[X] My Assistant

[Master Houndoom]

This RP is already fully staffed and will not accept applications. Furthermore, any bunnying done to characters or pokemon is done with permission by the owner of the character/pokemon.

"And then, Jaima's mother comes home, and no one's there. Well, she's in a towering fury, she says, but she goes out to the back yard, and there they are, with a blanket draped over the clothesline, roasting marshmallows over Ember's behind!"

Tuesday and Meiko burst into fits of girlish laughter, and Jaima smiled, slightly flushed. Darryn also smiled, almost a smirk. "I've heard that before."

Meiko grinned at him, then back at Jaima, winking and pointing at him. Jaima raised a brow, then gave a smirk of his own.

"Well, this one is new to you. It's Meiko's 8th birthday, and it's supposed to be a surprise party..."

Meiko gasped. "Noooooo," she wailed, reaching for Jaima, who dodged nimbly.

The story never actually got told, but things were learned by the traveling companions. For example, Tuesday and Darryn learned that Jaima was actually ticklish, and that Meiko knew where, and vice versa. Meiko and Jaima learned that one should not get into a tickle war while there was a certain mischievous riolu around.

No one understood exactly how it happened, or where Zorro had gotten the rope, but before it could be stopped, Jaima and Meiko had ended up with their hands tied behind the other's back, facing each other, wide eyed and blinking in surprise.

With a laugh, Tuesday scolded Zorro, Darryn moved to untie the pair, and Meiko took the opportunity to drop a kiss on Jaima's nose.

* * * * *

The camp was set up with now expected efficiency, and supper had been eaten. The four trainers lounged around the fire, sleepy eyed, several pokemon (several being twenty, but no one was counting) lounging in different groups, and smiling. The previous leg of their journey, which had ended with the group taking refuge with Tuesday's uncle, had provided a time of rejuvenation, and the group had fallen into a kind of contentment that was the aim of many people, the kind of contentment one would love to look back in their life and say they could feel for the majority of it. The kind of contentment that, usually, preceded a storm or quake.

There was talking, and laughter, and soon the wishes of good nights. The morning would bring more travel, and perhaps a practice battle, but for now, sleep was called for.

[Master Houndoom]

Meiko sat up with a gasp. Blinking, she looked around. Something was off. Shouldn't she be in immense pain right now? She briefly checked her extremities, surprised to find that she had no severe injuries. The worst she could say was that her pinky hurt, and she knew for a fact that she'd been struck in the whirlwind.

She stood up, slowly, and stretched. The cold made her shiver, and she looked down. She was still dressed in the chemise and thin shorts she slept in. Despite the fact that no one was around, she could feel like a blush was creeping up her face and down her neck.

Blowing out through her nose, she took a step, careful not to set down too hard, lest there was a rock or a twig on the ground. Slowly, she began to move faster, gingerly. Her feet were not sensitive, per se, but bare feet in a forest was very seldom a pleasant experience.

As she stepped forward, she willed herself not to panic. If she was all right, if some miracle had saved her, maybe the same miracle had saved the rest of them. It was, then, only a matter of finding the others and praying she was right about that. And she could do both of those at the same time.

She took another step forward when a loud clack sounded over her head, and a pair of thuds right after. She crouched, looking around, her senses sharp. There, at her feet, were a pair of pokeballs, one pink with a pair of opposing white arcs around the button, and one blue with stylized waves fading to white from bottom to top.

Tuesday almost exclusively used pokeballs, with the one great exception being the great ball she'd caught Ashleigh with. Meiko was similar, though she had some Kurt Specials as well. Jaima decorated his pokeballs, but she had no idea what they were underneath.

She reached out and hit the button on the pink ball, calling forth Lady, then the blue, calling Victor. Two of Darryn's pokemon were her. The squirtle looked at her, disappointment and a mild look that looked like disgust flickering over his widely set features. Lady looked around, her eyes widening more in anxious terror, and she crouched as if to spring off.

Meiko put her hand on the vulpix' back, and instantly regretted it. The vixen pokemon spun, snarling and snapping at her hands, and it was only Meiko's reflexes, as well as the happy accident of her over balancing and toppling backwards, that saved her.

"Wait!" She got up on her knees and held her hands up. "Wait, wait..." She leaned back, looking at Lady's feet rather than her eyes. "I want to find him too, OK? I do. And you're part psychic, so you can call to him? Right? Darryn said... said you could make Toshiro think he was a four year old girl... so that means you're pretty powerful, right?"

Lady's eyes narrowed, but she said, nor thought, nothing. Meiko swallowed thickly. "It would be better if we were together." Lady arched her back, then sat, looking at Meiko with a look of haughty disdain. Meiko took it as a good sign, and looked at the squirtle. Blinking at his look of nauseated resignation, she held a hand out to him. "What about you? It's Victor, right? Can I count on you?"

He looked at her, shuddered, and pushed the button on his pokeball, recalling himself. Meiko sighed, and picked up both his ball and Lady's, who growled.

"I.. I can't leave it here, Lady..." she said, then offered it. "I'll carry it to Darryn for you, OK?" Lady snorted through her nose, turned, raised her tails, and trotted off, with Meiko following behind her, clenching her jaw as a stone or stick jarred against her foot with the pace Lady was setting.

* * * * *

The pokeball had crashed to the ground and bounced, once, twice, then hit a large rock jutting on the ground. Though there was no damage to the ball, the call out button was depressed, and out popped a turtwig, looking around and swallowing.

<<If this isn't a recipe for being eaten, I don't know what is.>>

She swallowed and stumbled forward, looking around, shaking. Every step brought a fresh vision of a huge steelix with a wide opened maw, or a golbat with a wide opened maw, or a happiny with a wide opened ma-

...

That's silly, even for me...

And then, suddenly, she was confronted by something that looked like nothing more than a wide opened maw. With a scream, she jumped back, panting, as the eyes just above the mouth looked down at her.

<<Wh-who are you?!>>

The huge mouth closed, but that didn't make it any clearer of the identity of the pokemon. When it spoke, it's voice was deep and seemed to echo, but otherwise was quite intelligent.

<<I'm called Swalot. At least, that's what I call myself. I rather like it. I do, after all, swallow a lot.>> He smiled at her, and the effect, of a wide, wide mouth stretching out almost wider than the face it was attached to, was frightening.

<<Y-y-your'e... you're not going to... to eat me, are... are you?>>

The look the swalot gave her was not a hungry one, but a pensive one. <<I hadn't given it much thought. I suppose I could. I do eat a lot of things, and many of them are larger than you. But I've just eaten you see...>>

<<OK!>> Cosette began to back away. <<So I'll... I'll just go... go this way, and you... you go that way... and no one has to be eaten...>> She attempted a smile, but knew it was unsuccessful.

<<But, you see, you've got me thinking... and when I think, I do get hungry... and you're a convenient snack after all.>>

Cosette's breathing began to gt rapid, and she turned, running. Unfortunately, the large... MOUTH... knew how to move, and was keeping pace with her. She screamed as he called out, in a booming, deep voice, <<GET IN MAH BELLAY!>>

She dashed past a large bush, which rustled. Shrieking, she tried to shift away from the bush, and tripped, rolling past it into the tree on her back. A shape came out, snorting, with long, waving vines, and Cosette had just opened her mouth to scream out, <<Don't eat me!>> when recognition stole the words from her mouth.

<<No one is eating anyone!>>

* * * * *

Jaima was not happy. His feet hurt, his head hurt, and he was separated from his friends, and worried about them, and his pokemon, Mercury wasn't able or willing or whatever in answering him, and he just wanted to lie down and DIE.

He lashed out with his foot at a pile of leaves, felt it connect with something solid, and hissed in pain. The object rolled out, a plain pokeball, and Jaime pounced on it. It was well used and slightly worn, and it was warm to the touch, like it had been sitting in the sun all day, not in the cool night air.

He pressed the button and out came a red bipedal lizard. The charmeleon took one look at him and hissed, a long, mean sound that cause Jaima to back up a step.

"Huh," Jaima said, furrowing his brow. "I'm beginning to think you don't like me."

With a snort, Dante turned and began walking off at a brisk pace, keeping watch for his trainer.

Jaima followed, once and a while rebuffed by an ember attack. "Come on, Danted! I want her back, too! But I'm going to need help!" When Dante didn't answer, nor slow down, Jaima's hands came up at his sides, palms up.

"What do you think, another pokemon is going fall out of the sky?!"

Just then, a white ball with a red band around the middle fell from the branch above, where it had landed, into Jaima's hand. He blinked at it, and the appearance of it even made Dante stop and pay attention. Jaima then looked up, holding his arms out as if to catch something larger than a pokeball, and called, wildly, "Do you think that our friends will fall out of the sky?!"

Of course, nothing happened.

* * * * *

Grondir walked with Cosette, who was still glancing at the now unconscious swalot with trepidation. She looked up at Grondir, then smiled, a slow, wide smile, and Grondir looked back at her and matched the smile.

Picking up her pokeball, he set it on top of his bulb. Cosette looked up, and could see, next to her plain pokeball, another that was, by all appearances, covered in vines.

They looked good together.

* * * * *

"You think they made it?"

"Nah! They were hurled into the air, then scattered. No way they're alive"

A gruff voice, the one that had made the little girl wince, snorted. "Guys. Guys. What have I told you?"

The other two looked at each other, then the one who'd been talking about their deaths raised a finger. "Never trust a twerp to die when they need to."

"Right." The boss released a large, glowering typhlosion. "Burn it. Burn it all."

Without a sound, without any indication that he'd heard or cared, the typhlosion snarled and opened his mouth, releasing gouts of flames that started the forest on fire.