My Little Pokemon

by Alabenson

Growing Up is Hard to Do

“Ralts Ralts Ralts!”

“For the last time, no!” Pinkie Pie and Derek both stopped in their tracks and turned around to stare at Fluttershy. Their normally soft-spoken friend was practically glaring at her Ralts, which was pouting with its arms crossed as it sat on her shoulders. “I’m sorry, was I too loud?” Fluttershy asked sheepishly as she noticed her friends’ stares.

“I don’t know if I’d say too loud. Definitely louder than usual, though. Is there something the matter?” Derek asked, causing Fluttershy to let out an exasperated sigh.

“Ralts just won’t stop asking me about letting it train with my other Pokémon,” Fluttershy explained. “No matter how many times I try telling it that it’s too young, it just keeps talking about wanting to battle.”

“I thought you were okay with Pokémon battling now?” Pinkie Pie said.

“If Quilava or Croagunk want to fight, then I can deal with it. That’s part of who they are, and even if I don’t understand why they feel that way, I can still support them. But, Ralts is just a baby! You’ve seen how vicious Pokémon battles can get, Ralts could get really hurt trying something like that. Maybe when Ralts is a little older, but for right now I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Well, you the trainer,” Pinkie Pie said. “It’s not like Ralts is going to be stuck in a situation where it’s in trouble and we’re not there to help and everything comes down to whether Ralts can battle.”

“As much as I really hate it when you say things like that, I think you actually have a good point this time,” Derek added. “I don’t really see there being a situation where Ralts would have to fight, not with Fluttershy’s other Pokémon and the rest of us around.”

*********

“Man, this sucks,” Femur grunted.

“I dunno, man, it could be worse. I mean, it’s not rainin’ or nothin’, and we got loose from that dump of a factory town before any of the losers who work there found us,” Ribcage said.

“No, man, that’s what I mean. We’ve been going as hard as we can trying to make trouble and prove that we’re badder than bad. But, every time we try to pull off something big, we get shut down by that stupid bunch of dorks. If we can’t figure out some way to get them to back off, the boss will never see how cool we are.”

“Yeah, but what the heck can we do about it? It’s not like we can beat ‘em down or anythin’. We keep tryin’ that, but we’re always the ones who get beat down instead. I mean, we could try outhinkin’ ‘em, but I became a grunt so I wouldn’t have to think.”

“Naw, man, we don’t need to think about stuff, we just need to mess these fools up like the boneheads we are.”

“What do ya mean?”

“What I mean is that it doesn’t matter if we can’t beat hose losers in a fair fight, because fighting fair is for chumps anyway. So, I say we swipe their Pokémon. Then, they won’t be able to beat us down with them and stuff. Plus, we could hand their Pokémon over to the boss and he’d probably, like, give us a promotion or something.”

“Yeah, man, now yere talkin’! Just, one question, how are we supposed to pull somethin’ like that off? Beatin’ ‘em down and then takin’ their stuff isn’t gonna work, and that’s all we know how to do.”

“Don’t worry about it, man. I’ve already got a plan, and it’s one hundred percent foolproof. All we need to do is this…”

*********

“So, how much longer do you think it’ll be before we get to the next town?” Pinkie Pie asked as the group followed the path through the foothills.

“It shouldn’t be too much longer. Seelieburg is built right up into the side of the mountain, kind of like Keystone only more so, so we should – hold on, do you two hear something?” As Derek paused, the trio fell silently for a moment. At first neither Pinkie nor Fluttershy could hear anything. Slowly, however, they were able to make out what sounded like cries for help.

“It sounds like someone might be in trouble! We should go see if they need our help,” Fluttershy said, to which Derek nodded in agreement.

“No arguments here. Come on, I think it’s coming from this – and Pinkie’s already running off in that direction.” Derek let out a sigh anypony from Ponyville would instantly recognize as ‘Of course Pinkie is doing that’. Still, in this case it was something that needed to be done, and so Derek and Fluttershy raced after their friend.

If anyone had asked Fluttershy what she thought they were running towards, she really wouldn’t have had much of an answer before someone who needed help. She very certainly, however, would not have come up with the scene she was confronted by. Standing near what looked to be a very small cave entrance were, very obviously, Ribcage and Femur. The two grunts had made an apparent effort to disguise themselves as a middle-aged couple, but for reasons Fluttershy couldn’t begin to guess at the pair had opted to put said disguises on over their usual Team Skull get up. Hence, Ribcage was wearing a suit and tie along with his mask and hat, and Femur had a sundress and wig that looked like it was going to topple off his head at any moment. Pinkie Pie, naturally, appeared to be completely fooled.

“Sir, ma’am, calm down, we’re here to help. Now, tell us what’s the matter,” Pinkie Pie said with complete sincerity.

“It’s just awful! Our little child climbed down into that cave and now they’re trapped inside!” Femur said in a resoundingly unconvincing falsetto.

“We’d go in and pull out him ourselves, but we’re too old and lame to do that. You’d have to be, like, a young trainer or somethin’ to pull that off,” Ribcage added, his attempts at disguising his voice equally inept.

“Don’t worry, we’ll help you!” Pinkie Pie declared.

“Pinkie, you do realize – actually, you know what? Never mind. If you want to help, then you go right ahead,” Derek said as Fluttershy looked on in confusion. “I don’t know if Pinkie actually buys this or if she’s just fooling around, but we’re not really rushing anywhere, so why not let her have her fun? We can always step in if things look like they’re going too far,” Derek whispered to Fluttershy. The grunts, meanwhile, seemed absolutely delighted.

“Oh, thank you! If you could just squeeze into that cave, I’m sure you’ll be able to save our little girl in no time! But, you might not be able to fit through with all those Poké Balls you’re carrying. You’d better leave them here with us.”

“But, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to send in one of my Pokémon instead of going in there myself?” Pinkie asked. “They’re smaller than I am, well except for Munchy, so they could fit in there even easier. Plus, it’d be easy to get them out once they’re finished.”

“Uh, that wouldn’t work, ‘cause…our son’s allergic to Pokémon and junk,” Ribcage blurted out. “No, you gotta be the one to go in and get them.”

“Hey, wait a minute, I thought your wife said it was your little girl that needed saving,” Pinkie Pie said as she suddenly eyed the pair suspiciously.

“Right, she’s a girl, but…um…she’s such a tomboy, you know, always out playing with Pokémon and stuff, that he somethings calls her his son,” Femur said.

“But, he said that she’s allergic to Pokémon, so why would she spend time playing with Pokémon. Somethings not right here…” It was at that moment that the wig Femur had been wearing slipped off from atop his hat, finally cluing Pinkie Pie in to the deception as she let out a gasp of shock. “You’re not a lady at all…you’re Ribcage!”

“What? No, I’m Ribcage!” An outraged Ribcage yelled out as he threw off the suit jacket he had been wearing.

“Ooh, sorry. It’s just kind of hard to tell the two of you apart sometimes, since you both look so alike.”

“Okay, now I know you’re messing with us,” Femur growled. “I’m at least a half-inch taller than he is.”

“What? Are you trippin’ or somethin’? I’m, like, a quarter-inch taller than you are!”

“Only when you wear those lifts in your sneakers.”

“I keep tellin’ you, those ain’t lifts! They’re orthopedic inserts, and I gotta wear ‘em ‘cause my feet are messed up and stuff!”

“Ahem. Gentlemen.” Femur and Ribcage turned to see Pinkie, Fluttershy and Derek all glaring at them (or, rather, Derek and Fluttershy were glaring while Pinkie watched as she munched on a bowl of popcorn).

“Oh, right, we’re kinda busted, aren’t we. Well, uh, SMOKE BOMB!” Ribcage proceeded to throw a smoke bomb onto the ground, which failed to detonate, leaving the two grunts fully visible as they ran off as fast as they could.

“Shouldn’t we go after them?” Fluttershy asked.

“Honestly, we probably should. But, at this point it almost feels like we’d be picking on them,” Derek replied. “With any luck, they’ll finally take a break from causing trouble for a bit after this. Or, at least find someone else to annoy for a change.”

*********

“Okay, so disguises didn’t work, but that doesn’t matter because this next scheme’s even harder!”

“You sure about that, man? ‘Cause this feels like work, and there’s nothin’ more uncool than workin’ hard.”

“Naw, man, this isn’t work like that, this is special because we’re doing this to cause trouble. And causing trouble is always cool, especially if we’re causing trouble for a bunch of goody-goods.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point. Ya think this is deep enough?”

“It should be. Help me cover it up before those losers get here.”

*********

“So explain to me again how this ‘Pinkie Sense’ works.”

“It’s easy! I get these little, wiggly feelings in different parts of my body, and they mean that different things are about to happen. Like, when my back is itchy, it means it’s my lucky day. And, when my knee gets pinchy, that means something scary is about to happen.”

“I know it might seem a little hard to believe, but anyone who’s know Pinkie for very long can tell you it’s true,” Fluttershy added.

“If anyone else was telling me something like this, then yeah, I’d say it’d be hard to believe. When Pinkie says something like this, I’m actually inclined to believe it,” Derek said after thinking for a moment.

“Wow, you decided to believe a lot faster than Twilight did. I remember when she hooked me up to that machine in her basement so she could get scientific data, that was fun. At least, it was a lot more fun than getting attacked by the hydra was.”

Derek was silent for several seconds before finally responding. “Part of me wants to ask for context there, but a much larger part of me feels like I’ll be much happier not knowing.”

“It wasn’t anything bad, Twilight was just –” Pinkie suddenly stopped midsentence as a shiver appeared to visibly run up her spine. “Ooh, tingly back! That’s one I haven’t had for a while.”

“So, does that mean it’s your lucky day?” Derek asked half-jokingly.

“No, silly, an itchy back means its my lucky day. A tingly back means to watch out for hidden pit traps. I haven’t had that one since the Cutie Mark Crusaders tried getting their marks for catching wild animals. Ponies were falling into those holes they dug for days after that!”

“…You know, I don’t think context is going to help there. Anyway, you said we need to watch out for pit traps? That seems like kind of an odd thing to -” Derek’s voice trailed off as he noticed a conspicuous pile of leaves arranged neatly in the middle of the path. “Never mind.”

“Why would anyone want to set up a pit trap in the middle of the road like that? Somebody could get really hurt,” Fluttershy remarked as she eyed the obvious trap.

“Maybe there’s a super dangerous Pokémon around, and someone dug this hole so they could catch it. Ooh! What if there’s a Pokémon that wants to catch a human, but they don’t have any Person Balls so they dug this pit instead!”

“Well, whatever the reason, we should probably let someone know about this so it can be filled in. I’ll put a call in to the authorities in Seelieburg, they should be able to send someone out to take care of it,” Derek said.

“Shouldn’t we try filling it in ourselves?” Fluttershy asked. “I mean, I’d have to just leave it like this and risk having someone fall in and hurt themselves.”

“I don’t know if we need to fill it in, but I guess we should uncover it. Though, to be honest, I’m not even sure we need to go that far. It’s a pretty obvious trap, someone would have to be really oblivious to fall for something like this.”

“Oh, that’s it!” The three friends looked up to see an irate Femur and Ribcage leap out from behind a rock a little further up the path. “We put some serious effort into that trap, and I am tired of listening to you losers diss it!”

“Yeah! You punks don’t even deserve to get caught in out pit! I say we charge these dopes and give ‘em a classic beatdown for runnin’ their mouths!” Femur and Ribcage promptly charged at the group…only to fall directly into their own trap.

“Well, at least everyone will be able to see the pit now,” Fluttershy remarked dryly.

*********

Later that evening, following an infuriatingly humbling climb out of their own trap, Femur and Ribcage sat planning their next move.

“The way I see it, us falling into the hole just proves that it really was a cool trap an that those doofuses were just jealous of how awesome we are,” Femur said while Ribcage nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, but what’re we supposed to do now? I mean, we could just give up, but then the boss would probably yell at us or somethin’.”

“Nah, we need to try something even bigger, something that’ll really ruin those loser’s day. Hey, what do we have left over from our other messes? Think there’s anything we could use there?”

“I dunno, we got more smoke bombs, but I think most of the ones we have left are duds. And there’s this metal junk that I’m pretty sure went to our Team Skull tank. I don’t think any of this stuff’s – hold up…score!”

“What is it?”

“It looks like we’ve still got an adrenaline bomb left over from when we messed with that gym. And, I know exactly what we can do with it, too.”

*********

“—and that’s way I prefer the Z&R party cannon models over the Acme series. The Torgue line is sometimes alright if you’re in a real hurry, but personally I prefer the control you get from Z&R.”

“And I didn’t even know party cannons were a thing until an hour ago,” Derek said, somewhat dazed from having absorbed Pinkie Pie’s dissertation on the ins and outs of proper party cannon selection.

“Don’t feel too bad, Derek. Almost nobody really understands how complicated party cannons are unless they’re a party planner themselves. Or a serious confetti enthusiast.” Derek’s efforts to formulate a reply to this were quickly put on hold, however, as a sudden rumbling sound started to fill the air.

“What’s that? An avalanche?” Fluttershy asked in sudden alarm.

“No, its not loud enough,” Derek replied. “If anything, it sounds more like a—” As Derek spoke, the source of the noise revealed itself as dozens upon dozens of Grass-type Pokémon charged into view. “—a stampede.”

“Well, at least its not like its something we need to worry about,” Pinkie said. “I mean, most of those Pokémon look pretty small. What’re they going to do, knock us all out with all their different powders and…uh oh,” Pinkie’s hair visibly deflated a bit as the realization of what she just said sank in.

“Run!” Derek yelled, neither Pinkie nor Fluttershy offering any argument as they turned to try and flee the oncoming Pokémon. Their efforts to escape were far too little too late, however. While Pinkie Pie likely could have outrun the swarm on her own, she refused to abandon her friends, and neither Derek nor Fluttershy were particularly swift runners. As a result, the three friends soon found themselves surrounded by frantic Grass-types on all sides, all of whom seemed to be releasing copious amounts of dust, spores, and pollen.

“Somethings wrong…the way these Pokémon are talking…it doesn’t make sense,” Fluttershy said as she struggled to remain conscious.

“What…do you…mean?” Pinkie asked drowsily, already scanning the ground for a good patch of grass to pass out on.

“I think…someone…making…” Despite Fluttershy’s best efforts, the clouds of Sleep Powder in the air finally overwhelmed her and she toppled over. Pinkie and Derek joined her in short order, and soon all three were left helplessly asleep on the ground. As the last remnants of the crowd of Pokémon ran past, a pair of gasmask-clad figures, who had been lurking behind the stampede, finally approached.

“Dude, this plan was awesome! So, what now?”

“Now? We swipe their Pokémon, what else?”

*********

Several hours later, a thoroughly disoriented Ralts began to wake up. At first, Ralts wasn’t really sure what was going on, only barely remembering falling asleep in the first place, but then the sensation of being abruptly shaken snapped it fully awake. As Ralts looked around, it realized that it had been stuffed into a small cage, which had been dropped at the edge of a campfire.

“That worked even better than I thought it would! Check out this haul!” Ralts peered through the bars of its cage to see the two bad men that kept bothering its mother laughing and looking into a burlap sack.

“Dude, the boss is gonna think we’re the hardest grunts in history when we show him this. I bet he’s gonna make us, like, admins or somethin’.”

“I don’t know, man. Being an admin sounds like it’d be a lot of work. And I hate work.”

“Yeah, but if we were admins, we could make other, less cool guys do all our work for us. Plus, bossin’ people around and yellin’ at ‘em sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me.”

The grunts deposited the burlap sack they had been admiring next to Ralt’s cage as they continued arguing about whether evolving into something called an admin would be a good thing. This suited Ralts just fine, as it meant Ralts had more time to think of a way to escape its current predicament. From what Ralts had heard, it was easy to figure out what had happened, and while its mommy and the others would certainly be coming to the rescue, if Ralts escaped on its own then its mommy might finally let it train with her other Pokémon. Such were the thoughts going through Ralts’ mind as it tried to find a way to break out of its cage. Unfortunately, Ralts’ plan to prove itself quickly fell apart in the face of the fact that it had no way of actually escaping. The bars of its cage were too close together to squeeze through, the cage itself was too strong for Ralts’ meager psychic abilities to damage, and attempting to pick the lock had honly resulted in a pinched forelimb. The slow realization that it was trapped with no way out bore down on Ralts like a leaden weight, and eventually all it could do was curl up in a corner of the cage and cry.

“What’s going on out there?” Ralts suddenly looked up as a deep, irritable voice echoed in its mind. “You, you’re one of the quiet girl’s Pokémon, aren’t you? The hatchling. Tell me, what’s going on? I can tell Derek’s not there, and he doesn’t usually let me out of his sight. Not without a good reason and not without telling me, anyway.”

“Who—who are you?” Ralts hesitantly thought back. While Ralts hadn’t had much experience with telepathy, the concept was largely instinctual to Psychic-types such as itself. “Are you one of Mister Derek’s Pokémon? We’re in trouble! The bad men who keep bothering mommy took us all and I’m in a cage and—”

“To answer your first question, I would be Oppenheimer. So, the idiot managed to allow the pair of bigger idiots to steal my ball? I’ll have to remember to give him an earful when he gets me back.” Oppenheimer went silent after this, and Ralts almost immediately started to feel its fear and anxiety creeping back.

“Hello? Mister Oppenheimer? Are you still there? I’m scared. What if mommy can’t find us and the bad men take us away and – and – and we need to do something!”

“I don’t see any particular reason why I should waste my time. Our trainers will arrive sooner or later, and when they do, they can deal with the situation. This whole mess is because of their incompetence, anyway.”

“Mommy isn’t incompet – incomp – that thing you just said!”

“If it’s that important to you, why don’t you do it yourself? Given what I’ve seen of the two cretins involved, I’d say even you should be able to defeat them easily enough.”

“I can’t even get out of this cage; how would I be able to stop them?”

“Fair enough. Let’s take a look at what you can do and see if you’re really as helpless as you say.” Before Ralts could respond, it felt something push into its mind and begin shuffling around in its memories. “Let’s see, Calm Mind, Magical Leaf, Draining Kiss, and…Heal Pulse? No wonder you don’t think you can accomplish anything on your own. I guess if you’re this inept I could do something to assist.”

“You’ll help me get out of this cage and stop the bad men?”

“No. But I should be able to give you what you’ll need to do it yourself. You wouldn’t be able to handle my favorite trick, but even you should be able to use the watered-down version. If those ridiculous Technical Machines the humans use can do this than I should be able to easily enough. We’d just need to pull one of your existing attacks…well, Heal Pulse is mostly useless anyway. And…there! You should be able to deal with the rest of this on your own.” As Oppenheimer’s voice quieted, Ralts could feel the changes it had wrought in its mind. Ralts’ memories of how Heal Pulse worked had become hazy and faded, replaced with knowledge of a much more effective use of its psychic abilities.

“Thank you. But, are you really sure that I’ll be able to stop the bad men with this?” Ralts’ question was met by silence, and the young Pokémon quickly realized that it was on its own once again. Still nervous, Ralts stood back up and faced the door to its cage before closing its eyes in concentration while extending its arms forward. At first, nothing happened, but slowly a purple and blue orb formed in front of Ralts between its outstretched forelimbs. Upon opening its eyes and seeing this, Ralts let out a small cheer, which caused the orb to shoot forward and smash the door to the cage clear off its hinges.

“What the heck was that?”

“How should I know? I think it was comin’ from back near where we stashed the Poké Balls.” Ralts scarcely had time to scurry out of the wrecked cage before Ribcage and Femur came storming over to investigate the noise. “Oh, come on! That cage was, like, brand new! Now how’re we supposed to take that little runt back to the boss?”

“Eh, if it’s just some stupid runt, then why don’t we just leave it? We’ve already got a bunch of other Pokémon to hand over.”

“No, dud, think about it! If that stupid runt can bust out of that cage, then it’s gotta be worth somethin’ to the boss. We just gotta beat it down hard enough that it doesn’t cause any more trouble!”

“Yeah, fine, I’ve got this. Go Weepinbell!” In moments, Ralts found itself staring down the same Weepinbell that it had watched mommy’s other Pokémon battle in the past. Ralts, however, refused to back down, instead taking a deep breath and puffing out its chest as it faced its opponent down. “Hah! Hey, Ribcage, check it out! The little twerp thinks it can take me on! You’ve got guts, but now you’re about to catch a serious beating from—” Even as Femur gloated over his impending victory, Ralts raised up its arms and created another ball of purple and blue energy, which it sent flying straight into Weepinbell’s face. The force of the impact sent the unfortunate Grass-type flying back several feet, where it landed to the ground, unconscious.

“See? I told ya that runt had some fight in it!” Ribcage said. “Now we gotta—hey, what’s it doin’ now?” Defeating the Weepinbell had left Ralts feeling a complicated mix of emotions, which all seemed to be surging inside of it at once. Ralts was exhilarated by the realization that it had just one its first battle, but was also a little frightened by its newfound ability. More than anything else, however, Ralts felt powerful, more powerful than its small body could contain. This feeling of power continued to well up inside of Ralts more and more until it completely suffused its being. When the feeling finally subsided, the world looked a bit smaller to Ralts. More importantly, Ralts no long felt like Ralts anymore.

“Oh, great, the stupid little twerp evolved into a bigger stupid little twerp,” Femur groaned. “Come on, man, let’s just grab the rest of the balls and split. The whole point of us doing all this was so that we wouldn’t have to fight any of those losers’ Pokémon.”

“Seriously? Dude, since when do boneheads run from a fight? Now, come on, Golbat, get out here and show both these punks what it means to be—” Ribcage wasn’t even able to finish his command before the newly-evolved Kirlia launched itself into the air with a pirouette, using the spinning momentum to send another ball of glowing energy straight into Golbat’s face.

“You were saying, bro?”

“Ya know, now that I think about it, yer probably right about just bookin’ it,” Ribcage said nervously as he recalled his Golbat. “Besides, the boss probably wouldn’t want some sissy-lookin’ Pokémon like that, anyway. Let’s just grab the rest of the balls and—”

“TYPHON! OUT OF YOUR BALL! NOW!” In a flash, a light emerged from the sack of stolen Poké Balls, coalescing into the form of a seven-foot-tall orange dragon. The creature’s rounded features would have seemed rather cute, were it not for the murderous gleam in its eyes as it stared down at Femur and Ribcage while cracking its knuckles.

“Oh man, this is so uncool…” Femur groaned as he started to back away, only to see his planned escape route cut off as Derek came into view, flanked by a furious-looking Pinkie and Fluttershy. “Now what’re we going to do?”

“I’ve got one idea left, but ya ain’t gonna like it.”

“Man, I don’t care what it is, if you can get us out of here than go ahead and do it already!”

“Alright, if ya say so.” As Ribcage spoke, he pulled out a fist-sized, dark purple sphere.

“A smoke bomb? Man, the way you were talking I thought you were going to try something—wait, that isn’t a smoke bomb, is it?” In lieu of an answer, Ribcage spiked the sphere to the ground, engulfing the grunts in a noxious cloud of reeking purple smoke.

*********

“On the plus side, at least it wasn’t Skuntank spray like it was last time. Gloom essence isn’t exactly a big improvement, but still…” Derek said mildly.

“I can’t believe you really defeated both of those Pokémon, all by yourself. And you evolved, too! I’m so proud of you!” Fluttershy said as she hugged her Kirlia, who seemed equally happy to be reunited with its trainer. “And, I guess, now that you’ve evolved and everything, maybe you are ready to start battling. A little. Only if you really want to.”

Derek watched Kirlia enthusiastically cheer over Fluttershy’s reluctant concession for a few moments before turning his attention to his recovered Poké Balls, with his focus on one ball in particular. It was obviously of a different make than any of the other balls, with the upper half being deep purple instead of the usual red and sporting a pair of pink hemispheres on the sides. To those unfamiliar with the intricacies of Poké Balls it might have seemed unique but not particularly odd, but experienced trainers would immediately recognize it as something very rare.

“I’m guessing you’re the reason Kirlia miraculously learned Psyshock,” Derek said to the ball as he began what to the outside would have been a one-sided conversation. “You know, you could have resolved this whole mess at any time if you had actually wanted to. Oh, don’t give me that, do I blame you when you get hit by a lucky Sleep Powder? Uh huh, and now you suddenly want to listen to me about not causing trouble. Fine, if something like this happens again, you have my permission to deal with it. Happy now? Just, try and keep the property damage to a minimum, we don’t want a repeat of Galar. Oh, sure, it might have been fun for you, but I was the one stuck filling out paperwork for a week afterwards. In any case, let’s just hope we don’t have any more incidents like this one. I really don’t want to have to deal with a bunch of Team Rocket wannabes on top of everything else going on right now."