Friends Aren't Always Forever

Ken and I explored the city for about another hour until we got lazy and decided to ask some of the locals where a good hotel was. A few locals told us of a great hotel about a 5 minute walk away from the contest hall. The hotel was located just on the north-west side of Hearthome City. It was a rather decent sized hotel, probably about ten stories high with maybe around thirty rooms.

“What do you think Ken?” I said checking over on him, he really has said much since we left the Market, I’m just assuming he’s just tired… just as I am.

“Phloo?” Ken clumsily grunted, as If he missed the question. Ken gets a rather funny look on his face when he gets confused, it’s almost a combination of a surprised expression with a smile, and it always makes me laugh a bit.

“Ah-hah, I said… how do you like this one?”

“Phloooo… Ty! Typhlo!” Ken quickly remarked and gave a convincing nod to along with his blue smile.

“Hah, alright then, let’s get inside.”

We walk through the crazy spinning door you usually see in shopping malls or something, it seemed rather ridiculous to me, what if their was a fire, everyone’s screwed. The thought of that was a bit funny, yet depressing… seeing how I’d possibly be the first to blame because of Ken… oh well.

As we were walking up the counter, I noticed there was a few trainers in the lobby, watching the news on the television that was in the middle of the corner surrounded by a few chairs and a coffee table in the middle with a few dozen magazines on them. Hopefully there wasn’t a line.

“Hello, checking in?” the attendant said as we approached the desk.

“Yes please! You wouldn’t happen to have a list of available rooms, would you?”

“Looks like you’re just in time, we’ve got one room left on the third floor, but it’s a one bedroom.”

“That’s no problem, my friend Ken can sleep at the foot.” The attendant looked at me strangely, and then looked around trying to spot the friend I was talking about. And out of no where Ken jumped up from under the counter, using his paws to push together his cheeks to make it look like he’s a goldeen. The attendant got a bit of a shock out of seeing the Typhlosion Jump out of no where, but once she found out he was just trying to be funny she got a bit of a kick out of it.

“Oh! What a charming little Typhlosion.” Ken didn’t take to the ‘little’ part very well causing him to shoot off a mean look for a few seconds, just enough for the girl behind the desk. “Is he your friend you were talking about?” she quickly commented.

“Hm? Oh! Yea, that’s him.” I quickly replied, petting Ken on top of his head.

“Aww, he’s soooo cute! I wanna dress him up and enter him in one of the Pokemon contest!” she then tried to reach over and pet Ken on the head. Ken looked over at me with the look of just wanting to bite her hand off.

“Just take it…” I quickly told Ken from the corner of my mouth he unwillingly agreed and let her pet him on his head. Just the sheer thought of that sent a shiver down Ken’s spine, the thought wasn’t very pleasant for me either, especially seeing how I’ve known the women what, three minutes?

After another five or so minute of pointless chit-chat she finally decided to give us our room key.

“God, I thought she’d never shut up…” I said to Ken, making him let out a sigh of relief.
We took the elevator to the third floor, the hotel was rather impressive from the inside, covered with reproductions of some famous paintings, pictures of bowls of fruit, and Pokemon. The carpet was a rather interesting pattern as well; it had an interesting gilded weave with back and forth blue and gold stripes. After swerving back and forth through the hallways, we finally got to the room that was on our key card.

“Finally…” I said giving out a rather long sigh. I glanced over at ken, but he was gone.

“Ken…? Buddy? Where’d you go!” I said looking around trying to find my lost pokemon. Then suddenly I heard the sound of something crashing. It sounded like an ice machine. I run around the corner to find Ken with his head under the ice maker, just pouring ice into his mouth.

“Ken, what the hell are you doing…” Ken looked up at me from lying down under the ice machine with his cheeks packed full like a chipmunk. He tried to smile, but instead dropped all the ice from his mouth all over his furry belly.

“Ken, what am I going to do with you…” I said laughing under my breath. The Typhlosion couldn’t help but laugh at the look of embarrassment on my face.

“C’mon already, lets get in the room, I’m about to pass out” Ken rolled around on the ground a bit, like he was trying to itch his back, then stood back up on his hind legs and walked with me towards our room. I took the card key and slid it through the electronic lock to open it. The sound of the tumblers unlocking the door was rather interesting, but not enough for me to care.

As soon as I opened the door, a blast of super cold air hit us like a brick wall. For a second I thought I could see my own breath. It was cold even for me, and I was the one wearing the leather jacket.

As soon as the rush stopped we walked into the room. And simply wow. The walls were a light cream color, with a forest green rug. The bed was huge. With a very interesting, red and blue Pokeball pattern on the comforter.

The first thing Ken does is jump on the bed and mess it all up, I couldn’t blame him… when I lived back at home I never kept my room clean, clothes everywhere, bed sheets scattered everywhere. You name it, I can screw it up. There was a pretty decent sized window on the side of the room with a coffee table next to the bed. I moved the coffee table over to the window so we wouldn’t trip over it later, I opened up the blinds of the window to check the view, it was amazing. The room was right in the middle of the hotel, so you could see the pokemon park right in front of it perfectly, the flowers and the pokemon from this angle was completely worth the steep price of the room, no wonder why it’s the best in town. While checking the landscape I started taking off my jacket, my belt, and my hat trying to get comfortable. I placed my foot on the table and started untying my shoes and took them off, then I pulled up my right pant leg and pulled down my sock, reveling the six inch knife I keep on my leg with Velcro. Ken helped me make it when he was a Quilava and was more powerful fire type attacks... I never really used the knife to threaten anyone. Its more of a… utility item, I use it to cut berries or other stuff im going to use for food, sometimes I’ll sharpen it up and use a tree for target practice.

“Ken, im taking an shower, don’t burn anything down ok?” I said with a smirk on my face. Ken just looked blankly, and then yawned.

After about a 5 minute shower I dried my hair off and switched into a pair of more comfortable pants and walked out of the bathroom. I went over to the door where I dropped my backpack off and dumped it out all over the floor. Playing cards, maps, few stray dollars, and a few more pairs of clothes. But most importantly, the Leppa berries.

“ohhh ken! I’ve got Leppa berries…” I looked around the room for a second trying to find him… its not that hard to lose a pokemon that size in that small of a room… then I looked on the bed and saw a big lump under the covers. I quickly went over and pulled the covers up and saw Ken, fast asleep. It was always fun watching him sleep, watching him kick and move his feet like a dog having a bad dream. I’ve always wondered what it’d like to be a pokemon… not have to worry about every day things, just sit around all day and be lazy… like some pokemon.

I decided to give up and just lay down in the bed. It was about 6pm now. And it was starting to get dark. I wanted to head out to the next town by the morning by taking the shortcut through the forest on route 212 to Pastoria City. Everyone lately has been saying it’s a pretty rough place, lots of marshes, and it rains a lot. But I’d rather not stop through Solaceon Town and meet up with that idiot from earlier. I’d just worry about it the morning. For right now I’ll just… rest my eyes a little bit…

As I fell asleep, I had a dream. Ken and I were in a gym battle, and we were on the brink of losing. As we fought our battle, Ken let out his most power attack Blast Burn. The fire was of the blast was horrific, completely ripping apart the entire gym in one gigantic ball of flames. The sound of screaming Pokemon scraped across my mind like nails on a chalk board, the load roar of Ken as he unleashed his rage against his enemies as if he had nothing to lose. The inferno blackened the entire battle field with smoke.

As the smoke cleared I searched for my Typhlosion, and I found him lying on the ground completely motionless. The gym leader was screaming from across the field to his charred Pokemon, running to its aid. The sight of the death and destruction given out by the attack was heart shattering, seeing Ken was injured, I ran as fast as I could to his aid, but as I did the room completely stretched away from me, causing Ken to disappear in the distance leaving me completely in the dark, unable to help my best friend. As I was trying to catch up with the fading distance a giant Charizard drops out of no where and hits me with a flame thrower. The pain was so realistic I thought I could feel my skin burning as the fire hit me. Suddenly through the fire, a voice range out. It was soft, and sweet like a bell, and it called to me. “Ash… Ash, wake up!!”