From: "Rob" <robfrompw@yahoo.com> Subject: [PW!] Anecdotes About Arduous Adventures And Absurd Antics Aren't Actually Awesome, After All. Date: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 4:54 AM A middle-aged man named Marvin, once a quasi-popular magician in Goldenrod City but currently a fugitive in Hoenn, finds himself sitting uncomfortably in a rustic cottage on Route 111. For the past few days, the tuxedo-clad man sporting brown hair with silver linings has considered himself a hostage to two kids, and today he finds himself hostage to a very old woman. All three individuals that Marvin believes are keeping him from progressing in his life are presently sitting with him at a table in the old lady's home, talking amongst themselves. A fairy from another world is flying around the room too, but no one pays much attention to the fairy. Marvin, who really isn't interested in the conversation the three other people at the table are having, scratches the back of his head. He feels a little strange. It's as if he's being watched. He's felt this way before in his life, but he hasn't felt this way for days now, during all the adventures he's been having with Lynkeru, Mamoru, and Indi the ignored fairy. Marvin doesn't feel too comfortable with these odd characters, but he doesn't have any other way to track Terri, the little girl who stole his Shiny Unown, than by using the Shiny Unown Radar programmed into Lynkeru's Pokegear. If it weren't for the Pokegear, he wouldn't have noticed that Terri made a wrong turn at Mount Chimney, taking the Fiery Path instead of the Cable Car to Lavaridge Town. He would be in Lavaridge Town right now, provided he could find it using his Pokenav alone, waiting for Terri to arrive at the Gym there... Now that he thinks about it, Marvin decides that such a fate would have been better than the one he has to suffer through now. He could have been spending time with the beautiful red-haired Gym Leader who works there, and he could have been calling Professor Birch's Lab every day using her videophone to check up on his beloved Ditto. The Old Lady's Rest Stop doesn't have a telephone or a computer for him to use, and Marvin's not aware that Lynkeru's Pokegear has a cell phone feature since the Gerudo youth only uses it as a Shiny Unown Radar. Despite the lack of amenities in the old woman's house, Lynkeru has been agreeing to stay there for a while longer every time the old woman tells them to. Marvin's annoyed that the woman keeps pestering them and that Lynkeru keeps being so polite despite the fact that the woman is clearly a senile weirdo, but who's he to argue with a girl who can pull two sabre swords out of thin air at any moment and slice him to pieces? It's not like he can put himself back together if Lynkeru cuts him up. As a magician, he's only good at putting back together the assistants he cuts up himself. "You sure have been quiet, Marvin," Lynkeru points out. "Don't you have anything to contribute to the conversation?" Marvin replies, "I was trying out a new style." "Huh?" "I was trying to have a conversation without using dialogue." "Why?" "It seemed innovative. Everyone talks all the time. I wanted to do something different." "But talking's important." "I guess..." "Why don't you tell her about the adventures we had in the Fiery Path?" "Hmm... you know what, Lynkeru? I think I will." "I'm not Lynkeru. I'm Mamoru." "Really? You two sound alike." "I don't sound like her! I'm a guy... usually!" "Uhhh..." "Mamoru just sounds like me because we spend a lot of time together." Marvin sighs. He has a feeling that Lynkeru is starting to rub off on him too, but he can't quite put his finger on how. He seems to be losing focus on his quest to get his Shiny Unown back. Even as they converse with the senile woman, Terri is getting farther and farther away from them. Lynkeru asks, "Well?" "Well what?" "Didn't you say you were going to tell the nice lady who was kind enough to let us sleep here about the arduous adventures we had in the Fiery Path?" "Yes," the old lady comments from her seat across from Marvin, putting her chin on her hands, "That's a fine idea. You should do that. That's right. Take your time and tell me ALL about your antics! I don't get out much and I love hearing about the adventures of people who stay at my rest stop!" "Okay... then..." Marvin clears his throat then begins his tale, "Shortly after we entered the Fiery Path, we encountered Conan - a talking, pipe-smoking Camerupt wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat who wanted us to solve 'The Mystery of the Missing Slugma'. Lynkeru thought it would be a good idea to help the Camerupt detective, so we did. We scoured the Fiery Path, looking for clues, when we noticed part of the cave had caved in. Fortunately, around that time a Ho-Oh happened to be flying through the cave. I have no idea what a legendary Pokemon from Johto was doing in the Fiery Path, but he showed up, melted all the rocks, and flew away. He seemed to get along really well with Lynkeru, for some reason. Anyway, after that we went deeper into the cave and found out that a herd of Torkoal were keeping the Slugma as prisoners. Conan told us that the Torkoal believed Slugma were inferior because they didn't have rock hard shells, and that they were trying to force the Slugma to wear rocks on their backs." The old lady interrupts to ask, "But don't Slugma evolve into Magcargo, who do have rock hard shells?" "That's right! I didn't know that, but Mamoru did, so we ended up saving the day by convincing the Torkoal to let the Slugma go free so they could gain experience in order to evolve and grow rock shells. After that, we decided to camp out in the Fiery Path. Overnight, an organization called Team Magma showed up to look for something. One of the members, a mean woman named Jill, took Lynkeru's fairy hostage while we slept. After we had breakfast, we noticed Indi was missing, so we once again looked all around the cave for her. Fortunately, Lynkeru was able to hear her complaining, so we followed the noise to a Secret Base. My Octillery and Mamoru's Pokemon ended up helping us save the day. We rescued Indi and headed back towards the exit of the Fiery Path..." "Oh my, it must've been scary to encounter Team Magma!" "I was scared, yes, but Lynkeru and Mamoru didn't seem too frightened. Like I was saying, on our way to the exit, we encountered a mean biker girl called Roxie. She sent out her Pokemon to battle us when she found out that Lynkeru had a Shiny Unown, and both her Totodile and Koffing wound up evolving during the match! It was quite a sight to see her Koffing merge with one of the Koffing in the Fiery Path to become a Weezing! It seemed like all was lost when her Croconaw and Weezing defeated most of my Pokemon and those of Mamoru, but Lynkeru pulled a couple of 'Deku' nuts out of thin air and paralyzed both of the Pokemon. Lynkeru sent out her Shiny Unown to freeze Roxie in place, then we ran out of the Fiery Path and kept running until we found this rest stop!" "Geeze, Marvin," Lynkeru shakes her head at the middle-aged man's descriptions of what happened in the Fiery Path, "You're not a very good story-teller. I mean, yeah, you told us the gist of what happened, but a lot was missing. How can you just skip right over important details like that? You should've seen my friend Yolei tell her sister about the stand-off we had in Mahogany Town against the Masked Rocket. Now THAT was story-telling! Then again, what happened in Mahogany Town was really important to her, so of course she'd talk about in great detail. She decided to retire from her Pokemon Journey right after it happened, after all." "Oh dear, dears," the old woman says, addressing both Marvin and Mamoru, "Aren't your Pokemon exhausted after having battled that biker girl's Pokemon? If you'd like, rest up here a while longer. That's a fine idea! You should do that." "I think that..." starts Marvin, but Lynkeru interrupts by saying, "She's right - we've been resting here for a while, but you two haven't let out your Pokemon to have them rest too. You should let out your Pokemon, then all of us can take a nice, long refreshing nap before heading west to..." Lynkeru looks down at her Pokegear to see where Terri's four Shiny Unown are currently at, "Fallarbor Town. I'm sure Terri will still be there in the morning, so there's no reason for us to hurry." "That's right!" the old woman exclaims, happy that her visitors want to stay at her rest stop overnight, "Take your time and rest up!" "You all can go on ahead and start resting without me," Marvin says, gazing at the nearby door leading into the woman's bathroom, "I need to use the bathroom." As the old lady leads Lynkeru, Mamoru, and Indi upstairs towards her guest bedroom, Marvin heads into the rest stop's lavatory. "Yeah, I need to use the bathroom, all right," he says to himself after closing the bathroom door, "...use the bathroom to escape! If I wait for morning to leave this rest stop, Terri will be long gone from the town she's in now. I need to get a head start." Marvin opens the bathroom's window and squeezes through the frame to his freedom. Once outside, Marvin starts jogging briskly towards the west. The chubby man starts sweating profusely and breathing heavily after only a few minutes of running, despite the sun not being out. This heavy breathing proves to be quite problematic when he arrives in Route 113 and gray ash starts showering down from Mount Chimney, the volcano just south of the route. Marvin doubles up and starts coughing, unable to keep running when the ash falls in his eyes and gets sucked into his mouth. A couple of Spinda giggle at the middle-aged man's misfortune from a distance, their swirling eyes used to the ash that's raining down from above. "Exegg," Marvin coughs, reaching into his tuxedo coat to withdraw a Safari Ball, "Exeggutor... help... help me out." After pulling out his Safari Ball, he pushes the button on it and tells the Palm Tree Pokemon that materializes, "Use... Reflect... over us." A majority of the four coconut heads agree to help Marvin - two because they're loyal to him and a third because he doesn't like the ash. The fourth coconut head, the one who hates Marvin for forcing him to evolve, simply glares at his Trainer as the other heads create an invisible barrier above their heads that Reflects the falling ash. Marvin hugs his Exeggutor, partly because he's happy that the coconut heads agreed to help him, but mainly so that he's better shielded from the falling ash by the invisible Reflecting umbrella above the Exeggutor. "Westward... march," Marvin commands, hoping to reach Fallarbor Town before morning with the help of his Exeggutor. As Marvin and his Pokemon go west, the middle-aged man hopes that Lynkeru doesn't mind that he's gone on ahead without her, especially since she's so skilled with her swords. -Marvin (( NS: Tech, it's been over a month since your last Lynkeru post. I want to make Marvin posts with more frequency, which is why I'm having him leave Lynkeru behind. As for the stories of what happened in the Fiery Path, I didn't want to simply lose a month of Marvin stories. If you don't like anything of what happened, just imagine it didn't happen and rack up the discrepancy to Marvin's poor story-telling abilities. ))