Stomping Ground [prp]

[kraine]

It took quite some time for the little ground-type to come around. Oh, she warmed up slowly, alright. She may be young and gullible, but after she lost her first trainer, this cubone didn't throw her trust around. Sometimes she'd refuse to battle. Sometimes she'd just dash off into the woods and send her poor trainer hauling ass after her. But now here she was, curled in his lap while the taxi thrummed beneath them. Adder's dark hands rested on her back, and his head lolled onto the carpeted headrest.

"Here's your stop!" . . . The driver's call fell on deaf ears. Seeing his passenger in the mirror, he leaned around and tapped the side of the boy's knee. "Ey, boy. Sorrel City." Adder woke with a start, rousing his companion.

"Oh, yeah, thanks!" mumbled the trainer. He pulled out his wallet and handed over the fare.

And there they were on the sidewalk of the big city. Adder and his cubone, one returning home, one discovering Sorrel for the first time. The sky around them was fading to twilight as neon flickered up in every shop window. The horizon glowed deep purple against the streetlights, and groups of people young and old streamed past. Adder smiled, adjusted the pokemon on his shoulders, and took a deep breath. What a fantastic place! A car drove past, honking, and threw a bag of trash in his face.

An hour later, the boy and his companion sat in Big Bobby's Cheesesteaks, which Adder had flat-out refused to pass up before visiting his parents. Sure, he had a trash-bag stain on the shoulder of his sweatshirt. But he could live with that for a few more hours. "Cubone, we have to go. Do you even like meat? Bobby is the king of sandwiches." The pokemon shrugged, having nothing else to do but follow her trainer and find out what the hell a cheesesteak was. And now they sat at opposite sides of a booth (Bobby was pokemon-friendly), overstuffed and happy. Turns out cubones very much enjoy meat. And cheese. And almost everything else.

After digesting for a while and playing a silly game with his pokemon (flicking a balled-up straw wrapper at each others' faces), Adder gave the cubone a "ready to go?" look. Both slid out of the booth. Unfortunately, the boy wasn't fast enough to stop himself from stepping right into a stranger's path. It was a tangle of limbs. Anything either of them were carrying would clatter to the ground, and Adder would let out a loud "Oh shit, sorry!" before he stooped to pick everything up.

~~~~~~~~~

prp with rip!

[Rip]

A “tangle of limbs” was very correct, for the stranger Adder benevolently assaulted was a leggy creature with long, flailing arms. A clatter and a splat spoke the end of a recently purchased, but no doubt still loved, pair of cheesestakes. A mournful cry rose in the background as both creature and plates went down.

The creature was a girl, tall, pale and with a wild mane of brown hair. Blue eyes peered out from beyond the tangles, wide with surprise and confusion. Oh, her expression said as she sat there, blinking. Was that a thing that just happened?

The mourner, a reptilian beast with… pants, patched pants, dashed past her to grieve the loss of lunch. The girl, or Shiloh as her mama named her, watched the scraggy with dull amusement.

“Priorities,” she said, turning toward her assailant. Her face turned much warmer as she pulled herself up and dusted the restaurant floor grim off her jacket. With a sidelong glance down at the ruined sandwiches (and the Pokemon groveling sadly in front of them), she looked at Adder and gave a half grin. “Do you think the 5 second rule still stands?”

The scraggy, Sodapop to those acquainted, glared at the boy and muttered something his cubone might recognize as Life –ruiner.

[kraine]

What.. I am such an idiot. Adder picked himself up off the floor, using the booth for support. He turned to the poor stranger. The boy would have turned scarlet if he'd had a different complexion. Oh.. fuck. I just tackled a girl. Adder's gaze followed Shiloh's, and he stared at the floor where the two sandwiches gathered dust. A few feet away was a smear of dark mystery substance, and the whole floor seemed shiny with grease.

"Do you think the 5 second rule still stands?" she asked with a cute smile. Adder laughed awkwardly. "Haha, uh... how about I just buy you some new ones?" He raised a finger at the guy up by the counter. "Two more cheesesteaks? And we uh... kinda made a mess here." His face screwed up apologetically as he turned back to Shiloh. "Really sorry about that. Here, want to sit down?" The rest of the tables had filled as it got closer to dinnertime.

Adder slid back into the booth and gestured to the other side. His cubone, who had been silently observing the ordeal and was now staring at the large Scraggy, scrambled over the table to sit next to her trainer. If Shiloh decided to join him, the boy would continue, "I'm Adder. Kinda new to the pokemon-training thing. Impressive friend you have there." And nice pants, he thought with a bouncing nod.

[Rip]

(sorry this is super rushed, I was literally being dragged out the door)

Shiloh returned his apologies with a headshake and a hand wave.

“Don’t worry about it. I’d probably knock me over too,” she said, ignoring the squinted look of judgment Soda threw at her. “It happens.”

Not being one to turn down a free meal or company, she slid into the booth and happily accepted his peace offering. Grimless cheesesteaks were the best kind, after all. Soda was less forgiving, still pining over the loss of his immediate meal, and shot Life-Ruiner a whine while dramatically planking on the floor. Why would you do this to me?? 

Shiloh chose to ignore this ridiculous display of self-suffering and folded her arms across the table. She peered down at his cubone, beaming. It was true that Soda was a bit larger, though not by much. Age probably had something to do with it.

“Hey Adder, I'm Shiloh. Is this your starter? She’s cute.”

A squeal rose up from the floor as a disgruntled family tripped over the restaurant’s new living roadblock. Soda scrambled onto the seat besides his trainer and nursed a scar that wrapped around from his center spine to his stomach.

“Done with your public display of disobedience?” Shiloh said. Soda gave a noncommittal grumble and took to sulking in his seat.

“He’s okay." she continued. "He’s just mad that he hasn’t eaten in a whole two hours. Life is hard."

[kraine]

"Nice to meet you, Shiloh." A dimpled smile spread across the boy's face.

Adder followed Soda's tantrum with surprised amusement. He wondered if his little cubone would ever grow up to be a whiner. He was doubtful. His gaze shifted to her, where she sat, palms on the table, observing the new duo. Adder looked up and was about to introduce his starter when she hopped on the table and skittered across to Shiloh. She grabbed a scaly pawful of her hair and started examining bits of it.

Her trainer let out a yelp. "Cubone! Hey! Not okay!"

Adder leapt forward and pried open his pokemon's claws, freeing Shiloh's hair. He paused and awkwardly patted her hair down, realized that was awkward, and awkwardly resumed sitting. He clutched his pokemon in his lap, somewhat mortified. He became terribly aware of the large oily garbage stain on his sweatshirt and leaned onto the table to hide it.

"Um... Yeah, sorry, this is my starter. She's actually my only pokemon. And my first one. She... is a little different."

To the boy's supreme relief, a waiter arrived at the table to deliver two fresh subs. He waited for his acquaintances to break into their dinner before questioning Shiloh, "So how long have you been a trainer?"

Adder's phone buzzed in his pocket, and he wrestled it from his cubone's hands (she had snatched it out and started banging it on his knees). Holding the phone under the table, he studied the text his mother sent him:

"where r u? we thought u would be home by now"

He shut the phone and rolled his eyes inconspicuously. Social inability aside, this was more fun than being doted on by his mother and interrogated by his father.

[Rip]

A number of curious things happened, on trigger of a very spontaneous and, well, special cubone.

The little creature dove across the table and snared a clump of the girl’s mane between her claws. Prickly pain in her scalp made Shiloh reel back and jerk her head, but otherwise she watched the display with wide fascination. In a time span short as three heartbeats, she had forgotten the scraggy sitting beside her, and that was all chaos needed to spur action. Soda, moments ago shrunken into moody lethargy, lunged across his trainer and lashed out a fist that might have hit dear, narcotic Cubone or even Adder if he was quick enough. It was the unfortunate way with fighting types; punch first, question later.

Shiloh barked, “Down!” while snagging the growling creature in her arms. She felt him struggle once and then grow stiff, tail lashing against her stomach. Soda glared over the table at a certain beloved, boney reptile and then went quiet.

“Easy. I’m fine,” she cooed to him while Adder patted the frizzle over her left ear. She blinked up at the boy and bore witness to a hilarious spread of realized humiliation spreading over his face. When he withdrew back to his seat, she gave him a warm smile to offset her missing chunk of hair. Not like she didn’t have enough of it anyway. No hard feelings.

He’s sort of adorable, she thought, and then her brain added without the least bit of shame, Adoradder.

“Don’t worry about it. If I was a pokemon I would probably try to touch your hair too.” Wait. That was weird, Shiloh. “I mean. Uh.”

Just then the waiter arrived with their food, and Shiloh took the opportunity to stop her mouth from saying unfortunate things. Soda, who was usually more enthusiastic about eating than most things, chewed with less gusto, still eyeing Cubone.

“Oh, hm.” Shioh started after taking a few bites. She folded her arms on the table and tapped her elbow in thought, eyes rolling to the ceiling. “Four months? Something like that. And I have absolutely nooo idea what I’m doing. What about you? Did you have any fights yet? Any shenanigans outside knocking down tall people?”

[kraine]

“Don’t worry about it. If I was a pokemon I would probably try to touch your hair too. I mean. Uh."

Adder blinked at this comment as Shiloh and Soda began to eat, thinking it a little strange. Cubone was crawling around in the booth out of boredom, trying to get his attention. Yeah, maybe it's just one of those awkward-moment days, he thought. His mind was about to wander elsewhere when Shiloh's reply cut him short.

"Hah, yeah. I probably know less than you do. We haven't had any battles. Honestly we've just started getting used to each other." Adder barely had to glance at Cubone to know that she was still scuffling around in her seat like a toddler, this time trying to touch her tail to her eyeball for some unknown reason. He opened his mouth to say more, but realized he didn't have anything.

His mind wandered back to Shiloh's hair comment. That meant nothing, and was pretty weird seeing as nobody was talking about him at the time. Still, he looked across the table and couldn't help fancying the comment meant something else. His gaze drifted to Shiloh's collarbone and then her shoulder before he refocused and slapped the table to get the thought out of his mind. Cubone gave a little start and stopped squirming on the cushion.

"YEAH. Well, it was really nice to meet you, Shiloh. Sorry for," he pointed a thumb to the spot on the floor where he had created the pile-up. "That." He rose from the booth to stand in front of the table and dropped a bill to cover the meal. He bit his lip, wishing he was less awkward. He really wanted to try battling Shiloh at some point. Or even see where she was headed from Sorrel. Or maybe- no, he had to leave.

"Well. ..Bye." He leaned over and tucked Cubone under his arm, gave Shiloh a quick smile, and headed for the door.

[Rip]

"Um... well, okay," she said, watching him scoot out of the seat and high-tail it towards the door. "See you later!"

That was probably a lie. There wouldn't be a see you later. Another person going through a revolving door; in and out, goodbye. She sighed, scooting down further in the booth until her knees bumped the under table.

Soda eyed the duo until they were at the door and then turned to regard his trainer. He passed her a knowing look. Really? it said. Not even a hinting at a challenge? He crossed his arms on the table and drummed his fingers, eyes closing. Pretty lame.

Shiloh huffed, pushed him, and stood up. Leaning over the back of the booth, she called out to the rapidly escaping Adder.

"Hey! Before you leave, want to have a first battle?"