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// Chapter 3 Dodge Junction 
// Story: Pokémon of harmony 
// by Firefoxino 
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After finishing explaining to Trixie the differences between the types of pokémon we decided to go around the town to explore while she readied her wagon for the show. We were obviously the number one attraction of the city but that didn’t really bug me, they didn't have any bad emotions towards us, just curiosity.

Dodge junctions were by all mean a beautiful town, the old west look was something I would never have expected to see, the ponies were all cordial enough and didn’t bother us. We found out that the city major food production are the cherries which grows in the outskirt of town, we visited it and it was a beautiful scenery.  

“It’s a pretty town isn’t it?” I asked Thomas.

“Oh sure.” He said absently.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know I just feel that something will go wrong today.” He said cryptically.

“If it makes you feel better we can go outside the city to train a bit.” I offered.

“Yes, that would be nice.” He said with a smile and hurried towards the outskirt of the town. We exited Dodge Junction and did some light exercises, for me I tried to grab something with my telekinesis and teleport it somewhere else. While it was fairly easy to do with objects I found the practice really draining if I went along with the object. 

Thomas, on the other hand, was destroying boulder after boulder with Psycho Shock trying different combos with it like using the attack on something and then redirect some of the spheres towards other targets.

At the end of the training session, aside from grasping my abilities a little bit better than before I just tired myself out.

“Today was a good day for us don’t you agree?” Thomas said happily.

“Oh yeah.” I replied. “Now let’s go Trixie should have finished by now.” We returned to Trixie’s wagon and witnessed her putting the final touches on the new stage. “Cool!” I shouted.

“I’m glad you like Trixie’s stage.” Trixie said. “Now come here I will explain to you your part in the show.”

That evening after a delicious dinner we were greeted by a big crowd circling our stage so we readied ourselves. Trixie appeared in the center of the stage in a puff of smoke with multiple fireworks at her back for effect.

“Hello, ponies of Dodge Junction! I am the great and powerful Trixie!” She announced.

“Today I’m here to mesmerize you with my stories about a new kind of creature that now roams our lands. The Pokémon!” She said adding some more fireworks, the crowd was in fact mesmerized and more than eager to know about the Pokémon. Trixie started to story tell them, how Pokémon possess special abilities and how they can vary in both size and behavior. Our role was to demonstrate our abilities as well as we could.

Then she started telling how we encountered the Scolipede and how we escaped its ferocious assault, I couldn’t help it but get nervous from the story. Fortunately, Thomas was there to keep me calm.

Trixie narrated of our adventure in the forest, she used various dramatic projections to show the public what happened, from the timberwolf up to the Scolipede.“The giant tried to stop us but the great Trixie managed to avoid its sharp talons and made it out of the forest unscathed.” She finished telling her story and immediately the crowd stomped the ground in a kind of applause. 

I approached Trixie who was descending from the stage. I motioned for her to follow me behind the stage and behind the wagon to talk privately. ”Can I ask you something?” I nearly pleaded. She nodded worriedly. “Can you, not conjure that Pokémon? Please…” I said feeling very uncomfortable with it, those feelings were still taunting my mind, not as bad as before but still... That new body was really screwing with my emotions.

I felt a hug from Thomas behind me and then another one bigger this time from Trixie. “Of course Anne, Trixie will make sure to not use it in front of you ok?” She said. I nodded and we just remained there for a bit before breaking the hug.

“I’m sorry.” I muttered out. “I’m an emotional wreck hehe.”

“Nonsense, Trixie, and Thomas are your friends now, isn’t that right?” Trixie asked..

“We will support you Anne, don’t worry.” Thomas said softly hugging me again.

“Thank you.”

After that little incident, we found a restaurant in town called the Cherry Pit. I thought the name as just that, a name. But after seeing the menu which was filled with cherry based dishes I wasn’t so sure anymore. We were ready to eat our dinner when I felt a sudden spike of fear in the center of the town followed by an earthquake, Thomas and I rushed out the restaurant and ran towards the center of the town. After arriving we found a group of Sandshrews and Mankeys robbing the grocery store.

We immediately jumped in and I wrapped ten of the twenty Mankeys in my telekinesis bringing them into the air. The others noticed me and angrily started to throw rocks at me, fortunately, Thomas destroyed the incoming projectiles. I applied my confusion to the Mankeys that I held in my telekinesis making them dizzy enough to collapse on the ground. Immediately though the Sandshrew reacted and dug down to attack us, expecting this Thomas and I held each other in our telekinesis and avoided them entirely. Then Thomas used Psycho Shock to knock them out easily.

The remaining Mankeys fled from the city and left their companions, so we returned to Trixie and asked her for some kind of binding magic. She followed us to where I left the Mankeys and the Sandshrews, Trixie put her magic to work and several light blue chains appeared on their bodies. I watched all of them and noticed one thing in common. “They are famished. They probably don’t know where to get food, so they are attacking the city to survive.” 

“That’s awful.” Tumbleweed said startling me, I didn’t notice her at all.

“I-I know. We must help them, they're just hungry.” I said pitying them. 

“True we cannot leave fellow pokémon in these conditions,” Thomas replied with a smirk in my direction. I smiled at him and waited for them to wake up. 

It was almost an hour before they regained their senses and immediately flared and squirmed to escape Trixie’s magic. They were not successful in that though, I approached them. 
“Listen here you.” I said making them look at me. “I know that you are hungry but you cannot come here to steal food from the ponies.” 

They looked down a bit before one of them did something I totally didn’t expect. 

“We know.” A Mankey said.

“You can talk?” I asked surprised.

“Yes, not many can. I can understand what they want but they don’t talk like you and me, though I see you can talk to them too.” He said nodding to the ponies.

“Yes I can, I don’t exactly know how though. Anyway, you cannot continue like this.” I said. “As such, I may have a solution.” I walked away and talked to Tumbleweed. “Tumbleweed do you have any type of seeds here?” I asked.

“Well yes but the earth is too hard to work on so we cannot farm them, our only type of culture are the cherry trees, all the other type of plant cannot grow in our terrain so we take  the majority of our food from the train deliveries.” She replied.

“Excellent then I know exactly what to do. The Mankeys and the Sandshrews will work here. They will help you make the ground softer to farmed on, they can also find some wellspring of water underneath the city. The Mankeys are very strong and can help with any kind of physical labor. In exchange, you will feed them and give them a place to rest.” I proposed. Trixie looked at me strangely but nodded anyway while Thomas only smiled at the idea. 

“I suppose it can work, but what about the others that fled?” Tumbleweed asked.

“For that, I have a solution too.” I said and returned to the Mankey that could speak. “You discovered everything didn’t you?”

“Yes, I can see how this can be very good for the both of us. Tell them that we will be happy to help if those are the conditions, we will talk to the others.” He replied. 

I mused about it and I honestly thought it was a great idea, but I also wanted to do something else. “Do you have a name?” I asked him.

“Does being called Mankey for all my life counts?” He asked.

“No. Then how about a name? This way everyone can distinguish you from the other Mankeys.” I proposed.

“What do you have in mind?” He asked.

“How about Michael?” I said.

“Anything works better than just Mankey so I’m in.” Michael said. 

“Excellent.” I returned to Tumbleweed and told her about the new situation and deal if her happy face was to be believed she was quite happy to finally be able to produce food for once. Then I walked to Trixie and told her to remove the chains, she obliged and the pokémon thanked her in their own way. After that Michael explained to his friends what to do and they happily accepted. 

With our work done we returned to town and finished our dinner. After that, we went back to the wagon and slept the rest of the night peacefully. We woke up around the dawn and when we were going to do our morning routine we found the pokémon happily interacting with the ponies, that brought a smile to my face.

“Happy for them? I’m not the best at the sensing stuff but even I could sense that.” Thomas said happily.

“Yes, I’m very happy for them.” I replied. “Come on, we will train a bit and then we will help Trixie with the wagon, next stop is Appleoosa.”

We trained in our normal field when suddenly a Mankey neared us. “Hi, friend.” Michael said. “Now I feel stupid.” He replied though after a second.

“Why is it?” I asked.

“You gave me a name and I never asked yours.” He replied immediately.

I facepalmed. “Right, my name is Anne and this is Thomas.” I said. “So how is it going?”

“Everything is fine for now, when we found out that there were no humans but only ponies we were very confused. Now though…” He trailed off watching a Mankey playing with a little colt. “They probably are even friendlier than them.”

“Yes, ponies are very friendly.” I asked. “What about the other Mankeys?” 

“They will come back shortly to get more food I’m sure of it. When they do I’ll convince them to stay and help us.” Michael said.

“That’s wonderful.” I said with a smile. 

“Anne!” I heard Trixie calling. “We need to go!” 

“Coming!” I shouted back. “Come on let’s go back.” We said goodbye to Michael and returned to Trixie’s wagon where she was ready to go with her wagon attached to her. 

“Thank you, fair citizens of Dodge Junction, Trixie will be happy to return some day.” Trixie said.

“Bye! Bye Tumbleweed!” I shouted at her waving, she waved back and thus we resumed our travel.

We were happily traveling the desert when we noticed a big cloud of dust headed towards us, we braced ourselves and when the cloud was near enough I saw the Primeape who was generating it, it was angry.

The Primeape stopped in front of us and without even a second to spare attacked Trixie, fortunately, she managed to put a shield around her but it wasn’t enough and it broke under the Primeape strength, Trixie shouted in alarm and fell on the ground unconscious. We immediately jumped to her rescue, I took the Primeape in my telekinesis but it was too strong and easily freed itself. Thomas shot a Psycho shock in its direction hitting it squarely. If that hurt if I didn’t know, the Primeape was angrier than before though.

I barely saw an incoming rock in my direction and avoided it by a millimeter, I took the rock in my telekinesis and launched it back at the primeape breaking it on its body. The Primeape then charged at us and attacked with a barrage of punches, I used confusion on it and managed to slow it down barely but just enough for us to avoid being hit by it.

“This is bad, it’s too strong Anne, what do we do?” Asked thomas.

“We cannot let it go to the town, we must stop it.” I replied determined to protect the pokémon and ponies in the city. An immense punch from the Primeape was headed towards me, we didn’t see it. I was so focused on defending the city that I got distracted.

The punch hit me like a train and made me fly for meters before I finally hit the ground, My body was in tremendous pain and my vision was starting to blur as I lost consciousness. 



“Noooo!” Thomas shouted.

I saw Thomas, in a fit of anger he threw a Psycho Shock to the Primeape, this time through the attack was stronger and visibly hurt the Primeape. The pokémon was hit by several different spheres that poured over its body. The Primeape couldn’t do anything against the violent barrage of hits and it started to show the toll.

The Primeape now was starting to dodge the attacks coming from Thomas who was completely focused on hitting it with everything he got, he didn’t let it a moment to breath and counteract. I never thought he could be that strong. The Primeape after dodging several spheres started to throw rocks at him, one even hit Thomas it didn’t seem to faze him instead he continued to throw more Psycho Shocks at the pokémon.

The field where they were battling was covered in holes made from the psychic attacks as well from the Primeape throwing chunks of terrain. The last thing I saw was Thomas creating a wall of spheres and a panicked look on the Primeape, then everything went black.