Story Notes:
I use a series of symbols, so this may be a little complicated.Something that looks like dialogue but looks like (this) is a thought inside of Dillon's mind.[These] indicate song lyrics playing in Dillon's head.If {these things} surround something, then it is a dream that Dillon is having.If squiggly lines ~that look like this~ surround something, then that something is written.__________________________________________________________If the above line separates two things, then Dillon has written the passages at different times.__________________________________________________________ For example, if Dillon wrote these story notes, then he would have written the explanation of symbols first, then he would have come back in a little while because he remembered that he forgot to add an explanation for the lines. Then he would have come back and written this part because he forgot to include an example of how the lines work to make it easier for you, the reader, to understand. You got all that?__________________________________________________________NEW SYMBOL FOUND IN CHAPTER 5! If stars *like these* surround a word, then it is only onomatopoeia for a sound that is being made. __________________________________________________________NEW SYMBOL THAT WILL APPEAR IN CHAPTER 6! When two lines || That resemble something like this || are around something, it is a written side note.
"So, what now?"
"Alright, I've got my guitar, my spare strings, my amp, my cable, those scissors, a few picks, my tuner- hmm, maybe I can fit some practical stuff into my loadout. I definitely need my sleeping bag and that old tent, it's not like anyone will miss them." Yes, I was fully aware of the fact that I was talking aloud to myself but I didn't care. I had to think about supplies aloud because my brain was busy with the exit strategy. (Mom, Dad, and Nicole couldn't have possibly left at a better time, so that works out for me. All that's left is to find this portal thing before they get back. Once we do, I'll ask Swampert to wait for me and I'll run back here to grab my stuff.)
Things don't always go the way you plan, though. Sometimes it's good for things to go differently than you hoped that they would, like if you find a wallet, return it, expect to get a small reward, and the person is so grateful that they give you all of the bills in it along with ten dollars that weren't. Oh yeah, that was the easiest $93 I ever made. But sometimes plans change because something goes wrong, like when you're looking for a portal to another world to take you away from your boring existence but it turns out that your parents get home before you find it. That's when it really sucks for unexpected things to happen. (So much for plan A.)
All I could do after two hours of looking was apologize and promise to help tomorrow because spending too much time in the woods behind the yard would arouse a little suspicion seeing as I generally prefer to spend my day inside. So I spent the rest of my day playing on Xbox live, watching TV, listening to music, and switching from one to another each time one stopped entertaining me. Just a typical Friday night for me. It was very hard to keep my mind off of the recent failure, but time neither slows down nor speeds up for anyone so I just had to endure my way through Friday until Saturday came. I ended going to bed at 8:30 just so I didn't have to sit and wait for time to pass anymore.
I woke up exactly twelve hours later the next day to the sound of the parrot screeching as she always does in the morning as if she was a rooster, which brought the total number of roosters around the neighborhood to two. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't go outside and get right to searching like I really wanted to. I went downstairs in my Assassin's Creed patterned pajamas, tried and failed to feed the dogs while remaining unscathed, ate pizza for breakfast because it's the only thing that motivates me to get up at all, showered while making sure to sing loud enough to wake my younger sister, got dressed, got kicked in the shins by said sister, and tried forcing myself to watch TV until noon, which was never difficult under other circumstances.
When the clock struck midday, I ate a fluffanutter sandwich, which is just a PB+J except instead of jelly, you use melted marshmallows. Anyway, my family was away again so it seemed like the best time to go hunting except for one factor that I made the mistake of overlooking. A ding, which was followed by a subsequent dong, caught my ears. (Oh crap! I invited Shanon and Michael over yesterday!) Indecision hit me. (If I tell them, it'll either end up very good of very bad for me, whereas if I keep them ignorant then I'll probably be making the jump alone. Gah, what do I do?!)
"Hey, Michael," I say as I open the door and invite him in, "Do you know if Shanon- oh nevermind, there she is." Shanon's father's Hummer pulled in and dropped her off. "Go upstairs, I'm gonna put the dogs out." I did indeed put the dogs out, but I only did that so I couldn't call myself a liar. Then I headed out back to find Grey, but it ended up as him finding me. I had only just entered the wooded parts beyond the fence when he ran up to me shouting, "I found it!"
"No way!"
"Really."
"OK, wait right here, I have to do something real fast and then I'll see you off." I said "see you off," and not "say goodbye," for a reason. Right after saying that, I went back inside as fast as I could. Wow, I must have gotten a real good work out from all of this.
(Time to let the glameow out of the bag, I guess.) "Guys, you will not believe what I found back there!" Notice that I didn't say "what I JUST found back there." "Come on!" If slinging my guitar's gig bag on my back and taking the packed up tent that I had recently started keeping in my room in one hand with my 15w amp in the other hand looked a little suspicious, they didn't say anything.
When we got to the spot where Swampert was, the expressions on the faces of the two humans with me were hilarious enough to make me laugh out loud, even though I tried as hard as I could to hold it in. "His name is Michael, which makes hers Shanon," I explain as I introduce the two to the pokemon, "Well guys, I DID try to tell you."
"But I thought you said-"
"I lied." I knew that I really didn't lie but didn't feel like getting into it. "So do you want the long version, or the short version?"
"Just do the short version," Michael replies without separating his gaze from Swampert.
"Well, the short version is that this Swampert came from another world into my back yard, and now the two of us are about to go to his world."
"What?!" shouted Michael
"What?!" exclaimed Shanon. (How predictable. Why do people have to seem like open books sometimes and be so complicated at others?)
"What?!" asked Swampert. (OK, I'll admit it. I didn't see that one coming.)
"Oh, did I for get to mention that? I'm coming, too!" I knew very well that I didn't mention that. "Why don't you two also come?" It sounded casual enough, but in reality I was very nervous about asking that. (This will either end up being very good or very, VERY bad.)
Shanon's answer was an instantaneous and highly predictable, "Hell, yeah!" (Typical Shanon.)
"And you, Mike?" Michael took much longer to respond, almost an entire 30 seconds.
"Fine," he replied, although he didn't sound too enthusiastic about it.
"Then unto the breach! I've always wanted to say that."
Upon arriving at the spot, we all paused for a moment. I was the first one to walk into it, shortly followed by Swampert and then the humans. It felt like just walking through a doorway, except for a split-second where I was able to see nothing except purple before the scenery of the other world was visible. I came out standing right at the edge of a small, but deep looking lake surrounded by trees in every direction. I suppose it could be called a pond, but it seemed just the slightest bit too large for that.
I didn't have too much time to enjoy the view, because something bumped into me from behind and I nearly ended up nearly doing a belly flop right into the water! Swampert grabbed my arm just before my weight shifted in a way that would make an unintentional dive inevitable. Once he had me, however, he didn't pull me in but just let me hang there. I tried to get up, but he wouldn't let me move backwards. "Oh don't you dare-" He dared. He pushed me forward and released my arm, causing me to fall forward into the water. Near the edge it was only about two and a half feet deep, and that was a little dangerous for my 5'7, 130 pound figure. Yeah I know, I'm really scrawny. Luckily I avoided any injury, and even laughed along with Swampert, Shanon, and Michael upon climbing out.
After the laugh fest Shanon asks, "So what now?"
I reply, "Well, what we- uh- I think... wow, I didn't think this through too thoroughly, did I?"
"I think," Swampert interjects, "that there's a human town a mile south of here, and it even has a professor for new trainers." I'll give you three chances to guess who forgot to bring a compass. No, it wasn't Michael. No, why would it be Swampert? Wow, you really suck at guessing. "It's that way," Swampert added having read the expression on my face.
"Cool, let's go." Us humans took ten steps before I realized that we were one short. "Aren't you coming?"
"Why would I? I'm what you humans call a 'wild' pokemon, so why would I go to a human town?" He was wearing a joking smile below his nose, but wide eyes with slightly dilated pupils above that nose gave him away. The eyes never lie. (Let's see, this seems like when I should ask him to be my first pokemon as a trainer, but I feel just as uncomfortable doing that as he clearly does. But...)
"Fine, how's this? I don't feel like going all the way to town to get poke-balls and coming all the way back here, though I will if I really have to, so how about you just come along so I won't have to travel as far or hunt you down once I've got a set of balls." Michael burst out laughing at that. "Why is that so funny? I just said- oh, a set of balls, yeah ha-ha. Real mature. Can we get moving?"
The walk to Auburn town wasn't too eventful besides the swarm of beedrill that Shanon saw fit to piss off. We had to stop and ask for directions a fair few times, which felt totally pathetic considering we were only supposed to walk for a mile, but made it after 45 minutes or so.
It was a really small and out of the way place; there couldn't possibly have been more than 70 houses and few exceeded a single story in height. Our little traveling party was getting odd looks from others who lived in town as we passed by. (This must be one of those really out of the way places where everybody knows everybody.) We tried to keep walking and ignore them, and it worked... for about ten seconds. None of us knew where, or even who this professor was.
"I'll be right back," I tell my three companions right before walking up to the nearest person. "Excuse me, ma'am, where can I find the pokemon professor around here?" She seemed a little surprised at the question. After giving me the address and directions she says, "But everyone knows about her. You new around Ecru, or somethin'?" (Ecru, so that's the name of this region, I guess.) I answer a simple "Yes," and signal Swampert and the two humans to follow me.
When we arrived at the lab, I knocked on the door and a short, but rather plump woman answered it. "Yes?"
Then Michael spoke up, "We're starting as trainers and we were hoping we could get our first pokemon from you. You're Professor Pine, right?" (Nice manners, Michael! Ever hear of saying "hello?" Or introducing yourself? Or waiting to be invited in?) That last thought was because Michael walked right inside as soon as he finished talking..
I glared at him, but I wasn't the only one; Shanon picked up on it, too. Yeah, he's never exactly gotten a gold star in being polite. He's more of the "say what I mean" kind of person. Luckily for us, it seemed that Pine let it slide.
"Uh... come in. I keep the starters back here." For some reason, Swampert stayed outside while us humans went in. The three of us were led to a back pasture, which contained fifteen pokemon, five fire-, five grass-, and five water- types. Even though I'd been around Swampert for a while, seeing other pokemon in real life felt like seeing all of my favorite musicians and all of my role models in the same place in the fact that I never thought it would happen to anybody, and I DEFINITELY never thought it would happen to me.
"I think I want him," says Shanon, indicating the charmander who was trying to steal a berry from the hands of a chimchar.
"Then I'll take her." Michael pointed at the treeko that was sitting beneath a tree, leaning against the trunk and looking upwards.
"Alright, now can we get three sets of poke-balls?" I made absolutely sure that I said "poke-balls" that time.
"But you haven't chosen a pokemon," Professor Pine pointed out.
"I think I'd rather just catch my first one."
"Are they dissatisfactory to you, because these aren't the only ones."
"No, they all look real good. I actually had my eye on that totodile, but I'd really prefer to just capture my first." The totodile looked really good, actually, but I wanted my first to be HIM. Can you really blame me?
"Fine then, take these." Pine led us to a set of drawers, opened one, and started handing out balls. "Five, five, I suppose I'll give you six." The three of us then thanked Pine, said our goodbyes, and showed ourselves out.
"Are you ready?" asks Swampert, popping up behind me. I didn't expect that and I jumped, probably making me look like a complete wimp. I couldn't hold it against him, though, because that was a favorite pastime of mine, too.
"Can it wait until tomorrow? I'm still waiting for my heart rate to go below 300, then I want to just spend a day getting used to this whole new thing. Oh, and I'm hungry. I bet you are, too." He tried to protest and say that he was ready to rock, but his own body became the enemy when it let loose a growl telling Swampert to cut the crap. "Ha. You almost made me believe that, but 'almost' is only satisfactory when playing horseshoes. Come on." I said.
"What is 'horseshoes?'"
"Not important."
We left to find the nearest pokemon center. Apparently they weren't just medical centers for pokemon, but they also served as cheap hotels accessible only to trainers along with rooms loaded with things like training dummies, and also shops with travel supplies. Good, because nobody had any sleeping bags or spare food for when we eventually hit the road. Luckily, a starter pokemon and five, or in my case six, poke-balls also came with 3,000 of some special trainers-only currency.
Upon entering our four-bed room we threw a little pizza party to celebrate the first day of the rest of our lives, not that I need an excuse to eat enough pizza to make me vomit and then use the new space in my stomach to eat more pizza. I'd crammed my IPod, a set of ear buds, and a speaker for playing the music out loud into the tent bag before leaving the house so I put it on at maximum volume, which almost definitely disturbed the neighbors though I didn't care. The six of us, three humans and three pokemon, ended up consuming five large pizzas over the course of the time remaining in the day. Charmander, Treeko, and I had plain cheese while Swampert and the other humans had pepperoni, and boy was it funny to see his reaction to pizza! He ate 2 large pizzas himself and said that he didn't feel sick at all... just before he ran into the bathroom and threw up.
Around 11:00 at night, though, everyone but me was finally asleep. I snuck down into the lobby sometime before so I could get some quiet. I'd brought a pen, some paper, and my guitar down with me; I'd never been more inspired to write before and I'm not letting this chance slip away.
__________________________________________________________
Things don't always go the way you plan, though. Sometimes it's good for things to go differently than you hoped that they would, like if you find a wallet, return it, expect to get a small reward, and the person is so grateful that they give you all of the bills in it along with ten dollars that weren't. Oh yeah, that was the easiest $93 I ever made. But sometimes plans change because something goes wrong, like when you're looking for a portal to another world to take you away from your boring existence but it turns out that your parents get home before you find it. That's when it really sucks for unexpected things to happen. (So much for plan A.)
All I could do after two hours of looking was apologize and promise to help tomorrow because spending too much time in the woods behind the yard would arouse a little suspicion seeing as I generally prefer to spend my day inside. So I spent the rest of my day playing on Xbox live, watching TV, listening to music, and switching from one to another each time one stopped entertaining me. Just a typical Friday night for me. It was very hard to keep my mind off of the recent failure, but time neither slows down nor speeds up for anyone so I just had to endure my way through Friday until Saturday came. I ended going to bed at 8:30 just so I didn't have to sit and wait for time to pass anymore.
I woke up exactly twelve hours later the next day to the sound of the parrot screeching as she always does in the morning as if she was a rooster, which brought the total number of roosters around the neighborhood to two. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't go outside and get right to searching like I really wanted to. I went downstairs in my Assassin's Creed patterned pajamas, tried and failed to feed the dogs while remaining unscathed, ate pizza for breakfast because it's the only thing that motivates me to get up at all, showered while making sure to sing loud enough to wake my younger sister, got dressed, got kicked in the shins by said sister, and tried forcing myself to watch TV until noon, which was never difficult under other circumstances.
When the clock struck midday, I ate a fluffanutter sandwich, which is just a PB+J except instead of jelly, you use melted marshmallows. Anyway, my family was away again so it seemed like the best time to go hunting except for one factor that I made the mistake of overlooking. A ding, which was followed by a subsequent dong, caught my ears. (Oh crap! I invited Shanon and Michael over yesterday!) Indecision hit me. (If I tell them, it'll either end up very good of very bad for me, whereas if I keep them ignorant then I'll probably be making the jump alone. Gah, what do I do?!)
"Hey, Michael," I say as I open the door and invite him in, "Do you know if Shanon- oh nevermind, there she is." Shanon's father's Hummer pulled in and dropped her off. "Go upstairs, I'm gonna put the dogs out." I did indeed put the dogs out, but I only did that so I couldn't call myself a liar. Then I headed out back to find Grey, but it ended up as him finding me. I had only just entered the wooded parts beyond the fence when he ran up to me shouting, "I found it!"
"No way!"
"Really."
"OK, wait right here, I have to do something real fast and then I'll see you off." I said "see you off," and not "say goodbye," for a reason. Right after saying that, I went back inside as fast as I could. Wow, I must have gotten a real good work out from all of this.
(Time to let the glameow out of the bag, I guess.) "Guys, you will not believe what I found back there!" Notice that I didn't say "what I JUST found back there." "Come on!" If slinging my guitar's gig bag on my back and taking the packed up tent that I had recently started keeping in my room in one hand with my 15w amp in the other hand looked a little suspicious, they didn't say anything.
When we got to the spot where Swampert was, the expressions on the faces of the two humans with me were hilarious enough to make me laugh out loud, even though I tried as hard as I could to hold it in. "His name is Michael, which makes hers Shanon," I explain as I introduce the two to the pokemon, "Well guys, I DID try to tell you."
"But I thought you said-"
"I lied." I knew that I really didn't lie but didn't feel like getting into it. "So do you want the long version, or the short version?"
"Just do the short version," Michael replies without separating his gaze from Swampert.
"Well, the short version is that this Swampert came from another world into my back yard, and now the two of us are about to go to his world."
"What?!" shouted Michael
"What?!" exclaimed Shanon. (How predictable. Why do people have to seem like open books sometimes and be so complicated at others?)
"What?!" asked Swampert. (OK, I'll admit it. I didn't see that one coming.)
"Oh, did I for get to mention that? I'm coming, too!" I knew very well that I didn't mention that. "Why don't you two also come?" It sounded casual enough, but in reality I was very nervous about asking that. (This will either end up being very good or very, VERY bad.)
Shanon's answer was an instantaneous and highly predictable, "Hell, yeah!" (Typical Shanon.)
"And you, Mike?" Michael took much longer to respond, almost an entire 30 seconds.
"Fine," he replied, although he didn't sound too enthusiastic about it.
"Then unto the breach! I've always wanted to say that."
Upon arriving at the spot, we all paused for a moment. I was the first one to walk into it, shortly followed by Swampert and then the humans. It felt like just walking through a doorway, except for a split-second where I was able to see nothing except purple before the scenery of the other world was visible. I came out standing right at the edge of a small, but deep looking lake surrounded by trees in every direction. I suppose it could be called a pond, but it seemed just the slightest bit too large for that.
I didn't have too much time to enjoy the view, because something bumped into me from behind and I nearly ended up nearly doing a belly flop right into the water! Swampert grabbed my arm just before my weight shifted in a way that would make an unintentional dive inevitable. Once he had me, however, he didn't pull me in but just let me hang there. I tried to get up, but he wouldn't let me move backwards. "Oh don't you dare-" He dared. He pushed me forward and released my arm, causing me to fall forward into the water. Near the edge it was only about two and a half feet deep, and that was a little dangerous for my 5'7, 130 pound figure. Yeah I know, I'm really scrawny. Luckily I avoided any injury, and even laughed along with Swampert, Shanon, and Michael upon climbing out.
After the laugh fest Shanon asks, "So what now?"
I reply, "Well, what we- uh- I think... wow, I didn't think this through too thoroughly, did I?"
"I think," Swampert interjects, "that there's a human town a mile south of here, and it even has a professor for new trainers." I'll give you three chances to guess who forgot to bring a compass. No, it wasn't Michael. No, why would it be Swampert? Wow, you really suck at guessing. "It's that way," Swampert added having read the expression on my face.
"Cool, let's go." Us humans took ten steps before I realized that we were one short. "Aren't you coming?"
"Why would I? I'm what you humans call a 'wild' pokemon, so why would I go to a human town?" He was wearing a joking smile below his nose, but wide eyes with slightly dilated pupils above that nose gave him away. The eyes never lie. (Let's see, this seems like when I should ask him to be my first pokemon as a trainer, but I feel just as uncomfortable doing that as he clearly does. But...)
"Fine, how's this? I don't feel like going all the way to town to get poke-balls and coming all the way back here, though I will if I really have to, so how about you just come along so I won't have to travel as far or hunt you down once I've got a set of balls." Michael burst out laughing at that. "Why is that so funny? I just said- oh, a set of balls, yeah ha-ha. Real mature. Can we get moving?"
The walk to Auburn town wasn't too eventful besides the swarm of beedrill that Shanon saw fit to piss off. We had to stop and ask for directions a fair few times, which felt totally pathetic considering we were only supposed to walk for a mile, but made it after 45 minutes or so.
It was a really small and out of the way place; there couldn't possibly have been more than 70 houses and few exceeded a single story in height. Our little traveling party was getting odd looks from others who lived in town as we passed by. (This must be one of those really out of the way places where everybody knows everybody.) We tried to keep walking and ignore them, and it worked... for about ten seconds. None of us knew where, or even who this professor was.
"I'll be right back," I tell my three companions right before walking up to the nearest person. "Excuse me, ma'am, where can I find the pokemon professor around here?" She seemed a little surprised at the question. After giving me the address and directions she says, "But everyone knows about her. You new around Ecru, or somethin'?" (Ecru, so that's the name of this region, I guess.) I answer a simple "Yes," and signal Swampert and the two humans to follow me.
When we arrived at the lab, I knocked on the door and a short, but rather plump woman answered it. "Yes?"
Then Michael spoke up, "We're starting as trainers and we were hoping we could get our first pokemon from you. You're Professor Pine, right?" (Nice manners, Michael! Ever hear of saying "hello?" Or introducing yourself? Or waiting to be invited in?) That last thought was because Michael walked right inside as soon as he finished talking..
I glared at him, but I wasn't the only one; Shanon picked up on it, too. Yeah, he's never exactly gotten a gold star in being polite. He's more of the "say what I mean" kind of person. Luckily for us, it seemed that Pine let it slide.
"Uh... come in. I keep the starters back here." For some reason, Swampert stayed outside while us humans went in. The three of us were led to a back pasture, which contained fifteen pokemon, five fire-, five grass-, and five water- types. Even though I'd been around Swampert for a while, seeing other pokemon in real life felt like seeing all of my favorite musicians and all of my role models in the same place in the fact that I never thought it would happen to anybody, and I DEFINITELY never thought it would happen to me.
"I think I want him," says Shanon, indicating the charmander who was trying to steal a berry from the hands of a chimchar.
"Then I'll take her." Michael pointed at the treeko that was sitting beneath a tree, leaning against the trunk and looking upwards.
"Alright, now can we get three sets of poke-balls?" I made absolutely sure that I said "poke-balls" that time.
"But you haven't chosen a pokemon," Professor Pine pointed out.
"I think I'd rather just catch my first one."
"Are they dissatisfactory to you, because these aren't the only ones."
"No, they all look real good. I actually had my eye on that totodile, but I'd really prefer to just capture my first." The totodile looked really good, actually, but I wanted my first to be HIM. Can you really blame me?
"Fine then, take these." Pine led us to a set of drawers, opened one, and started handing out balls. "Five, five, I suppose I'll give you six." The three of us then thanked Pine, said our goodbyes, and showed ourselves out.
"Are you ready?" asks Swampert, popping up behind me. I didn't expect that and I jumped, probably making me look like a complete wimp. I couldn't hold it against him, though, because that was a favorite pastime of mine, too.
"Can it wait until tomorrow? I'm still waiting for my heart rate to go below 300, then I want to just spend a day getting used to this whole new thing. Oh, and I'm hungry. I bet you are, too." He tried to protest and say that he was ready to rock, but his own body became the enemy when it let loose a growl telling Swampert to cut the crap. "Ha. You almost made me believe that, but 'almost' is only satisfactory when playing horseshoes. Come on." I said.
"What is 'horseshoes?'"
"Not important."
We left to find the nearest pokemon center. Apparently they weren't just medical centers for pokemon, but they also served as cheap hotels accessible only to trainers along with rooms loaded with things like training dummies, and also shops with travel supplies. Good, because nobody had any sleeping bags or spare food for when we eventually hit the road. Luckily, a starter pokemon and five, or in my case six, poke-balls also came with 3,000 of some special trainers-only currency.
Upon entering our four-bed room we threw a little pizza party to celebrate the first day of the rest of our lives, not that I need an excuse to eat enough pizza to make me vomit and then use the new space in my stomach to eat more pizza. I'd crammed my IPod, a set of ear buds, and a speaker for playing the music out loud into the tent bag before leaving the house so I put it on at maximum volume, which almost definitely disturbed the neighbors though I didn't care. The six of us, three humans and three pokemon, ended up consuming five large pizzas over the course of the time remaining in the day. Charmander, Treeko, and I had plain cheese while Swampert and the other humans had pepperoni, and boy was it funny to see his reaction to pizza! He ate 2 large pizzas himself and said that he didn't feel sick at all... just before he ran into the bathroom and threw up.
Around 11:00 at night, though, everyone but me was finally asleep. I snuck down into the lobby sometime before so I could get some quiet. I'd brought a pen, some paper, and my guitar down with me; I'd never been more inspired to write before and I'm not letting this chance slip away.
__________________________________________________________