The Rule of ten - GCEA Short story com - Kanto

[Brettles]

The Rule of ten
Road trip
“Road trip!”

Were there any two greater words in the Sinnoh dictionary? Well to be fair if you had asked Rocky yesterday he would have told you the two greatest words in the dictionary were ‘Breanna Starr’. “Road trip with Breanna Starr” might just have been the best phrase ever uttered in the history of the universe.

Rocky had nursed a massive crush on the Ace trainer for the first 2 months of his internship at the Canalave gym. She was the prettiest girl he had ever met, and so confident and powerful with her Pokémon, that Rocky spent many hours daydreaming about her while he cleaned the gym and cared for the Pokemon. She was a little older than him, which Rocky had decided was just perfect.

At the start of the week Byron announced had that he was funding a research trip to study the Pokémon at ‘Maniac Tunnel’. When he announced that Breanna would be the head researcher and asked for volunteers, Rocky volunteered immediately. The chance to be alone with Breanna was like a dream come true.

A day and a half driving in a car with his crush drove home a lesson to Rocky. ‘Be careful what you wish for!’

Breanna had made her feelings quite clear. “I don’t need an intern.” “Just stay out of my way.” “I’m the lead Starr, you just carry whatever I tell you.” “Blah Blah Blah, I’m a bossy cow!”

Rocky had watched over the day and a half of driving as this beautiful creature, this most gorgeous of all women, slowly became more and more unattractive as he was exposed to her selfish and condescending personality.

Finally they arrived at the ruins. Rocky jumped out of the car, feigning excitement at reaching their destination, but really just wanting to get some space from Breanna.

“Intern! It’s time for you to set up the tents, while I set up the important equipment”, Breanna ordered as she exited the car.

Rocky walked back and unpacked the camping equipment. He was thankful that he packed two tents. His original plan had been to ‘accidently’ only pack one tent to force them both into the same tent. Thankfully he had not gone through with that plan. Originally, he hadn’t wanted to frighten off the girl of his dreams. Now he just wanted his own space.

Evening was setting in as Rocky finished setting up the camp site, with no help from Breanna who was busy setting up equipment for studying the local Pokémon.

“So do we call it a night and start research in the morning?” Rocky asked.

Breanna fixed him with her very best condescending stare. “Are you tired already, intern? The equipment is set up and I intend to study the local Pokémon for a couple of hours before bed. You are here to write down my recordings and carry the equipment. Unless that’s too much for you.”

Rocky bit his tongue to stop himself replying with what he was quite sure was going to be something rather unfriendly.

“An evening study sounds good to me, Breanna.” Rocky said, as friendly as he could. “My name is Rocky, by the way, not ‘Intern’.”

“Pick up the equipment and let’s get moving then… ‘Intern’” Breanna replied with a stupid, smug look on her face.

At the ruins
The ruins at night was a decidedly spooky place. Breanna wouldn’t allow much light so as not to disturb the natural habits of the Pokémon. The equipment gave a quiet beep and indicated Pokémon activity to the south.

Breanna and Rocky snuck up to the area indicated by the Poke-Radar and heard the sounds of Pokémon at play.

‘Hip Hip Hippopotas, Hip Hip Hippopotas’ called the Pokémon into the night. In the Moonlight a group of ten Hippopotas were conducting what seemed to be some sort of dance.

The Hippo Pokémon seemed to know where each one was needed and performed an amazingly complex and beautiful dance. Once the dance was complete they broke into pairs and foraged for food.

They watched for a while until the Pokeradar indicated another Pokémon signal that they went to investigate.
Once again they came across a group of 10 Hippopotas. There were slight differences in the markings of the Hippopotas in this group. Breanna made sure that Rocky noted the differences.

The Hippopotas moved into a circle and started a dance. This dance was vastly different from the original group, but just as beautiful and elegant. Rocky noted the differences in the dance.

A third group of ten Hippopotas performing yet another perfectly choreographed dance was enough for Breanna to start a hypothesis.

“Intern, take down what I say, word for word!” Breanna said. “Initial studies show Hippopotas moving in groups of ten individuals. Each group appears to engage in ritualistic dance, however each group has a distinct dance, unique to the group. The complexity and elegance of each groups dance indicates a high level of communication and coordination between the Pokémon.”

Rocky wrote down the findings, and as he finished the last sentence noticed that Breanna had digitally recorded her words on her communicator.

“Hang on! If you are recording this, why am I writing it down?” Rocky asked.

“First rule of science, Intern. Always build in a redundancy. If my recorder breaks we will need your notes. Plus if my recorder doesn’t break and we don’t need your notes, it’s only your time that was wasted, so no-one will really care.”

Before Rocky could answer, Breanna added, “That’s enough for tonight, let’s head back to camp. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

After a restful night, Breanna and Rocky set out to explore the ruins by day. It was a long day of carrying equipment and writing down Breanna’s findings. By the end of it Rocky could not remember why he ever had a crush on this bossy, demanding pain-in-the-…er…neck in the first place.

When the sun began to set Rocky was ready for bed, but Breanna, who hadn’t been lugging heavy equipment around all day had other ideas.

“Come on intern! It’s time to explore the tunnel.” Breanna demanded.

Rocky had had enough by this time. He was sick of being pushed around by this annoying obnoxious girl.

“NO, Breanna! I have been carrying that heavy equipment around all day. I’m going to bed now!”

Rocky was ready for an explosion of anger from Breanna and prepared to counter it with anger of his own. Breanna however used another tactic.

Breanna turned her head on a slight angle and gave Rocky a coy smile. “Are you sure you couldn’t help me out just a little bit more… Rocky?”

That smile blew away all of Rocky’s annoyance from the trip. He remembered exactly why he had a crush on Breanna. Her smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and she was smiling at him. Surely he had just been imagining any annoyance. This Angel was a dream come true.

Rocky found himself carrying the heavy equipment back towards the tunnel, as Breanna walked alongside him, pleased with the ease with which she had gotten her way.

In the tunnel

Breanna came to the tunnel entrance and pulled out her torch. Rocky looked inside and saw darkness, and not much else.

‘Wonderful, a dark spooky tunnel at night. What could go wrong here?’ he thought to himself as he pulled out his torch.

The Pokeradar indicated a group of Pokémon ahead, and they heard the sound of shuffling, bumping and annoyed grunts. They quietly walked up the tunnel towards the sounds and came upon a new herd of Hippopotas.

Something was wrong though, the graceful dance that they expected from the Hippopotas was not present. The Hippopotas were attempting to dance, but something was throwing them off. They Bumped into each other and stood on each other’s feet and growled and bit at each other.

“Something’s wrong with them.” Rocky said quietly. “Do you think the tunnel is doing something to them?”

Breanna smiled at Rocky. Not the smile that made him infatuated, but instead her annoying ‘I am smarter than you’ smile. “Do you see anything else about the group that could be causing the problem, intern?”

Rocky looked but couldn’t see anything different from the Hippopotas he had seen last night. They ranged in size from one very large Hippopotas with a strange star shaped mark on its forehead, down to one half its size. That was normal though.

“They look like normal Hippopotas to me, Breanna. What do you think you see?” he asked the question with a sarcastic tone.

“Count them, Intern” Breanna replied with a look in her eye like she had just won an argument.

Rocky counted, and then counted again to be sure. There were eleven Hippopotas instead of ten. “Why should that make a difference?” he asked, watching as the Hippopotas bumped into each other making a mess of their dance.

“That’s what we are here to learn, intern. We are here to research them. What exactly did you expect to happen on a ‘Research trip’?”

The largest of the Hippopotas bumped into a podium and knocked over a vase which smashed onto the ground. A small glowing stone rolled away from the mess to lay on the tunnel floor.

“That looks like a dawn stone, Breanna” said excitedly. She stepped forward to pick up the gem, and there was a loud rumble.

The ground fell out from below Breanna and she started to fall. Rocky leaped forward to try to save her, but only ended up joining her, falling into a large pit trap.

The trap
Landing side by side at the base of a huge pit full of sand, Rocky and Breanna both had the wind knocked out of them. Helping Breanna to her feet Rocky looked around the pit. Its walls were smooth so climbing out was going to be problematic, especially since all their gear was still up in the tunnel.

“Well this sucks” said Breanna angrily. “How do we get out?”

They were not injured and Rocky wanted to inject some positivity into the situation. “It could be worse!” he said, just before sand started to pour into the pit from the ceiling.

Breanna glared at the falling sand, and then at Rocky, as if it was fault. “Never say those words, Intern!” She then muttered to herself about foolishness and said some other stuff that Rocky was just as glad he couldn’t hear.

“When the sand gets high enough we’ll be able to climb out. We just have to wait, Breanna.” Rocky walked over to the pile of sand that had poured in and stood on it to make his point.

His foot fell straight through the sand, giving him no traction at all. The sand acted like a mixture between solid and liquid, and it kept filling the pit. Within a minute it was up to Rocky’s knees. At this rate they would be buried within five minutes. Breanna’s usual confidence was shaken, she appeared to be starting to panic.

“We need to work together” Rocky said as he watched the fear in Breanna’s eyes. “Perhaps I could lift you up to get to the top.”

They moved over to the edge and Breanna climbed onto Rocky’s Shoulders, the quickly rising sand rose up to his waist and he found it hard to move.

“I can’t reach it!” whimpered Breanna. “Please, Rocky, I don’t want to die.”

Rocky reached up and grabbed Breanna’s feet and then pushed his arms as high as he could. Pushing Breanna higher. She struggled a bit getting her balance and was still about 2 feet short of the top. The sand had reached Rocky’s chest.

“We aren’t going to make it.” Breanna cried out. Panic starting to take over.

Rocky looked up at her, “You are!” he said and then pushed with all of his might, throwing Breanna up to the edge of the pit.

Breanna struggled on the edge and pulled herself up. She then turned to look at Rocky who was up to his neck in the fast rising sand. “Get the rope.” Rocky called. Breanna ran to the gear and ripped through the packs looking for a rope. Eventually she found one and ran back to the edge.

Rocky had taken a huge breath just before his head went under and his forearms were sticking out of the sand, bit the rest of him was buried. Breanna tossed the rope to him trying to hit his hands.

Rocky felt the rope and grabbed it with both hands. He felt Breanna start to pull on the rope, and he started to feel hope, despite being buried in the sand and unable to breathe. The hope he felt was short lived, as it was soon apparent that Breanna did not have the strength to life him even a little way out of the pit.

“Rocky! I’m sorry” Breanna called out panic returning to her voice. “Please someone, anyone help him.”

A shadow fell over her kneeling crying form, she looked up and saw the large Hippopotas staring into the pit. “Please Hippopotas, you have to help him. Please!”

The Hippopotas looked into the pit and then dived into the sand. Rocky who was running out of breath and wondering what death would feel like,suddenly felt something nudge at his legs and then lift him upwards. His head cleared the Sand, and he saw Breanna with tears running down her face reaching out to him.

“What happened?” Rocky asked as he continued to rise.

“It’s Hippopotas. It jumped in to save you. Reach out to me.” Breanna said.

Eventually he was high enough to climb out with Breanna’s help. She wrapped her hands around him holding him tight.

“You saved me.” She said looking deeply into his eyes. “After I was so horrible because I wanted to prove that I didn’t need help. Thankyou.” She leaned in and kissed Rocky. It was a sandy, gritty kiss, and one of the best of Rocky’s life.

“Hip, hippo” called the Hippopotas from the pit as it walked around on top of the loose sand and then jumped out.
Reluctantly loosening Breanna’s embrace, he turned to the Hippopotas. “Thank you, Hippopotas. You saved my life.”
The Hippopotas smiled and then looked past the two trainer at its group. The large sand type looked sadly at the ten remaining Hippopotas.

They were dancing in unison, calling to each other and looking much happier. Their group dynamics had been restored once they had reduced the number down to ten. The large Hippopotas’ absence was definitely good for the group.

The large Hippopotas nodded sadly as it realised that the best thing it could do for the other Hippopotas was leave, and turned its back to walk away. It could sense that the others would be happier without it.

The joy of being alive, couple with Breanna’s new amorous attention to him was marred by the clear loneliness of the Hippopotas.

“Hang on Hippopotas, do you want to come with us? You can be part of our group. We would love to have you.” Rocky said to the large Pokémon.

The Hippopotas looked him up and down and then smiled and nodded. “Come on then Hippopotas, let’s go.” Rocky said.

The Hippopotas’ smile turned into a stubborn look. It refused to move. Rocky looked back at it, wondering why it wouldn’t come.

“I think it wants you to capture it in a proper battle.” Breanna said to him. “Pokémon often bond to their trainers through the capture process. Besides, I want to see how well you can battle. Perhaps if you are good enough we could become battling partners.” Her eyes shone as she stared at the young man who had saved her.

“Two problems, Breanna. I don’t have a Pokeball, and I don’t have any Pokémon to battle.” Rocky replied.

Breanna smiled and walked over to her personal supplies in the scientific gear. “Here is your Pokeball, and this is Doom-Sound, my favourite Bronzong. You can borrow him for this fight. Don’t worry, I have trained Doom-Sound so well that he can take care of the battling for you. Go get him Rocky.”

The capture

Rocky took the spare Pokeball and let the Bronzong out. The large metal Pokémon let out an awful sound, and Rocky understood why Breanna had named it ‘Doom-Sound’.

The noise caught the attention of the group of ten Hippopotas who looked over to see their old group-mate about to take on the Bronzong. They moved closer and changed up their dance. It was, Rocky thought, a kind of cheer-leading exercise, cheering on their friend to win.

The Hippopotas started by shooting a huge beam of sand directly at the Bronzong. Doom-Sound responded with a huge blast of sound directed straight at the Hippopotas. The resulting sonic boom scattered the sand beam and knocked the Hippopotas rolling backwards.

Getting back to its feet the Hippopotas charged at the Bronzong with a courageous tackle attack. Doom-Sound didn’t even try to dodge, it simply let the Hippopotas slam directly into it.

Any damage that Hippopotas did to the Bronzong was returned doubly as the resounding boom of the hit was channelled by the bronzing into a powerful sound attack. The Hippopotas suffered a second huge hit as it was rocketed back into the wall and Rocky was worried that it might be hurt. The large Ground type however got up as if it hadn’t been touched and prepared to attack again.

It started to charge at the Bronzong, but then suddenly changed its path and dived into the pit full of sand, seeming to swim into its depths. Doom-Sound sent wave after wave of destructive energy into the pit, without any indication of success.

The Bronzong stopped and Rocky came close to the pit to see what had happened to the Hippopotas. As he did a huge pile of sand shot out of the pit and piled onto the Bronzong. More and more poured out until the Bronzong was completely buried. The Hippopotas then leaped out and landed on the pile of sand.

With a stomp, the Hippopotas trumpeted its victory. It then slumped down to rest on the pile of sand. I was exhausted.

Rocky realised that this was his chance and threw the Pokeball at the exhausted Pokémon. The ball wobbled back and forward three times and then dinged.

He called the Hippopotas out of its ball and the large Sand type smiled at him. “I’ll name you Behemoth. Thank you for being here me today.”

Breanna gave the Hippopotas a big hug and kiss. “I wonder what happened to that dawn stone” she said. “It’s buried under all that sand now so I guess we’ll never know.”

Behemoth listened to Breanna and then dived into the pit full of sand, emerging moments later with the glowing stone in its mouth.

“I guess, we’ll call today a win then, shall we?” said Rocky, taking the dawn stone that was glowing like the first light of a new day, out of Behemoth’s mouth.

“Definitely a win for both of us”, said Breanna kissing his cheek and leading him by the hand out of the tunnel.