Pokémon: Waiting for Seedot (G)
Waiting for Seedot
I had to lose to Roxanne three times before I started to get desperate. Three times I challenged her and I lost three times to the supposedly easiest gym leader in the region. I knew that I had to try something different. It wasn’t easy to wrap my head around it. After all, my team of pokémon didn’t have any problems beating any of the wild pokémon or other trainers around Rustboro City. Okay, maybe the couple of geodude we faced in battles with hikers or Roxanne’s gym trainers were tougher than we had expected, but we always won in the end. And why wouldn’t I? I had a full team of strong and loyal pokémon. My torchic, zigzagoon, dustox, ralts, tailow, and whismur could beat anyone, except Roxanne.
After I had taken my beaten pokémon to the pokémon center to recover, I had tried to plot my next move. More training didn’t really appeal to me, not after our past efforts had gotten the same disappointing results. I wanted a secret weapon, a total gamechanger, but I didn’t know where to find one.
That was how I found myself sitting in a sweltering classroom at the Pokémon Trainer’s School and listening to a lecture about status conditions. Maybe I could try poisoning Roxanne’s pokémon, I thought as I lazily twirled a pencil between my fingers. The trouble was that my dustox’s poison stings were hardly strong enough to pierce the tough skin of Roxanne’s geodude and nosepass, and even if we did get them poisoned, if our past battles were any indication, we wouldn’t be able to hold out long enough for the poison to make a difference. Trying to burn our opponents with my torchic’s ember attack had a lot of the same problems.
I was starting to drift off and was wondering if I should leave when I heard a boy moving around the classroom from desk to desk and asking each of the students, “Pst, do you have a ralts?”
“Yeah,” I said with a trace of annoyance, “I got a ralts. What’s it to you?”
The kid looked too young to be a student at the school. I thought he might have been someone’s annoying kid brother from the way he bounced up and down in his sneakers when I gave him my answer. “Oh, really?” he gasped and I had to keep from rolling my eyes at his excitement.
“Yes, yes, it’s very rare and very cool. The only problem is that it can’t help me beat Roxanne.”
“Oh, you’re trying to beat Roxanne, huh?” The boy’s eyes glittered under the classroom’s fluorescent lights. “She’s pretty tough. Do you have any grass or water pokémon?”
I was waking up now, but being interrogated by some nosy kid was putting me in an even worse mood. “No, I don’t!” I snapped. “The only pokémon I’ve seen that fit the bill are either ugly little shrimps or wingull, and I saw Roxanne’s nosepass crush one of those after it got off a single water gun! One! How about you go bug someone else and let me think about how I’m going to get my badge so I can get out of this crummy city!”
The boy still didn’t make any move to go away, so I started to raise my hand to sway him away, only to stop when he said, “Maybe I can help you, huh? See, I’ve got a grass pokémon that I’m trying to give a good home. If someone,” the boy dragged the word out knowingly, “had a ralts, then maybe I’d consider a trade.”
“A trade?” I turned in my seat to study the bothersome boy carefully. He was dressed like any of a hundred other kids in the city, but he looked older with the devious smile on his face. “What’s the catch?” I asked suspiciously.
“No catch!” answered the boy quickly, too quickly for my liking. He must have seen my eyes narrowing because he added just as hurriedly, “I’m just trying to do you a favor! It sounds like you’re having a hard time with Roxanne, and I’ve got something to help you out!”
There was a silence between us which was filled by the background drone of the instructor at the front of the classroom. His voice fell away just as I finally told the boy, “Well, I don’t know. Ralts are pretty rare pokémon, after all, and I’ve been through a lot with the little guy.”
“Pay attention!” a voice roared and the boy and I both yelped as the teacher, who had seemed to appear out of nowhere, slapped an ugly claw taken off of some poor zangoose against the desk where I was sitting.
“What is wrong with you?” I yelled at the bearded man and I sprang to my feet to get away from the angry teacher. To the boy, I said, “Come on, let’s get out of here!”
Outside of the Trainer’s School, I found a section of iron fencing against which to lean and then started talking again, “So, about this trade. I give you my super rare, very powerful ralts, and you give me your grass pokémon.”
“Which you need,” the boy added cheerfully.
“Right,” I admitted with a glare at the other trainer. It was frustrating because he was right. I did need a new pokémon to beat Roxanne, but I didn’t like feeling like I was hanging over a barrel. I didn’t want to get taken advantage of, though I had a sneaking suspicion that was still going to happen despite my best efforts. “Can you do anything to sweeten the pot?” I asked with an air of affected indifference.
The boy tried to hide his triumphant smirk, but I caught a glimpse of it before he masked it by screwing his face up in concentration as he went through the pockets of his shorts. Finally, he pulled out a squat fruit, the top half of which was blue. “How about a chesto berry?”
“What am I going to do with a chesto berry?” I scoffed. “Fine, whatever, you’ve got a deal. Let’s get over to the pokémon center.”
Twenty minutes later, we left the pokémon center with our new pokémon and with the trade verified by the pokémon center’s staff. Before I could even say thank you, the new owner of my ralts took off running, calling over his shoulder, “Thanks for the ralts! Have fun with Dots! No trade-backs!”
I watched him run off with a frown on my face. “What was that all about? Ah, well, whatever. It’s time to meet my new pokémon.” With a press of the button on my new poké ball, I let out Dots the seedot.
The little pokémon looked like a nut or a seed which had fallen off of a very large tree. It didn’t have any arms or any facial features besides two wide, expressive eyes. It did have two little feet, on which Dots had to constantly shift in order to balance its rounded, top-heavy body. Upon being let out of its poké ball, the seedot looked up at me and risked an excited leap, only to have to work extra hard to keep from toppling over.
“Well, you’re enthusiastic, at least,” I told the little pokémon. “Nice to meet you, Dots. I’m your new trainer.” I knelt down to gingerly pat the lighter-colored cap on top of its body and then I stood back up and pulled out my pokédex. “Now, let’s see what you can do.” I pulled up Dots’s information on the small display and quickly felt my mood souring again. “Bide, harden, growth,” I read off. “Don’t you know any grass attacks? Or any attacks that actually do anything?”
Dots responded to my two questions with nothing substantial, just a cheerful little spin.
“Great,” I groaned under my breath, “that brat tricked me.”
I wasn’t ready to throw the togepi out with the bathwater just yet, though. I called Dots back to its poké ball and then set off to the route which lay to the south of Rustboro City. It wasn’t easy, but I tired to keep my bad mood at bay as I walked. Still, on the way to my destination, I had to cross the bridge where I had beaten a set of twins in a double battle. The two girls had used a lotad and a seedot. “Now I know why their seedot didn’t do anything,” I muttered.
Finally, my walk took me to the Pretty Petal flower shop. I wasn’t there looking to buy flowers or anything stupid like that. Instead of going into the shop, I walked up to a boy sitting on the grass in front of the sign outside of the shop and eating a thick slab of watermelon.
“Hey, you!” I said to him. “Do you have another one of those TMs?”
The initial excitement on the boy’s face fell away as he recognized me from our earlier meeting. “What? But I already gave you one! Didn’t you use it to beat Roxanne?”
I rolled my eyes and replied shortly, “None of my pokémon could use it, so I sold it to buy more potions. Not that they helped, either.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I only give out one TM per trainer,” the boy said. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine and, before I could press the issue, he stood up and cupped the hand that wasn’t holding his watermelon to his ear and said, “Oh! I hear my sisters calling me! They must need my help with something inside the store! Gotta go!” Then he fled inside of the flower shop, leaving me alone.
I kicked at the patch of grass where the boy had been sitting and then pulled out Dots’s poké ball. “Fine. I’ll just have to train you until you learn a useful attack. Shouldn’t take too long.”
I was wrong. Horribly wrong. Training a seedot was like pulling teeth. Even against the weakest of wild pokémon, all that Dots could do in battle was sit there and wait for its opponents to attack it before paying it back double with its bide technique. Against an especially timid zigzagoon it could take forever for Dots to knock it out.
We made a ton of trips to the pokémon center, and it was on my fifth or sixth time dropping off Dots to be healed by the center’s machines that the nurse stopped pursing her lips and finally told me what was on her mind, “This is the pokémon you just got from that boy this morning, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, so?” I said grumpily.
“Well, just be careful with how much you train it. If a traded pokémon gets too strong, it might not listen to a trainer who hasn’t earned enough gym badges.”
The warning, and the sincerity with which she delivered it, made me laugh in the nurse’s face. “Okay, sure thing. I’ll be sure to make sure my seedot doesn’t get too strong!” I was still snickering at the thought when I took a fully-healed Dots up to the route northeast of Rustboro City for some more training.
“Not something we have to worry about, do we, Dots?” I asked my newest pokémon. It didn’t give any sign of having heard me, not that I had expected one from the mute little pokémon. I quickly forgot about the nurse’s warning as we threw ourselves back into training. It was during a battle with a wailing whismur that my hard work finally looked as though it was paying off.
I was waiting for Dots to finish biding its time and retaliate to all of the whismur’s attacks when suddenly its body started glowing with a pulsing green light. Then, a cloud of yellow powder explored out of the stem at the top of Dots’s head and covered the wild whismur so that the pink pokémon had to stop its crying in order to cough out the pieces of pollen which it had inhaled.
“Was that a stun spore attack?” I wondered, and then I cheered. “All right! Nice one, Dots! It’s not a damaging attack, but at least it’s something!”
After calling on my torchic to bring the battle with the whismur to a speedier conclusion than Dots would have managed on its own, I poured over my pokédex to check my seedot’s stats again. “Nature power, huh?” I read out approvingly. “That sounds pretty cool. Paralyzing Roxanne’s pokémon could help us finally beat her. Weird that it’s not labeled a grass-type attack, though. Must be a glitch.”
After one more trip to the pokémon center with its nosy nurse, I felt ready to challenge the gym leader again. I marched off to Roxanne’s gym with a smile on my face and a spring in my step owing to my new plan of attack. When Roxanne saw me, however, she just sighed and put down the magazine that she was reading.
“You again?” the dark-haired teenager asked me as she stood up and brushed an imagined piece of dust off of her skirt. “Did you try evolving your torchic like I suggested?”
“Nope! I got something even better planned! I got a new pokémon, and I’m going to use it to finally beat you!”
“Oh?” Roxanne raised one of her eyebrows and moved to the gym’s battleground with a little more energy than she had just displayed. “Well, let’s see if you’ll be more successful this time around.”
As Roxanne summoned one of her gym trainers over with a sharp whistle so that he could serve as our referee, I got my pokémon ready. This battle was going to go differently than my last tries, I could feel it. Roxanne started with her geodude, like always, and I chose to kick things off with my torchic. Dots was going to be my secret weapon, and I wanted to keep it in reserve for now.
For our first battle, there were no surprises. My torchic managed to overwhelm his opponent’s defenses, but it still took quite a beating knocking out a single geodude. As Roxanne returned her beaten pokémon back to its poké ball, her earlier skepticism reasserted itself. “Nothing new so far,” she said with a sigh which made me clench my teeth. “How about you show off that new pokémon that you were bragging about earlier?”
“You asked for it! Go, Dots!”
“Dots?” Roxanne’s initial confusion turned to a nod of approval as she observed, “So, you caught yourself a grass pokémon then. I assume you taught it the bullet seed technique.”
“Uh, maybe!” I replied. I had been hoping that sending out my new pokémon would break through Roxanne’s dismissive attitude, but neither she nor her stumpy, blue nosepass seemed to be intimidated by the unsteady acorn standing in front of me. “All right, Dots, we’ve got this in the bag! Just like we practiced, okay?” Dots didn’t acknowledge me, but I just figured that it was simply getting pumped for our battle. “Stun spore! Or nature power, whatever! Go!”
Roxanne’s eyes widened, and I grinned in anticipation. But instead of launching its special attack, Dots just stood there.
“Uh, Dots?”
Roxanne’s frown returned and she said crisply, “Well, if you won’t make a move, then it’s our turn! Rock tomb, Nosepass!”
Planting its flipper-like arms against the side of its head, Roxanne’s nosepass concentrated until a heavy rock on one side of the battlefield started hovering in the air.
“Aw, man,” I groaned. I had seen this attack enough times that I never wanted to see it again. Not that I had much of a choice. The heavy rock crashed down on Dots’s head and knocked my seedot onto its back. While I watched Dots roll back and forth in order to try and right itself, I asked my pokémon, “Any chance you were biding when you got hit like that, Dots? Hello? Dots? Are you listening to me?”
I had to give up on trying to reach my pokémon to defend myself when Roxanne asked me, “Is there something the matter with your pokémon? Do we need to stop the battle?”
“No way! We’re going to win this!” I shouted to Roxanne and then I hissed at my pokémon, “Come on, Dots, get up and do something!”
Dots finally got back on its feet just in time for Roxanne’s nosepass to launch another rock at it. “Bide!” I ordered frantically, but instead of listening to me, Dots’s whole body stiffened as it hardened its body against Nosepass’s incoming attack. “What are you doing?” I demanded to know.
On the other side of the arena, Roxanne was pursing her lips together just like the nurse at the pokémon center and asking me, “This wouldn’t happen to be a pokémon that you traded for, would it?”
“Save it! I already got one lecture about traded pokémon not listening to their new trainers, so I don’t need another one!” Next, I turned my growing frustration on Dots. “Get up and do something! Or else you’re going to be smashed into a spread by those rocks!”
That seemed to have finally gotten through to Dots and my seedot’s body started to glow like it had when it had first used its nature power against the wild whismur. “Oh yeah! It’s nature power time! Here we go!” I cheered, but instead of glowing green, this time Dots’s round body glowed with a sickly pale light. At first, with how excited I was, I didn’t notice the change.
Something came out of the tip of the stem on top of Dots’s body, but it wasn’t the cloud of paralyzing spores that I had been expecting. Instead, it was a collection of stars which hung in the air over Dots for only a moment before they whizzed over the battlefield to pelt Nosepass’s rocky skin.
The attack was at least enjoyable to watch, and I did feel a momentarily rush of excitement as I hoped that somehow this might be an even better attack than the one I had been counting on from Dots’s nature power. But then I saw that Roxanne’s nosepass didn’t even seem to register the barrage of stars crashing into its rocky hide. “Oh, come on!” I yelled, along with a few other things that I should have known better than to say in front of a gym leader.
“Are you quite finished?” Roxanne asked sternly. “We still have a battle to finish. Unless that display meant that you’re surrendering.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. I waved off her offer to walk away from this disastrous battle, but that was because of stubbornness instead of any real conviction that I was going to pull off a win. With the failure of Dots’s nature power attack, I had resigned myself to losing yet another battle to the Rustboro City gym leader, and I was already trying to think of what I was going to try the next time that I challenged her. There had to be some trick I hadn’t thought of yet!
