From: NMVdS <nmvds@aol.computers> Subject: [PW!] The return of Steve Fugues and Karen Oak Date: Thursday, June 17, 1999 6:53 PM Well, after countless weeks of tests and homework, I am finally recontinuing the story of Steve, Karen, and the bunch... ******************** "Ah, Mt. Moon, Mt. Moon," Steve Fugues sighed, "the mountain so awful that the Moon rejected it and sent it to Earth." "Not one of your better one liners," Karen Oak noted. Steve tended to have a complex sense of humor. Sometimes they were funny, other times not. This was the latter. "Hey, it's been a long day," said Steve. "I hear it's a big tunnel," Karen told him. "What do you hope to find here?" "Well, there are Geodudes and Zubats for starters," he began, "the latter of which is supposed to be so prolific that you can't walk three feet in here WITHOUT capturing one. And personally, I think Diglet is already better than a Geodude. There are also Clefairies, or so I hear, but they're rare. And I already have a Clefable anyway." Steve was referring to the loyal Clefable of his impressive Pokemon collection he had accumulated during his stay at Pokemon Tech. After he was attacked by an Alakazam of rival student Gil Bates, he lost his memory. Clefable was the only Pokemon that felt Steve was still a worthy trainer, but it's chanting was too annoying for Steve to ever bear. "It should be pretty much a piece of cake," he smiled. "Well, it's good to hear that your ego's as healthy as ever," Karen responded. The two of them walked into the cave. "Geodude, Geodude, Geodude..." chanted something in the background. "It's a Geodude," Karen noted. "You think?" Steve answered. Then he noticed the anger in Karen's eyes. "I'm sorry." "Magikarp, go!" he yelled. The Pokemon obeyed. "Magikarp, karp, karp..." it replied. "Just fight already," Karen urged. "Right," Steve began. "Magikarp, do the same thing you have been doing all this time." The Geodude prepared to tackle the Magikarp. "Steve, are you just going to wait for the Geodude to tire out again?" she asked. The Geodude continued to use it's tackle attack. "Well, do you know of any better way to make it gain experience?" Steve asked. He wanted to make his Magikarp toughen up and fast. As of now, all it had was a useless splash. "Not really," Karen replied, "but I would prefer if I didn't have to wait to become a senior citizen before I can become a Pokemon Master." Steve began to chuckle. "Steve, you know, this was kind of interesting the first 6,000 times you tried this," Karen began, "now it's just plain sad." "Well, I think I'll let this go on a little longer..." he replied. "That's it..." Karen began to mutter, "Diglet, go!" "What are you doing?" Steve asked. "What I've should've done a long time ago," she replied. "Diglet, dig attack now!" The Geodude tried to tackle the Diglet, but it was too slow. Diglet dug underground and disappeared for what seemed like forever. Suddenly, it popped up from the ground, sending debris everywhere. Rocks of all sizes even scattered into Steve's clothing and backpack, and Steve figured that it'd take a week to get rid of it all. Fortunately, most of the rocks that actually hit him were very small. But the Diglet wasn't finished yet. As it leaped up, it sent a devastating attack and demolished the Geodude. "Geo-dude!" it screamed. "Victory: Diglet," Karen smiled to herself. "Well, I hope you're happy," Steve scolded. "At this rate, Magikarp will never learn any new moves." "At ANY rate he won't learn any new moves," Karen replied. "Not with that attitude, he won't," Steve grumbled. "Magikarp, return." "Finally," Karen thought to herself. "So what did we come here for again?" Steve asked. "Steve, why do I suspect that your memory wasn't very good even before that Alakazam hit you?" Karen asked. "I have a very bad short term memory," Steve replied. "You and your kind were gifted with to-do lists that actually got done. I wasn't so lucky." A Zubat flew by at that instance. Actually, even in the dim light of Mt. Moon, they could spot dozens of them. "Ah, now I remember why I came," Steve said as he threw a Pokeball at a Zubat, not bothering to weaken it first. After two or three attempts, he finally caught one. "Gee, this has got to be my least exciting experience with Pokemon yet. See, I really can be efficient when I chose to." "If you say so, Steve," Karen replied. As they went further down, more and more bats appeared. The problem wasn't so much that they posed a huge threat, but merely that they were so prolific that they were more of an annoyance than anything else. It was like a long math assignment. Sure, you could handle the problems in your sleep, but eventually the sheer numbers bored you to death. There was a possibility of finding a fossil or a moon stone or some other rock, but the odds of that tended to be rare, more like a game of chance than anything else. And after being stuck with a guy like Steve to follow around, she didn't feel too lucky. TBC P.S. Anyone wanna interact or something with my characters? I heard one person remark that I haven't been doing this, and it's mainly because I haven't really gotten into how the interaction mind works yet. To reply, remove "puters" from the e-mail address.