A Rather Unwelcome Burden

Chapter 7

Some people like to shout about how time flies when you're having fun. These people are idiots, because time also flies when you're pissed off, as Team Schism is just now learning.

"Dave!" Houndour shouted.

"What?!" Dave shouted back, frantically trying to fit his supplies into the toolbox.

"Where are the fucking Reviver Seeds?"

"How the fuck would I know? I'm in charge of the food!"

"I thought seeds fell under the food category!"

"No, they fall under the berry category! We just had a meeting about this thirty minutes ago!"

"God fucking dammit!" Houndour shouted, smoke leaking out of the sides of his mouth. "Hey, Nidoran! Have you seen the Reviver Seeds?"

"I thought Dave had them!" Nidoran yelled, trying to tie off the sack of berries she was in charge of bringing.

"No, he says they fall under the berry category!"

"Fuck yeah!" Dave shouted, having finally succeeded in fitting all of the food into the toolbox. "Alright, are we good yet?"

"No! We still can't find the fucking seeds!" Houndour shouted back, small embers leaping from his mouth as he did so.

"Too bad, everyone's at the town square already. We'll have to go without the seeds," Nidoran said.

"Well, this is just fucking perfect," Houndour said. "We haven't even left for the mountain yet, and we're already not prepared! How the fuck are we going to fight Zapdos if we can't even get our supplies straight?"

Nidoran sighed. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with. How bad can it be?"

"Alright, you lot!" Alakazam shouted, seeing all of the teams assembled before him. "Who wants to go first?"

Nobody volunteered.

"Really? Nobody wants to go fight for their own comrade, possible giving up their lives for him in the process?" he asked.

"Who are we saving, again?" someone in the back asked.

"Why, we're saving Shiftry, my friend!" Alakazam said.

"Oh, fuck that! I'm going home, that guy's a dick," the person in the back said, before returning home.

Alakazam remained unfazed. "Right, who else wants to go instead?"

The crowd talked amongst themselves for a bit before one pokémon, a murkrow, spoke up.

"Actually, that guy kind of had a point. Shiftry is a major douchebag."

The rest of the crowd seemed to agree, as several others returned to their homes.

"Now, where's your rescue team spirit?" Alakazam asked, as he watched them go.

"Back home on my futon. A better question would be why I'm not there with it," someone else from the back shouted.

"Alright, that's it." Alakazam said. "We're all going to go in after Shiftry, okay? I'm sure he'd do the same for any of you."

"After charging us an arm or a leg first!" the murkrow from before shouted.

"Or a futon!" the other guy from the back said.

"Murkrow, you don't even have arms. How could he charge you something you don't have?" Alakazam asked. "And you there, in the back. Shut up about the futon."

"Well, this is gay. I'm going home," Murkrow said.

"No you're not!" Alakazam said, as he attempted to hold the bird back with psychic.

"Dark types are immune to psychic attacks, dumbass!" Murkrow shouted, as he spread his wings and took flight. "Follow me, my brethren! Together we shall return home, back to our apathetic spouses, shitty children, and Doomsday Preppers!"

If the crowd needed to hear anything else, they certainly didn't show it, instead opting to follow Murkrow back to their homes.

"Wait, come back! We're supposed to destroy Doomsday Preppers, not embrace it!" Alakazam said, as he fell to his knees.

Charizard, his teammate, put a hand on his shoulder. "It's over, old friend. Doomsday Preppers has won."

"It's not true!" Alakazam cried. "It's impossible!"

"Search your feelings, you know it to be true."

"Um…hey, guys?" Dave asked, as he approached. "We got all of our stuff. We're ready to go."

"Then why the fuck are you standing here?" Alakazam asked, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Well, this is the only way out of town, and your sorry ass is blocking it, so if you could please move?"

"Why can't we just go around?" Nidoran asked.

"You don't understand, Nidoran," Houndour said, still pissed from their previous ordeal. "This is the only way out of town."

"I know, Dave already-"

"The only way out of town," Houndour said.

"But-"

"The ONLY way out of town."

Nidoran opened her mouth to respond, but decided against it, instead choosing to watch Dave argue with Alakazam.

"All I'm saying is that we need to go out this way," Dave said, exasperated.

"Yes, but why?" Alakazam asked.

"…To do the job you gave us? Remember? You told us to go in after Shiftry twelve hours ago? You also said something about killing Zapdos and smashing his T.V.?"

"Ah, yes, the Shiftry rescue. Good to know someone out there still cares about-"

"We're getting paid for this, right?" Houndour asked. "Because I need to know that the effort I went through to find fucking seeds was worth at least a few hundred dollars."

"Yes, there will be payment. Just bring back the town douchebag," Alakazam said.

Dave shrugged. "Okay, I guess we're good, then. You guys ready?"

"No," Houndour said.

"Great! Let's go!" Dave shouted, taking off for Mt. Thunder as fast as he possibly could.

This proved to be a mistake, however, because less than five minutes into the adventure, he was tired.

"Guys…" he gasped, "I don't think I'm going to make it…"

Nidoran rolled her eyes. "Get up, fatass. What, you can't even handle a five minute run?"

"…I'm built for speed, not endurance," Dave croaked.

"Houndour?" Nidoran asked.

"Way ahead of you," Houndour said, as he lit Dave's tail on fire.

"Ow! You motherfuckers!" Dave shouted, as he frantically stomped on his own tail in an effort to put the fire out.

"Well, now that Dave is with us again, shall we continue on?" Houndour said.

"We shall," Nidoran replied, her spirits lifted after seeing Dave in pain.

Many pokémon look towards Mt. Thunder with admiration, knowing it houses one of the most powerful electric-types in existence. It is viewed as a symbol of not only power, but also great pride among electric pokémon, who treat it like it was a piece of heaven fallen to Earth after God got too drunk one night and put his foot through the wall by accident.

Or rather, it used to be all of those things. Now, it's seen for what it truly is; a shopping mall.

Dave blinked. "This is Mt. Thunder? This is what electric pokémon revere more than God itself?"

"It sure is!" Houndour said, chuckling. "Or, it sure was. Now it's where my grandmother picks up overpriced things she doesn't really need."

"Hi, Houndour!" an old lady called from across the food court.

"Hi, grandma!" Houndour said, waving one of his front paws as he did so. Noticing his teammates were staring at him, he quickly lowered it. "What? Do you guys not love your grandparents, or something?"

"No, it's not that. You just… I don't know, don't seem like the type to smile and wave, you know?" Dave said.

Houndour huffed. "Fuck you guys. My family fucking rules."

"Whatever," Dave said. "Can we keep going? This place is weird as fuck. Have you seen some of the pokémon walking around?"

"Like who?" Nidoran asked, curious.

"Well, there's this guy," Dave said, stepping aside to reveal a blue-ringed umbreon staring at the group.

"Uh…hi?" Nidoran asked. "Is there something you need, or do we need to kick your ass for looking at us like a creepy molester?"

The umbreon didn't respond. It didn't even blink. It just kept staring at the group intently, its gaze seeming to pierce through their souls.

"You okay, buddy?" Dave said, poking it slightly with one of his claws.

The umbreon suddenly lunged forward and bit Dave's outsretched paw.

"Motherfucker!" Dave screamed, his paw now leaking a large amount of blood on the floor. "What's your problem, dude?"

The umbreon turned to look at him. "My name is Vinny," it said.

Dave glared at it. "That's nice and all, but it doesn't explain why my hand is now leaking blood on the floor!"

"Oh, my bad!" a bellsprout in janitor's clothing said, as he began mopping up the blood Dave was leaking everywhere.

"Great service," Houndour said, as he watched the janitor clean up.

"My name is Vinny," the umbreon said, once again. "I'm a shiny umbreon who's slightly insane. I may or may not be a shitty self-insert, because pretty much every one of these stories has one. Excuse me while I shred," he said, as he pulled an electric guitar out of nowhere and began to play.

Dave blinked. "What just happened?"

"Oh, that's just Vinny," the janitor said, as he deposited his mop back into the bucket of water. "He hangs out here all the time. He likes biting people and talking about how everything is the result of some bored guy in his underwear thinking up random shit and typing it down for others to read for some kind of sexual thrill. Believe it or not, he's great with kids."

"Ah," Dave said. "Hey, guys?"

"Yes, Dave?" Nidoran said.

"Can we go? Please? Anywhere but here would be fine. I'd even settle for the next floor up. I just can't stay here. I've seen some weird shit in my time, but this takes the cake, by far."

"Sure. Hey, janitor? Where's the staircase?" Houndour said.

"Staircase? Ain't no staircase here! There's an elevator to your right that will take you up to the ninth floor, though," the janitor said.

"The ninth floor? Why not straight to the top?" Dave asked, as he wrapped a spare sack from the toolbox around his paw.

The bellsprout began to breathe heavily. "I…I can't answer that! He'll seek me out! And he'll gut me like a fish!"

Dave looked at his other team members, confused. "Who will seek you out?"

"I can't tell you! I've said too much already!" the bellsprout said, as he gathered his cleaning supplies. "Now, I have to go plunge a toilet! Please never speak to me again!" he said, as he ran away from the team.

"…Weird," Dave said, as he turned to the rest of his team. "So, about that elevator?"

The ride up to the ninth floor was quite uneventful. Dave was torn between calling it flat-out boring or a welcome break between the tropical shitstorms they had gone through during the past few days. He had to admit, he was leaning more towards the ride being boring.

The jazz music wasn't helping, either.

"When is this thing supposed to stop?" Dave asked, annoyed. "I can only deal with so many trumpets after going through the Hoenn region."

Houndour smirked. "What, don't like a little jazz?"

"No, I don't like trumpets. Can we stop the elevator now? I want to get off."

"Calm down," Nidoran said. "We're here."

True to her word, the doors began to open, revealing the wonderous world of the ninth floor.

"Is this the fucking lingerie department?" Houndour asked.

"I think so," Dave said, looking around the various racks containing different pairs of underwear. "Why there exists a lingerie department, I have no idea. None of us even wear clothes…well, the janitor was, but he's a janitor, so he barely classifies as a person."

"Let's try to focus on the mission at hand," Nidoran said.

"Oh, yeah. That. Where to now, then?" Dave asked.

"Hold on, let me check the map," Houndour said, as he looked up at the ceiling. "Okay, so it looks like there actually are stairs from this point on. We just need to follow them."

"That map is seriously useful," Dave said. "Why don't we use that thing more often?"

"Because we're not even a bronze ranked team yet," Nidoran said.

"So, we're all still pretty stupid?"

"You put it kind of bluntly, but yeah, we're all still pretty stupid. Or, rather, you two are. I'm kind of just here because Thunderwave Cave got boring after a bit, what with the excellence I exude."

Dave grinned. "Is that why you always forget to use the map?"

"…Shut up," Nidoran replied, before turning back to Houndour. "How's that map coming?"

"Not well." He spat. "Some retard inverted the compass on it."

Dave blinked. "…They inverted a floating compass?"

"Yes."

"On a floating, transparent map?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's on the ceiling?"

"That is affirmative, yes."

"How the hell would you invert a compass, anyway? I thought they were based on magnetic fields, or something, and would always point North."

Houndour stared at him. "The hell is a magnetic field?"

"Are you two done?" Nidoran asked.

"Yes," Dave replied. "Albeit, a bit confused."

"No matter, I found the stairs," she announced triumphantly.

"Is it going to be like this for every floor?" Dave asked.

"What, you mean you're wondering if I'm going to be the one to find the important stuff while you two sit back and jerk each other off?"

"I guess," Dave replied.

"Well," she said, as she started climbing up the stairs. "That's how it's been for the past few dungeons we've been in, hasn't it?"

The remaining floors went about the same as the ninth, just as Nidoran had anticipated; Dave and Houndour stood back and talked, while she found the stairs and kicked ass along the way.

Not that there was a whole lot of ass to kick. Mall cops don't put up much of a fight once their food is kicked out of their hands. Either way, she was just happy to kick something.

"Did you really need to kick that guy in the crotch that hard?" Houndour asked, as he reached the top floor.

"What, do you care about mall cops now?" Nidoran asked.

"No, but I do feel a bit of pain whenever I see someone take a hard hit to the groin. It's why I can't watch America's Funniest Home Videos anymore."

"Are you sure you aren't just a pussy?"

"Honestly? It's probably a little from column A, a little from column B."

"The fuck does that even mean?"

"Hey look, it's Zapdos!" Dave said, pointing excitedly at the large yellow bird hovering directly above them.

"Ah, yes, it's good to finally be noticed by a fellow electric type!" Zapdos said.

"You know, Zapdos, I've been meaning to ask; what gender are you, exactly? I tried asking some mall cops, but Nidoran kicked them in the balls before they could answer."

Zapdos hesitated. "Well, you see…um…hm…this is a new one. Usually people ask me why the mountain is now a mall. Can we change the subject? Like, now?"

"Certainly," Houndour said. "We're here for that fucker you took from us."

Zapdos' eyes widened. "I remember you three, now! Didn't I tell you all to get your own fucker?"

"Yeah, about that. You see, we kind of need this fucker in order to get paid. For some reason, Alakazam wants Shiftry back. He also said that we were supposed to destroy Doomsday Preppers, or something."

"NOOOO!" Zapdos bellowed. "Not my Preppers!"

"Yes, your Preppers," Nidoran said, thoroughly fed up already.

"I can't let you destroy that! En garde!" Zapdos yelled, as it landed on the mountaintop, ready to fight to the death to protect the only thing it ever loved.

"Alright, I have a plan!" Dave yelled, as he began to charge up a thundershock.

"Oh, this is great!" Houndour said, dodging a very painful-looking peck from the legendary bird.

"No, listen! I'll draw its fire, while you two set it on fire and beat it the fuck to death!" Dave said.

"That's not bad!" Nidoran shouted. "Let's do that!"

"I can hear you guys, you know," Zapdos said, as he narrowly missed hitting Houndour with a thunderbolt.

"Shit!" Nidoran said. "Guys, execute plan Delta One-Niner!"

"Is that the one with the spaghetti, or the one with the AR-15?" Houndour shouted.

"It's the one where we run around and launch random attacks, hoping that he goes down before we do!"

"I don't like this plan!" Dave said, firing off another thundershock as Zapdos hit him with a peck. "Ow!"

"You alright, Dave?" Houndour yelled, attempting to set Zapdos' tail feathers on fire.

"I just got pecked by the god of thunder!" Dave moaned. "The fuck do you think?"

The battle continued well into the night, with neither side making much progress. For every attack Team Schism would get in, Zapdos would get one of them with a thunderbolt or a peck, leaving the others to pick up the slack. All in all, it was a pretty shitty fight scene. They didn't even throw rocks, or anything. They just launched non-stop attacks until someone fainted. It was quite boring. They even had to take a break and play a few rounds of Halo on Zapdos' shitty TV (during which they all agreed to stop fighting, but didn't last fifteen minutes because Zapdos kept camping the rocket spawn). Eventually, they all got bored and went home.

Just kidding. No, Schism totally won.

"Guys, we totally fucking won that shit," Dave said, as he kicked Zapdos' unconscious body.

"Whatever. That was boring. Let's just take Admiral Fuckwagon over here and go," Houndour said, motioning to Shiftry.

"First, let me do this," Nidoran said, as she kicked Zapdos' TV off the mountain. "That's for hogging all the power weapons, asshole!"

"Not gonna lie, this whole excursion was pretty fucking dumb," Dave said, as he prepared to activate his rescue team badge. Just before he traveled home, however, he realized something.

"Guys!" he shouted.

"What?" they shouted back.

"I totally just fucking realized something!"

"Well, what is it?" Houndour said.

"Look around! What do you see?"

"Rocks and bird shit. It's the top of a mountain, what are we supposed to see?" Nidoran said.

"Correct, rocks and bird shit! No initials, or anything!" Dave said.

"Are we seriously bringing up PD again? I thought I explained it quite clearly last time; nobody cares. Not even your imaginary friend," Houndour said.

"Don't you tell me what Randy does and doesn't care about!" Dave said. "And don't you realize what this means?"

"You're fucking stupid?" Nidoran asked.

"No!"

"Bullshit."

"Okay, fine, it means that too. But it mainly means that whoever the hell keeps putting PD on things hasn't shown up yet! This could be our only chance to catch them!"

"Who the fuck cares?" Houndour asked, annoyed. "I just want to go home and sleep. That damn bird pecked me right in the shin. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"

"Shut up for a sec!" Dave said, as he listened intently to something.

"What are you doing?" Nidoran asked.

"Someone's coming up the stairs!" Dave whispered. "Quick, get behind that rock!"

He didn't exactly offer them a choice, seeing as he pushed them in before either of them could protest. Whenever they tried to speak, he would silence them and tell them to listen for someone coming up the stairs.

"This is really stupid," Houndour said, more than a little irritated at being stuck in a confined space with Nidoran and Dave for even a short amount of time.

"Shut the fuck up, Houndour!" Dave said.

Houndour blinked. "Wow, Dave. You've never…you know, yelled at me like that before. I have mixed feelings about this. I kind of want to kick your ass, but I also kind of want to congratulate you on not being such a pussy."

"Whatever, the guy is here!"

They all watched curiously as a white-furred pokémon made its way up the last few steps and stared at the fallen Zapdos.

"Son of a bitch!" it shouted. "Vinny, I thought I told you to fucking distract them for several minutes while I went and got lunch!"

Vinny didn't respond, probably because the white pokémon was the only one on the mountaintop.

"This guy is super weird," Houndour whispered.

"Super weird?" Dave asked. "So, it's like weird, but wearing a cape?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Hey, focus!" Nidoran said. "Obviously this guy has been following us! Now, what are we going to do about it?"

"Ask him to leave, and hope he listens?" Dave asked.

"Fuck him up?" Houndour asked.

"No! We're going to capture him and interrogate him, you know? Find out why he was following us?"

"Whatever," Dave said.

"Okay," Nidoran said. "On my go."

"Fuck that! Let's get him!" Houndour shouted, as he charged out of his hiding spot. "Hey, you!"

"What"? the pokémon asked, before being tackled by a very angry fire type.

"No hard feelings, it's just that being stuck with Dave is aggravating sometimes," Houndour said, as he pinned the pokémon down.

"I understand completely," he said.

"Hey, Nidoran!" Houndour called. "The hell do want to do with this guy?"

"Knock him the fuck out! The hell did you think I wanted you to do with him once you got him pinned?" she called.

Houndour grinned. "Sorry, bro," he said, as he kicked the pokémon beneath him in the face, knocking him the fuck out, just as Nidoran wanted.

"Are we done here, Dave?" Nidoran asked.

"Yeah," Dave said. "Just grab Shiftry and let's go."

"Thought you'd never fucking say so," Nidoran said, as she placed the rescue team badge on Shiftry, then teleported out with the rest of her team.

Once they were all gone, Zapdos started to stir.

"Oh, thank God they're gone!" it said. "Now I can watch TV in peace!"

To its dismay, the TV was nowhere to be found. On a hunch, it looked over the edge of the mountain, and was greeted with the smashed remains of its beloved idiot box.

"NOOOOO! Damn you, Team Schism! Damn you all to hell!" it cried, shaking its wing in the air as it did so.

It sat there in silence for a few seconds before letting out a large sigh. Reluctantly, it stood up and began to walk down the stairs.

"Guess I'll have to buy a new TV downstairs, then…"