literature

Hooked, pt. 2

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"Oooh, stupid Ash!" Misty screamed again, "Stupid League! Stupid cocky little brat, stupid Gary…" Her tirade repeated over and over as she walked, not really paying attention to where she was until she nearly fell in the river. "Stupid river! Stupid…me…" she realized just where she was at that moment, and her tirade was forgotten. "Here, again, eight years later…" She began to swim through her memories as she pulled out her rod and started fishing, in the exact same spot as eight years before.

"Well, I guess I've achieved my dream from back then," she realized, remembering that she had aspired to be a master Water Pokemon trainer back then. Her team that she used in the gym consisted of a bunch of Pokemon that countered their weaknesses as Water types with their second element. Her Whiscatch could easily beat any electric Pokemon, and her Mantine was great against grass types. She then remembered how Chris had beaten her, and realized that she had no reason to be mad at him, either. "None of them had an advantage against water-types," she realized. "He always attacked their other element. Pretty good strategy, apparently." It had definitely caught her off guard, since she'd worried so much about water defenses that she hadn't thought of the others.

She continued to sit for a while, realizing that she felt much better but not wanting to go back and admit that she was wrong, yet. Besides, she reasoned, I need to start building a new team.

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What is wrong with me? Ash wondered as he ranged further from town. By this point, he didn't even know how long he'd been walking, lost in thought and memories. Suddenly, he heard a Spearow squawk nearby. Spearow, huh? That's kind of where it all started, isn't it? It was hard to imagine now, but he remembered how their first day out, Pikachu really didn't like him, and wouldn't listen at all. And Ash's attempts to catch Pokemon without Pikachu's help did more harm than good, as he ended up angering a Spearow he hit with a rock. I think that this is the tree Pikachu was sitting in, Ash mused, admiring how much bigger the tree was eight years later.

Wait a minute… Ash looked at his watch. It's been exactly eight years! Today was the eighth anniversary of his Pokemon adventure. Eight years since he first met Pikachu. "Eight years since I met Misty…" His thoughts wandered back to that fateful day. Spearow had been just as mad at Pikachu as at Ash for being hit by the rock, and so attacked both of them. Pikachu got mad and zapped it, which made it so angry that it called the whole flock to back it up.

I jumped into the river right about…here. Ash traced out the path that he'd taken, from grabbing Pikachu and running from the Spearow, to diving into the river. "Then Misty fished me out." He remembered how little the two of them liked each other at first, but she had let him use her bike to try and get Pikachu to the Viridian Pokemon Center. Ash began to laugh. "It's been eight years since Pikachu first fried someone's bike, too."

Walking around at the top of the waterfall, Ash looked downstream. Standing in nearly the exact same place as that day, he saw a very familiar redhead up to her knees in the water, fishing. "Just like the day we met." Standing on the rocks of the river to get a better view, Ash started to call out to her when his footing gave way. The last thing he saw was a rock rushing towards his face.

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"This really isn't going well," Misty said to herself. She'd been fishing for nearly an hour, and not so much as a nibble on her line. "Maybe not as many Pokemon live in this river anymore." She thought back to the last time she was fishing in this neck of water. She was getting some good hits that day, including the biggest 'fish' she ever caught.

"Eight years can really change a place," she said, thinking out loud. The path that she'd ridden her bike along to get there was overgrown and almost unrecognizable. Looks like no one's been down here in a while, she concluded, so I guess that the fishing really has dried up. She sighed and started reeling in her lure, not sure if she was going to go back to Pallet or somewhere else. Suddenly, she heard a shout from upstream, and looked to see a large splash at the top of the waterfall. Just like…Her thought trailed off as she saw the origin of the splash tumble down the waterfall. "Ash!!" she screamed as the swift stream carried him towards her. She quickly cast her line back out, hoping that the same thing would work twice. Sure enough, her hook snagged on the sleeve of his shirt, and she tried to reel him in.

"It's no use, you're too heavy!" she shouted, "I need you to help, here!" Suddenly, she realized just why he wasn't trying to swim to shore, saw that he was motionless and face down in the water. "NO!!!" she howled as she jammed her rod into the rocky shore. Running out as far as she could, she then swam over to his motionless body, turning him over and pushing him back to shore. "Oh, please, work out like last time…"

Pulling him up onto the shore, she was reminded of the first time she'd saved him from drowning, back in the Orange Islands. Immediately, she began CPR, trying to get him to start breathing again. Her lips wrapped around the ones that had been in her dreams lately, but she hardly noticed as she performed rescue breathing to keep Ash alive. After a moment, Ash coughed, spitting out the water that he'd inhaled, but he didn't wake up. He was breathing and had a steady pulse, at least.

Then she noticed the swelling on his forehead. "So that's why…" Not completing the thought, Misty stood up and tore off the lower portion of her shirt, leaving the rest looking much like the shirt she was wearing that day. She tore the other part in two, soaking one part in the river for a moment, and using the other to tie it onto his head. "Don't you dare leave me like this, Ash Ketchum," she whispered as she massaged the rags around his head, resting him on her lap…

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"He should be here by now," Gary told Chris when he asked why Ash was late. "Wait here, I'll go look for him." Chris nodded, and Gary darted off towards Ash's house. En route, he passed Pikachu running the other way. Sensing the worry on Pikachu's face, Gary turned around and followed him back to the lab.

"Why're you back without him?" Chris asked.

"Ask Pikachu," Gary replied. "But I'm thinking something happened."

"Okay, then," Chris looked at Pikachu. "Pikachu, what's wrong?"

"(He's not back yet. Something doesn't feel right.)" Pikachu's ears and tails bristled as he started following Ash's scent trail.

"He thinks something's happened to Ash," Chris told Gary. "He's going to try and track him down."

"Wait, you understood that?" Gary asked, impressed.

"I've got a Pikachu of my own," Chris replied, "their speech patterns are the same, more or less."

Suddenly, Pikachu started running, and both Chris and Gary struggled to keep up the pace. Silly lovesick human, Pikachu thought angrily. What have you gone and gotten yourself into? He had heard a shout, far away, and probably too quiet for the humans to have heard, but knew that it was Ash even so. In the back of his mind, he remembered how Ash had had to drag him through here, back when they first met. But now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. Worried about what might've happened, he pulled every bit of speed that he could, leaving both humans far behind.

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Ash was floating, confused. He felt like he was in a place where if he chose the wrong path, he'd never get back. He felt numb, and formless. Somehow, he wasn't actually seeing or touching anything, but was just aware. How do I get out of this? he thought. The words began to spin around him before fading into the gulf around him.

"Don't you dare leave me like this, Ash Ketchum…"

Misty? Ash latched onto the words as they swam past him, and suddenly felt himself being pulled. His senses started to become more real, he could feel things that he knew were real. Like an intense pain in his head. He heard static, or something that sounded like it. He saw a warm light, cancelling out the blackness before him.

His senses improved further. He felt something cool on his forehead, something hard under his back and legs, and something warm and soft beneath his head. He could hear the waterfall and the river, could smell…something nice, he couldn't say what. The light became the feeling of sunlight shining on closed eyes.

He felt a light pressure moving across his forehead, and he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw in the new brightness was the red hair that he knew so well. "M-misty?"

"Ash! You're awake! Oh, I'm so glad you made it!" Misty helped him sit up, and then wrapped her arms around him. "Don't ever do that to me again!" Ash looked down, and saw that she was crying onto his shirt. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close.

"I won't," he whispered, stroking her hair. "If I can help it, I won't." He looked deeply into her eyes, and she into his, and their lips met.

"I love you, Misty," Ash said when they separated. "I don't want to go any further without admitting that, to myself and to you."

"I love you too, Ash," Misty admitted. "I'd been trying to hide it from myself, tried to deny it, but when I saw you in the water…I knew. I knew that I couldn't live without you." Tears sparkled in her eyes as she smiled at him.

"Piiikaaa!" The two of them looked up at the top of the falls, to see Pikachu looking down at them. They watched as Gary and Chris both ran up behind him, apparently out of breath, from what they could see at this distance.

"Heeeey!" Ash called up, waving. "Ow!" he winced as a jolt of pain radiated from his concussion.

"Careful, Ash!" Misty chided, holding him so he wouldn't fall over. "C'mon, let's get back to Pallet Town, and we can get that bandaged properly." The two of them walked up the overgrown trail to the top of the falls and met the others waiting for them.

"What happened?" Gary asked as they approached.

"I slipped and fell into the river," Ash admitted sheepishly.

"That would probably explain this, then." Chris was standing near where Ash had been when he fell. He pointed to a rock that was now sharply broken off.

"I always knew you had a hard head, Ash!" Misty laughed. The others did too, except for Ash, who groaned. "Hey, no getting mad at me for that, mister. You were a lot worse, before."

"Hey, at least I wasn't telling jokes about you behind your back," Ash said defensively. Both Chris and Gary turned red as Misty glared at them.

"I guess you're right," Misty admitted. "So, we've both laughed at the other, we're even, right?"

"Not quite," Ash said, smirking. Suddenly, he spun face to face with her, and kissed her cheek before she could react. Both Chris and Gary stood there stunned, while Pikachu wore a smirk to match Ash's.

"Hey!" she shouted in his face. All three boys now expected her to smack him. "If you're going to do that, let's do it right." She pulled him in for a kiss that left the others speechless. "Now, let's get you back to town," she said after the kiss. "You may have other injuries that we haven't noticed yet, so we really ought to get you treated."

"Yeah, good point," Ash replied, and both Chris and Gary nodded their heads in agreement. "Looks like our battle may need to wait until tomorrow, Chris."

"That's fine, I can wait." Chris pulled out one of his Pokeballs. "Clef, give us a hand!" A Clefairy emerged from the Pokeball, unlike any that Ash had seen before. It had green ears instead of black, and was a brighter shade of pink, and it seemed to shine as it emerged. Immediately he was reminded of his Noctowl, and knew that this was a rare 'Shiny' pokemon. "Clef, use Teleport!"
This is the main part of the story, I guess, and the source of the title. Part three isn't nearly as cool as this, but hopefully I can make part four better.

part 1

part 3
© 2010 - 2024 c-war
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Swampert-Titan's avatar
Yay, they're together! Great work!

Now for the ranting.

Why can't this happen in the anime? I mean, ten million jokes were made about it in the Orange Island arc. It seems that for many good shows the developers make an intention to take out all the good parts and replace the rest with spackle and explosions. Sure, most shows probably start out with some bright-eyed creative director foaming at the mouth with great ideas, but before long the stuffed shirts have fed his design document to an angry dog and the amount of time and manpower to make one character walk across a room in the top tier animation at this day and age have whittled away all the good ideas in direct proportion to the director's will to live. And us demanding quality from this process is like saving someone from starvation then demanding he or she give me a piggy-back ride. And you know who I blame for all this? YOU! Yes, YOU, the public, especially you, ADRIAN! (That probably isn't your name but it was worth it to mess with the heads of all the Adrians in the world) Ye unwashed masses who ensure massive profits for the EXACT SAME SHOW because anything that's not "safe" and "familiar" makes you dive for your security blankets. And since you've spent all of daddy's money on a high-def TV and the cable for it, you won't give the time of day for anything that doesn't have 10 fart jokes and you're more interested in buying Adventure Time novelty wardrobes than actual animation inovation (like this: [link])! In fact, I don't know why I'm even talking to you! P**S OFF! Close the browser and :censored: back off to SpongeBob! Is he gone? Good, I hated that guy!. (Zero Punctuation reference: [link])