Chapter 3
The Unexpected Challenge
Recommended Listening: Ori and the Blind Forest OST - Lost in the Misty Woods
After a sick feeling of what seemed to be falling without actually being able to see anything, we woke up in what seemed to be a dark forest. After getting up off my back, I saw nothing but gnarled, dead trees in every direction, along with a hazy, dark fog surrounding them the more I looked into the distance. I thought that little creep might have caused me to break something, but for his own sake, I was fine. First thing I noticed upon getting off my butt was the sky. It was a freakish mix of light and dark gray clouds, making it pretty much impossible to tell what time of day it was. When I looked around, Jeff, Frank and Randy were completely gone, just like that. The school, the parking lot, everything was just wiped off the face of the planet and replaced by whatever the heck this was supposed to be. Alex and David got up off the ground and looked around, and the end result was all three of us didn’t have a clue as to where we were. Okay, so there was something more to that necklace than we thought, but I was still in major denial that most of what Jeff said was true. Whatever, I figured we could work around it.
Maybe Jeff was right. Maybe Randy felt he could become a better Pokémon trainer by running away from us or by playing some stupid trick. I would have laughed at that thought, but reality told me I still had absolutely no idea where we were, and that certainly wasn’t anything to laugh about. For now, I figured I would prepare myself for this to be some kind of prank. That way, in the end, it would backfire on Randy when it didn't work out the way he wanted it to.
“What the hell is this place?” David asked, looking around and not recognizing anything.
I took a closer look around, and it seemed somewhat familiar, but not completely. I then guessed it was most likely the same place. I was willing to chance it.
“Has to be some part of Viridian Forest,” I told the two of them, though I felt that might be a pretty wild assumption. “Jeff probably got a bunch of his idiot friends to drag us here after we passed out.”
“Think again,” Alex told me, looking up at the sky. “Why does it look like it’s about to rain?”
Alex was right. It didn’t really look like Viridian Forest at all, and the sunny weather we were experiencing just three minutes ago seemed to have quickly vanished for some weird reason.
“Look,” I told Alex and David, knowing hanging around here was a waste of our time, “let’s just try to get the hell out of here. Even if we’re all the way in Celadon or something, there has to be some way of getting back.”
“How would Randy’s stupid necklace bring us all the way to Celadon?” David asked realistically. “We could be anywhere right now. I have no idea what the hell it just did, but this is seriously screwed up.”
“Just forget about it, David,” Alex told him, putting it past him. “Let’s just try to find some way out of here. Screw the details. Randy would be laughing if he saw we were about to panic.”
Definitely a good point. Things always get ugly when you give a freak like Randy any kind of leverage. Again, it was probably best to play along with the idea that this was just a prank of his.
We then began walking through that dark forest for some time, and the more I looked at it, the more reality kept telling me this sure wasn’t anything even close to Viridian Forest. I was sure we had walked at least two miles and nothing had changed. After nearly an hour of walking through dense trees and dark fog, the weird and twisted forest had suddenly ended and we came across a large valley along with a wooden cabin down a long beaten path snaking its way through the valley. I knew for a fact I had never been around here before.
We decided to check out the cabin and hopefully get some directions back to Scottville Middle School, or at least back to our home town of Viridian City. Right now, I was guessing we were someplace out east near Indigo Plateau, but my guess was with a whole lot of doubt. I was in denial I was lost.
When we arrived at the cabin, we saw there wasn’t a single window. It was made of wooden logs and only had one door. We just shrugged it off and opened the door, not really caring what was inside or about being polite by knocking first. We had been walking for over an hour and I didn’t feel like passing up the chance to actually talk to someone. Once we swung the creaky door inward, we saw it was dimly lit inside, and just as the three of us entered, the door slammed closed completely by itself, and suddenly, the room was filled with light. Out of shock, I quickly looked around and saw the room was completely empty. Like a walk-in closet, it was simply composed of wooden log walls. And oddly enough, I found no reasonable light source anywhere. None of us were even casting shadows. I then quickly turned around and tried to open the door but it was stuck. We then heard what seemed to be a female giggling, and already I was cursing under my breath, wondering what kind of crap was going on.
“If you think it’s going to be that easy, you’d better think again…”
“What the hell!?” David shouted, looking around.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, we saw a cloud of pink dust and smoke appear in the corner of the room. After some time, the dust and smoke began to form into a smiling human-sized fairy with long, blonde hair, a bright pink dress, and large insect wings. Meanwhile, she held a wand in her right hand. Man, it was so stereotypically cheesy it was almost physically painful to see.
I swore, this had to be part of some stupid game that those three idiots must have spent all night trying to arrange, and maybe this was actually Jeff's stupid mom or whatever. But if this really was still a big prank, those three rats definitely went all out. Definitely a lot of time and thought well-wasted.
“Just who the hell are you!?” David asked the fairy, wondering if it was even real for sanity’s sake.
“My name is Caska,” She replied smiling and staring right at David. “And I know who you three are. You’re none other than David Miller, Jake Kossak, and Alex Davidson. You are the three villains who oppose the king!”
“What?” Alex asked in surprise. “Who the hell is this king you’re talking about!?”
“Why it's none other than his royal highness, Randy Ferguson.” She told us in one quick statement.
We immediately burst out laughing in sheer, utter disbelief. This definitely had to be something Jeff's mom arranged, or something idiotic just like that. There was no freaking way on earth Randy would ever be respected by anyone besides some idiot like Jeff or Frank. Nothing was making sense. King? The only things Randy could be a king of were things that even the stupidest freaking people on the planet wouldn’t respect.
“Randy created this dimension world out of his desperation,” Caska told us, losing that weird smile she had been flashing earlier. “This is his world superimposed upon your own, created by everything he loves and hates from his happiness to his anger. He is the supreme ruler here, and the three of you are his worst enemies.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Alex snickered at the stupidity. “We’re living in Randy’s mind? If that’s the case, then we’re all about to become brain-dead really soon. Please, for once, wretch, tell me something that makes sense.”
“He created you?” I asked Caska, nearly laughing. “Since when was Randy into fairies and fantasy tales?”
She seemed somewhat insulted by that comment. I was glad at that moment, since if my sanity was really failing me and she was really telling the truth, then everything I would come across was part of Randy's mind and was subject to harassment and destruction. Still, as weird as everything seemed right now, I refused to believe any of this rot.
“I represent a part of Randy’s childhood,” She told us, glaring into our eyes. “Unfortunately for you, I am one of the happier moments of his life. And right now, the two of us are enemies. There is only one way to settle this.”
“You want to fight me?” David asked, turning his hands into fists. “Let’s go. I’ll tear you apart so badly that they’ll have to bury you in a lunch box.”
“No, Miller,” She said to David, growing in confidence. “I want to battle your Pokémon. Your loyal, trusted companions. The same ones you use against the king.”
“Even better,” David grinned wickedly.
I couldn’t wait to see David lay waste to a happy moment in Randy’s childhood, if that’s what this fairy thing even was. Still, the thought of us defeating her and then Randy feeling even more miserable in ways that we would never dream possible was just too damn good to ignore. David had this match in the bag.
“We’ll both use two Pokémon,” Caska told him in a firm tone. “If you win, then you get to make Randy feel even worse and more depressed, which I know is what you want the most.”
“You’d better believe it.” David said with a confident grin.
“But if you lose…” Caska replied, giving him that dark evil fairy stare again. “Then you’ll be the one feeling the depression and humiliation.”
Whatever. As far as I knew, there was nothing that could stop David or make him feel depressed, and it definitely wouldn't come from her. Caska then pulled out a pink and white Poké Ball, and threw it towards the center of the cabin.
“Go Blissey!” Caska shouted just before her Poké Ball hit the floor.
And out of her Poké Ball emerged a Blissey, and the three of us slightly cringed just staring at it. We couldn’t stand such a fat, pink, moronic, and cutesy-looking Pokémon. Her stupid face made me feel like smashing it with my fist while screaming obscenities. I really hated Pokémon like these and the morons who trained them.
“Go Tyranitar!” David shouted as he threw his Poké Ball, ready to release raw carnage.
And just a second later after the Poké Ball struck the cabin floor, out came David’s beastly and nasty Tyranitar with a tremendous roar. The giant, pale-green, spiky colossus glared at the Caska's fat, piece of trash and looked more than ready to torment her. With claws and teeth like this, he looked ready to crush Caska’s worthless Blissey into an unrecognizable pulp.
“Blissey, use your Minimize!” Caska commanded, beginning that annoying smiling spree again.
Blissey suddenly then began to decrease in size, scaling down to try and make it harder for Tyranitar to even hit her. However, David certainly wasn’t going to give up that early.
“Tyranitar, Earthquake attack,” David said coldly, ready to terrorize the smaller Blissey.
Tyranitar gladly accepted, and slammed his heavy foot into the floor which sent a violent tremor through the ground that shook the entire cabin. Rocks and jagged stones tore up through the ground, ripping apart the wooden floorboards. However, it completely missed Caska’s Blissey. Somehow the stupid thing managed to squeeze herself between the jutting rocks and fissures. There was nothing to explain it but just a case of really crappy luck. To make it worse, Caska’s damned Blissey even giggled.
“Minimize again!” Caska shouted with glee, making things even worse.
“This is getting cheap as hell,” David growled, truly despising this type of strategy.
Blissey grew even smaller, still wearing that stupid smile of hers. Our expressions began to grow grim as Blissey was just laughing at the frustration of David and his Tyranitar.
“Rock Slide!” David commanded Tyranitar.
The hulking green juggernaut tore up heavy stones from the ground and hurled them savagely at the shrinking pink fatso, but that missed as well, as Blissey was so small that the rocks Tyranitar threw simply bounced around her and instead buried themselves in the walls. David was becoming quickly frustrated. Again, Caska told Blissey to Minimize again and again, and David missed each and every time. But then, it got even worse by the time Blissey was nearly smaller than a Caterpie...
“Use your Sing attack Blissey!” Caska shouted with glee.
Blissey then began to sing peacefully, and Tyranitar was beginning doze off.
"Come on!" David shouted. "Don't fall for that crap, stay in there!"
After stumbling around to try and stay awake, Tyranitar crashed to the ground fast asleep, making this one of the lamest battles I've had the misfortune of watching.
“Blissey, use your Metronome,” Caska commanded, happy that she had one hell of an advantage.
Blissey then seemed to dance for a short while, and then all of a sudden, it lunged toward the sleeping Tyranitar, and performed a wicked Cross-chop attack, one of the worst attacks that Tyranitar could’ve been hit by. Somehow, an itty Blissey struck Tyranitar furiously and made him take a serious beating in an extremely short amount of time, despite the fact she was now only a hundredth of his size. Then, to David’s dismay, he realized Tyranitar was no longer asleep. He had fainted and was passed out cold…
“What!?” David protested. “What the hell are the chances of that!? That's bullcrap!”
“Bring out your next Pokémon, Miller,” Caska told David with a sarcastic, smug grin.
For once, I was somewhat glad not to be in David’s shoes. I seriously didn’t like where this was going and something was seriously shady about this. David returned Tyranitar to his respective Poké Ball, and chose his next best Pokémon.
“Go Rhydon!” David shouted, getting angry this time. “Make mincemeat of that damn Blissey!”
Rhydon had emerged from the Poké Ball’s brilliant flash, ready for onslaught. With his gray rock armor and powerful drill mounted on his nose, Rhydon was a vicious, armored beast of death to be reckoned with. We were crossing our fingers in hope that David's Rhydon would be able to handle an already grim looking situation and make up for Tyranitar's screw up.
“Rhydon, Stomp attack!” David shouted.
Genius. Rhydon charged forward and used his heavy, rocky foot to squash the already shrunken Blissey like a tiny, withering maggot. Blissey took a strong hit, but after rolling around a few times, she simply sprang back up into action like nothing really happened.
“Sing attack,” Caska commanded.
Again, Blissey sang a peaceful song and Rhydon stumbled around just like Tyranitar, and he hit the ground fast asleep. David just clenched his fist, gritted his teeth, and looked like he could have murdered someone with the face he had on.
“Metronome, Blissey,” Caska said coldly to her Blissey.
Blissey danced for a moment, and then we watched in horror as Blissey coated herself with a Reflect shield, which was going to be a pain in the crotch to get past for Rhydon. Fortunately, Rhydon got up from his slumber quickly this time, but he was going to have a lot more hell to deal with…
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