From: <lordlocke@my-deja.com> Subject: [PW!] Black-Flamed Phoenix: Fun and Mind Games Date: Friday, October 29, 1999 9:16 AM On the road to Petwer City, Gads floated along, grumbling. The longer it took, the more he wished that he had a faster mode of travel avaliable then floating. 'At this rate, I'll be sleeping on the road tonight... Mara and Andrew will be in town before tonight, and they'll probably be telling Brock what's going to happen. I gotta find some way to get to Brock undetected...' "HOLD IT! I CHALLENGE YOU TO A POKEMON MATCH!" Gads turned around. Who dares to interrupt his line of thought? Apparently, the challenger was a green-haired shorts kid, who was glaring at the floating trainer. He'd just left an annual shorts kids meeting, and what had happened there had shocked him. Three of their members hadn't shown up with their traditional shorts, instead in slacks or boxers. 'I gotta win one for the team. We've been taking it in the shorts... no, the shorts have been taken from us. I gotta win one in the name of Shorts Kids everywhere!' Gads wasn't impressed. One of the lowest rungs of Pokemon trainers. This was pathetic. He didn't have time to waste on this simple fool... "Get lost. You're out of your league, kid." Gads turned and began floating again. A moment later, he was pegged by a rock in the back of the head. "I said I CHALLENGE YOU TO A POKEMON MATCH!" The Shorts Kid looked positively pissed. So did Gads. "You want a match? Fine. You got a match. Don't say I didn't warn you... I'll even let you choose the rules." "Fine. 2 on 2. I choose RATTATA!" The Shorts Kid releaces his Rattata, who began gnashing at Gads. "Rattata? I have one of those. I guess Gnawer will do." Gnawer, Gads's rattata, appeared in front of Gads. "Rattata, TACKLE!" The Shorts Kid's Rattata began to charge at Gnawer. "Tackle? Heh. Gnawer, Hyper Fang." Just as the Shorts Kid's Rattata was about to tackle Gnawer, Gads's Rattata opened it's mouth and bit down where the Rattata's head would have been if it hadn't stopped. "TACKLE. RATTATA!" The Rattata slammed into Gnawer, but failed even to move the more-experianced Gnawer. Gads smirked. "Amusing… Gnawer, Quick Attack…" Gnawer did so, slaming into the shorts kid’s Rattata several times before finally knocking it out. "Grrr… lucky shot." The shorts kid looked unimpressed, despite the clear domination of Gnawer. "Rattata, return. Go PIDGY!" "Go… Pidgy? Bwa ha ha…" Gads started laughing. From pathetic to just plain sad. "All right, heh, Gnawer, return. Go, RINGER!" Gads’s Weepinbell, Ringer appeared. "A Weepinbell? You’ve got to be kidding. Flying DESTROYS Grass." "I know. But then again, that’s a Pidgy. I though you were just screwing around, so I’m doing the same." The shorts kid looked positively stunned. This guy had just insulted his BEST pokemon. It was even going to evolve soon! How DARE he make fun of his Pidgy!" "PIDGY! GUST ATTACK!" The Pidgy took to the skies, flapping it’s wings rapidly, creating a small tornado in front of it. "Ringer, Sleep Powder." The Weepinbell spat out a large cloud of powder. Pidgy, still building up it’s Gust attack, pulled it all towards itself. It quickly passed out. "Now, WRAP!" Ringer’s largest vine shot out, wrapping all the way around the Pidgy. After a few moments, it fainted. "PIDGY, NO!" "Pidgy, yes. Warned you…" "Why, you…" The shorts kid lunged at Gads. Gads waited a moment, then brought his fist crashing down on the kid’s head just before the tackle connected, sending him into dreamland. "Even in defeat, you’re pathetic. You should have known better then to attack after losing. It’s bad sportsmanship. For your foolishness, I’ll be taking that Pidgy." Gads grabbed the bird Pokemon’s pokeball. "Pidgy, return." The Pidgy returned to it’s pokeball, which Gads placed in his pocket. "Back up to six…" Gads began to think. With their head start, plus this stall, Mara and the others would surely get to Petwer first. That means they’d be waiting for him there. It would be a pity of he was stopped so early… Gads then looked down at the shorts kid, and got an idea… A little while later… The shorts kid woke up. Rubbing his head, he sat up. That trainer was gone. "Damn it, I LOST! NOOOOOO!" Despite knowing that his kind of trainer are little more than tools for others, he still felt like he should have won. "Damn it… that isn’t going well. First the costume shop has the wrong color dye for my hair, and now…" The kid reached into his pocket to pull out his bag of dye, when he noticed something. No pockets. He looked down. Then he screamed. "DAMN HIM! Taking shorts is one thing, but this… this is just cruel. WHOEVER YOU ARE, WE WILL MEET AGAIN! AND YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!" The kid then broke down crying. There would be no way he could be a shorts kid anymore. This was too horrible. The kid wasn’t wearing shorts. Instead, he was wearing… a dress. A pink, lacy, frilly dress. In fact, a Lass Dress. "Hey, you!" The kid turned around. Behind him was a Pokemon trainer. "Er… I was expecting something a little more… female, but you’ll do. Um… Lass, I challenge YOU to a Pokemon match." "Lass?" The kid began to sink even farther into depression. "I’m a Lass now… all right. I accept your challenge. Let me just get my Pokeballs…" For the second time that day, the screams of horror of one tortured Shor… eh, Lass, filled the air. A short distance away… Gads smirked at the scream, then began to spray some of the dye he found in one of the shorts pockets into his hair, giving it a bluish-green color. Gads the looked at himself in the mirror. Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, with blue-green hair, he ALMOST looked like a slightly-older shorts kid, save one thing ‘I can’t go around with this tail…’ Gads thought to himself. ‘I gotta hide it somehow…’ Gads grabbed it, and tied it around his waist, cringing in pain. ‘For the rest of my lower body being paralyzed, this tail sure feels fine. Just my luck…’ Gads finished, and looked back in the mirror. Now, he looked like a shorts kid. And with Gnawer and his new Pidgy, he could FIGHT like a shorts kid, until the time for disguises was over. Gads gave a fanged smile, then quickly stopped. He couldn’t be doing THAT while disguised as well. ‘Now… all I gotta do is find a way to disguise the fact that I can’t use my legs…’ Gads floated down to the ground and began to think of a way to fake being able to walk… TBC? Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.