Sunday, December 20, 2009

Pokémon: The Golden Apocalypse, Chapter Three

Poliwag. It seemed to fit. What better name for such a useless species? The thing gurgled as it tried vainly to right itself. Red prodded it with his foot. It stopped moving for a second, and it's massive eyes turned to Red. "Wag?" When it didn't get a response, it resumed squirming. Red took pity on the creature, and wedged his foot between its head and the ground. He lifted the creature to its feet, at which point it walked forward, towards the pond, and tripped over its own feet. This time, however, it landed on its stomach. Its tail wagged in the air like a flag. Now, though, its feet could reach the ground, barely, and it pushed with them to slither towards the water. As it neared the pond, two figures strolled out from the forest.
The first was a boy, Red's age, with blue-green eyes and brown hair. He wore a necklace with a small disc-shaped pendant. He stood about as tall as Red, but had a haughty way of holding himself that made him seem taller. In his mouth was a slowpoke tail, which he chewed thoughtfully. A grimace spread across Red's face as he viewed his childhood rival, Oak's grandson. "Green." he said curtly.
Green turned, and a sneer distorted his normally handsome features as he saw Red. "You finally made it. I thought that you lost your way here and had been eaten by an arbok. I see I was mistaken. Pity." He noticed the movement of the poliwag and looked at it incredulously for a second. "Is that your pokémon? I've seen diglett larger than that thing. I didn't know poliwag came that tiny. What do you even call it?"
Red was at a loss for a moment, and quickly surveyed the slithering creature. "I, uh, I call it - him - erm, Nyoromo."
Green laughed. "Well your poliwag, - Nyoromo, was it? - couldn't survive a minute against Hitokage here." He gestured at the pokémon who walked by his side. The bipedal lizard snarled. The burnt orange creature stood at least two feet tall. It had claws on both is hands and feet. Those on its feet were longer, but dull, whereas those on its hands were viciously curved, and were stained with red as if it had just been fighting, which, Red realized, it probably had. It had unintelligent black eyes, and its slavering maw was open to reveal the teeth of a carnivore. What was, perhaps, its most startling feature was its tail, which was half as long as the creature was tall. It was raised off the ground, and on the end bloomed a deep red flame. Green saw Red's interest in his pokémon. "You like him? Gramps raised him specially for me. Said that he'd be the strongest in this year's calling. Allow me to demonstrate. Hitokage, scratch."
Before Red knew what was happening, the reptile charged towards his poliwag screeching a blood curdling "Charmander!" Nyoromo had just reached the waters edge when it reached him. It clawed the helpless amphibian, which was tossed to the center of the lake by the force of the blow. It hit the surface, bounced, and landed again a bit farther. It floated face down on the surface a moment before sinking, leaving a small floating pool of white blood. Red watched for a minute, two, and Nyoromo failed to surface. He barely saw Green leave with his charmander, nor heard him call "Smell you later!"
A lone magikarp jumped to catch an insect, and landed with a splash. Above, a spearow called.

4 comments:

Elphaba said...

Why does the cute thing have do die?!?!? :(

Reogan said...

Because Green's a show-off.

Elphaba said...

:( Stupid Green.

Reogan said...

He's yet to do anything I'd call stupid. Cruel, yes. Boastful, yes. Stupid? Eh...