| Pokemon Conclave
Part 28: Two of the company get lucky © 1999-2000 Willow McCall “So they’re coming to check our tickets?” Petra said, after Sora, Ferio, and Aoife had told the other three the situation. “This is not good.” “No kidding,” Ferio muttered. “So what do we do?” Aoife asked. “Run away from the ticket checkers,” Sora said. “We’ll go up on deck and hide or something until the check is finished.” “What d’you think they’d do if they caught us?” Aoife dared to ask. “I for one don’t want to know,” Aidan said. “And are you sure they won’t check on the decks too, or see us up there?” “If we sneak out now,” Sora said, “they shouldn’t. They said for everyone to return to their bedrooms, right? So they’ll be expecting them there. They won’t check on the deck.” She had already started to sneak off toward the door that led to the deck. “Let’s go!” Reluctantly the rest of the crew followed her. They opened the squeaky glass door as soundlessly as they could and followed Sora out. Sora tiptoed across the deck and up a set of stairs leading to the top deck of the ship. “There are a lot of lifeboats and things to hide behind here,” Sora explained, as the group followed her up. “So if they do check up here we might have a chance of staying hidden.” “Land ho!” Aoife shouted, leaning over the railing. A land mass was on the horizon, drifting closer and closer. “That’s Chartreuse, right, Ruari?” “THAT’S Chartreuse,” Ruari said, pointing to another larger island behind this one. “This one is Turquoise Island, and that one over there,” she pointed to a smaller island to their left, “is Cyan Island.” “Hey,” Aidan said cautiously, “what’s that on Turquoise Island?” He was pointing to a glowing shape that was flitting around the island shore. “Omigod, Petra!” Aoife cried, “that’s like that thing we saw flying around Bill’s lighthouse!” “And even Bill said he didn’t know what it was,” Petra said. She leaned over the railing and squinted at the shape, but was still unable to make out what it was. “Weird.” As they drew closer to the island, the glowing form stopped moving, and it appeared to be watching the ship. “It’s making me paranoid,” Ruari complained. The ship was not 500 meters away from the thing when the thing blasted holes in the ship’s bottom with some sort of beam attack. The whole ship shook, and Aoife and Sora were thrown off their feet. Sora happened to land in a lifeboat that was on the deck. “What the hell?” Ferio watched the glowing thing intently. “It must be some sort of Pokemon, I guess. Maybe it’s a Mew. Mew can use Hyper Beam, and that’s certainly what that looked like.” “Attention, passengers!” a panicked voice blurted out over the announcement system. “This is an emergency situation! All passengers must report to Deck 16 and board the lifeboats. Repeat, this is an emergency. Please put on your life jackets and report to Deck 16. There, our crewmembers will give you further instruction.” “Are we sinking or something?” Aoife asked. “Probably not,” Aidan said. “I hope not, anyway. They’re probably just panicking for no reason. It’ll be all right,” he added, with a nervous laugh. “I don’t know,” Ferio said warily. “Those beams hit pretty low. If we keep moving some water’s bound to seep into the holes that it made. I hope the captain turned off the motor of the boat.” People were beginning to file into the lifeboats, and Aoife and her friends made sure they got into a boat quickly before they were all gone. “We are going to evacuate the ship,” a crewmember announced. “The ship’s bottom has been punctured by an unknown force and water is seeping into the lower levels as we speak. We believe the ship will sink, therefore we are allowing you to evacuate now.” “This is just like Titanic!” Aoife said; she was apparently excited, not scared, by the prospect of sinking. Aidan, however, was otherwise. “Are we going to make it? Are we going to be able to launch the lifeboats before we sink?” he kept asking the crewmember who was assisting their boat. “Of course,” the crewmember said patiently. “The water isn’t leaking in very fast, but still, better safe than sorry.” Their boat was lucky; they were among the first to be lowered into the water. The glow around the Pokemon on the shore intensified, and choppy waves began to dash against the side of the boat, almost upsetting their small lifeboat. “Um, sir?” Ruari said to the crewmember. “I happen to have a Lapras with me. Can my friends and I use it to get to safety so more people can go in this boat?” “I wouldn’t recommend it,” the crewmember said. “The waves are fierce out there…hey, what’re you doing?” he yelled when he saw Ruari release her Lapras into the water and climb on. “I said I wouldn’t…aw, hell, never mind.” “Come on, guys,” Ruari said, helping Petra, Aoife, and Sora onto her Pokemon. “I think you guys can fit on here too, if we all squish up.” But they didn’t have time to squish up, because a moment before Sora could get on Lapras’s saddle-like back, a wave came between Ruari’s Pokemon and the boat, and both were pulled apart. “Sora! Aidan!” Aoife yelled, watching over her shoulder as both parties were carried further away. “It’s okay!” Sora called back (although the expression on Aidan’s face registered that it was anything but okay). “We’ll make our way to Chartreuse and we’ll see you there eventually!” This didn’t seem to console Aoife, but she still turned back to the group with a worried expression as the lifeboat drifted off in the direction of Cyan Island. The sticky saltwater from the waves was spraying all over Lapras, drenching her occupants up to mid-thigh, but Ruari kept steering them towards the land, towards the nearest island, Turquoise Island. The spray from the waves was making Lapras’s saddle slippery, and when Aoife shifted her weight to wake up her falling-asleep foot, she slipped into the water. “Help!” “Hold on, Aoife!” Petra yelled, twisting around so that she could see Aoife. “I’ll get her,” Ferio volunteered, being closest to Aoife and thus making it easier to reach her. She grabbed Aoife’s wrist, but Aoife was pulled underwater with a sudden wave, thus pulling Ferio in after her. “Aoife!” Petra yelled. “Ferio!” Ruari frantically scanned the water with her eyes. “Can’t see them. But I suppose Ferio’s a good swimmer so they’ll find their way, right?” “Right,” Petra said. “So. It’s just us now, right? So what are we going to do?” “I reckon we ought to go to Turquoise Island,” Ruari said. “But still…that Pokemon, or whatever it was that sunk our ship, is still up there. I don’t think it’d react very positively to see two humans on a Lapras landing on the island near it. So I’m planning to go around to the back side of the island.” “That’s probably a good idea,” Petra said approvingly, as Lapras increased speed and Ruari guided it around the island. She stopped in an inlet on the other side of the island and dismounted Lapras, helping Petra off too. “Well, I guess we’re more or less stuck here for the time being,” Ruari said. “We could go to Chartreuse, but it’s getting dark and it’d take half a day to get over there.” “So what do we do for now?” Petra asked. “We sleep,” Ruari said, swinging her backpack off her shoulders and letting it fall with a thump to the ground. “I have a sleeping bag, how about you?” “Yep,” Petra said, unrolling her own bag. “I’ll set mine up here. ‘Night, Ruari.” “Goodnight,” Ruari said, unrolling her own and climbing in. “Can you believe my luck?” Petra thought to herself excitedly as she tried in vain to get to sleep. “I’m on this deserted island with a cute girl, all by ourselves! Aren’t I so lucky? I have to take advantage of this situation…” She yawned, and checked her watch. 11:30. “Tomorrow.” *** “Well, we’d better land here,” the crewmember said, as their lifeboat drifted in towards Cyan Island. “Best place as any, and besides, we’re already here.” “Sounds all right, I—huh?” Sora exclaimed, as something scraped the bottom of the boat. “What the…” The scrape was followed by a hissing noise. “What’s that?” Aidan asked fearfully. “Inflatable boat,” the crewmember croaked. “Something punctured our boat, and it’s leaking. It’s deflating.” “No problem,” Sora said, clambering out of the boat and wading to shore. “We’re close enough to the island to swim in, and we can just stay here overnight and then my birds can fly us out of here.” “But Sora,” Aidan called from the boat, “aren’t you worried about whatever just deflated our boat…getting you?” “Nah,” Sora said. “C’mon, Aidan, get out of that boat! It’s going to sink anyway.” “Come on, son,” the crewmember said, helping Aidan out of the boat. Aidan fell into the water, and still with a sense of dread, sloshed back to where Sora was sitting on the shore. “What was that, anyway?” Aidan asked the crewmember, who pulled out a large flashlight and shone it into the water. What looked like the mast of a ship was poking up from the sand, and when the beam slid into the deeper water, the rest of the ship could be seen. “So there’s a sunken ship practically underneath the island,” Sora said, shuddering involuntarily. “That actually is creepy. Well, we should go to sleep, hey? It’s probably pretty late.” “Do you kids have sleeping bags?” the crewmember asked. Aidan and Sora nodded, already laying theirs out on the sand. “I wouldn’t put them there, though. The tide might come in, and you’d be woken up in a most unpleasant way. Come on, I have one too and we’ll find a soft spot of grass to sleep in, all right?” “Sure,” Sora said, following the crewmember inland. *** “Guess that thing is gone now,” Ferio thought. “Whatever it was.” She swam in to shore, her arm around Aoife’s neck, and dragged her rescued companion in to shore. She lay Aoife on the sand, where Aoife promptly spit up a fountain of water, then sat up. “Hey, where…Ferio!” Aoife jumped up at the sight of her green-haired companion. “Did you…just…” “Yes, I saved your life,” Ferio said. “No thanks necessary. I’d just recommend you get to bed, because it’s…” she checked her watch, then reported back to Aoife. “11:40. You have a sleeping bag?” “Yeah,” Aoife said, taking hers off her backpack and unrolling it in a grassy patch. She crawled in without a word of goodnight to Ferio, who shrugged and did the same to her. *** “Hey, Ruari!” Petra called into her sleeping friend’s ear. “Wakey-wakey!” “Erm…what?” Ruari rolled over sleepily and opened her eyes. “Whaddaya want?” “I made breakfast,” Petra said. “I still had some bread in my backpack…it was a little wet, but I toasted it over a fire.” Ruari sat up and looked over to see a fire burning merrily in a clearing that Petra had cleared out. “And I think I have a can of kiwi juice for you,” she added, winking. “Thanks,” Ruari said, climbing out of her sleeping bag and taking the can of juice and piece of toast Petra handed her. As she popped off the top of her juice can, she said, “Hey, what do you think that thing was?” “That attacked the boat?” Petra said. “I dunno. A Pokemon, probably. A really powerful one that can use Hyper Beam well enough to sink the ship.” “Maybe it’s a Dragonite,” Ruari suggested. “I can use Hyper Beam, and I’d evolve into that…and Dragonite can fly, and that’s what this Pokemon was doing.” “Or Mew,” Petra added. “Or Mewtwo.” Ruari shook her head. “Not Mewtwo. It disappeared ages ago. During your father’s time, probably. And Mews are supposed to be peaceful creatures, aren’t they?” “Supposedly,” Petra said. “But they like playing tricks too. Maybe this one just thought it’d be fun to sink our ship. A prank, or a practical joke, if you will.” “Or,” Ruari said, “it might be a Pokemon no one’s ever heard of before.” They were both silent, letting this sink in. Ruari was the next one to speak. She stood up and stretched. “I think we should go explore this island…maybe the others ended up here too.” “Probably,” Petra said, standing up as well. “Bring your backpack, too, in case we get lost and can’t make our way back here or in case we don’t get back here in time for lunch.” “Right,” Ruari agreed, as they set off to explore the island. They walked through the tropical foliage for a while, talking about Pokemon and about Bill and other Pokemon personalities they admired. “So you went to the Pokemon League?” Petra asked, awestruck. “Really?” Ruari nodded. “Yep. I wasn’t planning on becoming Pokemon Master, it was sort of an accident that I did.” Petra’s jaw nearly hit the ground, and Ruari laughed modestly. “I resigned after a month or so, though, and came back to Chartreuse. I don’t think there’s been another since then.” “I haven’t heard of one either,” Petra said. “And Aoife’s—” “Shhhhh!” Ruari hissed, holding her finger up to her lips. “I heard something.” She listened for a while, her ears pricked up, and her face brightened eagerly. “What is it?” Petra asked in a hushed voice. “Running water!” Ruari took off running through the bushes, though it wasn’t too hard for Petra to keep up. They burst through a cover of bushes and reached a small lake with a waterfall. The whole scene was very tranquil and tropical, surrounded by orchids and flowering bushes. “Awesome,” Ruari whispered. She threw off her backpack and began rooting around. “I hope I have my bathing suit with me!” “Me too,” Petra said, getting out her own swimsuit. Ruari dashed off into the bushes to change, and although Petra tried to get a peek through the trees at her, she failed. Disappointed, she pulled on her suit and stuck a toe into the water, pulling it out almost immediately. “Jesus, that’s cold!” Ruari laughed, emerging from the bushes dressed in a dark purple bathing suit. “I bet it’s not that cold.” She tested the water gingerly with her foot. “It’s not cold at all! What did you expect, a hot spring?” “Maybe…” Petra trailed off. Ruari ran up to the top of the waterfall. “Bombs away!” she shouted, diving in gracefully. Halfway through the dive, she morphed into a Dratini and sailed in with a tiny splash. Petra laughed. “Okay, I’m coming in.” She braved the chill of the water and waded in carefully, until something wrapped around her ankle and pulled her in. She came up spluttering and gasping, and turned to see Ruari, as a human, a few feet away, grinning mischievously. “You…you…oh, damn you!” Ruari giggled. “See, it’s not cold once you get used to it,” she said, swimming off towards the falls. Petra was suddenly inspired with an idea. “Hey…this is my chance! I can use this situation to my advantage after all!” “Hey, Ruari?” “Yeah?” Ruari said, busy drenching herself under the falls. “You said you’re bisexual, right?” Petra ventured, hoping Ruari wouldn’t be offended. “Yes, but why…ohh,” Ruari grinned, seeing what Petra was insinuating. “Ohh. So you’re asking if…” She left the sentence open-ended. Petra adopted the mischievous smile Ruari had been wearing a minute earlier and swam towards Ruari, then grabbed her arm and pulled her underwater. *** “This sucks,” Aoife muttered, trudging through the bushes with Ferio. “There are mosquitoes, and it’s hot, and we haven’t found any of the others yet! Maybe I should take this off…” She slipped out of her shirt, leaving her in only a blue crop top, but quickly put her shirt back on again. “Dumb mosquitoes, they’ll eat me alive if I don’t at least cover up a little.” “Well, I’m not too thrilled about this either, Aoife,” Ferio said. “I’m just as uncomfortable and worried about Sora as you are, but I’m not complaining about it, am I?” Aoife sneered, but said nothing. They continued through the bushes, until they came to a waterfall that emptied into a small lake. “Quaint,” Ferio remarked. “Cool!” Aoife said. “Let’s go swimming, can we, Ferio, please? It’d help the mosquito problem and the heat problem! Convenient, huh?” Ferio didn’t respond, she seemed to be listening to something. “Ferio?” “Just a minute.” Ferio crept over to the bushes on the other side of the lake. The bushes were rustling, and some muffled noises were coming from inside. Then, for the first time since she had met her, Aoife saw Ferio blush. “Ferio? What’s wrong?” Aoife asked. Ferio, still blushing, replied, “Looks like some native islanders have chosen this special spot to fornicate in the bushes.” “Fornicate?” Aoife repeated. “What’s that? Hey, Ferio? What’s fornicate mean?” Ferio didn’t respond. She just pushed the bushes back and peered in, provoking whatever was in the bushes to scream bloody murder. Ferio quickly jumped back from the bushes, blushing even more now. “What was that?” Aoife asked. “A wild Pokemon?” “Pretty close,” Ferio said, chagrined, as a frantic rustling issued from the bush and Petra jumped up from it. She was wearing only her sweatshirt and a bathing suit underneath, and was blushing even more than Ferio was. Ruari emerged later, wearing a bikini. “Ferio!” Petra cried, jumping back. She recoiled even more when she saw the second figure. “AOIFE! God, I didn’t mean to…I’m so sorry…Aoife, you didn’t see…” “I made sure she didn’t,” Ferio replied, trying to maintain an even voice. “Now, can one of you or the other tell me what this is about?” Ruari tried to speak. “Y’see, I…well, we…I mean, Petra asked if I wanted to…” She kept hesitating, looking cautiously at Aoife. “Should she hear this?” “Hear what?” Aoife asked, oblivious to what she had walked in on. “Look,” Petra said, scrambling to get the rest of her clothes on, “I’ll explain this later, okay? In private,” she added, indicating Aoife. “That would be wise,” Ferio said. “Aoife probably shouldn’t hear about that kind of thing.” She peered over at the two purple-haired girls, some of the sarcastic amusement coming back into her voice. “You two, um, clothed yet?” “Yeah,” Ruari said sheepishly, picking up her backpack. “Let’s, uh, go find the others, huh?” “Sure,” Aoife said, “but I still don’t get it.” “Trust me, Aoife,” Ferio said, laying a hand on Aoife’s shoulder, “you won’t need to understand for a long, long time…” Author's Notes I liked that episode myself...sorry about the, erm, implied sexual situation, but I've been planning to do that for a long time and I thought this would be a good opportunity for Petra to, ahem, get lucky for once. Yes, I'm such a slut for making my self-insertion "fornicate" with another character. Deal with it. And no, I didn't just put Ruari in there so she could end up with Petra, I put her in the story because I thought she could add something to it. So what shall become of the lone pair of Conclavers, Sora and Aidan? Well, most likely not what happened to Petra and Ruari, but think about the name of their island. That's a big hint as to what they'll find there. back |