(-o-)
Once we were safely within the confines of my backyard, we took turns seeing each other's pokémon. Rubert took his Slowking out first, introducing himself then Charli and I. Charli was well into it, grabbing the pokémon by its front paws and speaking to it like a child. I didn't know much about the Slowking species, only that apparently, it was a completely different animal than its pre-evolution, Slowpoke. I had been expecting a lazy-looking, half-witted thing, but Slowking's wide-open eyes and sure-handed movements indicated that it was anything but. I understood the comments about the difference immediately.
The Shellder-crown chomping down on its head looked funny and somewhat silly, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Rubert appeared pleased, wearing a smile that did not fade.
"They say that Slowking can put some professors to shame," the eighteen-year-old commented. "I'm going to give it all my schoolwork from now on."
I small laugh burst from me, and Charli exclaimed, "that's why you picked him!"
Rubert chuckled guiltily. "It's one of the reasons. The other is because it's already fully evolved. That means it's probably the strongest of the lot."
It was true, evolved pokémon were normally way tougher than unevolved ones. That said, I could not recall the last time I saw a Slowking in the Indigo League Championship Show, so my opinion was that it couldn't be all that powerful to begin with.
"But there was Mr. Mime," Charli said, "and Espeon, too..."
Rubert opened his mouth suddenly. "Ah! I forgot about Espeon... Yeah, I thought about it for a sec, but felines creep me out. And Mr. Mime is just weird."
"There was an Espeon?" I said, surprised.
"Yeah," Charli replied. "Isabel got it."
Espeon evolved from a rare and mysterious pokémon called Eevee, which had a bunch of different evolutions that featured prominently in trainer events. I was sure that getting your hands on any of them would make you stand out anywhere. Good for her, I thought. No wonder she'd seemed beyond stoked.
"What about that other girl... Anna?" I said, curious.
"A Ralts," Rubert replied quickly. "Absolutely fitting." He grinned and looked at us like he was waiting for a reaction, but he didn't get one.
"Fitting? Because she works in a tailor shop? ... Ralts looks like it's wearing a dress? ..."
"Ohhh," Charli voiced, nodding with a smile forming on his lips.
Slowking had been watching us the whole time, possibly wondering why it was surrounded by three big kids. It saw me looking its way and its eyes relaxed, corners of its wide maw stretching ever so slightly. Was it smiling? It made my blind eye begin to itch, and I looked away nervously, suddenly feeling like we were with another person and not a pokémon beast.
"I'm bringing mine out!" Charli declared and pulled the pokéball out of his pocket before flicking it into the air. A tiny, purse-sized bird gleamed before us, and as the light faded, the green and red hues of its feathers deepened. Its beak was mustard yellow and sturdy-looking despite its small size. It chirped immediately and hopped over to Charli, who squatted down and put his hand out to greet it. "Hey, Natu! How's it going, little guy?"
The tiny bird pokémon hopped up and down and produced such an odd squawk, that we all laughed, startled. It had a character.
I watched as Charli picked it up and cradled it in his arms before standing, and I couldn't help but smirk. "Why'd you go for this one, again?"
YOU ARE READING
Pokemon: Spectre
Fanfiction16-year-old Tomas Tovis has been a wary boy ever since he suffered a life-changing childhood injury at the hands of his own parents' pokémon. Years later, he is living with his grandmother and his relatively normal life is turned on its head when he...
