From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net) Subject: [PW!] Where's Articuno When You Need Him? Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2000-10-26 23:20:48 PST So, this was it. All or nothing. Everything was riding on this one act. Suceed, and wealth was his. Fail, and...well, best not to think about it. Being afraid tends to lower one's chances of success. Drake, to his right, observed the situation calmly. The wise dragonite probably already knew the answer, but was prevented from saying so. Rules are rules, especially in a contest whose origins are lost to history, and seemingly unchanged except for aesthetics in all that time. Even Drake's awesome physical powers were as nothing: assistance was forbidden, so to invoke his aid would be to lose as surely as giving up. Mimic, to his left, seemed distracted again, but one never knew with that ditto. Sure, he said he couldn't just grow eyes in the back of his head without seeing it right now, but that was probably a lie. His brother was rumored to be able to merge and fuse all kinds of transformations, and Mimic's training in that regard had been more severe than Doppler's; even Mewtwo held less hatred in his heart than the sum of Mimic's former masters in Team Rocket. Looking down, a familiar meowth looked up at him. The meowth of courage. The meowth of destinty. The meowth who would win this challenge...or, at least, his reflection in a cheap, but polished, metal table. "C'mon, c'mon, I ain't got all day," growled the booth owner. "Me...OWTH!" Memuyo tapped the center poke ball with his claw. It opened to reveal a single shining coin. "WE HAVE A WINNER!" Mimic and Drake both looked away as the owner beat a hand-sized drum, and generally carried on promoting the fact that his contest really did result in winners, conveniently not mentioning the two to one odds against in even an honest three shell (or, in this case, poke ball) monty. Memuyo flipped his coin, aiming it for his charm. "Meow...meowth?" Just before it lodged, he snatched it out of the air and examined it critically. "Meowth!" Drake's ear twitched, then he was looking at the coin from the same distance as Memuyo. "Hey, you're right. This *is* a Johto coin. Don't see those everyday. I thought they got taken out of circulation." The booth owner, having exhausted his burst of energy, smiled. "Oh, you're gonna be seeing a lot more of them before long. They've fixed the magnet train again. I took a trip over there not long before the carnival. If you've never been there, you might want to go too, someday." Drake thought about it, then shrugged. "May-huh?" A boy tugged at his wings. "Excuse me, dragonite, sir, but are you Drake?" He looked over his shoulder at the youth. "I am." "Oh, good, we thought we'd never find you." He faced away. "OVER HERE, GUYS!" He faced Drake again. "We've got a delivery, if you wouldn't mind..." "I don't do freebies, kid." "Oh, you'll get paid. I phoned ahead to the Cinnabar Dockyard. They said they'd have your money when you get there. It's not much, just two crates of inflatable rafts." "Can't it wait until morning?" The boy's eyes widened. "You haven't heard?!?" "Heard what?" "Cinnabar'sblowingitstopagainandtheresidentsarerefusingtoleavebuteven worsethere'snotenoughboatsforthosewho*do*wannaleaveit'sgonnabeatragedyif theycan'tgetoffandthere'snotmuchtimethelava'sgonnahitthetownanyminute nowthey'reallgonnadieifyoudon'thelpthempleasemisterdragonitesir..." Drake blinked. "Umm, say again?" Memuyo cleared his throat. "Meowth." "Oh." Then it hit him. "WHAT?!?!? Why didn't you say so in the first place? Where's the crates?" The boy blinked. "What'd he say?" Mimic shrugged. "What you say, only more concise." "Oh. Well, here's the crates. Good luck." The youth stepped back, just before two massive wooden boxes, each one a cube taller than Drake, landed with solid-sounding *THUD*s. "Mimic note Drake accept without haggling over price." "Maybe I'll give them a discount for emergencies. I can't think of a better job for my first paying one: imagine the publicity this will get my business once it hits the newspapers." Drake frowned. "Hmm...teleport would only get one of them. Maybe take one, then come back...no, that'd require three shifts, and something that large I could only shift twice in one night, without moving myself in addition." Mimic shrugged. "No worries. This one of puzzles used in Mimic's tr..." He winced. "Err, in Mimic's *past*. Just get on top of one, Mimic take from there." Drake and Memuyo exchanged glances, then Drake grabbed Memuyo and jumped on top of the box on the right. "Ok, but let's hurry up." Mimic leapt on top next to Drake and concentrated. One flash later, they were in mostly the same spot, but higher up. "One..." Drake looked around, then looked down. The box they had perched on was now stacked on top of the other. His mind clicked just as Mimic did it, which was possibly why he was able to see more detail about the second teleport. A column of energy rose from the ground to Mimic's height, just like before except while before, the column only contained one crate, now it held both. And then they were not. The merchandise and the pokemon were still in the same place with respect to each other, but everything else faded to a kaleidoscopic void. Space moved and yet did not. Over there in the distance, a purple haired lass tackle-glomped a James lookalike under the watchful gaze of someone who could have been their mother, except for her youth. Elsewhere, a cockroach trainer battled two pikachu trainers in what looked like a bug-themed gym, while a straightjacketed man nearby bled...acid? Yet further away, some wild pokemon medics scurried off at the first inkling they had been spotted, in an effort to continute to hide their eternally comatose charge. Ash. Not the kind that raises omnipotent pokemon only to discard them once they evolve, nor the kind that deals with undead and other nasties. No, this was the original kind: black char, mixed in with snowy white in what looked like an explosion at the salt and pepper factory, and all of it smelling of its firey origin. Sound was the third sense of Drake's to reawaken, jolted back to reality by a thunderous roar. Everything was drowned out for a few seconds, the sound so intense that it went synthesiastic by stimulating a few of his optic nerves, to say nothing of rattling his body to the bone. Drake was very glad his mouth was closed so he did not have to taste this. Below, several men and pokemon rushed forward to free the rafts from their wooden confines; Drake obliged them by hefting a shell-shocked Memuyo and a very tired Mimic off the crates. As he did so, he thought he spied something very peculiar: a human hovering over the erupting volcano in the distance. At this range, only a black silhouette could be made out, and only barely through all the ash. It was difficult to tell, but the figure could have had wings. Or maybe it was just another oddly-shaped flake of ash, hovering in his line of view. No matter, the task at hand was more important. TBC?