Holy Cow, Crobatman! (Continued)

[MorriganFearn]

Then she squeaked again for a different reason. The pokemart was full of goods and items. It was as if her wildest dreams had come true.

"Oh cripes! This stuff is amazing!"

Mel looked around wildly, not sure which displaycase to drool over first. Potions, or antidoes or pokeballs? Oh my! Pokechow, her original goal was quickly forgotten in the face of the splendor of pokemon items.

Lapis, sensing the mood, goaned, and put his round head in his hands.

[Lee]

Christopher stared at her with something akin to wonder. Was she some completely naive kid...The store /was/ interesting, but he didn't think it was that interesting. And he didn't think he'd been so awestruck the first time he'd come in here.

He nearly jumped as Bruise scrambled up his leg and arm, taking a perch on his shoulder. The Rattata stared down at Lapis with pity, making little noises that shortly translated too, < To bad you have the insane trainer. > While he was safely perching on Chris's shoulder, since he didn't care to recieve any more bruises. Hence the name.

Christopher laughed, "I'd suggest buying what you /need/ first, and then getting things you want." He made his way straight to the antidotes, grabbing a couple off the shelves before heading towards the pokechow. Those two were the top ranking things-He had enough pokechow for two pokemon. He did not have two pokemon.

[MorriganFearn]

Lapis nodded glumly at the rat's remarkas he watched his trainer make a fool of herself.

"Akk!" Mel exclaimed quietly, trying not to hold everything at once.

She was a little item obsessed, she would have to admit. She didn't like the idea of being caught unprepared for anything. Items mean healed and healthy pokemon, which was good. Items were your friend. Looking at the price list above the cash register, however, her face fell. Why did being prepared have to be so expensive?

She sighed. Okay, time to be sensible. She wasn't all that great at math, subtracting not coming easily to her mind. So, she'd have to do this sensibly. She had about 400 PD, she thought. Maybe a little more. She needed pokechow, and at least two more pokeballs. She seemed to lose hers at a rapid rate, which would only continue if she didn't get better at aiming. Were there any other items she might need? She scanned the list again.

The sale on pokeballs looked really tempting. She might not have to buy any for a long time if she did that. But, even so, 300 PD was really a lot to a young girl who had never really bought anything before. She didn't want her purchases to exceed more than a hundred pokedollars. However, as she added up the items in her head, that she really felt that she needed to be prepared (2 pokeballs, 1 poition, 1 antidote, and 1 paralyze heal), Mel came to the unpleasant price of 269 (she wasn't exactly certain of where that nine had come from). And that was excluding pokechow. She would bet that her purchase would be exceeding 300 PD, no matter what she did.

So, really, she should take advantage of that offer. Ten pokeballs for the price of seven (or possibly 6 1/2, she wasn't sure), plus pokechow would probably come out to 350 PD. Again, that seemed like an awful lot. And would she use all her pokeballs? Those ten plus the three she still had (although, one might be broken because of her attempt to get rid of the Fearow) was thirteen pokeballs that she could use. She didn't know if she could handle thirteen more pokemon. Two already seemed a little overwhelming. She was worried that she wasn't giving enough attention to Agok, as Lapis was out of his pokeball more, but Lapis didn't seem to begetting very friendly with her, either.

Okay, let's look at my record, so far, Mel thought. It had taken her two pokeballs to catch Agok, and two more just to hit that fearow, even if she couldn't catch it. Really, that made those thirteen balls become five more pokemon. Five was a number that Mel was comfortable with. That meant enough for a team, plus one extra in case someone got too hurt to battle. And since her track record showed that she'd need at least 8 pokeballs (if not more) to assemble a full team, why not spend the money now? She'd only end up spending it anyway, and it would cost her more.

But, she bit her lip, and pulled out her pokedex to check the region map it contained. Between Viridian and Pewter City, where the red dot indicating an open gym was blinking, there was the maze of the Viridian Forest. She called up a list of possible pokemon that could be found there, and her heart sank when she saw how many poison types might be discovered in the undergrowth. If she bought the pokeballs, she wouldn't be able to buy the antidotes she would probably need without going waaaaaaaaay over budget.

"Squirtle!" Lapis tapped his foot impatiently.

Really what was it with humans and shiny objects? Murkrow never took this long deciding what they wanted to take. He'd been waiting over five minutes for Mel to make up her mind, and from her expression he could tell that she was being silly. There had to be an easy answer to whatever her dumb problem was, and then they could get eating.

Almost as if she had connected minds with her squirtle Mel had a sudden insight. She wouldn't need to buy antidotes if she caught a pokemon that didn't need them, and use that pokemon to battle the innumerable poison types. She felt greatly releaved, and trotted over to the Pokechow aisle. There she collected what was assured to be: "Four days' worth for four pokemon" and hoped that she could augment the seemingly meagre supply with natural foods. Agok would want bugs and berries, anyway, wouldn't he?

Musing over this next puzzle she decided to go up to the front desk, and asked, suddenly feeling very shy, if she could take advantage of the special on pokeballs that was being advertised right now.

[Lee]

Christopher had ended up with a total inventory addition of two antidotes, one potion, three bags of pokechow, and a mail to send his family when he got to Pewter. He'd work on it overnight, since getting to Pewter would take the rest of the day, and part of the next, unless they traveled through the night. And while Mel may do that, Christohper wasn't going to. He liked his sleep too much.

"Okay..Two antidotes, that equals 50pd...one potion and a mail equals 85pd...50 plus 85 is...lets see...five, then thirteen...135pd. Then the pokechow...'Eh..." Looking up he reached the counter and waited behind Mel.

The clerk smiled, "Welcome to the Viridian Pokemart! ...Now that's over, what is it you want? You buying that? Good, hand it over and let me tally it up."

---points beneath your post count- That's how much pd you have. I'm going to make a 'spam' board so people can post nonsense in order to get pd. But I'm going to make rules first, so that you'll get in trouble if you already have so much pd and you post htere anyways.--

[MorriganFearn]

"Um," Mel handed over her pokechow. "I was also wondering could I have those ten pokeballs for 300 PD, please? I think that would be enough. I have the money."

She nodded vigorously, as Lapis put his hand over his eyes. Why was he stuck with such a nervous trainer? Why? She had been fine against the fearow, he would admit, but this "uhming" and "ering" was just embarassing. It wasn't as if the Viridian City clerk had anything against people giving him money.

[Lee]

The clerk was so busy tallying that at first he didn't register Mel's question, before he waved his hand. "The sign says there is a sale going on, doesn't it? So of course you will, being as you got ten pokeballs." In a moment, he spoke up again, "Tallies up to 330pd." He tapped the counter as an indicator of where to put the money, and began to place the items in a bag. He thought the whole process stupid-Trainers were just going to take them out of the bag anyways-but it was regulations, since some of the customers lived in town.

Still stupid though.

[MorriganFearn]

"Wow, that's less than I thought," Mel, whose erratic math skills had lead her closer to 390 PD, said. She took the bag with a smile. "Thank you, sir."

She looked up at Kristopher and then headed out of the shop. Lapis sighed, cried out: "Squitle!" and stumped after his trainer.

[Lee]

The clerk took the pokedollars, waved a hand at Mel, and began to ring up Christopher's items after the same repeated sentence, "Welcome to the Viridian Pokemart!" His total ended up being 195pd, and after handing over the money and recieving his bags he left with Bruise in tow.

And just like the clerk predicted, Christopher's bags ended up empty and in a trash can in short order, the items stuffed into his bag. Fishing Bruise out of the trash can, where he had gone in an attempt to investigate the grocery bags, Christopher stretched. "Ah. So now it's to the next route...Hm. That means Viridian Forest. Neat."

[MorriganFearn]

Mel looked surprised. "Isn't there more to do here?" she ventured. It seemed very -- aburpt, just leaving town so fast. "I mean, what about the pond over there."

"Squir squir squitle tle squirt, (Nothing in there but magikarp, unless you're lucky,)" Lapis advised. "Squir tletel squitrle, squirt squir tle (Krys is right, let's move on)."

Mel just gave him a blank look, and Lapis sighed. He really needed to get the girl a translator so she could understand. The poor thing was so stupid. Oh well, most humans were, he thought philosophically.

"Or maybe the path over there?" Mel continued dogedly, if rather lamely, as she waved vauguely in the direction of the entrance to the path known as Victory Road.

[Lee]

Christopher blinked. He'd been to Virdian so often that he simply didn't notice the places she had pointed out anymore. "The pond? There isn't really anything there. I think the people here keep it stocked with some Magikarp, and pretty plants. More for show than anything. As for the route-I'm pretty sure it stops fairly soon, unless you've got enough badges. And I don't have any. Might be able to capture a couple of pokemon there, so we can always go if you want to do that."

He certiantly didn't plan on capturing any pokemon! He had enough with him as it was.

[MorriganFearn]

"Catching more pokemon would be good," Mel nodded. "Besides, I need to raise Lapis and Agok a bit before I hit the Forest. I don't want them to be poisoned."

On this inscurtable logic she turned off in the direction of the path, turning away from the main thuroughfare of Viridian with a squirtle trudging after her. Lapis still wasn't certain if he wanted to be trained. Pokemon battles between trainers was just a show off thing, as far as he could tell.

[Lee]

Bruise rode on Christopher's shoulder, chattering away about the interesting things in the garbage can, and how Christopher had a funny freckle under his ear. Really, there was no point to his chatter, but the Rattata didn't seem to have figured that out, and so the topic of his conversation was forced onto Lapis' ears, by the mere fact that the Squirtle was in hearing distance. All Christopher her was the chattering of his pokemon, right next to his ear. Fairly annoying.

"Training...Somehow, whenever I do that, I end up with more pokemon. I've got all I can handle right now."

[MorriganFearn]

"Then, um, don't catch any more?" Mel suggested, as Lapis endured the chattering with exaggerated patience. "I really want to catch a poison pokemon before I start through the forest in earnest. And, I dunno, I'd kinda hoped that Lapis would learn water gun, before taking on the Pewter City Gym Leader," her voice trailed away nervously, a small little sound as she headed up the path, and waded into the grass.

Lapis rolled his eyes, following. He doubted that this scared little girl would have the diligence to train him that high, this early. He stumped after Mel, however, planning on getting this training thing overwith -- before his poor ears had enough. He whirled on the rattata, and yelled: "(No one cdares if that freckle might mean that he has cancer or not! Just drop it!)"

[Lee]

"I can try...I suppose Bruise could use some more training. Verify too, probably...I dunno about Sandstorm though, I don't imagine he's feeling too generous towards me right now..." His reply had dwindled to an unintelligible mutter about midway through his thoughts about Verify. Realizing that it wasn't very polite, he snapped his thoughts back into line, "Yea, that'd probably be a good idea. Mystery already knows vine whip, so I should be okay." More training probably wouldn't be amiss there either, but he'd rather train the small Bruise first.
Maybe he wouldn't feel so much like talking if he was tired from training.

Bruise snapped his mouth shut and stared at Lapis in something akin to surprised shock. But what if it did mean he had cancer? Then he would be without a trainer (and he already enjoyed having the large bodygaurd), and it would be his fault that poor Kristopher hadn't caught it quick enough to avoid such an early death...It didn't seem to occur to him that it most likely wasn't cancer. All he could really do was stare at Lapis in plain shock. No thoughts occurred to him.

---

Mel's dreams were only partially fulfilled when the first pokemon approached them. Meaning, training could be done, but it wasn't the poison type she had been hoping for. Rather it was one of the rattata that infested the area, and it was considerably larger than Bruise. Part of that had to do with it being an older male, but it wasn't as weak as the young rattata either. He knew it too, and had quite an air of self-confidence, as he planted himself in front of the young trainer and yelled at her.