route_1065 | (no subject)

Misaki was already busy judging the fruit. It really wasn't up to par by his standard--even the mandarins were in only of mediocre quality, but you couldn't beat citrus to help keep you healthy in the winter. They would have to make do.

"Hmm." Misaki picked up one of the oranges and held it close for inspection. About medium-sized, slightly pale, but not squishy. If it was just the two of them, he might be able to guess, but with the Pokémon along... "Well, how much does Kuro eat? If we're going to share with the Pokémon, that might end up costing us more than we originally bargained for."

"Suuuuun~" sang his Sunkern, bouncing up and down on his shoulder. Misaki ignored her and started to grab up some of the more desirable fruit.

"Sunkern and Bellsprout don't need to eat it, at least." He turned his green eyes to Cocona, though they were still unsure. "Maybe... about seven?"

Cocona stopped to ponder because she knew that Kuro was a BIG eater. She remembered the time when Kuro finished an entire bag of trail mix without her notice in maybe five minutes.

"I think seven oranges is good! If we need any more, we can always come back here." She said, not really judging the oranges by its quality. Oranges were oranges, and they were food. FOOD! It's better than scavenging for berries and finding out the hard way that you should not eat them.

"Pii." Kuro pouted a little, but let that slide. She tapped Cocona's head several times, but Cocona paid no attention.

If she was good with seven, then Misaki was going to get the best seven oranges in the lot. He carefully picked apart the display, handing Cocona his choices after testing each one with his trained eye.

"It's better to try and keep to one trip if we can," Misaki muttered after a little time had lagged between Cocona's last statement. He liked to be as efficient as possible. Granted, he would come back if they needed to.

"Okay, now that we have some oranges, we should get some yogurt." Gotta balance the citrus with some fat and vitamin D. "... and maybe some granola." And fiber is always good.

Misaki gave his young companion another questioning look. "Anything else you want to grab, Cocona-chan?" But then he turned a slight glare to Kuro. He didn't know what to think about that abusive Pichu sometimes...

"Hm..." Cocona stared at the the variety she could choose from in the PokeMart. She was already stocked up on her battle items, so she didn't need any of those.

Then a pair of sunglasses (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=344968) caught her attention and then she tried them on. Her back was turned to Misaki, but she turned around to let him see. "Hey, Mr. Misaki! Look!"

Misaki was also confident in his supplies, so he looked beyond the trainer items and began browsing a small self containing seasonings. Not that he needed to pick any up yet, but he wanted to know the selection so he could make good use of his first paycheck.

Glancing over to his young friend again, Misaki chuckled. The pair of sunglasses she had chosen looked a little too big for a girl her age and swallowed up a good portion of her face. "Those might be good for traveling in sunny weather. Too bad the sun has been gone for so long..."

Hmm, maybe bringing up the dower weather wasn't such a good idea. Just thinking about it put him in a blue mood.

Cocona blinked and took the sunglasses off. "Yeah... It's not all that great is it? The weather, I mean." She placed the huge sunglasses back on the shelf neatly, careful not to knock down any other sunglasses. "But I'm sure it'll come back eventually! I heard that the bad stuff in this world happens for only a short time."

Then she notices the mood change and tries to fix that. "Um! Let's go buy these! I can pay for them~" She said, urging Misaki to go to the register.

"That still doesn't sound all that great..." Misaki sighed, shaking his head. Why couldn't this place be normal, like Japan, where the worst thing that would happen at any given time would be an earthquake? It was worrisome enough here with little monsters running around.

"Ah! Okay, okay!" Misaki resisted her pushing for a moment, then found himself lightening up as they moved to pay. His funds had run low so he appreciated that Cocona seemed to be confident in her financial situation.

"Sorry, I can't help pay today," he said, feeling obligated to apologize. "I'll be getting paid by my employer after a few more days of work. I'll treat you to something to make up for it."

"It's okay, Mr. Misaki! It would be a waste of money if I didn't spend it on good things anyway!" And so, Cocona pays for the oranges and other things that Misaki had picked out from the PokeMart. "And nothing is better than spending time with friends! So in a way, you're already repaying me!"

After the money transaction, Cocona giggled as she was walking out the door. "I wanna see you train your Mareep though!"

He can't argue with her logic, about the spending her money on good things at least. But he wonders... "I don't really understand how I'm repaying you already, but if you think so..." It was a cute idea, anyway.

Misaki smiles at the prospect of training with his new Pokémon. "Sure! Where should we head out to, then?" They were going to train, he remembered. But where? He'd only trained as far as route 30 before now. Ah, well, he'd let Cocona decide. He didn't mind letting her take the reigns for today.

"Let's go to Route 32! It won't take that long to get there and that's where I trained Mareep before I traded her to you." Like returning a sheep to where it belonged, except it had an owner, Cocona thought it was the best location for Mareep to train due to the familiarity.

"We can eat oranges on the way too!" Cocona peeked inside the bag and pulled one orange out. She attempted to peel it off, but her nails were a bit too short. After several minutes of struggle while walking at the same time, she finally managed to make a small hole in the orange! But the orange juice was leaking...

"I've never been to route 32. What kind of Pokemon are there?" They were already on the move, so Misaki kept his eye out for familiar landmarks. Only a few days ago had he come to terms with being stuck here in Jhoto, and that's when he had decided it was necessary to start memorizing the landscape instead of just relying on his map. After all, if he was stuck here for a long time... no! He didn't want to start thinking of this place as home. Not yet.

Misaki had to hold in a chuckle at Cocona's effort to peel her orange. It really wasn't good for her nails, even if they had been long enough to make a proper dent. "Here."

Misaki reached into his pack and pulled out one of his most essential items--a fruit knife he had bought back in Cherrygrove. It wasn't a dangerously sharp blade, but he kept it sheathed at all times it wasn't in use. "I'll peel while we walk." He held out his hands for her orange.

"Oh, okay then. Thank you, Mr. Misaki!" Cocona handed him her orange, kinda messed up from her earlier attempt at peeling it.

And as for Misaki's question, Cocona reached into her bag while walking to get out her Pokedex. She pressed buttons here and there, showing Misaki a picture of a Mareep, Wooper, Pidgey, Rattata, and an Ekans. Although that probably weren't every single Pokemon that was in Route 32, they were the only ones she had seen.

"They're all pretty low-leveled, probably around 3-6! It takes forever for my Pokemon to level up though."

"No problem." Misaki took the pitiful orange from her hand and began peeling in a practiced fashion. It was quite easy to do on a normal occasion but walking made it a little more time consuming. He was just being extra careful, but he was sure he could get the job done much quicker than Cocona could with her hands.

He glanced over occasionally from his work, noting the Pokémon with a nod. There was only one that he didn't recognize. Looked easy enough! "I suppose leveling would get pretty hard, especially after your Pokémon get to higher levels..." He felt like he was running behind. Well, it couldn't be helped. He was still pretty new to this place, though he had been here for over a month now.

Finally having cut away the peel, Misaki carefully pulled the orange in half, the segments folding away without trouble. He held one half to his young friend, but kept the other for himself. "I wonder what we should do with the peel. Do you think Mareep would like it?"

Cocona took the other half of the orange and ate a small piece of it. Her grin was visibly shown after she took the first bite. It was so juicy and the taste was nice too! But the scent of oranges were pretty strong. If Cocona thought it was strong, she wondered how the Pokemon would feel who have sensitive noses-

"Chu." Kuro sunk back, still latching onto Cocona's head. Then she stared at the orange peel and frowned, followed up by a rapid head shake.

"I think that's a no..."

The orange was surprisingly good, despite being out of season. But then again, the last time he had had fresh fruit had been well before coming here to Jhoto. No, not so long before. The strawberries that Usagi-ani had given him were still fresh in his mind. Those vexing, vexing strawberries. He wondered, what was happening to those strawberries, now that he wasn't home to eat them all?

"Ahh, don't like it, Kuro-san?" Misaki popped another orange segment into his mouth and shrugged, a little unsure of what to do with all that orange peel in his hand. "I'm sure it won't hurt the environment if we leave it out on the route somewhere. They have compost here in Johto, right?"

And speaking of the route, it looked like they were almost there. Houses and buildings were beginning to get scarcer, and trees were prevalent on each side of the road. A small flock of bird Pokémon, were flying high in the sky. Actually, they looked a bit more like pink, flying balls. What were those things?

"Compost? What's that, Mr. Misaki? But maybe some other Pokemon would like it-" That was when she followed his gaze to look up at the pink flying- well, no... they didn't look like they were flying. Cocona was pretty dumbfounded because-

"Where are the wings...?"

She had never seen one of those Pokemon before, but she remembered seeing something similar to it.

"Maybe those are balloons that someone let go of!" She exclaimed, although she had to admit that she didn't see the usual strings that was supposed to be attached.

Kuro looked up at the sky too and an imaginary sweatdrop ran down the back of her head. She knew, but she just... slumped down further down Cocona's head and decided to sit in Cocona's hoodie.

"You know, compost." It's common knowledge where Misaki is from. He didn't really want to explain the reasons behind compost when it was obviously common sense. Really, this girl...

He did like the idea of other Pokémon having a taste for the orange peel, though. He knew horses would eat melon rinds, and goats would eat anything. So, that would mean there had to be some Pokémon that would eat it, right?... Though it was a little unfortunate. He wished he had the right equipment. He could always use oranges and their peels to make marmalade.

"Hmmm..." Misaki wasn't sure what to think of the flying pink things either. "If they're not balloons, I don't know what else they would be..." Most things that flew required wings, right? He nodded, pretty sure of himself. "Well, they definitely wouldn't be balloon Pokémon. Who would believe such a thing?"

On his shoulder, Sunkern did nothing to check her giggles, laughing merrily and jumping in glee. Her trainer was a silly one, for sure.

"Compost... Compost..." Cocona repeated to herself to try and think of what it was. Then she remembered a certain blacksmith saying something about it. "... Is compost something like after you use it, it disappears eventually if you put it on the ground?" Well, at least back in her world, there was a blacksmith who had attempted to make compost weapons and armor. Oh, the wonders of synthesizing.

After getting her mind off that topic, Cocona started thinking about a Balloon Pokemon. They were definitely real, since she had seen some around the network. "But Mr. Misaki! There are balloon Pokemon! I think it was small, purple, and had dot eyes! Or something like that..." Her memory started to fail her since she had never looked it up, but had only seen it as a glance.

Kuro peeked over to Sunkern. She knew that regardless of whether that Balloon Pokemon existed, she knew it wasn't the right one. She snickered and started scampering off Cocona's shoulder and onto the ground, searching for any wild Pokemon that may be in the vicinity.

"Sort of, yeah," Misaki chuckled, taking another bite of his orange. Okay, so maybe he did need to explain this. "More like, if it's a natural thing, it will return its nutrients back to nature." Throwing weapons and armor on the ground probably wouldn't make a good compost heap in Misaki's world.

"What? No way." Pffft, like he was going to believe everything he heard about this place. Pokémon were more like animals, sometimes like machines. They couldn't always be just anything. "The day I see a balloon Pokémon, I'll shave my head." It was easy to lie when he had so much confidence in his words.

Misaki watched Kuro scamper about curiously. Sunkern was content to remain on his shoulder. The wild Pokémon would come to them in time. That was more or less her approach to training.

"Like berries and the seeds, right?" If she had to think natural, then all she could think of was the stuff that usually grew on trees.

And so, Cocona whipped out her trusty Pokedex! She had seen the Balloon Pokemon before, so the information was already recorded in the machine. So there was just some several clicks here and there... and ah-ha! She pulled up the Pokemon's entry and held the Pokedex to Misaki.

"Here! It's called a Drifloon! Isn't it cute?" Although, Cocona will not call on Misaki's head-shaving statement. She would like it if he kept his hair.

"Yeah, that's the idea." She seemed to be getting it now, though he wasn't sure if the entire process had made sense. Oh well. It's not like it was important or anything.

"You're kidding!" He wasn't going to believe there was a balloon Pokémon. That was just... And there it was. Now that was just ridiculous. How was he supposed to know the people who concocted these things decided to make one like a balloon? That's just--"Well, 'cute' isn't the word I'd use..." Although it was a little cute, now that she mentioned it. Where did someone catch something like that?

He cleared his throat. A man usually kept his word, but keeping his hair was more important, so he was just gonna back off the argument. "A-anyway, we're trying to find Pokémon to train against, right? So, we should start going through some of the grass around here...."

"Yeah! It shouldn't take too long to find a wild Pokemon." Cocona started going through the tall grass and sniffled because the grass sometimes tickled her nose. Kuro stuck together with her as she started to search for some Pokemon in the grass.

A wild Pidgey appeared! There was a Rattata sneaking in the grass to take a bite out of Misaki's leg, but Kuro swiftly uses Thundershock at it, sending a stream of electricity right past Misaki's legs, frying the Rattata in one hit.

Cocona quickly turned around to see what the fuss was about and stared at the fainted rat Pokemon. She looked unsure because while it was a good thing Misaki was unharmed, the Thundershock was a bit too close to him.

Misaki wasn't quite sure if he agreed with Cocona's jumping right in for a battle. He normally just let the wild Pokemon come to him. And speaking of, he barely even noticed that Rattata until Kuro was on the move.

The Thundershock scared Misaki more than anything. Jumping away, he felt a wave of electrical charge as it emitted from the Pichu's cheek pouches. Luckily, he was spared a direct hit, but his hair stood on end after that close encounter.

"K-kuro-san! Watch out!" He shook, a little freaked, but then remembered. He was supposed to be training Mareep, wasn't he? Grabbing out his Pokeball, he released the cotton-covered Pokemon with a burst of red light. She looked ready for action! Turning, and determined, Misaki pointed towards the Pidgey trying to escape. "Mareep! Use Thundershock!"

The sheep went straight to work and rushed forward with a charge, releasing the pent-up electricity in the Pidgey's direction. It looked like it had a good chance at meeting it mark!

Direct hit! Mareep had successfully gotten Pidgey on the spot and it went thump on the ground, its small talon twitching every now and then.

"Wow, that was pretty cool, Mr. Misaki! Do you train using type advantages and stuff?" Even though Misaki was lucky enough to get a Pidgey for the Mareep, she wondered what he would have done with a Wooper came instead of the bird.

Hells yeah it was a direct hit! Misaki was pretty cocky about that one, but in all honesty he had just used the first electrical attack that had come to his mind. Thundershock was a classic move, after all.

"W-well, I try. I already knew Mareep was of the electric type, and Pidgey are flying, and flying are weak against electric so..." His rambling trailed off. Electric beats flying was pretty much the basic of the basics, but he was still happy, nonetheless.

"L-let's find some more! Right Mareep!" The sheep gave him a vigorous nod. She was ready for more action!

"There should be tons of Pokemon in the wild though! It shouldn't be so hard. I bet those Zubats would be scared of you now, right, Mr. Misaki?" She asked energetically, while Kuro climbed up to Cocona's head once more and observed their surroundings for another wild Pokemon.

Misaki shuddered at the thought of that dark night a few weeks ago. Zubats. The bane of his existence. But like she said, he didn't have anything to fear anymore. Not now that he had an electric type like Mareep. Nodding, he gave her a weak smile.

Venturing out into grass himself was hard, but he had to get over this. Scanning the area, he pushed aside some more grass... and came face to face with an Ekans!

"Whaah!" Misaki tripped over backwards and began to struggle away. "Snake! Snake! Big snake!"

"It's an Ekans!" Cocona shouted. "Don't get too close to it, Mr. Misaki!" Even though she knew that she was stating the obvious, she just felt like she just needed to say it out loud. A warning was better than none, right?

"Hurry, call out an attack! Anything!"

Misaki heard all Cocona screamed and scrambled to come up with something. "M-m-mareep! Go... go do... something!"

Mareep jumped into action! But without orders, she was going in blindly. So she did what was most natural and tried a tackle. The Ekans slithered out of the way before she could make impact and turned its lazy gaze over to the sheep. Opening its mouth and hissing its name, it focused a dark Leer on the Mareep that sent chills down her spine.

"Go, Mareep! You can do it!" She tried giving Mareep some morale so that she wouldn't freeze up. "Go, go, go!" The Pokemon was a snake and she knew what snakes did, wrap around its prey and EAT IT.

With Mareep shivering, the Ekans moved in, about to use its Wrap on her. But Misaki had shaken off his terror (most of it at least), and stood up on his wobbly legs.

"Snap out of it, Mareep! Use... Thundershock again!" He called out the only attack he was sure of, but that was enough to spur her into action.

At this short range, the charged electricity had no chance of missing! Ekans, being of much lower level than Mareep, fainted on the spot.

"You guys did it!" Cocona gave Misaki and Mareep an applause to congratulate him on his victory. "You really are a good trainer, Mr. Misaki! You'll get that badge in no time!"

"Y-yeah! I guess we did, huh, Mareep?" He smiled down at his proud electric sheep. She regarded him seriously, and took the applause with quiet dignity. Now that he thought of it, she kind of reminded him of a samurai warrior in a good period piece movie.

But then Misaki frowned. He reached down and beat at the dirt clinging to his worn jean, sighing. "It's kind of weird, though. It almost seems like Mareep is already much... much tougher than all these other ones out here. I'd almost say she's as tough as Sunkern."

He looked up at Cocona and quirked an eyebrow. "Just how much training did she get before you traded her to me?"

Cocona chuckled, having been found out. However, it was not really a secret to her, seeing that she merely wanted to help. But she had to admit, she didn't get to train Mareep as much as she wanted to.

"Not much, why?" Well, in a way, that was a truth since when compared to the other Pokemon, the training time she had given Mareep was tiny.

"Not much?" Hmm, this coming from the supposedly super-strong girl that fights bad guys and monsters back home all the time? Yeah. He didn't believe it.

"You're pulling my leg. She must be a much higher level than Bellsprout was when we traded." He frowned and looked down. Mareep was still on alert for wild Pokemon but she stood obediently at his side. Such a well-trained girl.

"That... kinda makes me feel like I cheated you."

"You shouldn't be though, because I wanted to help you! Besides, while Bellsprout isn't a powerhouse, I heard she can do all sorts of status effects and that's really handy for a drawn out battle, sooo..." Cocona looked up at Misaki and grinned. "I think we're even!"

"Hmmmm, I guess..." He frowned, still unsure. If Misaki was going to play this game with everyone, he wanted it to be fair. Cocona seemed adamant about it though, so he thought he could probably let it slide this once.

"Well, I know I can't complain on my end of the deal." He smiled down at his Mareep and scratched her behind the ears. She chirped back happily and rubbed against his leg, almost like a cat. Weird, but kind of cute.

"A lot of the Pokemon around here are just too weak to put up much of a fight against Mareep, I think." Misaki looked back up to the sky. Even more pink balls seemed to be hovering way up in the sky. Whatever Pokemon it was doing that had to be incredible.

"That's why it gets harder to train for Falkner as time passes! It took me tons of battles just to earn one level for my Pokemon, but I think it tests out your endurance and stuff!" She paused, looking a bit thoughtful. "... I think." She muttered, a bit more quiet than her usual volume.

Since she always had to tilt her head up to look at Misaki's face, she noticed the pink balls flying in the sky and slowly blinked. "... Remember what I said about Drifloons earlier, Mr. Misaki?"

"Ahh, yeah, I guess I get what you mean." But then again, he wasn't one to go out looking for fights. Normally if Misaki trains it's just because he happened to run into a feral Pokemon, not because he wanted to train voluntarily. Maybe he should change that if he ever planned to win a battle here.

"Yeah, I remember. What about it?" He also kept his eyes up to the sky. Really, they were just so round and pink. And... there might have been some green on them too, but he couldn't quite tell with all that blue, blue, blue around them. Maybe he'd imagined it...

Cocona points up towards the sky. "Drifloons are purple. Those look kinda... pink-ish. Right, Mr. Misaki? So weird. I wonder if Pokemon can be different colors."

"Yeah, they are pinker rather than purple." He considers the idea, but no, it just doesn't sit well with him. "Pokemon are usually one color only, I think. I've never seen a Pokemon that doesn't follow the same patterns of its species, anyway."

Not that he's looked all the much.

"Oh... You sure know a lot, Mr. Misaki! Is that because you played the game before?" Cocona was still very curious about how the world of Johto could be used as a video game... whatever that was.

"Ahh, it could be related to that. But, I don't know, even coming here you can see that Pokemon tend to keep the same coloring." Misaki has to think back, back, way back to before he was even in middle school for this. It seemed so long ago when those games were popular.

"I'm really very sure there was no different colored Pokemon. I think it's sorta like types of dogs and cat, as long as they're not mixed breeds, will usually keep the same types of coloring." Misaki didn't really know if what he was saying was entirely true, but it seemed that way to his knowledge.

Cocona tried to listen to all of that as if she was a student and Misaki was the teacher. It wasn't boring, but the words were a bit complicated for her to understand.

"Um..." That was all she could say before chuckling nervously.

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orz sorry, this thread gets forgotten more than any of my others for some reason

it's okay! i sometimes miss threds too ;3;

lol, I should be more careful though ^^;

no worries!

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