The Work Begins

[Meownique]

The sun was the pale color of melted butter. The clouds were stretched thin across the sky, and the chilly air felt rejuvenating on Natasha's skin. Every cell in her body hummed with electricity. Blank trotted at her heels, wary of the area his trainer seemed to be drawing so much energy from.

"Blank," she said abruptly. Blank looked up. "As a pokelinguist, it's imperative we maintain constant communication with one another. I need to know exactly what you are telling me, and this can be an arduous process. Half of your training is going to be in battle; the other half is going to be communicating, whether that be vocally or with gestures. It's going to be an experiment of sorts."

The speech had obviously been rehearsed. Blank rolled his eyes at her mightier-than-thou seriousness.

"And once we have a complete understanding of one another, she continued, "We'll have revolutionized the relationship between pokemon and humans. We'll be unstoppable."

Her breath quickened without her noticing; she was worked up at the thought of, well, work. Blank answered with a dismissive "Min" and turned his nose to the side. <You may have gotten me from that science-y place, but I'm not your lab rat.>

Honestly, she seemed like that kind of person whose delusion of being intelligent proved dangerous. Blank wouldn't be surprised if one of her language experiments somehow ended up with him becoming irradiated. That kind of recklessness was only possible with passion-filled eccentrics like her.

Still... At least she was interesting. And who knows, maybe she wasn't a TOTAL kook and they'd actually get somewhere.

Natasha gave him a good-natured smile. "Don't worry. Once you first start progressing, you'll be just as enthusiastic as I am. In fact, our work begins now!"

She gestured for him to follow her into grassy area. "¡Lávate los manos! Forward!"

Blank took a moment before trailing after her into the wilder parts of Route 3. They walked deeper into the grass. The Minccino surveyed the area, his ears twitching attentively. Wild pokemon were not the friendliest, especially to humans. But no pokemon came in sight. After awhile, he grew bored. <If you keep being so noisy, we won't find anyone... And by the way, communicating isn't going to get any easier if you keep switching langua->

He nearly bumped into her leg. She had skidded to a halt, then silenced his potential protest with a finger pressed against her lips.

"Now... We wait." She crouched and stared intensely toward some indiscernible point. She pulled out her tape recorder out of her pocket. Blank got on all fours hesitantly. A question sat on his tongue, but he held it back-partly in irritation. If communication was her big thing, why wasn't she telling him what was going on?

A half hour passed. Natasha became a little antsy, shifting back and forth, re-checking the tape in her recorder.

"Well," she said softly. "This is a pain in my grass."

Natasha laughed under her breath. "Ah, that's one I can't make in front of the kids, am I right?"

Blank deadpanned. The first thing she has to say in awhile... Is something utterly stupid. It was more annoying because she actually believed she was being clever.

"Oh, come on, don't give me that... blank stare." She was on a roll. "I'm just chugging them out today. Wish I had my tape recorder on for that one."

[Cricket]

They were quite the duo. At least, according to them, though one might venture to say their opinions were slightly biased. But after six months of clever thieving, it was also hard to argue with. But I guess, that's the kind of results you got with a simple plan.

The Rattata was always the one to distract. He'd dart in front of the trainer, or maybe steal a berry from their bag, and run with it clamped between his large teeth. Then, the quick, remarkable Aipom would stretch down, snatching the trainer's pack with such a quick agile sweep of her-

"Alright, stop dozing off!" Rampant's voice was annoying, and made her flinch. The Aipom fixed him with a glare, but of course made sure he wasn't looking to receive it. Getting in a fight with a big-toothed rat sounded like something she didn't want to do. He continued, eyes fixated on the trainer, crouched. "We don't even have to do our routine! She's not even paying attention to anything besides... well... nothing!"

He laughed- or, chittered- at himself and directed his beady red eyes at his partner. "Got it? You first. I'll stand back and jump in if something happens. Which, with you, it probably will." He sighed, a deep remorseful thing, looking at her like she was the incapable sidekick he had to drag along.

She said nothing, leaping up into the trees. It was true. She always managed to screw something up. With agile legs, she hopped from tree to tree, stopping just behind her target, on a limb that leaned in close. She eyed the trainer, and then her Pokemon. Both seemed fixated on nothing, like Rampant had exclaimed earlier.

With a short intake of breath, she leaped, long Aipom tail grasping the branch as she dove. It was elegant, and she found herself dangling behind them, just in arm's reach of the trainer's bag. As she was about to grasp at the bag's buckle, she stopped.

The trainer was... holding something. She squinted at the object, trying to discern what it could be. Maybe it was worth much more than anything in the pack. After all, trainers really all had the same thing, and Rampant and her already had enough Pokeballs, Pokedexes, and Berries to last them a lifetime. Also, maybe the reason the trainer was holding it was to protect it. Maybe, it was the most important, and Rampant would praise her for obtaining it...

Without another thought, she lunged forward, hands grasping around the recorder. She tugged, trying to tear it from the trainer's grip and escape back into the tree.

[Meownique]

Natasha felt a woosh of air, her hair tickling her cheeks. Huh? She looked down at her hands. Empty. She did a double-take. No, still empty.

"What the-" She stood up and whipped around. A Aipom dangled from a tree branch, her precious tape recorder gripped in its grubby little paws.

There was a very short list of things that made Natasha fly into a rage. And even then, she could restrain her anger with a breathing exercise until later, when she could sublimate her energy into furiously transcribing audio tapes.

But one of the worst offenses was touching her tape recorder without her explicit permission. One incidence involving eighty-nine hours of untranscribed recorded interviews, an conveniently timed elbow bump, and Moomoo milk was enough to make Natasha unreasonably protective of her tape recorder. This overprotectiveness had gotten her into a lot of trouble in rural areas where people were curious to play with the odd bit of high technology. Still, she felt guarding her recorder a priority. Someone actually snatching it from her hands- that was grounds for murder in her book.

"Give. That. Back," she growled at least an octave below her normal voice. Any trace of her seemingly perpetual enthusiasm for life was gone. One could hear her breath hissing in and out between clenched teeth, and she seemed ready to charge like an frustrated Taurus.

<I got this.> Blank said before she even had a chance to command him. He gave a smug grin. This pokemon looked like a joke.

<Didn't anyone ever tell you that stealing is wrong?> Minccino announced. He leaped up on Natasha's back and launched himself off her shoulder, aiming himself at the Aipom in preparation to use Pound.

((don't know how to do battles derp derp))