“Hey! Wait up!” the Piplup shouted, her cries going unnoticed as Lucario had long since blocked her out completely, entering a state harmonic silence. With the mountain range far behind them and a bright sun far above them, they were currently walking through a large field of grass and small flowers. Lucario treaded carefully, worried that a seemingly harmless dandelion would turn out to be some kind of grass-type Pokémon lying in ambush.
What unnerved him even more was the fact that the grass beneath his feet was fairly dry. There been a mighty blizzard just a few hours ago, and looking back he was still able to see the cave they had rested in. Either the storm had been extremely local, or the sun had dried up the grass faster than what could be considered normal.
“Hey… You” Lucario finally said, making the Piplup raise her head in excitement, “Why isn’t there any snow here?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed with a trace of confidence before completely trailing off, “That’s because… Um… Well…” Lucario rapidly wished he hadn’t left his happy bubble.
“I have no idea!” she finally answered with a big smile.
“Ugh…” Lucario groaned, amazed at how useless this penguin would be as a permanent traveling companion, “… How old are you, anyway?”
“Four!” the Piplup quickly replied.
“Figures…” Lucario sighed, having guessed it was a little older as a thought suddenly hit him, “… Is that in human years or penguin years?”
“Pegu-nin…?” the Piplup asked, still not being able to pronounce the foreign word correctly. Actually, ever since meeting her idol for the first time there had been a lot of things that had gone quite far above her head, yet somehow gotten stuck in there. One question in her felt particularly pressing…
“Hey, hey! About that thing you said before…” she said with a lively voice as Lucario looked back at her for a moment, “Uh… What do you mean, you’re human?”
“Well… I’m human” Lucario responded with a short laugh, “Heh… I mean, I’m in the body of a Pokémon, but I’m still human.”
“Hmm…” the Piplup mumbled as she didn’t understand, “I’ve never heard of anything like that before!”
“That makes two of us” Lucario hastily replied, holding his paws in front of him and looking down at what used to be his hands.
“How did it happen?” the Piplup continued asking, simply glad that Lucario wasn’t ignoring her anymore.
“Who knows?” Lucario said, getting tired of talking and regretting having given the Piplup any attention, “There I was, being human and all… And then I was some kind of blue wolf.”
“Hmm…” the Piplup mumbled as she once again didn’t understand, “I don’t get it!”
“Please stop talking…” Lucario muttered, making one last attempt to make some use out of his annoying stowaway, “Hey, none of these flowers are Pokémon, right?”
“Hahaha! Of course not!” the Piplup laughed, before looking at his serious face and getting a concerned look on hers, “… You can’t tell?”
“How can anyone?” Lucario sighed with a shrug, “There’re like a hundred different kinds, how the hell should I know what they all look like…?”
“You know, even for a human you seem to know very little about Pokémon!” the Piplup said, as the Lucario jumped a little.
“Uh… Yeah” he answered nervously, “I… Grew up in a village where there were no Pokémon. At all.”
“No Pokémon!?” the Piplup said out loud, “A place like that really exists!?”
“… I guess” Lucario said, before suddenly jumping even higher than before and immediately stopped walking.
“What’s wrong?” the Piplup asked, as Lucario looked behind them with a troubled face.
“You know how I warned you about eight times that you’d die if you followed me around like this?” Lucario muttered menacingly while gritting his teeth, “… Well, now you get to find out why.” Looking back the way they had come, the Piplup saw a large figure forming at the horizon, rapidly increasing in size. Something was approaching them very quickly!
“These two assholes again…” Lucario mumbled to himself, “I was hoping they’d given up by now…”
“W-What’s that!?” the Piplup asked with a startled voice.
“Heaps of trouble. Here’s a last minute tip: The big one manipulates water and can freeze it solid at any time” Lucario said loudly as he spread his legs to gain better footing, “… Survive this, and I’ll be more than proud to call you my partner.”
“R-Really!?” the Piplup yelled in excitement, “You really mean that!?”
“Pfft, don’t get any ideas…” Lucario said bitterly as the figure got nearer, “Dodge everything, and if you against all odds manage to find an opening… RUN LIKE HELL!”
The large creature hastily closed in on them with giant leaps across the grassy field. The Piplup ran to the side as the beast stopped itself about twenty feet away from where Lucario was standing. The new arrival appeared to be a teal lion with a purple mane flowing from its head, and two tails that curved around and looked like white bandages floating by its sides. In the miniature sea of purple fur sat a trainer, riding on its back. The trainer was an adult with spiky white hair, a green bandana and a look of insanity on his face that one rarely finds outside a mental hospital.
“Eya ha ha! I told you fleeing was useless!” the white-haired trainer cackled madly, “You’ll never escape me as long as I have Suicune!”
“You’re nothing but an ugly boil attached to the back of a pansy horse!” Lucario shouted, fully aware that the trainer couldn’t understand anything he said. He did see Suicune twitch a little at his remark, though.
“I am Champion Brendan!” the trainer continued gleefully, “Remember the name of your master as you become part of my collection!”
“The only thing you’ll be collecting once I’m done with you is your teeth!” Lucario yelled, letting his rage get the better of him as he dashed towards the intimidating duo. The last time he had tried to keep his distance, which turned out to be a big mistake… And he simply could not wait to knock the boastful bastard off his high horse.
“Diamond Dust, now!” Brendan laughed as Suicune crouched down a bit.
“This time, you’re mine!” Lucario screamed as he jumped towards the shining creature, getting ready to deliver a strong kick to its head. Suicune suddenly hopped back, as a puddle below where it had previously stood exploded into a mass of droplets.
“Solidify!” Brendan shouted as all the tiny bodies of water froze into tiny shrapnel of ice. Still in midair, Lucario did as best he could to defend himself from the explosion. Covering himself, he didn’t notice that Suicune came running at him, ramming him hard and sending him flying back.
“Impale!” Brendan yelled, as Suicune spat out of a long trail of water towards Lucario. Predicting the pattern of the attack, he punched the stream of water right before it hit him, knocking away the icicle spear that quickly formed from it.
“Gah!” Lucario coughed as a crashed to the ground, quickly flipping himself upright to get ready for another attack.
“Piercing Rain!” Brendan yelled, making Suicune shoot a large wave of water diagonally into the air towards Lucario. As the wave broke off into smaller pieces at the top, they froze and became sharp javelins instead. Lucario saw them falling down from the sky, and in a daring move decided to attack Suicune once again.
“You left yourself open!” Lucario shouted as the ice crashed down behind him and he ran up to Suicune, keeping himself on the ground this time. When he was hardly three feet away from it, Suicune spat out a beam of water at his head, which he just barely managed to dodge. Taking his first swing at Suicune, it formed a passage of ice on the ground and slid on it to swiftly glide away from him. Having his stubbornness fueled by rage, Lucario ignored this and kept chasing after the legendary dog. This proved to be a mistake however, as the slippery ground made him lose his footing and a large block of ice collided with him, pushing him back through the air.
“Splitting Crush!” Brendan yelled as Suicune shot out yet another boulder of ice, hitting the previous one and making it break in half, sending powerful shockwaves into Lucario and stunning him as he hit the ground.
The Piplup was beyond amazed at this display. It was exactly like the show she had grown to love so much, only far more realistic. Even though Lucario’s adversary seemed to have the upper hand this time, she knew that he would soon get serious and trash the large, blue Pokémon and his strange rider.
“You can do it!” she cheered with admiration as Lucario struggled to get up, “I believe in you!”
“Dumbass, keep quiet!” Lucario responded angrily when Brendan quickly turned his head towards the previously unnoticed Pokémon.
“Oh, hey! Will you look at this?” Brendan said to himself as a broad smile formed on his face, “That’s a… A Piplup!” The Piplup realized her mistake and made an audible gulp.
“That’s a rare one! Oooh, I always wanted one of you…” he continued in a dreamy voice, “That punk Lucas started with one of you, I think… I’m kind of jealous, because I started with a Torchic, myself… Only to find out Hoenn was nothing but water everywhere… Man, water types are the only way to go, really…” Lucario and the Piplup stared at the strange person as he continued his monologue while scratching his chin frenetically as if it had a rash or something.
“Heh, Lucario AND a Piplup! Must be my lucky day!” Brendan cackled as he suddenly pulled a purple Pokeball from his belt, “You’re mine!” The Piplup stumbled back in horror at the sight of the fearsome machine, and felt terrified at the thought of being captured by this maniacal trainer. But in the corner in her eye, she saw her hero not far away.
“T-Try anything and y-you’ll be sorry!” she stammered as her courage was regained, “L-Lucario, s-show them what happens when someone messes with you!” Lucario looked at her, and then quickly looked back at Brendan.
“Brace yourself!” Brendan yelled as Suicune suddenly rushed towards the Piplup, who fell on her backside in fear.
“H-Help me, Lucario!” she cried as she covered her eyes, shaking frightfully.
The Suicune had barely taken a step towards the scared Piplup before Lucario focused all his power into his legs and started running… In the opposite direction. As he fled, he heard Brendan laughing madly as the Piplup screamed desperately behind him.
“Like I’d risk my life for a stinkin’ animal…” Lucario mumbled to himself, still feeling a twinge of guilt in his heart. The guilt didn’t last long as it was replaced by joy when he remembered that he would no longer have to put up with her incessant chattering.
Even so, he knew that running away would only be a temporary solution, and that he would have to face the fearsome duo again soon. He was no stranger to battle, but had no idea on how he would even go about fighting a giant dog that keeps shooting ice and water at him. The dog had turned out to be surprisingly nimble, and the guy riding it never seemed to run out of new tricks and ways of attacking him. He realized that unless he comes up with a good plan very fast, he would eventually run out of luck and finally be captured… Or killed.
