Who: Scott M and Hope M What: exploring Pokemon, Scott catches a rockruff Where: Pokemon Portal When: June 6 Warnings: low
The last time Hope was interested in Pokemon, she’d been a little kid and honestly, being of the supernatural variety, she had a lot of other things that kept her attention far more than the little pocket monsters. However, the tribrid did have fond memories of the moments she did indulge in something a ‘normal’ kid would get to do. It was why she’d decided to venture into the newest portal. Maybe she just wanted to feel like that innocent kid again even if it was just for a little while.
Between her family drama and the whole ‘sex’ thing with Landon, Hope could use a break and venturing into the newest portal might just provide it. Stepping through, the brunette glanced around her, trying to become a bit more familiar with her surroundings. It seemed like a normal forest-type area; in fact, parts of it felt similar to Madison Valley.
After a moment, she spotted a familiar face. “Scott, hey!” Hope covered the short distance to where he stood and offered him a smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Scott wasn’t sure what to expect and, in truth, he didn’t know much about Pokemon at all. He was sure Stiles could fill him in at some point. He was still looking around when he smelled Hope and then heard her right after. He turned and smiled back. “Hey. Yeah, I uh, well, I thought it’d be interesting to check out? I’m not sure what I thought it’d be, but… I guess I was expecting it to look cartoonie?” Did that mean he’d be a cartoon too or it’d be some weird reverse Toon Town thing? “Do you know this portal?”
“I was thinking the same thing. Oddly. Not that I have a whole lot of experience in the world of Pokemon,” Hope replied with a small laugh. Oh, she knew practically everything she needed to know about magic, about being a wolf, but Pokemon? Color her absolutely clueless on any of it. Of course, now that Scott was here too, maybe they could figure it out together. It might be fun and, honestly, Hope could definitely use a little fun at this point.
“I know some things about Pokemon from my kid days, but my knowledge is definitely limited. Did you want to check it out with me? Unless you’re already here with someone and then, that’s totally cool.”
“No, I’m not here with anyone.” Not this time, anyway. He was doing a lot of scouting. He hoped this was a nice portal. Maybe one he could bring Malia. The last one had been nice if you ignored the fact that lots of people died.
He picked a random direction and gestured with his head that way before starting to walk it. “Did you get some of these too?” He pulled out two small Pokeballs from his pocket the size of golfballs. He pressed the button on one of them and it grew it size which was still weird to him. “They said it’s for catching Pokemon.” He clicked the button again so that both of them were small again.
Ah yes, the Titanic portal. Given her life was already full of a lot of misery and sadness, she wasn’t too eager to experience a portal full of it. Though there had been parts of it that did interest her, she’d ultimately decided against going through the portal. Besides, Uncle Kol arrived last month and keeping her family from ripping each other apart was enough of a chore as it was.
Hope’s attention was drawn to the balls and she watched as he touched the button, expanding one of them. She totally did get some and had kind of geeked out of it for a millisecond before remembering she was eighteen and possibly a little too old to take as much enjoyment out of the thought of catching Pokemon as she just did.
“Oh yeah.” Hope pulled out one of her own and pressed the button, making it increase in size briefly before shrinking it down once more. “I suppose we could try and see if we could catch one.” Hope wasn’t sure how much faith she had in her ability to do that. It would probably be easier for her to cast a really difficult spell than actually catch a pokemon in this ball.
“I’d be down for that, even though I have no idea what I’m doing.” He laughed. He might be an Alpha, but he wasn’t above being honest about his abilities or making fun of himself. He tried to remember anything he could from seeing signs or commercials about Pokemon, but the only thing he really knew was ‘I choose you, Pikachu’ and he was pretty sure that didn’t apply to anything.
As they walked, suddenly from a distance he started to hear a whining sound like it was coming from a dog. Did they have dogs here? He looked at Hope. “Do you hear that?”
“Uh, that totally makes two of us so don’t feel bad about it.” Hope offered him a reassuring smile. Much like Scott, she was a little clueless when it came to catching Pokemon aside from her brief experiences with the show as a child. Being that her focus was mostly on magic growing up, those experiences were few and far between anyway.
Hope picked up on the whining sound too. It sounded like a dog? But in the land of Pokemon, it could seriously be anything, couldn’t it? She looked over at Scott and nodded. “Yeah, I did. It sounded like a dog, but I feel like it could probably be anything given where we are.”
“You want to go check it out?”
“I think we should.” He nodded. Maybe it was weird to be concerned about a Pokemon, but there was part of him that tugged him to animals that needed his help, especially canine ones. Maybe it was his ‘bleeding heart’ as Gerard used to say. It didn’t bother Scott that he felt the need to help animals.
First he followed the sound, then he was pretty sure he picked up the scent of whatever Pokemon it was. When they came to a small clearing, there was a dog-like Pokemon caught in some vines. It looked like it was hurt.
“Hope, give me a hand?” He wouldn’t be upset if she thought it too dangerous, but he headed over to the animal immediately without thinking.
Obviously, Hope was always on her guard regardless of what something sounded like. Her heart clenched at the sound, but even as she walked besides Scott, she kept all her senses open in case it happened to be a trap. She knew all too well that something looked innocent, sounded innocent, could easily turn out to be something evil and she didn’t want anything to get the jump on them. Pokemon could be dangerous too, especially wild Pokemon and given they were in a forest area? There was bound to be a ton of them. It didn’t take them long to spot the small dog-like Pokemon trapped in some bushes. By this point, Hope was aware of Scott’s love of animals. It wasn’t surprising he started towards the animal, prompting Hope to give him a hand. The brunette followed, but again, kept her magic at the ready in case the dog was not so innocent. “Be careful, Scott.” Hope bent down to help him, but kept looking over her shoulder as they worked. Maybe she was a bit paranoid, but she was her father’s daughter after all. Scott was definitely not being as vigilant as Hope. This was a flaw of his, but he’d argue it was also sometimes a strength. He managed to free some of the vines thanks to his strength, but when he moved his hand too close to thePokemon, it bit down on his hand with a tiny little growl. It didn’t hurt a lot, but it still got an instinct ‘hey!’ that had a not-so-human growl undertone. In surprise, the rockruff released Scott’s hand and whimpered and tried to tug out of the vines in a panic, scared. This, of course, made Scott feel bad for his reaction.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay. Hey.” He couldn’t seem to get the Pokemon’s attention easily so he did what came naturally. Scott flashed his red Alpha eyes which seemed to at least get the animal’s attention, though whether or not it actually did anything was hard to figure out. “Look. I’m okay.” He held out his hand and the small puncture wounds were gone thanks to his healing which seemed to put the animal at ease.
When the small pokemon bit Scott, Hope almost reacted with a spell. However, before she could finish it, Scott reacted, flashing his red eyes at the small dog-like creature. Hope watched, curiously, to see if it would actually work or not. She knew it was a sign of what Scott was, but would it be enough to calm the pokemon down? “It looks like it calmed down after you flashed your laser eyes.” Hope tried to offer a bit of humor to the situation. The animal actually seemed at ease and Hope held out her hand to it slowly. She wondered if the animal could tell she was a wolf or not. Hope wasn’t about to flash her lycanthropy in her own gaze to see if it did. Scott had succeeded in calming it down and Hope didn’t want to wreck that. He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. He knew the eye changing thing seemed to be specific to Beacon Hills werewolves. He kind of wish he was smart enough to know why, but he didn't linger on the thought. "I try not to use it a lot, but it usually calms down the dogs at the shelter if they're too worked up."
The rockruff sniffed at Hope's hand, then looked between the two like maybe it sensed similarities. It let out a little 'ruff' like it's name and then licked Hope's hand before seemingly realizing it was still half stuck. It pulled and whined again.
Scott laughed. "Okay, okay. Hold still." He went for the rest of the vines. “Well, it totally worked,” Hope replied, giving him a reassuring smile. He might not have been able to explain it, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the little guy had calmed down enough. He’d sniffed Hope’s hand too and licked it. The little “ruff” it let out sounded an awful lot like a name too. “I think that ‘ruff’ is part of its name,” Hope offered, watching as Scott started to untangle the little dog-like pokemon again. Hope started on the other side, being careful not to accidentally make things worse. She wasn’t like Scott and didn’t work around animals a lot. “Right… that’s a thing. I think I remember that. They say their names, right?” Somewhere Stiles was having a headache. Scott was sure Stiles would be disappointed on his lack of popular culture yet again.
“There you go. All free.” Scott gave the animal a smile and the Rockruff’s tail started to wag happily. “Ruff!” Scott stood up. It didn’t even occur to him to try to catch him. In fact, Scott kind of forgot that was even a thing he was supposed to do. Whoops. Which meant he started to head back to the path he and Hope were on. He only got a few steps when Rockruff let out another ‘Ruff’’ and was hot on Scott’s heels. Scott paused and turned back around.
“Yeah, they do.” It was a weird form of communication, but there wasn’t too much about Pokemon that was supposed to make sense, was there? Honestly, Hope was surprised she remembered that much. Thankfully, Scott freed the little guy and Hope stepped back, giving the creature a little room. She was about to say something about catching him, but then Scott was already heading away and Hope figured maybe he didn’t want to scare the Pokemon more. She moved to follow, but they didn’t get far before the little guy was right behind them. Hope glanced over at the alpha. “I think he wants to be your pokemon, Scott.”
He blinked. “What?” He looked from Hope to the Pokemon, then paused. “Oh. Uh… okay?” Sure, why not? He liked the dog-like Pokemon. Of course the question now was ‘how do you catch a Pokemon’?
Scott pulled out one of his Pokeballs. “I wish these came with some sort of instruction manual…” How hard could it be though, right?
He took a step back. “Okay.” He had this. Right? Right.
Scott threw the ball, but not directly at the Pokemon because that seemed mean. This meant that, unfortunately, the ball just bounced and veered off to the side. Rockruff tilted its head and Scott was pretty sure it was judging him. – “I think you’re supposed to-“ Before Hope could finish speaking, Scott enlarged a pokeball and threw it near the dog-like pokemon. Obviously, this didn’t work and it took everything Hope had not to burst out laughing. Scott totally did need that manual he was talking about. If nothing else, this entire venture was proving to be amusing and that was something Hope needed after the stress of the past few months. Also, it was totally possible the little guy was judging Scott on his lack of catching skills. Hope offered him a small smile in encouragement. “I know you don’t want to, but maybe throw it at him? Maybe it will open before it hits him?” Hope couldn’t remember exactly. “Also, I think if you miss again there is a good chance he will walk away.” The last part was a joke. The little guy seemed to really like Scott so she didn’t see that happening. -
He actually thought she was serious for a second and he looked a little pained, the realized she was joking a relaxed. That also told him that maybe he wanted this Pokemon too. Huh.
"Okay." He nodded, exhaling, like he was psyching himself up. "I am really sorry little dude." Scott threw the second one at the Rockruff. He winced like the ball was going to nail the pokemon in the face, but it seemed to hit some barrier and bounce up then… sucked in the pokemon? The ball fell to the ground and wiggled a few times before it make a click sound and went still.
"Does… that mean I caught a pokemon?" He looked at Hope.
– At his pained expression, Hope almost opened her mouth to explain it was a joke, but then he seemed to realize it and relax. She watched him attempt to psyche himself up, inhaling before apologizing to the Pokemon. Well, if it worked the way Hope thought it did, he wouldn’t have to worry about apologizing to the little guy. At least, she hoped it worked that way. “Scott I think it’s going to be okay-” Hope broke off as the ball stopped, opened, and sucked the Pokemon inside. It fell to the ground and Hope actually found herself holding her breath as it shook three times before finally stopping. There was a click sound and she exhaled. She was pretty sure Scott did too. Feeling Scott’s eyes on her, Hope turned towards him and nodded. “Yeah, he’s all yours Scott. Congrats.” This was a lot more complicated than he thought it would be. Who invented the ball things? Did the Pokemon like being in there? Scott reminded himself that this was an animation show and he was probably overthinking everything. Walking over to the Pokeball, he picked it up. He couldn’t help looking at it like he was amazed there was an animal inside of it because he was. “Wow. Okay.” He smiled and looked back at Hope. “That was definitely a lot easier than I thought. A lot weirder too, but thankfully easier.” His smile widened. “Did you want to keep walking around to see if there’s anymore?” Maybe one for her, for example.
Scott was definitely overthinking things, but Hope was here to help him not take it so seriously. She had no idea how the Pokemon fit in the balls or if they were comfortable. She imagined it couldn’t be too bad or they would just hate their owners all the time. However, it was an animated show and almost anything was possible in that kind of setting. “It probably helped that he wanted to be your Pokemon,” Hope offered with a smile. “I’m sure if he didn’t, he would have fought a lot harder against that ball.” Which just sounded weird to say out loud actually. “And sure, I’d be up for more exploring. Now we have a Pokemon in case we run into any more wild ones that are not as friendly.”
It took Scott a second, but he got there. "Oh! Right. Right. Because we can use this one to fight the other ones." See? He was learning. "Hopefully we'll just run into nice ones though." That'd be nice, right? And a pleasant change of pace too.
"Okay, let's head this way." He pointed a random direction, but why not.