Kartf's Grand Adventure - Chapter 4

Kartf's Grand Adventure - Chapter 4
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Okay. Seriously. Kartf had had enough of this shit. As if being interrupted after Samgli's death was bad enough...

Now, he wasn't even able to lay Patman to rest yet, as as soon as he'd won that gym battle, a bunch of Team Plasma members had taken it upon themselves to steal a Dragonite skull from the museum, going on about how they would use it to revive a legendary dragon Pokemon.

'Legendary?' Kartf thought to himself. 'Hardly...' Dragonite were quite rare, true. But they were not so rare as to be "legendary".

Finally, Kartf slowed down from the run he'd been on. He'd been racing through Pinwheel Forest, chasing down Team Plasma members to retrieve the Dragonite skull.

Why?

Because Lenora and some guy in really tight pants told him to.

And Kartf could never say no.

And then Tight Pants told him to search the deep, dark forest while HE got to "stand watch on the road"...

"Stand watch, my ass..." Kartf grumbled.

Then he finally spotted his quarry, a Team Plasma grunt struggling to carry the large skull.

'Idiot...' Kartf thought. "Hey, you! Give that skull back now!"

The Plasma grunt jumped at the unexpected voice, and looked around. He was cornered. He whirled around. "No way! We went to a lot of trouble to steal this thing!"

Kartf rubbed his temples. "Look, I am REALLY not in the mood right now. I just lost my best Pokemon. I was interrupted, before I could bury her, by you thugs, thinking you can revive a legendary dragon type WITH A DRAGONITE SKULL!!"

Before the grunt could argue further, Kartf sent out Vyvyan, his newly caught and newly evolved Whirlipede. "I am not asking. Give the skull back. NOW."

"Not so fast, child..." a deep voice said... right behind him. Kartf turned and came face to face with an old man in a strange robe and a funny hat.

The man said some crap about being a sage and serving some king or something, honestly, Kartf could care less at this point, but then Lenora and Tight Pants arrived, again making him wonder why on earth they had sent him to do this job.

Finally the goons left, as well as Tight Pants, and Lenora, although she thanked him for his help and gave him a Moon Stone. Well, that would come in handy for Lulu, eventually.

However, his main priority was to bury Patman.

He did so, and afterwards, he sat before her grave, filled with guilt.

"Patman.... I'm so sorry..." he whispered, emotion creeping into his voice. "I failed you. Just as I failed Scratchy and Samgli. I bet you really hated me, huh?"

(((She did not hate you.)))

Kartf's head snapped around. "Lulu?"

The Munna floated up to him. (((She did not particularly like you. The emotions she felt about you were mixed and confused. But she did not hate you.)))

"How... how do you know this?" Kartf asked.

Lulu merely looked at him, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at Kartf's stupidity.

It took him a few seconds, but he got it. "Ohhh, psychic. Right..."

(((She felt annoyance at you, but also there was... protectiveness. You were her trainer.)))

Kartf finally gave a small smile. "Heh.... thanks, Lu."

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A week later found Kartf and his team in the giant Castelia City, preparing for his next gym battle. He'd caught another new teammate, a female Scraggy named Ruby.

Much training was had, but just as Kartf went to the gym to challenge its leader, Mr. Tight Pants, apparently the leader in question, exited the gym. He said another leader, Iris, had just informed him Team Plasma was in Castelia, and they had stolen another Pokemon.

Turned out, the one who's Pokemon had been stolen this time was Bianca. Iris, a young girl with giant hair who was apparently the co-leader of Opelucid City's gym, stood beside Bianca, comforting the hysterical blonde. Kartf thought it was pretty pathetic to just let someone take your Pokemon like that, and he almost said so to Bianca, but when he saw her tearstained face... He just couldn't. He empathized, instead. Lord knew he'd be royally pissed, and probably just as upset, were his own Pokemon to get stolen from him.

As he told Bianca everything would be okay, the grunt that stole her Pokemon, apparently a real idiot, came back, hoping to steal another. He took off running, and they chased him to a building that was, ironically, right across from the gym.

Some more goons tryed to stop them from entering, but Vyvyan made short work of them.

They finally got in, and encountered to old, green haired speech man again.

Speech Man proceeded to do what he was best at.

Talk.

And talk.

And talk.

And finally he finished. Kartf yawned. More liberation crap, hardly worth listening too. Then for some reason they gave Bianca's Pokemon back, the same Munna from the Dreamyard. Apparently, she had managed to capture it.

Team Plasma escaped using a smoke bomb, and after Iris and Bianca left, Tight Pants invited Kartf to the gym to challenge him for a badge. Kartf accepted, despite his fear that another Pokemon would die in this gym.

After navigating through a ridiculous maze blocked by oozing walls of honey, the sweet tasting, sticky, and highly annoyed Kartf found his way to the gym leader, Burgh.

Of the Tight Pants.

Kartf sent out Maurice first to battle Burgh's Whirlipede. Maurice struck first with Air Cutter, then shrugged off a Poison Tail attack to take Whirlipede down.

Burgh next sent out a Dwebble, and Kartf switched to Vyvyan. The Whirlipede began to up her defense with Iron Defense, athough she did take a hard hit from Smack Down and had to be healed. The two bug types exchanged blows for a while, and Burgh and Kartf both healed their respective Pokemon multiple times. Just when it looked as though Vyvyan would lose, however, she managed to pull off an impressive win.

Vyvyan stayed tough and somehow managed to take down Burgh's final Pokemon, a Leavanny, in three moves, and she stayed standing with only 3HP remaining.

Kartf couldn't believe it for a moment. He'd just won a gym badge. Without any deaths. His
Pokemon had all survived. Well, for Vyvyan, it had been a close call, but still...

He looked down at the Insect Badge in his hand.

And he felt pride.