Let's Get Moving

Rori was incredibly excited to start her Pokemon journey. She was basically sprinting out of the town, and she'd been so anxious to get going that she hadn't even sent out her Pokemon yet.

Maybe this Pokemon will help me move faster." Rori said to herself. She stopped her sprint and sent it out.

It was a Torkoal. Great, possibly the slowest pokemon was going to be her companion. The last thing she wanted was to be dragged down by this gift from her parents.

"Hey. I'm Rori and you're uhm..." she decided on a pretty cliche name. She couldn't be bothered to name a slow Pokemon something thoughtful. "Coal. Yeah. You're name's Coal."

"Torkoal!"

"Right." Rori said with a little sigh in her voice. "Anyway, let's get going." They had the whole mountainside to get down from, and a long journey ahead of them. Rori just hoped that Coal could keep up.

"Yeeehaaaa! Gotta love this, Presto!" Percy came sliding down the mountainside, his feet just barely above the ground, pushed by a gust of wind. "Watch out below!" Skidding to a stop just in front of the girl, he busted out laughing at her wide-eyed expression. "I'm sorry, I should introduce myself. My name's Percival, but no one calls me that. Just call me Percy. I slipped on this rock, see, and since I managed to stay balanced, I figured I'd just go with it. Worked out pretty well, yeah?" His blue eyes danced; he was clearly having fun. Hopefully the dust hid the fact that his feet were actually hovering less than inch off of the ground on his way down, because that could be hard to explain. Presto buzzed around, upset that he was being left out. "Oh, I'm sorry buddy! This is Presto, he's the man." Presto seemed pleased with this introduction even doing a little loop through the air.

Midsigh, Rori was startled when some kid came hurtling down the mountain. He skidded to a stop in front of her and started laughing. Rori laughed too, it was a pretty funny thing to see, and Rori probably startled people like that all the time.

The kid, Percy, quickly introduced himself and explained how he'd ended up sliding down the mountain in front of Rori.

"Worked out pretty well, yeah?" Rori gave a little laugh. He was a funny dude. A Yanma zipped around his head, adding to the silly energy.

"Oh, I'm sorry buddy! This is Presto, he's the man." The Yanma did a loop, and Rori thought the Pokemon was really speedy and cool looking. The connection between these two made Rori feel bad for not liking her pokemon, and she decided to try to one-up Percy in her introduction. She put her arm around Coal's head and said, "Yeah, well this is Coal. He's the meanest, toughest, most badass Pokemon you've ever seen! Look at him! He'll burn you alive, that's what he'll do." Coal let a little smoke out of his shell holes, and Rori went into a coughing fit when she took a breath. She wanted to say something witty about how this smoke would be the death of thousands of other Pokemon, but she was basically having a cough attack. The hacking finally stopped after nearly a full minute. Rori regained her composure and gave a stupid grin, looking a little embarrassed. Oh, and I'm Rori."

Percy raised an eyebrow at the coughing fit... It seemed that she and Coal were pretty new together. "Oh, and I'm Rori." "Well, it's nice to meet you, Rori. It looks like you're starting your journey today; I'm headed to Petalburg to start the Badge circuit, do you want to join me?" Percy figured having someone along would make things interesting, and he knew how effective a little competition could be.

Rori was very surprised. This was one of the quickest introductions and friendships she'd ever been a part of. She liked it, a lot. "Well yeah, of course I'll join you!" Rori said in an obvious tone of voice. Percy seemed ready to go, and Rori could definitely respect that. Coal let out some more smoke sending Rori into another coughing fit.

"Quit- hack- it!" she shouted through her coughs.

"Tork."

Percy shook his head; Coal's smoke was going to kill her if she didn't pay attention. He'd try to time gusts of wind to blow most of it away from her from now on, because the coughing, while funny the first time, could be dangerous after a while. "Let's head out. I'd love to stop at the hot springs, but we'll be back eventually, so it can wait. Are you ready?"

((Why don't you do the actual open-ended post for the journey's start, I don't want to be teh leader))

"Bah! The hot springs aren't all that great. They're always full of old people and eggs for some reason." she said with years of experience. "And of course I'm ready, what do I look like a Slowpoke?"

Or a Torkoal she thought to herself. She wondered if she could ride on Coal, but looking at all the smoke coming out of his back, she figured it would be crazy hot. "Sorry Coal, I'm not sure if you can keep up." she said as she put him back in his pokeball. Alright, let's go!" she said with a grin. She immediately jumped off a ledge and started running down a grassy slope, thinking she could beat Percy in this race of sorts.

When suddenly a pair of Geodude (Male - lvl 7 + Female - lvl 7) rose from the slope aiming themselves at the duo and using Tackle dashing at them with remarkable speed for a pair of Geodude's the duo having trained their speeds for weeks, attempting to take down Rori and Percy.

Percy groaned... of all the pokemon, they had to be Rock-types. Luckily, he had a plan for this. "Rori, have Coal get ready for the strongest Fire attack he's got. Presto, Dive-bomb them!" Hurtling forward, his beloved Yanma tried to grasp onto one of the Geodude and pull it into the air with him. Discreetly, he flexed his arm muscles, causing a brisk wind to whip up - Yanma would need the extra lift if he was going to manage this twice.

The Geodude however had other ideas immediately using Mud Sport, both of them slamming their hands into the ground this causing a wall of Mud to rise up blocking off Presto. Then the duo used Tackle again quickly going through the wall of mud and attempting to knock Presto out of the air.

Rori was crazy surprised by these geodude showing up and slid to a stop in her tracks when they did. Percy seemed to be in control of situation for a second, but the geodude seemed very strategic. It was almost like they'd planned on harming trainers.

"These jerks!" Rori shouted. Percy had told her to prepare a fire attack, but she knew it would glance off of these rock types. Plus she knew Torkoal had a skill from earlier that she could utilize. "Hit 'em with that poisonous Smog, Coal," Rori yelled. Torkoal blasted the air with a nasty smog, which layed itself in front of the wall of mud.

Damn it! Presto was getting attacked from all sides! "Presto, Signal beam!" Hopefully that would push the Geodude off-course, or at least bust apart that mud wall. Then, Percy twisted his wrist, whipping up the wind and swirling the smog around the wall, away from Presto. "About that Fire attack... Good call." He murmured to Rori, if there were other Trainers around, he didn't want them to hear their plan. It worked out this time, but that mud wall probably would have weakened a fire attack, so either those Geodude were very well trained, and had been released, or they were just used to battling regularly, and their trainer was hiding around here somewhere. Which was just as odd.

The attack on Presto however was a ruse, they'd heard about Coal and were wanting to pick a fight with it, speedily dodging the Signal Beam and attempting to Tackle, Coal, these two were, as Percy thought thoroughly strategic, planning each detail to the letter.

Ugh, these geodude were incredibly annoying. "Let's get our power up! Sunny Day!" Torkoal let out a burst of light which made the area around them feel like the height of summer. His fire attacks would do much better damage against these rocky opponents now. Rori saw them coming toward Coal instead of Presto and yelled out her strategy, "Hit them with some embers when they come by!" Torkoal took the two tackles, but his incredibly defensive body seemed to shrug off the attacks. Just before he was about to be hit, he released a collection of hot embers from the holes in his back and even blew some out of his mouth. Hopefully this would be the first good damage of the battle.

Percy couldn't believe these were wild Pokemon; they were in perfect tandem, and could have been faster than Presto. This particular Yanma has Speed Boost, so he got faster and faster as the battle went on. Presto was starting to get irritated, so that only accelerated the process. "Lets try this again. Yanma, after Coal's attack, dive-bomb them with Signal Beam!" Let's see them dodge a point-blank shot.

The Geodude's were struck back by the Ember attacks being damaged by it, but they was knocked out of the way of the Signal Beam. They then both circled Presto moving in with synchronized Tackle attacks to try and catch it off guard and take it down. Their speed hopefully being too much for Presto to cope with.

Without warning, Coal withdrew into its shell. "Hey! What are you doing!?" Rori shouted. Rori was getting really angry, even though the Torkoal was merely building up its defense. It was probably the best move he could make at the moment anyway, since a smog or an ember would probably hurt Presto more than the Geodude.

"What an interesting combination attack. Presto, circle them as quickly as you can!" Watching his Speed Boosted Yanma circle them at top speed, Percy began to use the wind, already in motion, to create a small twister, lifting the Geodudes temporarily off of the ground. "Alright, Rori, let's hit them with everything we've got! Presto, Signal Beam!"

(They Levitate so, their already off the ground)

The Female Geodude was hit by the Signal Beam and was sent reeling back, The Male Geodude therefore becoming extremely annoyed that his teammate and partner had just been attacked, The Duo lunging at Presto once again with another Tackle.

"Percy, put Presto behind Coal, he can take the hits!" Hoping that Percy listened, Rori quickly told Coal, "If the geodude come by employ our last strategy. Ember when they hit!" Rori was getting the hang of the battle. It seemed like she might be able to establish a pattern that hurt the geodude more than their pokemon.

((Geodude... levitate? That's not accurate, but I'll roll with it))
"In that case, Presto, wheel behind Coal!" Percy did not like these Geodude; as fast as they were, Yanma was having to use ridiculous maneuvering to escape. Not that they didn't need the practice, but this would drag on forever if they couldn't figure something out quick.

("It has the ability to levitate, although is not unaffected from attacks from the ground." this is a quote from what I found on Bulbapedia under special abilities, so it is accurate lol)

The Geodude both stopped for a minute, looked at each other and began talking about something, seemingly making a new plan of action. They both then turned to Presto and Coal and began taunting them to `come and get us` (Not the move `Taunt` i'm using).

The Geodude decided not to come by and hit Coal. So, since the plan was null anyway, Coal decided to withdraw into his shell again. "Hey this is not the time...oh whatever..." Rori protested before realizing it was no use at this point. Coal had secretly boosted his defense two times now with Rori being too inexperienced to realize what he was doing. If the Geodude were going to go on the defensive, Coal definitely wasn't one to go on the attack.

"Pfft. You want a Yanma and Torkoal to get in close to fight? Presto, send a Signal Beam their way. That should bother them a little," Percy said, completely hiding the fact that he had no idea how to beat them."

((How interesting, I didn't know they could do that. My apologies, Mark))

The Geodude's both laughed dodging the Signal Beam with ease they then repeated the earlier plan, taunting the two to come closer.