Subject: [PW!] Out for a Whirl Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 07:48:18 GMT From: Worry <Not@acceping.today> Organization: RoadRunner - Triad Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Travis sighed as he sat down in the sand. The surf was out, and the beach was wide as a result. The young purple haired trainer inhaled deeply enjoying the salt air as he relaxed. His state of relaxation was remarkable considering that two minutes ago, his life had been in great peril. However, relaxation came naturally to Travis, even after a near death experience. Not so for his traveling companion. Becky was hardly ever relaxed. At the moment, she most likely didn't even know they were on a beach. She wouldn't acknowledge the fact until she had visited a beating on her intended target. That target was, at that moment, running for all he was worth trying to escape the thirteen year old black belt. Travis felt sorry for the lad. After all, the boy had almost died with them, and had lost a balloon and a pokemon to boot. Travis looked over at what remained of said balloon. The basket had tipped over and scooped up a large amount of sand when they had crashed onto the beach. The balloon itself was weighed down by that, blowing in the slight breeze as it lost the last little bit of hot air. The trainer was saddened by its current state. he remembered vividly seeing the balloon fully inflated, in the shape of a Charizard in flight , it's wings spread wide and its eyes seeming to seek out prey. The eyes appeared doleful now, as the head slowly sank to the sand. As the sound of the terrified balloonist with the black belt hot on his heels faded off into the distance, Travis pulled his pokeballs off of his belt. He released the pokemon inside one by one. Tendril and Rapid he released into the sea, knowing the two water types would appreciate being let out into the water. Stone and Hoofer, he let out far up on shore, away from the water that the Golem and Rapidash wouldn't so much appreciate. Travis paused to admire Hoofer as he pranced on the sand, glad to be out after two days captivity in his pokeball. As Travis reached for Charmer's ball, pop-up the Abra let himself out, stretching and yawning widely before falling back to lay on the sand. Charmer seemed to enjoy the beach, rolling around in the sand then sending a playful half hearted sand attack at Pop- up, which the Abra teleported a few feet away to avoid. Travis let the pokemon cavort as he shrugged his way out of the ever present bottomless backpack. It was warm on the beach, so he took off his wind breaker and red T-shirt, folding them neatly and placing them on the pack, which he used as a pillow, laying out on the beach to soak up a little sun. Travis half closed his eyes and let the rays ebb the last bit of tension from the last two days out of his body. He would have fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the sudden crash of another backpack landing in the sand beside his own. Opening his eyes, he looked up into the face, flushed from her exertion at that moment, of his traveling companion. Becky was panting, not ready for the run chasing down the owner of the balloon, was sheathed in sweat. Travis could tell by the look on her face that she hadn't been successful in catching the lad. "Fast little bugger." Becky stated breathlessly confirming the fact with ill grace. "You know, it wasn't his fault." Travis replied. completely unfazed by the venomous look she shot him. "It isn't like he asked that Fearow to pull us off course. In fact, he did fairly well keeping the balloon up as long as he did." "I know." Becky answered after a moment. "But he was the one that talked us into riding that thing in the first place. And I did promise him that if we got to dry land again, I was beating him up." She went on defiantley. The pair had met the balloonist after fleeing Cherrygrove city. Cherrygrove was a hotbed of activity at the moment because of an underwater passage leading from the lake outside of Cherrygrove all the way to the ruins of Alph. Four different scientists had asked for the trainers help in exploring the tunnels, but Travis hadn't wanted to. He had reasoned that the lake itself was full of Tentacool and Tentacruel that could be enlisted for that purpose. Outside of Cherrygrove, they had met the balloonist, Brad, who had offered to give them a ride to Violet, where Travis had been planning on challenging his first Gym leader to a match for a badge. The traveling companions had declined, reasoning that it wasn't that far to Violet, and they wanted to get some training in along the way. Brad, however, had talked them into it, talking up the experience of ballooning and the pair had relented. Brad had promised a peaceful and uneventful trip, so of course, as soon as they cleared the trees, they were attacked. Brad had harnessed his two Pidgeotto to the balloon, explaining that the air currents generally moved east and the pokemon were required to guide the balloon north and west. However, soon after lift off, the largest Fearow that Travis had ever seen attacked seemingly out of nowhere. Brad's bird pokemon, unable to defend themselves because of the harnesses, had no choice but to retreat, taking the balloon they were in with them. The Fearow drove them south, out over the ocean. Brad had tried to battle the Fearow with his Charmander, back up for the balloons fire source, but the Fearow had turned the fire pokemon's flames back toward the balloon, threatening to burn them out of the sky. Almost all of Becky's pokemon were weak to flying types, which left only Travis and Charmer to try and save the day. Charmer was limited by the cramped space of the balloon basket, barely large enough to hold the three humans, but the Jolteon went at her task as best she could. The battle went on for a long time, but she was finally able to drive the Fearow away. Not before it had exacted a terrible toll, though. One of Brad's Pidgeotto was taken right out of it's harness, only bloody feathers left of it. The other flying type was badly injured trying to protect it's teammate, forcing Brad to recall it. Once the Fearow had been driven away, the trio found themselves in a world of trouble. The fight had taken them out far over the ocean. So far that the land was barely visible. Mercifully, the Balloon itself hadn't been attacked, but the rough handling had damaged some of Brad's equipment. With one Pidgeotto gone and the other injured, they were at the mercy of the wind currents, and it took all of Brad's skill to maintain their position instead of being blown further south and east. Without the flying type, Brad didn't know where they would end up. The trainers had potions to help heal the Pidgeotto, but the basket of the balloon was to cramped to let it out of it's pokeball. Knowing how much they needed the bird, Travis took the extreme measure of climbing out of the balloon and hanging from one of the harnesses, while Becky sat on the opposite edge of the basket to counter his weight, finally allowing Brad just enough room to release and treat the injured flyer. However, Brad couldn't treat the pokemon and fly the balloon at the same time, so by the time the Pidgeotto was nominally ready for action, though still very weak, and Brad was able to return to guiding the balloon, they could no longer see the land to the north. Brad informed his passengers that they had little hope of reaching Cherrygrove. He reasoned that their best chance would be to try and head west to the Whirl Islands. So that was what they had done. It had taken them two days. The Pidgeotto was exhausted and weak, but it did it's best, and made headway. Their fuel gave out at the end of the first day, and Brad's Charmander was pressed into service to keep the balloon inflated. Becky and Travis were both given a crash course in ballooning in order to give Brad a rest now and then, though he still did the lions share. Becky had made her promise to dole out a beating if they ever reached land as the sun set on the first day. They saw the island in the morning, but new problems presented themselves. The Charmander was exhausted and had no more flame to give. Travis had Hoofer, but even if all three were to vacate the basket, the fire horse wouldn't have enough room in the basket. The balloon was losing altitude fast. The game Pidgeotto redoubled it's efforts determined to get them to land. They had barely won the race, finally crash landing on the beach. To her credit, Becky did give Brad time enough to take care of his pokemon before trying to carry out her promise. Becky let her own pokemon out to join in with Travis' bunch. Waverider the Lapras joined Rapid and Tendril in the ocean. Kicker and Firelsap started sparing as soon as they were let out, while Nightime the Umbreon joined Charmer. Mystery the Wheezing floated over to Hoofer and Stone further up the beach. As the pokemon stretched their legs, such as it was, the two trainers pulled out pokechow and water and prepared meals for them all before pulling out the last of their own food for lunch. Travis walked down to the water only to find that Tendril had caught a good sized Goldeen and was sharing it with Rapid and Waverider. With the Pokemon all fed and watered, and their own bellies full, Travis and Becky sat and considered what they should do next. they knew they had made it to the Whirl Islands, but had no idea which one they had landed on. Travis was surprised at how secluded the are seemed to be. Growing up as he had in the Orange Islands, he knew how much attention a nice beach like the one they had crash landed on drew. But not a single person had shown themselves since Becky had chased Brad off. There was plenty of daylight left, so the pair decided to head inland to see if they could find a town or someone's house. If they didn't find one or the other, they could find a place to camp and strike out fresh in the morning. That decided, Travis put his shirt back on, electing to store his wind breaker until it was needed. Then the pair started recalling their pokemon. Normally, they would ride Hoofer, but after two days in a balloon, they decided to walk. Giving the doomed balloon one last look, they headed up the beach... TBC? -- Worry's first SIG sig file ------------------------------------------------------------------ *"It takes a Worried man to sing a Worried song..." Kingston Trio* *And the award for the funniest line in a cartoon goes to Superman who remarked "Don't look at me, I just catch 'em!" after stopping a crane thrown by Bizzaro from crushing a wedding party.* Proud owner of 300 fake code points