5 Chapter 4-The Taboo Joke

Joke 3- What does one Geodude say to another?

As I sat on the ground by a tree stump in the forest, I wondered over what I wanted to do, now that I was in the Pokémon world. Did I truly want to battle in the league; did I want to be in Pokémon beauty contests, or did I want to train my Pokémon in other fields? What did I want to do? What was my goal? It was a hard question and one that I needed to put in my map soon if I really planned to go down it.

Now that I was thinking about it, what did my Charmander hope for in the future? What did it look forwards to after each day of its life? Maybe I could be a gym leader, would it like a career in something like that? I pondered over the many possibilities. From what I was able to see however was that all Gym Leaders had to make limits for the people battling against them such as using different Pokémon against different people who had a different number of Gym badges they held. Would Charmander even be able to follow down that sort of path? No, probably not.

Shooting down the idea I pondered the choice of being a breeder. I could take care of many Pokémon that way, and it could be truly wonderful to watch little ones grow under your care? But would my partner like the lack of action? Charmanders or in particular Charizards were notorious for having anger issues. Would a lack of combat be able to work that out of him later on? I doubted it. That's when it hit me. Did I need to focus on one path right now from the get-go? No!!! I could try out all the paths for right now. I was on a journey to find myself after all. I was trapped in an unfamiliar yet familiar world without really a chance to just figure out what's truly going on. So, who said I couldn't do a couple missions in my map from each career to get a feel of this world. Try and figure out what I want to do, and you know what. Why wouldn't I try to just make some friends along the way this time. Somebody who wouldn't just leave me, and someone I could talk to. I was given a chance. My wish at my last moments of life in my first life was given a chance to be realized.

I had just gotten put into the beautiful world of Pokémon and this would be my first steps into this world. OK, that left me with a few choices that I could focus on in the short term. I didn't want to be completely defenseless in this world and I needed to find a way to earn money quickly. As I looked down at my Pokéball, I once more reaffirmed my decision to ask Charmander. I wouldn't make it follow a path it wouldn't like following. It would be smarter to trade it off than make it suffer for my own wants. I wasn't as selfish as other people after experiencing the losing side earlier in life. It made me realize that all people deserved a chance.

As I threw out the Pokéball I waited for Charmander to fully materialize from the red beam. I kind of wondered how that actually worked, now that I thought about it, but shaking the thoughts aside I welcomed my partner back into the world. "Hey Charmander so have you been outside the lab's gardens before," I decided to ask although I already had a guess on what the answer was. Charmander looked at me with a confused gaze. Did its trainer forget where and how it was raised? Royalty is never left to its own devices until it can somewhat defend itself. Charmander is a prime example having a strength about twice that of a wild Pokémon of its age. Unfortunately, this came with a side effect of giving little life experience to the Pokémon about its world and what it was like in various Habitats different from where it resided in Professor Oak's reservoirs of Pokémon.

Seeing the expression on its face, I tried to explain myself in a hurry. In a really awkward kind of way as well. I explained that I had been attempting to start up a discussion since I was kinda of anti-social and I was trying to figure out how I should figure out if it was saying yes or no to anything it said. I didn't want to be like Ash, unable to understand Pikachu for a whole lot of episodes of my life. The Charmander shook its head before pulling out two small signs from who knows where. Apparently, this wasn't just a cartoon shenanigan, and it was a real part in communication in this world. One sign was marked with a black X and another with a Red O. Once more I wondered just where the signs were stored. Could it have been in a Pokémon's item slot or something similar to the games.

"OK Charmander, I have been wondering what you might want to focus on first. After all we need a goal for the time being to continue our journey without moving around blindly from city to city." Charmander looking at me gave a nod and let me continue "Put up the Circle sign for a yes on the second go around of the list I'm about to speak for the one you're most interested in." With the plan established I listed out our possible career's and my personal interests to him while also letting him put up his x sign whenever he particularly didn't like a career path the first time around, such as being used as a racing Charizard in the future. For sky races.

Although I kind of did want to try racing through the air on a Pokémon sometime. I found the idea novel and quite thrilling. Still, I wouldn't make my partner deal with it as it wasn't something he was interested in. Maybe I could catch a Staraptor and race with it. I was pretty sure it was one of the faster Pokémon. Also, now that I wasn't fat like in my first life, I had so much more freedom for movement. I didn't get exhausted running around as much. I felt exhilarated to see what my limits were. Even with my thoughts going 100 miles an hour; we eventually came to a basic list on what to do.

Breeding

Battling

Beauty Contests

Capturing a wide variety of Pokémon

Competing In certain select Pokémon moves Competitions to become master's in certain moves we can teach to others and things like that.

Reading them out once more for Charmander to choose I grew intrigued with his choice for Competing in the Pokémon moves Competition. It was something I knew about only thanks to the knowledge I was given in this world. "What kind of move do you want to use," I couldn't help asking with a bit of a smile. "Scratch or Leer." Charmander, hearing the joke started shaking its head in despair. It should have known it was too good to be true. A trainer that lets it fully pick its own interests as its future career path. Of course, that trainer would likely use jokes and puns all the time. It could already imagine the dark days ahead. Letting out a small bit of Leer in a joking manner the lizard gave a small grin in a menacing way. This was why the Charmander wanted to learn moves and explore them. There were so many interesting day to day things that could be done with any move. As long as a good enough thought process went into the moves use.

Deciding to give its owner a hint at what kind of move it wanted to learn and master it started giving a small display. Thinking quickly, the lizard pretended to be a ferocious fire breathing monster hinting at the move Ember or flamethrower. Stereotypical it knew, but all grand ideas started out with the basics. Laughing on the inside I decided to mess around with Charmander a bit. Ohhhh, so you want to learn Water Gun, do you? At that moment I swore I heard something snap in the little guy. Apparently typing jokes weren't taken in a good light in this world. Seeing Charmander step towards me with a grimace on its face and an actual look of annoyance I gulped audibly.

*Congratulations Host you have used a forbidden joke in the world of Pokémon to accomplish great training for the move "Leer." Note (Fire and Water as well as Fire and Ice never mix well, the same refers to the Pokémon's beliefs and pride in their move sets and their typing. Pokémon Consider it one of the worst insults when you taunt them with learning a move they can't learn of their opposite typing.) Charmander's Leer has grown more powerful from the experience.

Leer- By Pushing a mild amount of Aura into the Pokémon's eyes it is able to enhance its feeling of malice towards a target. Uses 2 Aura every 5 seconds of use. Can force multiples of 2's to multiply the strength and pressure of the Leer. The current strength of leer would make a normal level 10 Pokémon freeze in fear. And if multiplied it increases by 10 levels each time up to level 30 currently. The Pokémon will freeze a small amount of time depending on the strength of the aura used versus the opponents level versus your own. Lower levels used with higher strengths of this skill increase the duration of its effectiveness. Warning if used for 30 Seconds total. Stamina is reduced by 2. Eye strain caused by this skill also causes it to dispel itself.*

Laughing nervously, I took off running as fast as I could as I felt the cold feeling of death coming towards my back. My plans of bonding turned into that of a torture session with a figurative and literally mad Charmander failing to run for my life. There was still some doubt however in me. I could tell Charmander was mad, but would he really kill me for it? I couldn't tell. My past experiences made even this small; what should have been a funny moment, into a moment of something I could only do internally. Pray. A moment of prayer for this life. Those things would be different. That they didn't have to be the same this time. That I wouldn't be alone, but for others all that could be heard in the distance was "Char- Charr-Mander-Char," or also known as "Get back here you ungrateful insensitive trainer."