Leaf Versus the Safari Zone
To: Firaga MetagrossSweat was accumulating on Leaf’s face from the unrelenting heat and humidity of the inner Safari Zone. Impassable tangles of trees, vines, and shrubbery rose like labyrinth walls on either side of her, but Leaf’s view of the item ball sitting in the dirt thirty feet away from her was free of obstruction. She was currently level with the tantalizing sphere, having dropped prone to the ground, lying on her stomach.
Ever so slowly, she extended her right arm forwards. Nothing happened. Holding her breath, Leaf did the same with her left arm, moving it along the crude trail until it was parallel with her other arm. Still nothing. She then dared to bring her right leg forwards as well. So far, so good. Her left leg moved up an inch, and -
Four hundred and ninety-eight.
“COME ON!” Leaf yelled. “Really? Really?”
There was no response, save the distant calls of birds and feral Pokémon. After another moment spent lying on the ground, fists clenched in disbelief, Leaf sighed and stood up, rubbing the trail-dirt off her clothes as she considered the situation again.
...okay. Okay, she could do this. Leaf crouched and took a standing leap forwards, bringing her another few feet closer to the item ball.
Four hundred and ninety-nine.
Being careful to keep her feet frozen in place, Leaf took off her pack and reached in to pull out a trusty escape rope. If Leaf couldn’t come to the golden teeth, the golden teeth would have to come to her! She tied a loop into the end of the rope, and swung it over her head like a lasso. Just as she was about to toss it, she was distracted by a shrill buzz coming from her cell phone. Of course. Of course. With a grunt of resignation, Leaf set down the rope and answered the call.
“Leaf! This isn’t the right time to use that!” Professor Oak’s voice blared from the speaker.
Leaf sighed. “I’m sorry, Professor, but this is the right time to use this! This is about the tenth time today I’ve dropped five hundred dollars for the privilege of getting to spend five freaking minutes in this overhyped tourist trap fending off swarms of bloodthirsty Scyther and enraged Tauros while getting bitten to death by mosquitoes before being told ‘whoops, time’s up’ and getting sent right back to the start so I can do it all over again, and I’ve finally found what has to be the item ball containing the warden’s golden dentures which I need to give him to get HM04 so I can finally move those boulders in Victory Road so I can finally get to the elite four and become champion and wipe that smug smile off of Blue’s dumb face!”
“I’m warning you Leaf, that escape rope is a highly experimental teleportation device! It’s never been tested for application as an item-fetching device before, and conducting an impromptu experiment of its use as such in an ecologically sensitive environment like the Safari Zone is not only irresponsible, but-”
“Professor, it’s just a rope. It’ll be fine. This isn’t like the time I tried to go biking in Koga’s gym and ran into an invisible wall,” Leaf said, wincing at the memory.
“But I’m telling you, that isn’t just a rope! This isn’t like the time where I thought that that old fishing rod was an experimental ultrasonic Pokémon-lure that would summon the Diglett earthquake apocalypse if it was accidentally used outside of water!”
“Uh-oh, I think I can hear a Tauros snorting at me. Gotta go! Bye Professor!” Leaf ended the call and picked up the escape rope again. Okay, take two… She tossed the loop in the rope item ball-wards, and it fell remarkably close for a first attempt. Encouraged, Leaf reeled in the escape rope and took a second try, which landed an inch away from the target. One more… but as she was pulling the rope back, a curious Paras emerged from the bushes and grabbed the loop at the end with their claw to examine it more closely. Immediately, the loop tightened around the hapless Pokémon’s limb, and the paras began to spin around in place as if they’d been caught in a two-foot wide tornado.
“What the-” With a sudden jerk, the end of the rope Leaf was holding onto ripped itself out of her grip and shot into the air, pulling the unfortunate Paras along with it. “Eeeeeee!” they screeched, leaving behind a trail of spores as they ascended into the stratosphere.
Back on the ground, Leaf stumbled forward a single step from the yank of the rope.
Five hundred! Ding-dong! Time’s up!
“NO!” Leaf sprinted across the ground and made a diving leap for the item ball, but with a whoosh of air, the Safari Zone warden teleported beside her, holding hands with an Alakazam.
“Yoink!” he said, and the Alakazam grabbed Leaf’s leg just as her fingers were starting to close around the item ball. With a nauseating twist of the dimensions, the trio warped back to the Safari Zone entrance house. Leaf’s hand closed on air and clenched into a fist. The warden smiled down at her with the silver teeth he’d acquired while waiting for the retrieval of his golden ones. “I hope you had a good haul! Please visit us again soon!”
“Aaaaargh! Couldn’t you have waited just one more second?” Leaf asked, picking herself up from the floor of the house. “I was this close to getting your stupid gold dentures back!”
“I’m sorry miss, but the rules are the rules! Once you’ve taken five hundred steps, you have to leave the park!” The warden’s beaming grin didn’t waver for an instant.
“Why base the time you can spend in the park on the number of steps you’ve taken, and not on, you know, the actual amount of time you’ve spent in the park? Can’t you just sell a day pass or something?”
This question caused the warden to scratch his chin in thought. “Hmm… would you believe me if I told you that the rule was an ancient park tradition stretching back thousands of years?”
“No. The Safari Zone opened less than a year ago.”
“Ah… but what if I said that there was an obscure Kanto law requiring all nature preserves to allot time visitors can spend in the park by step-count as part of an affirmative action movement for people with unusually long legs? Would you believe that?”
“Still no.”
“Careful calculations have shown that each step taken in the park inflicts 95 cents worth of environmental damage, so therefore-”
“Uh-uh.”
“I was bitten by a radioactive pedometer during a school field trip in my youth, and ever since-”
“Nope.”
“Alright, lass, you got me! The truth is that it’s just a fun gimmick to help draw people in! It’s sure working in your case, isn’t it? You’ve been here ten times today!” The warden guffawed loudly in Leaf’s face. She crossed her arms and glared back at him.
“Yes, very fun. Look, can’t I just buy HM04 from you? Or trade you something for it? I don’t really need HM05 anymore, would you take that?”
This finally caused the warden to frown. “Certainly not! It’s expressly forbidden by law to sell or trade HMs! The only legitimate way of acquiring one is to be given it for free in exchange for completing a trivial task!”
“Alright! Alright, fine.” Leaf said. “I’ll go in there one more time, and this time, I’ll get those stupid dentures. Just give me a second to check up on Hal first.”
“Capital! That’ll give me time to check up on Chester here!” The warden turned towards his Alakazam, who had been repeatedly teleporting in and out of the entrance house carrying armloads of used safari balls to dump in a barrel labeled ‘limit 30 per guest’ by the back door throughout the conversation.
After a short walk, Leaf arrived at the Fuschia Pokémon center, where a large Venusaur was resting in a patch of soil provided for grass-types under a sun lamp. Leaf pulled out some of the ‘all-purpose bait’ the Safari Zone provided and fed it to him while rubbing his head. “Sorry Hal, I got pretty close this time, but still no luck. Would you mind waiting a bit longer? I’m down to my last five hundred bucks, so this next try’s the last.” Hal snorted and raised the leafs on his back before lowering them in a sort of shrug, then continued to bask under the lamp’s rays.
“Thanks, Hal. I knew you’d understand,” Leaf said, and returned to the Safari Zone entrance house again. She dug out her remaining five hundred dollars and slapped them onto the counter. “Okay. Last try.”
The warden laughed and swept up the money almost as soon as it left Leaf’s hand. “Now that’s the sort of confident attitude I like to see! Go get ‘em!”
Leaf crammed thirty safari balls into her bag (she had attempted to skip this step on attempt number seven, only for the warden to yank her backwards the instant she stepped outside the door and cheerfully tell her that she’d run out of balls and her visit was over, thank you, please come again) and opened the door leading into the park. Feeling the humid air roll over her, she hesitated and looked back at the warden.
“Hey, can’t I just bring in my Venusaur in his pokéball and let him out for just one second to pick up the dentures with his vines when I get close? I mean, you obviously can bring your Alakazam into the park, so-”
“Absolutely not! The park is a delicate ecosystem that mustn’t be disturbed by the introduction of foreign species, for however brief the duration! Almost all of the species here are highly endangered and we can’t let their safety hinge on young children’s ability to restrain their Pokémon from running wild after they’ve released them into the park for ‘just a second’ to accomplish some trivial task!”
“Alright, alright, I was just asking-”
“Oh, and don’t forget to bring some rocks to throw at the park Pokémon! Have fun!” The warden dumped an armload of heavy stones into Leaf’s arms and shoved her out the door. She stumbled forward and narrowly avoided getting her foot crushed as rocks spilled out of her armload of stones.
One. Two.
Well, that sure was an auspicious start. But now that Leaf knew exactly where the last remaining item ball with the dentures in it was, she reckoned she could still make it there with a few steps remaining if she made each step a standing long jump. Or, at least, she could if she didn’t have her pokéball-stuffed-pack weighing her down… Hmm…
After a moment’s consideration, Leaf spun around and tossed her bag a bit further down the trail like she was making a shot-put (after withdrawing a single safari ball from it to prevent herself from having run out of them). Then, with a series of frog-like bounds, she caught up to it and threw it again, and went leaping after it a second time.
Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
This process repeated several times without incident, until, on the seventh iteration, right after the bag left her hands, Leaf heard a series of heavy thumps approaching her from behind. Turning her head, she saw a massive Kangaskhan bounding straight towards her, red eyes locked on to her with a stern gaze. She yelped and started to run from the creature, the increasing steps blaring in her mind.
Twenty-five! Twenty-six! Twenty-seven! Twenty-eight!
Just as she got to her pack, two strong paws seized her and lifted Leaf kicking and thrashing into the air before gently inserting her into the Kangaskhan’s uncomfortably sticky marsupial pouch. The wild Pokémon then proceeded to turn around and start hopping back the way Leaf had came from.
“What the- hey! Just because I was jumping around doesn’t mean I’m a baby Kangaskhan! Let me out!”
But the mother Kangaskhan simply ignored her, and casually shoved Leaf back down whenever she attempted to climb out of the pouch. Well, this was just lovely- wait! Leaf’s step-count wasn’t going up! Hey, maybe she could use this! If she threw some bait to strategically guide where the Kangaskhan went, she could go straight to the golden teeth without using up any steps at all! Leaf reached into her pocket for some bait, and-
Crap, her skirt didn’t have pockets! All her bait was in her bag! Dammit, wasn’t gender supposed to be purely aesthetic in these games? The only thing she had on her was the one safari ball she’d taken into hand, and if she threw that, she’d be warped out of the park right after- or would she? Thinking back, Leaf recalled that she didn’t actually get teleported away until the capture attempt of the last ball was fully resolved- which meant-
Before the Kangaskhan could leap any further away, Leaf activated her safari ball and tapped the beast’s chest with it. A flash of white light engulfed her. For a single, terrible instant, Leaf thought she’d made a fatal mistake and had been sucked into the ball alongside the Kangaskhan, but then she fell to the ground beside a now wriggling pokéball. She got up and sprinted towards her bag.
One-hundred-two! One-hundred-three! One-hundred-four!
Behind her, the Kangaskhan burst out of the ball and looked about in confusion before setting sights on Leaf again, who was presently making a diving leap for her bag. With a woosh of air, the Safari Zone warden and his Alakazam teleported next to Leaf as she hit the ground. “Sorry, that was your last ball! Yoi- Oh, wait, that wasn’t your last ball! My bad!” the warden said, noting that Leaf had managed to grab her bag, and remaining twenty-nine safari balls, just in time. He teleported away with another woosh.
“Whew, close one- hey!” Leaf cried as the Kangaskhan grabbed her once more. The Pokémon waggled a finger at her and gave a few disapproving snorts before returning Leaf to her previous state of enpouchment. But this time, she had her bag, and her bait. Okay, this was a long shot, but...
Leaf took out a piece of bait and tossed it to the Kangaskhan’s side. She stopped, sniffed, and bounded over to the small morsel, before popping it into her mouth. Evidently, the Kangaskhan liked it, because she went for the second piece of bait as well, and then the third. Ha-ha, it was actually working! At this rate, Leaf would reach the gold teeth in no time! And then she’d finally get HM04 and make it through victory road and beat Lance and-
A strange yet familiar smell interrupted Leaf’s happy thoughts, as the Kangaskhan held a piece of bait up to her face with a thick paw. “Gah, get that away from me! I’m not eating that!” But the Kangaskhan persisted, repeatedly jabbing the unappealing brown sphere at Leaf’s face with increasing force. “I’m not hungry! Just eat it yourself-mmph!” The Kangaskhan took the opportunity of Leaf’s open mouth to cram the bait in, before proceeding to continue jumping forwards. As she landed, the sudden jarring force caused Leaf to choke on the bait, and after a subsequent jump, it went down her esophagus.
Ugh, that tasted awful! And that stuff was probably poisonous to humans, too! ...but, Leaf considered, it really wasn’t all that bad. Even if the bait had poisoned her, everyone knew that poison only hurt you when you when you were walking, and if being carried by a Kangaskhan didn’t count as taking steps for Safari-Zone purposes, it probably didn’t for poison-damage purposes either.
Well, she was committed to this strategy now! Leaf continued to pull out bait and throw it, and whenever the Kangaskhan offered her a piece, Leaf would pretend to accept it only to spit it back out when the Kangaskhan wasn’t looking. Soon, Leaf was almost out of bait, but she was pretty close, so-
A Pinsir ran out of the bushes and snatched up the latest bait Leaf had thrown just before the Kangaskhan could pick it up. She growled and shook a fist at the large bug, who gnashed his teeth together in response, staring back up at her. The two began to circle each other slowly, looking for weaknesses.
“Hey now, there’s no need to fight! There’s enough for both of you- oh, crap, there isn’t! That was my last piece!” Leaf exclaimed.
With a sudden roar, the Kangaskhan leaped forwards and kicked the Pinsir in the face, who flew back into a tree. Rather than getting up, the bug began to dig into the ground beneath a tree root, and pulled out a ring, which he slipped onto one of his claws, as well as an orange marble. With a flash of light, the Pinsir transformed, wings unfolding from his back and eyes turning yellow. The Pinsir’s wings buzzed and he flew straight at the Kangaskhan with incredible speed, stabbing her with both horns before pulling back and flying around to make another run at her.
What the heck was going on? Leaf began pulling out safari balls and throwing them at the Pinsir, but in her alarmed state, they were poorly aimed, and those that didn’t miss entirely got knocked away with powerful gusts of air. Ugh, she had to calm down and aim properly! Sure, this looked bad, but Kangaskhan were legendarily good at protecting their babies during fights, so she wasn’t necessarily in as much danger as she might-
Bellowing, the Kangaskhan reached into a deep part of her pouch and pulled out her own ring and colored marble, and put on the former. A glow of light engulfed Leaf and the Kangaskhan, and when it faded away… both looked exactly the same! Yet, the Kangaskhan seemed more confident for some reason.
“What just happened- aaugh!” The Kangaskhan yanked Leaf out of her pouch, and set her on the ground in front of her, before giving Leaf a shove in the direction of the Pinsir. “What are you doing! LET ME BACK IN!” Leaf cried, attempting to retreat to the relative safety of the Kangaskhan’s pouch, only to get shoved back again.
The Pinsir grabbed Leaf and put her head in between his pincers. An instant later, the beast disappeared as he was sucked into the safari ball Leaf had managed to hold onto, only to explode out once more after another half-second. But this had given the Kangaskhan enough time to leap up and slug the Pinsir in the eye. She then proceeded to grab Leaf’s arm and ram Leaf’s hand into the Pinsir as well, nearly shattering her fingers upon the Pinsir’s armor-like exoskeleton.
“AAARGH! You can’t make your own baby fight! That’s insane!” Leaf yelled. She pulled her bag out of the Kangaskhan’s pouch and sprinted off in a random direction as the two combatants continued to fight behind her. With every fourth step she took, her vision flashed black and pain radiated from her stomach, and in addition to that…
Four-hundred-fifty-nine! Four-hundred-sixty! Four-hundred-sixty-one!
She was running out of steps! Finally, Leaf came to a halt, gasping. She had to do something about this poison, or she was a goner! But what? She dug around the contents of her bag. There had to be something in there that could help… aha! Matches! She struck a match, and pressed the burning end of it into her upper arm. Gritting her teeth, she bore the pain until her skin turned red, upon which she blew out the match and threw it down, grinding it into the soil with her foot to make sure the fire was out. Instantly, the pain in her stomach faded. It was impossible to be poisoned and burned at the same time, after all! And, unlike poison, burns only hurt you in the middle of battle.
Sighing in relief, Leaf looked around. Where was she now- wait- was that- yes! It was! The item ball with the golden teeth was right over there! Her luck was turning around! She carefully walked towards the item ball…
Four-hundred-eighty-nine. Four hundred-ninety. Four-hundred-ninety-one.
Only for a Chansey to wander onto the path and pick up the item ball just before Leaf could! The rotund Pokémon examined it curiously, turning her body away from Leaf to keep her from getting to it, than stuffed it into her egg pouch.
“NO! That’s mine! Give it back!” Leaf yelled, trying to wrestle it out of the Chansey’s pouch, but the Pokémon kept slapping her hand away and rotating away from Leaf, using her own body to shield it from her. Given the very limited number of steps Leaf had left, it was proving a very effective strategy.
Alright, think Leaf, think! Leaf pulled a safari ball out of her bag and threw it at the Chansey. It bounced off without effect. But that was okay, she still had a lot more of them-
Noticing Leaf’s actions, the Chansey reached into her pouch and pulled out bait she had acquired from somewhere, and began cramming it into her mouth. With each bite, her already low odds of being caught halved. Leaf tried throwing more balls, but they simply disintegrated upon touching the Chansey’s body, so low was her capture rate.
Triumphant, the Chansey began to waddle away, clutching her new prize with both stubby hands. Crap, crap, crap! There had to be something Leaf could do! She racked her mind, thinking of all the advice she’d received on her journey. What would Professor Oak say to do now? Or rather, what would he say not to do?
Ah-ha, that was it! Leaf pulled a second escape rope out of her pack and tossed it at the Chansey. It wrapped around her midsection and caused her to rotate wildly. Then she shot into the air- along with the item ball! Crap, crap, crap! Why hadn’t Leaf thought of that? She watched the Chansey soar upwards until she was just a speck in the sky, and sighed. Well, that was that…
Four-hundred-ninety-eight. Four-hundred-ninety-nine. Five-hundred.
With a by-now familiar woosh, the warden appeared and teleported Leaf back to the Safari Zone entrance house. “Ding! Time’s up! Did you get a good haul this- hey, where are you going?”
Leaf sighed as she strolled back to the Fuschia Pokémon center, head hung low. She really screwed things up this time. With the gold teeth lost forever, she’d have no way of getting HM04. That it, is no way unless she stole it- and if stealing a mere TM was a crime so despicable only Team Rocket could do it, than what would stealing an HM make her? And yet, if she didn’t do that, she might have to turn to an even more awful possibility: using a Gameshark…
Shuddering, Leaf walked through the Pokémon center doors and returned to Hal, and sat on the floor beside him. “I’m sorry buddy, but… our journey might be over. Without Strength, there’s just no way to move the heavy boulders in Victory Road.” The Venusaur tapped her on the shoulder with a vine.
“Yes, Hal, I’ve already thought of having my Machoke just use seismic toss on them. That… doesn’t work, for some reason. Yes, I know it’s stupid, but...”
Hal grunted in annoyance, and thrust something in front of Leaf’s face. It was the warden’s gold teeth!
“Of course! Escape ropes just teleport you back to the last Pokémon center you’ve visited! That Chansey must’ve worked here before!”
Leaf gave Hal a big hug. “Thanks, buddy! Now, c’mon, let’s go to the Indigo Plateau! I know we’ve wasted a lot of time, but I’m sure we can still beat Lance before Blue can!”
Hal grunted again.
“Okay, okay, you’re probably right. But if we hurry, we’ll probably get there just a few minutes after he does, and that’s just as good!”
With that, the two left the Pokémon center, confident that whatever challenges the world threw their way, there would always be some highly-improbable way of overcoming them.