My Little Pokemon

by Alabenson

Flaring Tempers

“Alright, one of the most important parts of friendship is communication, which ideally should be a two-way process. But, only one side can understand the other here, so maybe the first step should be to work out some way to fix that? Maybe Charmeleon and I could work out a system of claw gestures, or maybe we could try Horse code, or maybe –”

“Hey! Equestria to Twilight! Are you there?” The sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice snapped Twilight out of her muttering and prompted her to look up to see that Rainbow Dash and Spike were both far up the path ahead of her.

“Sorry, I was just a little preoccupied with my thoughts.” Twilight said as she rushed to catch up to her friends.

“Yeah, I noticed. Seriously, you’ve been acting kind of weird ever since we left the last town. Is something wrong?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“You mean aside from the fact that King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis are out there somewhere planning to do something horrible to us and our friends? Or that in order to stop them I’ll need to solve a friendship problem with a Pokémon that I can’t even understand? Or maybe that Princess Celestia and who knows how many other ponies are counting on me to find a way to fix everything and I barely have any idea what I’m supposed to do? Besides all that, no everything’s just great!” Twilight ranted, her eye twitching madly from the stress.

“Ugh, I knew that whole Princess Celestia message thing was going to make you completely freak out,” Rainbow Dash groaned, before noticing that Twilight had fixed her with an angry glare that was just shy of murderous. “Uh, what I meant was…maybe you should try talking to your Charmeleon again? I mean, you said yourself that figuring that out’s pretty much the first step to everything else, right? Maybe you just need to try, I dunno, listening to it really hard or something?” Twilight initially looked as though she wanted to argue with Rainbow Dash over the issue, but instead let out a defeated sigh.

“You’re probably right about that. I think I’ve just been finding excuses not to, especially after way my last gym battle went,” Twilight admitted. “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions on how I should do this?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Like I’ve said before, understanding your Pokémon is something you just do, I can’t really explain it any better than that. That said, if you want, me and Spike can give you some space so you can handle things.”

“Really? Thanks, that would actually really help. This isn’t really the sort of thing I want to do with an audience,” Twilight added sheepishly.

“It’s no big deal. Besides, I kinda want Spike to help me with some extra training for Skarmory. After the way that last gym battle went, I want to see if I can get Skarmory some more practice dealing with special attacks and stuff, and Spike’s Ivysaur should be really good at that stuff.”

“Well, alright then,” Twilight said. “I guess we’ll meet up a little later then.”

“Sounds good. Hey Spike! Twilight and its all good, so let’s get this training started!” Twilight watched as Rainbow Dash and Spike hurried over a nearby rise in the rocky terrain before disappearing from view, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

“Okay, Twilight, keep it together. You’ve totally got this. It’s just a friendship problem, and you’re the Princess of Friendship! There’s no way you won’t be able to solve this like you would any other friendship problem. Even if it is a problem that could spell disaster for everypony you care about if you can’t find some way to – stop it! You don’t have time to fall apart right now, you just need to do it. Princess Celestia is counting on you!” Twilight took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves the way Cadance had shown her (though it never seemed to work quite as well for Twilight as it did for her sister-in-law). Once Twilight was satisfied she had regained some semblance of composure, she took out Charmeleon’s Poké Ball and tossed it into the air.

“Char. Meleon.” Twilight’s Charmeleon grumbled as its eyes adjusted to the sunlight.

“Hi there, Charmeleon. I thought we should probably have a talk about how things have been going between us, especially recently,” Twilight began as she crouched down to bring herself eye-level with Charmeleon. “Ever since you evolved, I’ve gotten the feeling that you’re upset with me about something, but I’m not sure I really understand why.”

“Char! Charmeleon Char!” Twilight’s statement seemed to anger Charmeleon, who immediately started hissing and snarling in frustration, forcing Twilight to stumble backwards.

“Gah! What’s with you? I was just asking a question, why are you so upset?” Hearing this only seemed to agitate Charmeleon further, leaving it stomping its feet in frustration as Twilight felt her own patience start to fray. “Ugh, you’re impossible! I’m doing my best to fix this situation, but you’re not even trying to meet me halfway! Maybe the reason that I can’t understand you isn’t that you’re a Pokémon, but it’s because you’re a jerk!” Charmeleon responded to this by spitting out a gout of flame at Twilight, forcing her to stagger backwards to avoid being burned. “Hey! You could have really hurt me like that! Alright, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but clearly just talking to you isn’t working. I’ll have to figure something else out later, but for now, Return!” Twilight held up Charmeleon’s Poké Ball and attempted to recall it, but Charmeleon leapt out of the way of the red beam before sticking its tongue out at Twilight.

“Charmeleon Char!” Twilight’s Charmeleon snarled at her while making a gesture that Twilight could only assume was supposed to be extremely rude.

“You’re not even going to listen to me anymore? You know what? If you dislike me that much, then fine! I don’t need you anyway!” This time it was Charmeleon’s turn to appear shocked as the floodgates of Twilight’s stress and anger burst open. “You’ve been fighting with me ever since you evolved, and every time I try to look for a way to fix whatever’s wrong you fight me even harder. I don’t know what it is I’ve done that’s made you so nasty, but if it’s so horrible that you’re going to start attacking me, then maybe you should go find a new trainer!”

Charmeleon stood there silent for several moments as it stared at Twilight with a completely stunned expression. Eventually, however, Charmeleon let out an irritated snort before turning its back on Twilight and trudging off. Twilight watched in silence as Charmeleon angrily marched off, until it finally vanished from sight entirely.

“It…it really left,” Twilight said to herself as she slowly came down from the rush of adrenaline and the reality of the situation sank in. “Oh Celestia, what have I done?”

*********

“So, what exactly do you want to do again?” Spike asked as he and Rainbow Dash finally found a space Rainbow Dash deemed suitable for their purposes.

“Well, you know how in my last gym battle Skarmory was kicking all kinds of flank until Mandrake used that weird move that put it to sleep? I thought it might be a good idea if I found some way of giving Skarmory practice dealing with attacks like that. And then I remembered your Ivysaur knows a bunch of those moves, doesn’t it?”

“So, you want me to have Ivysaur use those moves on your Skarmory so it can get better at resisting them? I don’t know if it really works that way, but we can try.” As Spike reached into his jacket, however, a voice yelled out at them.

“Hey, Joe, check this out! It looks like we got a couple of kids over here!” Rainbow Dash and Spike turned to see a lanky woman with a magenta mohawk looking down at them from a nearby hill.

“For cryin’ out loud, Nancy, what is it now?” Moments later, the woman was joined by an equally skinny man dressed almost entirely in worn, black leather. “Okay, yeah, there’s a couple of kids down there. What’s your point?”

“They’re on our turf or somethin’, aren’t they?” Nancy replied sounding a little unsure of herself now. “Shouldn’t we, I dunno, try and chase ‘em off or somethin’?”

“First off, what they heck do you mean by ‘our turf’? You know Nero told us to stop thinkin’ like that when we came here,” Joe snorted. “Second, they’re a couple of freakin’ kids, and not even the weird types you get out of Spikemuth. Even if we were still defending turf like in the old days, you really think runnin’ off a couple of pipsqueaks would be worth it?”

“Hey! Who’re you calling pipsqueaks, chump?” Rainbow Dash snapped angrily. “Me and Spike could take you clowns down easy!”

Joe heaved a deep sigh as he turned to Nancy. “Good news, it looks like you’re gonna get your fight after all. I was plannin’ on leavin’ you brats alone, but apparently you need a lesson in manners. Go Mightyena!”

“Go Nuzleaf!” Nancy added with a maniacal cackle as she tossed out her Poké Ball as well. In a flash, Rainbow Dash found herself faced with a large, shaggy, black and grey canine alongside an odd, bipedal creature with a long nose and a leave sticking out the top of its head.

“Two on one, huh? What’s the matter, don’t think you can take me on on your own?” Rainbow Dash mocked as she quickly sized up her opponents.

“Hey, you’re the smart-mouthed little brat who wanted to pick a fight here,” Joe countered. “Besides, what about pipsqueak number two? Don’t tell me you friend’s too much of a chicken to help you out?”

“Chicken? I’ll show you who’s chicken! Go get ’em, Bagon!” Spike yelled as he tossed out his own Poké Ball.

“Hah, nice! I mean, I could’ve taken both of these clowns on at once if I had to, but this’ll thinks things a lot easier since now I don’t have to worry about wearing my Pokémon out too much,” Rainbow Dash said. “Anyway, go Breloom!”

“Breloom? I though you wanted to work on training Skarmory,” Spike said as Breloom flashed onto the field.

“I do, but these guys don’t really look like they know the kind of moves I want to teach it to deal with,” Rainbow Dash replied. “Besides, there’s another bit of training that I’ve been wanting to try too, and this is gonna be the perfect chance for me to get to it. You think you and Bagon can take care of that plant-looking one?”

“No problem,” Spike said as he flashed Rainbow Dash a thumbs up. “Alright, Bagon, let’s take out that creepy one with the leaf on its head with your Headbut!”

“Yeah, like I’m gonna make it that easy for ya. Nuzleaf, Razor Leaf!” Nancy yelled. Nuzleaf promptly began wildly shaking its head, sending a stream of glowing green leaves sailing through the air towards its opponent. Bagon, however, simply charged straight through the attack, smashing through the leaves before slamming its head into Nuzleaf’s stomach.

“Heh, I guess the little squirt’s got some skills after all,” Joe chuckled as he watched Nuzleaf struggle to recover from the attack. “And here I was worried we’d be thrashing a couple of helpless rookies. I guess that just leaves you and – wait, what’re you doing?” Rainbow Dash didn’t respond aside from flashing a self-satisfied smirk, but the way she was moving her arms along with the bright glow emanating from her Z-ring provided the answer anyway. “Aw crud, Mightyena, quick, hit that thing with Ice Fang before she can finish!” Mightyena wasted no time in rushing forward as its mouth filled with an icy blue light. Just as it was about to clamp its jaws down on Breloom, however, a massive aura of green light exploded out from Breloom as the field was abruptly filled with multicolored flowers. As Mightyena looked around at the transformed field in confusion, the light surrounding Breloom coalesced into an orb in front of it before blasting out in a massive beam. The attack struck Mightyena dead on, sending the unfortunate Pokémon sailing through the air before landing several yards away.

“Aw yeah, nailed it on my first try!” Rainbow Dash cheered.

“Crud, of course you’ve got gym badges,” Joe groaned as he recalled his Mightyena. “So, does that mean that the other runt has some badges too, then?”

“Spike? No, he hasn’t taken on any gym leaders yet, but he’s still plenty tough enough to take you on!” Rainbow Dash said defiantly.

“Yeah? Well Nancy’s not some pushover either, so we’ll just see –” Joe was interrupted by the sight of Nuzleaf running by in a blind panic, the leaf on its head completely ablaze. “…I don’t know why I’m even surprised. Yo, Nancy, grab your Nuzleaf so we can get out of here.”

“Come on, Joe, me and Nuzleaf aren’t beaten yet! We’ve got the little punk right where we want him!” Joe wordlessly looked from Nancy back to Nuzleaf, who was not frantically rolling about on the ground trying to put out its leaf. Still grumbling, Nancy reluctantly raised her Poké Ball and recalled her Nuzleaf. “You little punks just got lucky, that’s all. If the boss was here –”

“If the boss was here he’d say it was our fault for bein’ too weak to beat a couple of random punks,” Joe snapped. “’Course, after he was done chewin’ us out, he’d you two out with no problem. There ain’t nobody on the whole island tougher than the boss we he gets serious, ‘cept maybe the Elite Four and the champ.”

“Yeah, well maybe I should take this boss of yours on an see for myself,” Rainbow Dash replied.

“Well, if you really want a thrashin’, then you should head on down to Umbral Circle sometime. Unless yer too scared, that is,” Joe fired back.

“Oh, we’ll be there. Once our friend Twilight is done with whatever it is she’s doing with her Pokémon, we’ll head over and take on whatever it is you’ve got.”

*********

“Some ‘Princess of Friendship’ I am, I can’t even keep my own temper under control,” Twilight berated herself as she climbed over the rocky terrain. “Charmeleon may have been misbehaving, but that doesn’t excuse my telling it I didn’t need it any more, what was I thinking? I just hope I’ll be able to apologize to it once I find it. For that matter, I just hope I’ll be able to find it. How in Equestria did it manage to get so far away so quickly?”

Twilight continued to mutter to herself as she searched for her runaway Charmeleon, alternating between chastising herself for her actions and wondering how she would actually rectify the situation. Eventually, however, the sounds of Pokémon fighting each other drew Twilight towards one particular area of level ground. Cautiously, Twilight crept up behind a large boulder and peered around it to see that Charmeleon had gotten into a fight with a much smaller, dinosaur-like Pokémon wielding a bone club and wearing a skull over its head. To Twilight’s surprise, Charmeleon appeared to be struggling with its opponent despite it being scarcely enough to reach Charmeleon’s waist.

“Hmph, things might actually turn out alright after all,” Twilight thought herself with a certain amount of schadenfreude. “Maybe a loss like this will help show Charmeleon that it isn’t really better off by itself after all. Then I can come in and accept it back, and then everything should be just fine.” As Twilight attempted to congratulate herself on her brilliant plan, however, the sounds of Charmeleon’s struggles assaulted her ears. “Charmeleon will be fine in the end, Pokémon fight each other all the time. I’ll just make sure to get Charmeleon to a Pokémon Center as soon as we can. That’ll make everything alright, won’t it?” Twilight closed her eyes and turned away from the fight, accidently splashing her hand into a shallow puddle nearby as she did so. The sudden wet sensation caused Twilight to open her eyes, and as she looked at the ripple-distorted reflection staring back at her from the muddy water she felt a deep revulsion swell up from the pit of her stomach.

Later, Twilight would scarcely recall the next few moments that followed as she leapt out from her hiding spot and launched herself across the gravely ground as fast as her legs could carry her. Charmeleon’s opponent (which Spike would later identify as a Cubone based on Twilight’s description), had either already launched its attack by that point or was simply unconcerned with the yelling human that dove down to interpose herself between the two Pokémon. In either case, the outcome was the same, as Twilight’s outstretched forearm was smashed by a bone the Cubone had tossed at Charmeleon.

“AHHHH!” Twilight yelled out in pain as she landed on the ground and cradled her injured forearm. As Twilight tried to stand back up, however, the flying bone came back around and caught her again, this time in her back just below her shoulder. The force of the blow sent Twilight crashing back down to the ground in agony.

“Char, Charmeleon?” Still dazed by the pain, Twilight looked up to see her Charmeleon standing over her, its expression hovering somewhere between concern and bafflement.

“Well, I had to do something, it was my fault that you were out here to get into a fight in the first place,” Twilight said before wincing in pain. Her entire left arm from the below the elbow felt like it was on fire, and every breath she took came with a wave of shooting pain. “More than that, though, I’m sorry. Since this whole thing started, I’ve been just treating you as a means to an end and not a friend like I should have and –” Twilight let out a gasp of pain as she tried to stand back up. As Twilight started to stumble, however, Charmeleon swiftly moved to catch her fall. “Does this mean you forgive me?” Twilight asked, to which Charmeleon smiled in response as it helped her back to her feet. Before Charmeleon could actually say anything, however, it was interrupted by a loud thump as the Cubone began angrily slamming its club into the dirt impatiently. “You know, if you’re up to it, I think I’ve just thought of a good way we can deal with this little jerk together,” Twilight said as the crystal of her Z-ring began to glow, prompting a wicked grin of agreement from Charmeleon.

Cubone, meanwhile, continued to stamp its feet in irritation as it waited for its opponents to decide whether they wanted to continue the fight. To the Cubone’s immense confusion, when the Charmeleon and its human did come to some sort of decision as to what to do, it appeared to be some kind of synchronized dance rather than a proper attack. It wasn’t until the Charmeleon unleashed a dragon-shaped blast of violet energy that the Cubone realized the magnitude of its error.

*********

“Where the hay did Twilight go? I know she said she wanted to be alone while she got things straightened out with her Chameleon, but she didn’t have to run off so far that we wouldn’t be able to find her or anything,” Rainbow Dash grumbled.

“You don’t think Twilight ran into a couple of guys like the ones we did, do you?” Spike asked in alarm, to which Rainbow Dash merely shrugged.

“I dunno, maybe? I wouldn’t worry about it too much, though, If a couple of guys like those tried messing with Twilight, she’d take them out no problem,” Rainbow Dash said confidently, before frowning. “Still, I wonder what the hay is taking her so long.”

“Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you have Skarmory fly out and see if it can figure out where Twilight went?” Spike suggested.

“Great idea, Spike! Hey, Skarmory, you think you could fly up ahead and spot where Twilight’s hiding?” Skarmory, who had been lazily flying overhead, let out a screech to the affirmative and shot off into the sky, quickly becoming little more than a speck against the clouds. After a minute or two passed by, Skarmory swooped back down towards Rainbow Dash and Spike.

“What’s happening? Did you find Twilight? I knew you’d be able to – uh, Rainbow, is something wrong?” Spike asked, putting his elation on hold as he noticed his friend’s worried expression.

“I’m not sure, something feels off about the way Skarmory’s screeching. It’s almost like it’s upset about something,” Rainbow Dash said as she carefully watched Skarmory’s movements. “Well, whatever’s going on, it definitely looks like Skarmory found Twilight, so let’s go see what’s up.” With Skarmory leading the way, it didn’t take long for Rainbow Dash and Spike to locate Twilight, and it was immediately apparent why Skarmory had been concerned. Twilight was slowly hobbling her way over the gravel-strewn ground while Charmeleon supported her. More concerningly, however, Twilight’s left arm hung limp at her side while her expression repeatedly contorted in pain.

“Twilight! What happened? Are you alright?” Spike cried out as he sprinted towards Twilight as fast as his legs could carry him, Rainbow Dash following close behind.

“I’m –” Twilight let out a sudden grunt of pain. “Alright, I’m not fine. I got caught in the middle of a Pokémon battle, literally. But the good news is I think Charmeleon and I have patched things up.” Twilight managed to force a pained smile as Charmeleon looked up at her in concern.

“Easy, there, Twi, let me take a look at your arm,” Rainbow Dash said. Nodding her head, Twilight lifted her left arm up for Rainbow Dash to examine. “Oh, this does not look good. I’ve been hanging with daredevils long enough to know a broken bone when I see one. We need to get you to a doctor pronto. Hey, Spike, where’s the nearest town from here?” Spike was already frantically pressing the buttons on his Pokédex before blanching at the result.

“According to this, the town nearest to us is a place called Umbral Circle. Wasn’t that the place that those two trainers we ran into said they were from?” Spike asked, fervently hoping he was remembering incorrectly.

“Yeah, that’s the place,” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Well, its not like we’ve got a whole lot of choice right now, we’ll just have to risk it and hope we don’t run into any trouble.”

“Wait, hold on, what are you two talking about? What trainers?” Twilight asked in alarm.

“We’ll tell you about it later. Right now, we just need to focus on getting you to a doctor who can get that arm in a cast or something.”

Comments

[Humbleefluffy4]

ok

[Fanwriter]

Celestia....center of Twilight world. Not surprisingly Charmeleon ran away. Got lucky there was a battle.