Last time on Pokemon: Johto Quest! Eddy emerged victorious against the rock snake that threw his whole world off-kilter and evolved. He and Emily were also given slices of pie from Andy’s mother.
A mighty downpour drenched our heroes when they came out of the cave. Emily gasped with glee. At that moment, it was as if she was transported back to one of the days where a surprise rainfall would hit Iroko Town and she would sprint out of the house so swiftly, she couldn’t even take a moment to put on her shoes or even a raincoat, to try and catch as many raindrops on her tongue as humanly possible and even roll around in shallow puddles.
With that, she stuck out her tongue. “Hey Eddy. You ever try this?”
Eddy turned to Emily. He titled his head and squinted with one eye, his mind trying to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. But, after a moment or so, his mind was like a search engine that turned up no results. Then, he stuck his tongue out and soon enough, he grinned. The water hitting his tongue was cool and clean tasting.
As Eddy turned, Emily shouted, “Ooh! You know who’d love the rain that I haven’t seen in forever? Julie!” Emily held her hand above her eyes as if she was saluting to an invisible entity. Up the sandy path in the distance was a Pokemon Center. Emily pointed to it. “Maybe she can come out and play after you rest up. Is that okay?”
Eddy nodded.
Once Eddy and the rest of Emily’s Pokemon were healed at the Pokemon Center, Emily tossed Julie’s Poke Ball.
“Come out and play! The weather is great!” Emily exclaimed.
Once Julie was out of her ball, she peered up in awe, mouth agape. She trotted around with a smile as the buds around her neck and the leaf on her head soaked up the cool rain water and grew a darker shade of green by the second. Emily laughed while Eddy grinned as they leaned against the Pokemon Center side by side. Julie’s joy was just too infectious for them to resist.
But when Julie caught a glimpse of the unknown light-purple creature next to Emily, the urge to be silent completely replaced it. Question marks danced in her head. She approached the creature step by step, making sure to never lose eye contact with it.
Once she was inches away, she gave the creature two tiny sniffs. Then, a memory of Eddy giving her the Moo Moo Milk at the Goldenrod City Gym played in her mind. Her eyes widened. The scent of the creature and Eddy’s scent were an exact match. She squealed as she trotted in place as rapidly as a grape stomper who consumed one too many cups of coffee. Emily reached to scratch her head, but leaped out of the way instead when Julie flung herself towards Eddy and hugged him as best as a quadruped like her could. After darting his eyes back and forth, Eddy returned the gesture, a smile plastered on his face.
A little while later, the trio walked side by side up the path, grass swishing against their legs soon after. Emily stared up in awe at the train track above, hoping she was granted an opportunity to see one train.
Suddenly, a small, purple and white mouse-like creature pounced from the grass, its large incisors bathed in a yellow glow and set to clamp down on anything unfortunate enough to cross its path. Eddy’s arm began to glow, readying a Brick Break. But Julie leaped in front of him, grunting and slamming her eyes shut for just a moment as the mouse’s incisors pierced her leg.
“Alright a battle!” Emily shouted.
With a powerful kick, Julie flung the mouse-like creature into the air. It landed on all fours just yards away and charged towards Julie with its head down.
“Okay Julie! Use Razor Leaf!” Emily commanded.
Julie stiffened her muscles. Then, her headleaf spun around like a helicopter blade as hundreds of green, dagger-shaped leaves emerged from it and zipped toward their target in a manner similar to homing missiles. The mouse-like creature bobbed and weaved, but it was no use. The leaves bashed into it and after a few moments, it fell to the ground, black spirals replacing its eyes.
When the dust settled, white sparks flew out of Julie. Eddy bleated happily and threw his arms into the air.
“Nice job Julie!” Emily said.
Julie smiled in an open-mouthed fashion and trotted toward Emily. Then, Julie winked and for just a moment, a large, shiny, pink window pane flashed into existence as a ray of light floated across it. Eddy and Emily looked at each other, stunned as to how Julie was able to do whatever it was they just witnessed.
Then, a lightbulb flashed to life inside Emily’s head. Within a heartbeat, she fished her phone from her pocket and called Officer Jenny, explaining the situation to her the moment she picked up.
“Hmm. One moment,” Officer Jenny said. After the moment passed, Officer Jenny’s voice was on the line once more. “It seems to me that Julie just learned Reflect according to the internet.”
“What’s that do?” Emily asked.
“Well according to the site I’m looking at now, it says that it lowers the amount of damage a physical attack, like Bite, does for a limited time.”
“Wow! That’s gotta be the best move ever!”
Officer Jenny laughed. “It sure does. I’ll text you the link. Do you know how texting works?”
Emily looked around. “What’s that?”
Officer Jenny went over the process for how to send a text message, sending the link soon after, as well as a message that said, “If you ever want to know about a move or anything like that, this site is great!”
Emily grinned and attempted the process herself.
“Wow! Not bad for your first text!” Officer Jenny exclaimed. “Also, you’re welcome.”
“Yeah! Now I can whoop everyone’s butt a lot smarter!” Emily replied.
Later on, our heroes arrived at the edge of a muddy path leading into a small city with a purple roofed pagoda facing two indigo stained bridges and a large pond in the distance, Julie now back in her Poke Ball. They didn’t get a chance to take in the city before them however, for they were forced to turn around when a light-grey, metallic bird-like creature the size of a man with dark-grey rings encircling its neck began dancing with glee in the forest to the sound of distant bells.
Emily laughed and tried her hand at imitating its dance moves. “Cute birb!”
Moments later, the dancing stopped. The bird-like creature opened its eyes and glared at Eddy the second it noticed his light-purple coloring. Its teeth became clenched, its body temperature became equal to the temperature of lava, and its breathing became more rapid and audible the longer it looked at the light-purple coloring. Then, a screech similar to metallic scraping exploded from the bird-like creature’s beak and filled the air.
Emily closed her eyes and tightened her entire body. When the screeching subsided, she loosened up. But only for a moment. For the bird-like creature took off like a rocket towards the sky, gripping Eddy’s arms with its monstrously sharp talons in the process.
“Hey! What’s the idea?” Emily screamed. Emily tossed Julie’s Poke Ball. When she emerged, Emily hopped on her back and pointed to the sky. “Follow that birb! It’s got Eddy!”
Julie began to see red as she screamed and charged into the city streets. Passerby after passerby dove to avoid Julie. Most of them succeeded. But more than a few were barrelled into and flung into the air.
Julie would’ve gone back and helped in whatever way she could. But the bird-like creature crossed the line and no one was going to act as a roadblock in her quest to rescue Eddy.
Emily yelled, “What the─”
But Julie took a sharp turn in the direction of the pagoda, almost knocking Emily off. The bird-like creature dragged Eddy across the top roof of the pagoda that was littered with deep peck and slash marks. At that moment, it was as if the bird-like creature was throwing logs onto the fire that burned inside Julie. She turned once again and zipped through a nearby forest, hopping over stray logs and bouncing off of tree trunks along the way.
Some time later, the bird-like creature prepared for a landing when it was getting close to a large mountain. At its peak, the bird-like creature landed upon a nest made entirely of thorn bushes that resembled the sharpest of razor wire. Though the screeches from the bird-like creature and the gagging sounds from Eddy were faint from where Emily and Julie were, the two still nearly caught the temptation to close their eyes and turn away in the hopes that the sounds would no longer be audible.
Nevertheless, Julie leaped on two of the footholds, but instantly slipped, for they were too thin for her to grab onto. Time and time again, she attempted the grab, the red she saw growing more intense.
“Julie stop! It’s not working! Stop!” Emily yelled. Julie complied, panting and gritting her teeth to hold back tears. Emily took a deep breath and pulled Julie’s Poke Ball from her belt. “Thanks Julie. But I got an idea.”
She then returned Julie to her Poke Ball. The moment she placed the ball on her belt, she yanked her phone from her pocket and swiftly texted Officer Jenny. But after a couple of minutes, there was no response. She dialed Officer Jenny’s number. The phone rang and rang. The tapping of Emily’s foot increased in speed after each one. Soon, the ringing stopped. But all that came from the other end was Officer Jenny’s voicemail.
“No! Why?” Emily shrieked, hanging up the phone and shoving it back into her pocket.
Emily turned to the mountain and gazed at the peak. She wasn’t sure if she was shrinking or if the mountain was growing. But one thing was for certain. Her head was swimming and she felt light enough to be blown away by the now stronger wind.
Nevertheless, she got on her knees, bowed her head, and folded her hands together. “Arceus, I wanna be strong. I wanna climb the mountain. Please.”
She hopped to her feet and quickly gathered as much air as her lungs could hold. Then, without a moment of hesitation, she gripped two footholds and began her ascent.
At first, she slowly pushed herself up and gently placed her hand on each visible foothold. Some were up above and some were to the side, forcing her to ascend in a zig-zag-like pattern. She dared not breathe. Her head yearned to peer at the ground. But she didn’t allow it to fulfill that desire, choosing to instead focus on the footholds above.
Soon, her climbing accelerated and she resumed her breathing, even as the rainstorm gained additional strength. With every foothold, the nest became closer to being within reach. But when she grabbed the next set of footholds, an avalanche of rocks and broken thorns careened down the mountain.
Her grip on the footholds was almost lost and every part of her body but her ballcap-protected face was slashed. Even though the rain was cold to the touch, it did little to cool Emily’s nearly overheating body or even wash away the blood trickling down her like water coming from an underpressurized faucet. Still, Emily continued her climb.
Emily soon reached the top and rolled into the nest. The whole world was a blur to her and her heartbeat raced like a Formula One car trying to maintain the lead. But she slowly rose to her feet.
When she stood tall, she narrowed her eyes and pointed to the bird-like creature. “Birb!”
The bird-like creature paused its choking of Eddy and turned. With another powerful screech, it spread its wings and sprinted wildly towards Emily.
“Eddy use Thunderbolt!” she screamed.
Eddy thrusted his arm towards the bird-like creature and a blue bolt of lightning raced in the direction of it. The bolt struck it right in the neck. The bird-like creature collapsed to the ground.
At first, Emily pictured herself throwing the bird-like creature over the edge. But then, a lightbulb sparked to life in her head. She imagined herself in a movie theater with the memory of the bird-like creature happily dancing earlier playing out on the screen. The screen then went black for just a moment before the first time she encountered Gnasher and the memory of her being much friendlier after coming out of her Poke Ball for the first time were shown back to back.
Then, Emily took out a Poke Ball from her bag and threw it at the bird-like creature. The ball released a stream of light, which swallowed the bird-like creature. It wobbled once, twice, three times and then, the middle of the ball glowed for just a second, emitting a click as it did so.
The ball became still. Emily hastily limped to Eddy on wobbly legs with open arms, scooping up the Poke Ball in the process. Right as she was about to fall, he caught her and placed her on his back.
“How do we get down?” Emily whispered.
Eddy slid down the mountain on his belly moments later, with Emily smiling and clinging onto his back as tightly as possible.
Emily has climbed above her fear in spite of its strength. She has also realized the true power of the Poke Ball. Its ability to bring out the good in all Pokemon. But will the goodness of the bird-like creature truly manifest upon being released from its Poke Ball? Find out next time on Pokemon: Johto Quest!
A mighty downpour drenched our heroes when they came out of the cave. Emily gasped with glee. At that moment, it was as if she was transported back to one of the days where a surprise rainfall would hit Iroko Town and she would sprint out of the house so swiftly, she couldn’t even take a moment to put on her shoes or even a raincoat, to try and catch as many raindrops on her tongue as humanly possible and even roll around in shallow puddles.
With that, she stuck out her tongue. “Hey Eddy. You ever try this?”
Eddy turned to Emily. He titled his head and squinted with one eye, his mind trying to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. But, after a moment or so, his mind was like a search engine that turned up no results. Then, he stuck his tongue out and soon enough, he grinned. The water hitting his tongue was cool and clean tasting.
As Eddy turned, Emily shouted, “Ooh! You know who’d love the rain that I haven’t seen in forever? Julie!” Emily held her hand above her eyes as if she was saluting to an invisible entity. Up the sandy path in the distance was a Pokemon Center. Emily pointed to it. “Maybe she can come out and play after you rest up. Is that okay?”
Eddy nodded.
Once Eddy and the rest of Emily’s Pokemon were healed at the Pokemon Center, Emily tossed Julie’s Poke Ball.
“Come out and play! The weather is great!” Emily exclaimed.
Once Julie was out of her ball, she peered up in awe, mouth agape. She trotted around with a smile as the buds around her neck and the leaf on her head soaked up the cool rain water and grew a darker shade of green by the second. Emily laughed while Eddy grinned as they leaned against the Pokemon Center side by side. Julie’s joy was just too infectious for them to resist.
But when Julie caught a glimpse of the unknown light-purple creature next to Emily, the urge to be silent completely replaced it. Question marks danced in her head. She approached the creature step by step, making sure to never lose eye contact with it.
Once she was inches away, she gave the creature two tiny sniffs. Then, a memory of Eddy giving her the Moo Moo Milk at the Goldenrod City Gym played in her mind. Her eyes widened. The scent of the creature and Eddy’s scent were an exact match. She squealed as she trotted in place as rapidly as a grape stomper who consumed one too many cups of coffee. Emily reached to scratch her head, but leaped out of the way instead when Julie flung herself towards Eddy and hugged him as best as a quadruped like her could. After darting his eyes back and forth, Eddy returned the gesture, a smile plastered on his face.
A little while later, the trio walked side by side up the path, grass swishing against their legs soon after. Emily stared up in awe at the train track above, hoping she was granted an opportunity to see one train.
Suddenly, a small, purple and white mouse-like creature pounced from the grass, its large incisors bathed in a yellow glow and set to clamp down on anything unfortunate enough to cross its path. Eddy’s arm began to glow, readying a Brick Break. But Julie leaped in front of him, grunting and slamming her eyes shut for just a moment as the mouse’s incisors pierced her leg.
“Alright a battle!” Emily shouted.
With a powerful kick, Julie flung the mouse-like creature into the air. It landed on all fours just yards away and charged towards Julie with its head down.
“Okay Julie! Use Razor Leaf!” Emily commanded.
Julie stiffened her muscles. Then, her headleaf spun around like a helicopter blade as hundreds of green, dagger-shaped leaves emerged from it and zipped toward their target in a manner similar to homing missiles. The mouse-like creature bobbed and weaved, but it was no use. The leaves bashed into it and after a few moments, it fell to the ground, black spirals replacing its eyes.
When the dust settled, white sparks flew out of Julie. Eddy bleated happily and threw his arms into the air.
“Nice job Julie!” Emily said.
Julie smiled in an open-mouthed fashion and trotted toward Emily. Then, Julie winked and for just a moment, a large, shiny, pink window pane flashed into existence as a ray of light floated across it. Eddy and Emily looked at each other, stunned as to how Julie was able to do whatever it was they just witnessed.
Then, a lightbulb flashed to life inside Emily’s head. Within a heartbeat, she fished her phone from her pocket and called Officer Jenny, explaining the situation to her the moment she picked up.
“Hmm. One moment,” Officer Jenny said. After the moment passed, Officer Jenny’s voice was on the line once more. “It seems to me that Julie just learned Reflect according to the internet.”
“What’s that do?” Emily asked.
“Well according to the site I’m looking at now, it says that it lowers the amount of damage a physical attack, like Bite, does for a limited time.”
“Wow! That’s gotta be the best move ever!”
Officer Jenny laughed. “It sure does. I’ll text you the link. Do you know how texting works?”
Emily looked around. “What’s that?”
Officer Jenny went over the process for how to send a text message, sending the link soon after, as well as a message that said, “If you ever want to know about a move or anything like that, this site is great!”
Emily grinned and attempted the process herself.
“Wow! Not bad for your first text!” Officer Jenny exclaimed. “Also, you’re welcome.”
“Yeah! Now I can whoop everyone’s butt a lot smarter!” Emily replied.
Later on, our heroes arrived at the edge of a muddy path leading into a small city with a purple roofed pagoda facing two indigo stained bridges and a large pond in the distance, Julie now back in her Poke Ball. They didn’t get a chance to take in the city before them however, for they were forced to turn around when a light-grey, metallic bird-like creature the size of a man with dark-grey rings encircling its neck began dancing with glee in the forest to the sound of distant bells.
Emily laughed and tried her hand at imitating its dance moves. “Cute birb!”
Moments later, the dancing stopped. The bird-like creature opened its eyes and glared at Eddy the second it noticed his light-purple coloring. Its teeth became clenched, its body temperature became equal to the temperature of lava, and its breathing became more rapid and audible the longer it looked at the light-purple coloring. Then, a screech similar to metallic scraping exploded from the bird-like creature’s beak and filled the air.
Emily closed her eyes and tightened her entire body. When the screeching subsided, she loosened up. But only for a moment. For the bird-like creature took off like a rocket towards the sky, gripping Eddy’s arms with its monstrously sharp talons in the process.
“Hey! What’s the idea?” Emily screamed. Emily tossed Julie’s Poke Ball. When she emerged, Emily hopped on her back and pointed to the sky. “Follow that birb! It’s got Eddy!”
Julie began to see red as she screamed and charged into the city streets. Passerby after passerby dove to avoid Julie. Most of them succeeded. But more than a few were barrelled into and flung into the air.
Julie would’ve gone back and helped in whatever way she could. But the bird-like creature crossed the line and no one was going to act as a roadblock in her quest to rescue Eddy.
Emily yelled, “What the─”
But Julie took a sharp turn in the direction of the pagoda, almost knocking Emily off. The bird-like creature dragged Eddy across the top roof of the pagoda that was littered with deep peck and slash marks. At that moment, it was as if the bird-like creature was throwing logs onto the fire that burned inside Julie. She turned once again and zipped through a nearby forest, hopping over stray logs and bouncing off of tree trunks along the way.
Some time later, the bird-like creature prepared for a landing when it was getting close to a large mountain. At its peak, the bird-like creature landed upon a nest made entirely of thorn bushes that resembled the sharpest of razor wire. Though the screeches from the bird-like creature and the gagging sounds from Eddy were faint from where Emily and Julie were, the two still nearly caught the temptation to close their eyes and turn away in the hopes that the sounds would no longer be audible.
Nevertheless, Julie leaped on two of the footholds, but instantly slipped, for they were too thin for her to grab onto. Time and time again, she attempted the grab, the red she saw growing more intense.
“Julie stop! It’s not working! Stop!” Emily yelled. Julie complied, panting and gritting her teeth to hold back tears. Emily took a deep breath and pulled Julie’s Poke Ball from her belt. “Thanks Julie. But I got an idea.”
She then returned Julie to her Poke Ball. The moment she placed the ball on her belt, she yanked her phone from her pocket and swiftly texted Officer Jenny. But after a couple of minutes, there was no response. She dialed Officer Jenny’s number. The phone rang and rang. The tapping of Emily’s foot increased in speed after each one. Soon, the ringing stopped. But all that came from the other end was Officer Jenny’s voicemail.
“No! Why?” Emily shrieked, hanging up the phone and shoving it back into her pocket.
Emily turned to the mountain and gazed at the peak. She wasn’t sure if she was shrinking or if the mountain was growing. But one thing was for certain. Her head was swimming and she felt light enough to be blown away by the now stronger wind.
Nevertheless, she got on her knees, bowed her head, and folded her hands together. “Arceus, I wanna be strong. I wanna climb the mountain. Please.”
She hopped to her feet and quickly gathered as much air as her lungs could hold. Then, without a moment of hesitation, she gripped two footholds and began her ascent.
At first, she slowly pushed herself up and gently placed her hand on each visible foothold. Some were up above and some were to the side, forcing her to ascend in a zig-zag-like pattern. She dared not breathe. Her head yearned to peer at the ground. But she didn’t allow it to fulfill that desire, choosing to instead focus on the footholds above.
Soon, her climbing accelerated and she resumed her breathing, even as the rainstorm gained additional strength. With every foothold, the nest became closer to being within reach. But when she grabbed the next set of footholds, an avalanche of rocks and broken thorns careened down the mountain.
Her grip on the footholds was almost lost and every part of her body but her ballcap-protected face was slashed. Even though the rain was cold to the touch, it did little to cool Emily’s nearly overheating body or even wash away the blood trickling down her like water coming from an underpressurized faucet. Still, Emily continued her climb.
Emily soon reached the top and rolled into the nest. The whole world was a blur to her and her heartbeat raced like a Formula One car trying to maintain the lead. But she slowly rose to her feet.
When she stood tall, she narrowed her eyes and pointed to the bird-like creature. “Birb!”
The bird-like creature paused its choking of Eddy and turned. With another powerful screech, it spread its wings and sprinted wildly towards Emily.
“Eddy use Thunderbolt!” she screamed.
Eddy thrusted his arm towards the bird-like creature and a blue bolt of lightning raced in the direction of it. The bolt struck it right in the neck. The bird-like creature collapsed to the ground.
At first, Emily pictured herself throwing the bird-like creature over the edge. But then, a lightbulb sparked to life in her head. She imagined herself in a movie theater with the memory of the bird-like creature happily dancing earlier playing out on the screen. The screen then went black for just a moment before the first time she encountered Gnasher and the memory of her being much friendlier after coming out of her Poke Ball for the first time were shown back to back.
Then, Emily took out a Poke Ball from her bag and threw it at the bird-like creature. The ball released a stream of light, which swallowed the bird-like creature. It wobbled once, twice, three times and then, the middle of the ball glowed for just a second, emitting a click as it did so.
The ball became still. Emily hastily limped to Eddy on wobbly legs with open arms, scooping up the Poke Ball in the process. Right as she was about to fall, he caught her and placed her on his back.
“How do we get down?” Emily whispered.
Eddy slid down the mountain on his belly moments later, with Emily smiling and clinging onto his back as tightly as possible.
Emily has climbed above her fear in spite of its strength. She has also realized the true power of the Poke Ball. Its ability to bring out the good in all Pokemon. But will the goodness of the bird-like creature truly manifest upon being released from its Poke Ball? Find out next time on Pokemon: Johto Quest!