I opened my eyes to see bright lights shining on me. I could barely see from the glare, but steadily my view became better.

It looked as though we were in a Pokemon Center. I recognized a lot of the design. When I looked over, however, I noticed several other Pokemon also strapped to tables, some with medical devices hooked up to them.

I sat up and looked at myself. I was a burned on multiple places on my body. Some bruises too. I stretched a little to see what hurt. Answer? Every. Flippin. Thing.

I managed to ignore the pain for a while and tried to sleep. When I did, I was soon woken up by a Nurse Joy, who walked around the tables. She grabbed Shieldon and Geodude and began walking back towards where she had come in. As she did, I wanted to go follow her, but I was too sore to get up. I lay down on my stretcher and closed my eyes.

---

I awoke being held. It wasn't entirely an unwelcome feeling, as I had learned after the whole restaurant debacle. I opened my eyes, and was especially pleased to see that it was the Nurse Joy and not a fat middle-aged man.

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind before I was handed into the all too familiar arms of Ed.

I could hear speaking now.

"Thank you for your help." He told her, as he set me gently on the seat beside him. I yawned, and turned a little, opening my eyes to a large pair of brown ones staring back into my soul.

I almost yelped, but contained it to just a complete body spasm.

I looked back again, and saw black bands around the eyes, and blue head.

I recognized it. "A...Riolu..."

It turned its head curiously before leaping down from the chair it had been on. I got up and shook off my coat. Looking over to my left, I saw a figure sitting at a table nearby, hungrily engulfing some sort of soup. The Riolu walked over beside it and jumped up onto another chair.

I looked a little closer. She was a pretty young woman, fairly short looking, given her height compared to her chair. She was well built, easy to tell thanks to her tank top and shorts. She wore bandages on various parts of her body, from her nose to her arms. Salmon (why is there no better word to describe that color...)hair sat in a curved, short hairstyle around her head.

"...Maylene...?" I said to myself.

She finished off the bowl of soup quickly, smacking her lips as she set it down on the table. I could see her face now, and sure enough, it was Maylene.

So...what's a hardcore gym leader doing in a Pokemon Center eating soup?

I sighed, stretching a little before climbing off of the chair and deciding to walk over. As I came closer, Maylene noticed me. She hopped down from her stool and squatted in front of me. "Hey, little guy! How are you doing?"

It took me a second to avoid speaking English, but I managed to say, "Vapor. Vaporeon." Which I guess somehow translates to, "Fine, I'm a little tired."

She smiled and began to rant on some story, probably about how she found me. This was the closest I had ever been to a girl or woman who wasn't my mom. I was feeling weird and forced myself to just look at her face.

You're not a pervert, You're not a pervert, You're not a pervert...

 I then had to stop myself when I realized my immense focus on looking at her face probably looked really weird.

She stood up straight and walked over to Nurse Joy and Ed.

The Riolu from earlier walked over to me. It looked at me curiously before saying, "You all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Because you kinda said, 'Find my old gym socks' back there."

"I thought that sounded weird..."

"Really. What's going on?"

I sighed. "It's a long story."

Maylene returned with Ed, who reached down to ruffle my head. I flashed him a look that let him know exactly what I thought about that.

Maylene began talking. "Some group known as Team Galactic set off that bomb. I can't imagine what they would want, but they obviously want it pretty bad. I was just up at Snowpoint trying to stop them."

"Did they blow up another lake?" Ed asked.

"No, and that's the weird part. They specifically only wanted to dry up one." She stretched a little, then continued, "Point is, we had better find out at least something."

"Ah, well, good luck with that." Ed replied.

"Actually, I was hoping you might help me somehow. I've seen your Pokemon, they have a lot of potential. I could help you out with them. Of course, I couldn't ask you to put your Pokemon in more danger..."

"Well..." Ed mumbled, but I gave him a nudge in the leg. He looked down and sighed. "I suppose we can help."

"Really? Awesome!" She rushed us out the Pokemon center, and down to the road out of town. I ran, straining myself to keep up with her. Pretty soon, we were leaving the city. As we were, her Riolu made a noise. We slowed to a stop and looked behind us.

Quite a while back, Ed was huffing and puffing up the road. I estimated about a minute and a half before he'd reach us.

"Somehow he's the first and the last guy I'd want with me in a zombie apocalypse."

"Did...did you say something?"

I tensed up in an instant.

"Oh. Crap."