The Long and Winding Road
By: BetterButterBuddha
Chapter 7: A Brief Interlude

June 28th, 2000 Citrus Ocean

At first, sailing in the catamaran was great. The days were paradise; the skies were always an uplifting shade of blue, and the wind was always blowing. But after three days and two nights of sailing on the open sea, I began to feel some intense ennui. I was making a direct line for Calset Island, but I was only halfway there. I probably would go insane if I didn’t get out of that boat, though. So I stopped at the nearest island, docking my boat on a sand bar.

Once I docked my boat on the beach, I got out the pokegear and looked at the GPS. It said I was on “Blackbird Island”. I looked around. It was apparently deserted. There was a moderately dense forest in the center of it, and a small stream ran through it into the ocean. This would be a good place to regain my land legs for a while.

Having nothing better to do, I let out poliwag. He was apparently just as glad to be let out of his pokeball as I was my boat. He let out a quick “poli?” and then began to play in the surf, avoiding the waves as they progressed.

“Poliwag,” I said. “Do you remember that rhyhorn that attacked you?” He nodded. “I caught him, and he should still be in my pokeball. It would be irresponsible of me to neglect him and just keep him in his pokeball all the time, so I’m going to try to let him out now. But honestly, I don’t think he’ll listen to me. So I need you here, in case he gets out of hand. Be ready for anything.” Poliwag furrowed his brow and waited in the surf.

I took the pokeball containing rhyhorn from my pocket and looked at it. I threw it into the air, and then watched it burst open, releasing rhyhorn. Once it had released him, the ball sailed through the air again in my general direction on the sheer energy it took to put rhyhorn into a solid state. I reached out my left hand, and caught it in mid air.

“Rhyhorn,” I addressed him, “My name is Vincent Castaneda. I’m a pokemon trainer. Do you understand me?” The pokemon nodded his head, and as it did so, he gave out a large roar. He lifted his back leg, as if to charge me.

“Whoa, don’t get exited,” I said. “I would never hurt a pokemon. My job is to make pokemon stronger. In return, they help me by battling against rival trainers. This is poliwag, my first partner. He helps me battle, and I trust him. I expect a lot from him, and he hasn’t let me down yet. Now that you’re my pokemon, I will expect a lot from you, but I will trust and respect you as well. Do you think that you want to help me?”

The massive rock type seemed unsure. He looked around, as if he considered running into the forest. Then he grunted and moved some of his legs around. Poliwag saw this, and answered in that familiar gibberish that I had been accustomed to hearing. Rhyhorn then smiled, and gave out another cry.

“Can I touch you?” I asked him. He agreed, and I walked up slowly. Rhyhorn’s body was covered in large rocky scales, which gave him a lot of protection from physical attacks. I put my hand on rhyhorn’s rocky hide, and began to pet him.

“You seem to be very strong. Hold on for a second, would you?” I said. I then got out my pokedex, and did a quick analysis. Rhyhorn was apparently at level thirty three. “You’re very strong,” I remarked. That brought out another of his hearty grunts, and I could have sworn I saw him blushing.

“Alright, let’s get to training,” I said. I recalled my pokemon back into their balls, and walked into the woods.

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We had been training for about four hours, and I was incredibly tired. My feet ached, and my lower back felt like it might collapse at any minute. I imagine that my pokemon felt just as weary. We had been fighting mostly common pokemon for the past hours, and it began to get tiring.

“Guys, let’s take a break. I’m got to sit down,” I said. Poliwag was delighted, and he immediately broke into what seemed like a conversation. Even though rhyhorn had hurt poliwag just yesterday, they seemed to be just like old friends today. I wish people could be so forgiving.

I began to make some lunch. I got some ramen noodles for myself, and rice for poliwag. I didn’t really know what rhyhorns liked to eat, so I just took out some generic pokemon food. He shambled up to it, and then took a sniff. He scoffed, and then began to cover it in sand.

“Oh, don’t be so picky,” I said. “It really can’t be that bad. Look.” I took up the bowl of food, and brought a piece up to my mouth. I took a bite. It tasted somewhat like a mix of peppermint, oatmeal, butter, fish, and sand. I immediately spit the foul tasting mixture out and rhyhorn laughed. I said, “Maybe you’re right. Come on, I think I saw some fruit growing on the other side of the island.”

We meandered our way to the fruit grove, and stopped to look around. It was a fairly calm place, and it appeared that I had been correct. A massive orange tree grew in the center of the grove.

“Hey, look at this. Oranges!” I exclaimed. “Here, I’ll get a few for you.” I picked about twenty ripe oranges and set them in front of rhyhorn. He obligingly began to chow down on the pile of fruit. When he was done, I said, “Come on, rhyhorn. We should get back to check on poliwag. He’s not exactly defenseless, but I don’t think he could hold his own in a battle with very high level pokemon yet.”

We took off towards camp. When we had gotten about halfway, I heard an inhuman scream come from poliwag’s direction. “Poliwag, hold on!” I yelled. I beckoned rhyhorn to start running, and I quickly hopped on his back. The rough scales of his back were uncomfortable at best, but I didn’t care.

I soon arrived, and leapt off of rhyhorn’s back. I had expected to see poachers, or team rocket members, but instead, I saw nothing at all. Poliwag was merely standing there, looking confused, and whimpering a little bit.

“Poliwag! What’s wrong?” I asked. He turned his head towards me, and, seeing who I was, ran into my arms. He wouldn’t be much help; something was terrorizing him. I turned to rhyhorn. “Do you know why poliwag’s acting like this?” I asked him. He did not reply, but instead began to stare intensely into the woods.

I looked at the area where rhyhorn was so acutely interested in. There seemed nothing wrong with it, just some leaves, branches, and… eyes! There they were, two intense eyes, staring at me, piercing right through me. Suddenly, I blinked, and a green blur rushed through the woods, circling me from afar. The eyes were gone. Whatever it was, it was moving too fast for my eyes to see.

“Rhyhorn, I need your help,” I said. He nodded faithfully, and approached the center of our makeshift camp, lying in wait. The green blur still dashed around him excitedly, only stopping in an impenetrable mesh of plants to catch his breath.

“Show yourself, unless you are afraid!” I said. Any wild pokemon arrogant enough to attack a trainer would probably have a huge ego, so if I wanted to draw an arrogant pokemon out from hiding, all I had to do was insult it. However, nothing happened.

“You coward!” I screamed. At that, I heard a rustling in the bushes, and without warning, about fifty scyther locked arm in arm surrounded me. I felt poliwag squirming in my arms in fear. “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “I know how to handle this.”

There couldn’t actually be fifty scyther. Scyther travel in groups of twenty at most, so either this was an incredible biological anomaly, or this was an illusion. Double Team. Even if this was an illusion, I had no way of knowing which one was the real scyther. There was only one option.

“Rhyhorn, use scary face! It doesn’t matter which one, just do it!” I yelled. Double Team is a move that is produced by vibrations in the pokemon’s movements. The illusion is such that in normal sight, it appears that there is more than one of the pokemon. Scary face is a move that will change the way a pokemon sees. It does intimidate the foe into a near paralysis, but it also temporarily gives the pokemon the ability to see in thermal vision. So rhyhorn would see the right one!

“Do you see him rhyhorn? Use horn attack on it!” I commanded. He complied, and rushed right into the middle of the circle of bug pokemon. He struck the scyther right in the stomach, and the illusion broke immediately following the attack.

The scyther let out a deafening cry, and then rushed towards rhyhorn, scythes drawn. Scyther tried it’s best to cut into rhyhorn’s neck with a slash, but rhyhorn’s rock type rendered this nearly impossible. The scythe just bounced right off.

“Rhyhorn, use a fury attack. Aim for its abdomen!” I screamed. I hate to exploit a weak spot because it really is just a cheap shot, but I had no other choice. Rhyhorn’s spike dug into the abdomen of scyther four times, missing on the fifth and last attempt.

Scyther looked extremely weak. I would be stupid to waste this opportunity, so I grabbed a pokeball, and enlarged it. It sailed through the air, hitting the weakened scyther directly on the forehead. Scyther was enveloped in red, and sucked into my pokeball. It wobbled once, then twice, and then it exploded. Plastic shrapnel landed everywhere, and scyther went back into solid form, pissed off as ever.

“Poliwag, I need your hypnosis for this. Do you think you’re up to it?” I said. He sighed, but nodded. I withdrew rhyhorn back into his pokeball, and poliwag jumped out of my arms.

“Poliwag, hypnosis!” I said calmly. Even if he seemed scared, I knew that poliwag could handle this situation with ease. His eyes began to redden. I had once studied the effects of hypnosis with Blue. In the poliwag family, it gave the subject the illusion that poliwag’s belly was moving in circles, which when combined with the subtle sleep waves that the eyes gave out would almost certainly make the target slip off into dreamland.

Sure enough, scyther became drowsy in just under a minute. However, it didn’t want to be captured. The scyther’s eyes were beginning to redden as well. Leer.

“Poliwag, just keep on with it. If you try hard enough, you’ll succeed!” I said. Poliwag continued his attack, as did the scyther.

Seconds, then minutes went by. I was reminded of a battle against a metapod and a kakuna. Then without warning, scyther just collapsed. I threw the pokeball, and again scyther was drawn inside.

This time, he stayed. Scyther, one of the rarest of all pokemon, was now mine! The breath of air which I had been holding inside myself finally found its way out of my body. I smiled, and picked up the pokeball. As an afterthought, I let rhyhorn come back out again.

“Guys, you were great,” I said. “That was an awesome battle rhyhorn, and poliwag, I’m very proud of you for overcoming your fear. If you continue like this, you’ll be the strongest team in all of the Orange Islands!” They looked very happy, and poliwag attempted to give rhyhorn a high five with his tail. It ended up as more of a slap on the cheek, but rhyhorn got the idea.

“It’s about time we get a move on. We have a deadline, so we should try to be as fast as possible. Back into your pokeballs, guys,” I said. They each went back into their balls, and I headed back to the beach.

My catamaran was just as I had left it, so I crawled inside. The wind of the ocean soon blew me off into the wild blue yonder, and so I continued my journey.