"What? What did I do wrong?" asked Ranma manfully, glancing sideways at the Pokemon lounging on his shoulders. Manfully, because he was a man's man; he wasn't pouting. He didn't like finding out he'd been doing something wrong. He thought he had been doing alright for himself, figuring out what to do with those Pokeball thingies without someone to learn from. He got these two Pokemon, didn't he?
"[Well,]" replied Nabiki, "[Where do I begin? How about, you're wandering off the established travel routes, chasing after Pokemon who aren't interested in battling. You've only got one Pokemon in your team, one that's barely trained, if at all. You're completely lost, not even remembering to use your Trainer equipment to find out where you are.]"
The young man shrunk in to himself, as each point seemed to strike a blow. How was he supposed to know all that? That ditz just plucked him from the Tendo's place and plopped him in some field in this alien world. Didn't even bother to explain to him what he was now supposed to do.
"[-hometown did you come from that they'd let you go so unprepared?]" continued the Rattata. "[If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought you were an oddball Ditto.]" Nabiki then jokingly asked, "[You aren't, are you?]"
"A Ditto? Huh?" replied Ranma, slightly thrown off by the question. He then recovered and petulantly said, "Nooo, I'm a martial artist."
"[Oh, one of those Fighting types. That explains it,]" remarked the Rattata with a smirk.
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" growled the Trainer at the Pokemon by his ear. The Ponyta walking in front of them whickered softly in amusement.
"[Oh, nothing. Anyways, why don't you take out your Pokedex to check how far away we are from Pallet Town?]"
"[Wait!]" interrupted the Ponyta. It stopped walking and turned to look back at the Trainer and the other Pokemon. "[You mean to tell me that he could have found the way to that town without having to ask you for directions?]"
"[Yeah,]" replied the Rattata in a bland tone, "[but it's too late now. A deal's a deal.]" The Ponyta resumed trudging forwards in the direction of Pallet Town, grumbling about ignorant humans and freeloading Pokemon.
"Anyways, eh hehe heh," said Ranma, as he tried to change the subject, "what was that about the Pokedex?" He wasn't going to admit out loud that he didn't know what Nabiki was talking about.
"[Your Pokedex. That electric thingamajig that Trainers use to find out information about the Pokemon in their team. It's got a map supposedly built into it.]"
"You mean this computer thingy can display maps?" asked Ranma as he pulled out the palm-sized computer from his belt pack. He had moved it there earlier because he was fairly certain that electronic equipment shouldn't get knocked around by the pots and pans that were in the backpack. The young man flipped the protective lid open and looked over the backlit display. "So where is it?"
"[I don't know,]" the Rattata replied as it peered down from his shoulder. The Pokedex was displaying the data on the Pokemon in front of them, Ukyou. "[Why don't you press one of the buttons?]"
"Alright, here goes."
Ranma tried one, then another. As he did so, he found out about the Ponyta's native habitat, heard a recording of their neighs (he thought it was something obscene, but it had gotten cut off), saw a listing of what Ponytas could do, and then finally, something that resembled a map.
"Got it!" shouted Ranma. Then he looked at the display. It showed a large landmass, the eastern half of a continent. It didn't look like any place that he knew about back on his world. "Now what? I think this is set too big."
"[Well, you could always try another button,]" said Nabiki sarcastically. The Trainer glared at his Pokemon. She smiled coquettishly back. The young man rolled his eyes and resumed fiddling with the Pokedex.
"Huh. So these buttons over here move that square thing around. What do these ones do? Ah! I can zoom in! Yatta! And I'm guessing we're the glowing dot. Move it there... so slow... Got ya! Zoom some more. And some more. Huh."
"[What? What does it say?]" asked the Rattata. As for the Ponyta, she just continued onwards. Ukyou wasn't particularly interested in what they were talking about. She just wanted to find a nice, warm, cozy place to sleep.
"Well, according to this thing," answered Ranma, "we should be reaching Pallet Town in around..." He paused for a bit, noticing that they had finally cleared the trees. The forest had thinned out earlier, but he hadn't been paying attention. "Around now actually."
In front of them, a neighborhood of houses were laid out in a patchwork pattern of small buildings and immaculate lawns. In betweeen the treeline and the slice of suburbia, fields of corn and other crops were flourishing. And in the distance, a large multi-story building dominated the skyline.
"So this is Pallet Town."
"[Yep, home sweet home.]"
See other episodes by The Masked Lurker
(Posted Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:34)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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