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Eviction Notice
Topic Started: Jul 4 2010, 07:31 PM (467 Views)
Vulpix Windchimes
Rayquaza
Word Count: 2333

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"Mommy, he followed me home. Can I keep him?"

Francine had never uttered those immortal words as a child. In fact, she was sure no real child ever had, at least not in that exact sequence. Nowadays, you'd find that sort of thing on a funny illustration with a seven-year-old girl in a pink dress holding the chain to a creature out of a person's nightmares. If child ever had said that, they certainly didn't now, if only to stop someone from bursting out laughing as they remembered the last time the line was used in comedic form.

Nevertheless, she had found herself in the kind of situation the line was meant to invoke, though he hadn't exactly followed her home. He had been carried home, since the poor beast was too hungry and exhausted to even move, and had simply stared up at Francine with wide yellow eyes that held more trust than she had ever seen in her lifetime. She also hadn't gotten the chance to say something even remotely similar to 'can I keep him?' because her mother had delivered a shriek not unlike the agonized screams of female victims in horror movies and tried to kill her potential new pet, resulting in a great chase throughout the house and much shouting on both ends.

Ah, the memories of a mother trying to kill a helpless animal while her daughter declared it her only friend in the world. Francine only looked on them fondly because she hadn't succeeded. Only old age would end what her mother started as her and Eek the ekans (named after a children's book she had frequently, and loudly, stated her hatred of due to people being mean to the ekans it featured) spent the remainder of his life together, though he wasn't an ekans by the end of it.

Now, she found herself in a somewhat similar situation, though the line uttered would probably be very different, and it would come from instead the pokemon it was about.

"Hi, I followed you home. Please keep me?"

Francine, twenty-three-year-old former small time trainer, former freelance delivery girl for less than legal clients, former don't-mess-with-that-chick-or-you'll-die, glanced away from her no longer steaming hot pizza and small budget zombie movie to look at the small, yellow, brick-patterned ball making itself at home on her couch cushion. The sandshrew uncurled and stretched, yawning widely, and blinked a pair of big black eyes at her.

Francine met the gaze, zombies chasing down helpless human victims on the screen forgotten, and returned it with a cold stare. Most people didn't look Scary Frankie in the eye long before they looked away and found reasons to get out of her way. She was proudly unattractive, with steel grey eyes glaring from either side of a hooked nose, face framed by acid green hair that was naturally mousy brown and thin and stringy, unable to grow much beyond her chin, and a body that looked like it had been unnaturally stretched, long neck and thin arms that were not long enough to seem ape-like but too long to look right. She had the gawky, awkward frame of adolescent boy, all six foot two of her, but if she wanted to take those bony hands, turn them into fists, and beat the tar out of someone, there was little said someone could do to stop her.

The ground type kept eye contact for a few long seconds, completely unperturbed by the twitching lip that bared a sharp canine tooth. Snarling was always plan B if the icy scowl didn't work, and she really didn't have a plan C. "I don't like you," she informed the sandshrew calmly, though her frustration was creeping into her voice against her will.

The sandshrew made a sound that made it sound like she was giggling at Francine, and wiggled her tail like she was trying to wag it like a dog.

"It's not my fault you were stupid enough to wander into the city," she went on, irritation no longer creeping in and instead bursting in like a shameless party crasher. "I'm not responsible for you, even I did kick you out of the way of that truck."

The sandshrew got to her feet and waddled over, trying to crawl into her lap and grab some mushrooms from her pizza. Francine tried to scoot away down the couch to no avail.

"If you don't find somewhere else to live by tomorrow, I'm hauling your ass out to the quicksand outside of town and dumping you in it," she growled, doing her best angry granbull impression.

The sandshrew settled into her lap, nibbling at a pizza mushroom and watching the television, only to squeal in fright and curl up when a woman on the television screamed before being gruesomely torn apart by the undead. Francine scooped up the rodent, deposited her on the cushion she'd started out on, and made a point of ignoring her for the rest of the evening.




Francine didn't 'get' cute.

Maybe it was because she hated children. Well, hate was a strong word, really, but she didn't understand the appeal of them. Most of them were more trouble than they were worth, and even the ones who seemed to have more than cotton between their ears never seemed to realize when they were grating on someone's nerves. A lot of people were like that, actually, but children were the most uniform about it. So, it would seem that, since a creature's cuteness was dependant on its ability to resemble children, she simply wasn't going to like them any more than actual children.

Shrew was squeaking and reaching for the gumdrops Francine had intentionally put of out of reach. She paused in deciding the fate of an enemy at her mercy in her video game to reach up, pluck a red one from the container, and hand it to the little sandshrew, who gleefully nibbled away at the candy as Francine had her character casually put a bullet through the head of the mercenary begging for mercy. "You're going to eat me out of house and home, you little rat."

Shrew just waddled over to climb into her lap and watch her play. Despite scare after scare, she seemed determined to share Francine's enjoyment of these TV-related activities. Mercifully, the mission was over, and all Francine had to do was convince her less brutal team mates that killing someone who had surrendered was the right decision. With headphones plugged in and the sandshrew being unable to read the subtitles, all she would get out of the exchange that the characters were angry, then either calmed down or, in the case of one of them, walked away.

Francine really didn't get judging by appearances in general, really. A beautiful woman could do things that caused desire or imitation, while an ugly one doing the same invited disgust or mockery. Cute pokemon could do things and be rewarded, while non-cute ones were beaten or outright killed for the same. To her, there was no distinction, and attempts to use one's appearance to get away with things simply offended and enraged her that they thought her so gullible and stupid. Francine had never kept a traditionally cute pokemon in her life.

After a few minutes of being jabbed in the stomach by an armoured tail, Francine finally grabbed Shrew and stood up. She plopped the ground type down on the table next to the gumdrop container. Shrew immediately raced over and shoved pawfuls of the candy into her mouth until her cheek bulges rivalled the size of the rest of her head. Francine's lip curled in irritation.

"I think I've established that I don't like you." She sounded as calmly cold as she could manage.

Shrew looked up, blinking her big eyes at her in a way that she was sure was meant to be cute. With her current train of thought going the way it had, that just had Francine all the more annoyed, the sandshrew's saving grace being that it was pretty clear that she was cute by nature and not by effort.

"I'm not your trainer. I have no obligation to keep you." Ironically, while Shrew had frequently ignored her speeches at first, as the days went by, she grew more and more attentive, nodding and looking downright enraptured. Francine didn't know if she was being complimented or mocked. "And you wore out your welcome about two weeks ago."

Shrew pulled a gumdrop out of her cheek pouches and held the saliva-covered candy in her paws as she nibbled at it with her front teeth. Much less cute, not that it was really any kind of improvement.

"If you don't get out of here and find someone else to mooch off of, I'm hauling your armoured butt out of here and feeding you to the desert onix."

Shrew nodded and chattered something that Francine had a feeling meant something like 'I love you too.'




There was a two hundred pound man, somewhere in Kevin Baconville, who was walking home looking like roadkill, and minus a bit of his money.

Francine had Shrew to thank, mostly. Now, it was the human in the equation who did all of the beating, but it was oh-so-easier to pummel the smirk off of some smug bastard's face when he couldn't run, access the pokeball holding death incarnate, or swing fists that could shatter bones at her due to being trapped in a Sand Tomb.

"I didn't even know you could do that," she commented on the way through the door.

Shrew struggled her way up onto the couch and dove into Francine's half-finished nacho chip bag, tail wiggling back and forth.

Francine gave a loud, ungraceful snort of laughter as she put her grocery bag on the counter and pulled out a carton of milk. "What else can you do that I don't know about? On second thought, don't answer that." She realized right after she'd asked the question that the only way it could be answered was through demonstration, and she'd rather keep her apartment intact.

Shrew backed out of the bag, licking cheese dust from around her mouth, and peered at the unpacking. She hopped off the couch and wandered over when she saw a small bag with a different design on it than the grocery store's. Francine knelt down and went about tearing the tape holding the bag closed off.

"I've got something for you." She pulled off a lemon-yellow scarf made out of a soft material that she looped around Shrew's neck. She chattered softly and stroked the fabric. "Maybe I'll be able to get rid of you if you come with a free scarf."

Shrew raced over and hugged Francine's leg before scurrying off in search of more discarded food. She just shook her head in exasperation.

"Common as dirt and just as hard to get rid of. One more week of this and I'll haul her off into the desert and bury her."




It was almost time to pay rent. Boy, was the landlord going to be surprised when he stormed up here looking for the money and there would be nothing but the furniture the apartment came with and something gaining sentience in the back of the fridge.

Francine pulled a photograph out of the closet and sighed when she saw it. Staring back was a teenage version of herself, back when she had a face that could smile and things to smile about. An arbok sat next to her, a muk loomed behind her, and a spinarak was perched on her shoulder. Status problems had always been her specialty, piling on crippling effect after crippling effect until the opponent couldn't move, let alone fight back. It hadn't won her many fans, in the minor tournaments she'd played here and there, but it had earned her money. So had a few of her less well-known and socially acceptable strategies for doing so.

She tucked away the photo and found what she was looking for. She blew the dust off of the old items, and shook her Escape Rope a few times, wondering if there were any charges left. Her Pokedex had probably reset from her time without pokemon, if it was even still working. Her Poketech still had a few stored numbers, though. She stuffed them in her bag, too, along with what remained of her cash.

Shrew peeked her head in the door and chattered curiously. Francine didn't even look at her. "I think I've established that I don't like you." That was pretty much an invitation to come in, and she waddled her way up to Francine as she stood up. "You're a wild pokemon, and you belong either back in the desert or in someone else's hair."

She grabbed one of her dusty old pokeballs, marvelling at the fact that the mechanism hadn't broken. "Which means you need to get strong enough to actually do that, and if no one else is going to do it, I have to. You owe me." She dropped the pokeball unceremoniously on top the sandshrew's head, who let out a squeak as she was sucked in. Unsurprisingly, she didn't fight the capture.

Francine smirked and picked up the pokeball. She hooked it onto her belt, nodding in satisfaction. She wondered if her old password for the Storage System still worked.

"Mommy, she followed me home. Can I keep her?"
:ultraball2 :ultraball2 You Both...:pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2
Beware of the Chikorita...Are Just...I Am A Fairy
APL=49.5
...My...
APL=17.8
Fire In Your Eyes (Little Hillmoss)...Playthings.Urban Jungle (Kevin Baconville)
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Angel
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I Am The Coolest Person And You Should All Know It
Let me start with... THAT SANDSHREW IS SSSSOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!! I want one now. The Shrew's personality really came out in the text. Kinda absent minded and what not, yet attentive to its surroundings. Makes me want to rub its belly or something.

Grammar was good for the most part. Some small errors here and there. A sentence fragment or two at most. Good solid plot with no holes or unnecessary characters. Over all, very well written and enjoyable.

Rewards:

Vulpy: You get a Lv. 5 :fl :sandshrew , 5000z, all the normal starter stuff and 3.0 :ffexp . Enjoy!
Me: .3 :gexp2 as per the rules.

Edit: It appears that I made a small mistake when grading this. My misinformation lead me to subtract 5.0 :ffexp to your rewards thinking that it was necessary in order to obtain your Pokemon. So please add the extra :ffexp to your obtained rewards. My apologies for any inconvenience this may have brought you.
Edited by Angel, Jul 16 2010, 06:55 PM.
Posted Image
Sprite by Kaiz
APL: 67.6
MPL: 50.0
Current Landmark: Radloff City
Current Destination: Wherever Raikou is
Current Quest: Raikou Hunting!
Party
Posted Image :ml :lvl 71 :hp 213 :happiness x3Posted Image :ml :lvl 69 :hp 138 :happiness x10Posted Image :ml :lvl 67 :hp 201 :happiness x3
Posted Image :ml :lvl 66 :hp 198 :happiness x5Posted Image :ml :lvl 65 :hp 195 :happiness x2Posted Image Egg :lvl ?? :hp ?? :happiness x??
LP
Feel free to pm me for a mod!
"Hey...opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, but you don't always have to show yours off."
~Mav
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Vulpix Windchimes
Rayquaza
My job is done, then. Of course, that cuteness has the complete opposite effect on Frankie, but that's the point. Glad you enjoyed it.

*gleefully snatches up rewards*

*drops the 3.0 :ffexp on Shrew, making her level 7; she learns Sand Attack*

*buys Yellow Scarf (1500z) and five Fresh Water (200z x 5 = 1000z) from the Megamall; 5000z - 1500z - 1000z = 2500z*

*runs off to the beach*
:ultraball2 :ultraball2 You Both...:pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2 :pokeball2
Beware of the Chikorita...Are Just...I Am A Fairy
APL=49.5
...My...
APL=17.8
Fire In Your Eyes (Little Hillmoss)...Playthings.Urban Jungle (Kevin Baconville)
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