NOTE AND WARNING: While the fic borrows ideas and names from and is "inspired" of Pokemon, it is in NO WAY a spoof, spin-off, crossover, or makeover of the original Pokemon series. Please do not read it in expectation of such.

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The Kurumon

Part 01

"Are you sure you saw it around here?" The impatient boy restlessly stomped his foot on the rock he was sitting on with the back of his heel. When he got no reply he blew his fringe and laid down on his back, contented to stare at the good weather.

"Such good weather..." he murmured under his breath, closing his eyes, "I could be doing something more productive than trying to find some non-existent beast of the forest who's just the random imagination of the over-hyped brain of an adolescent who thinks he knows better but actually doesn't..."

As he rattled on, the lush leaves of the large, sturdy branch above him rustled noisily.

He opened an eye to stare at his friend, who stared back.

"Kirua," the dark-haired boy asked, "were you saying something?" He smiled brightly, overpowering the glories of the afternoon sun rays. Kirua immediately ducked to a side, letting the light shine on the rock he had rolled off from and reducing it to ashes instead. He put on a pair of shades, nodded, and looked up at the boy in the tree again.

"No Gon, I didn't say anything. Nothing important, anyway." He yawned and put a hand through his shaggy silver hair. Lazily, he continued, "Hey Gon... we've been searching for hours now... just what is this thing you're trying to find anyway?"

"Um!" Gon immediately brightened up again, melting Kirua's shades into a pile of rubble.

"It's a Kurumon!"

Kirua blinked, tossing the deformed shades to one side. "A what?" He asked.

"A Kurumon!" Gon repeated, smile still in place. His friend turned increasingly uncomfortable.

"You... you don't mean to say... a Kurumon... as in... a Kuruta Monster... do you..." Kirua got paler, and tried to smile, so that it would sound like a joke.

"UM!" Gon's cheerful voice resounded through the forest a couple of times. "Isn't it great?" He laughed, power surging through the sound of his mirth. He didn't notice his companion's disbelieving face at all.

The birds chirped overhead. There was silence between the duo.

"GON!!!" Kirua kicked the tree and sent his friend flying. Eventually Gon ended up by the riverside, face in the mud. His enraged friend stormed up to him and picked him up by the collar, shaking madly. "Do you KNOW what you're talking about?! The Kurumons are all dead! DEAD! EXTINCT! You know, they don't exist anymore??!" He stopped shaking and stared at the dark-haired boy, who stared back with equal intensity.

Gon gave a solemn nod of his head. "Um. I saw one just the other day."

The silver-haired boy promptly fainted on the spot. It was apparent that Gon had no idea what he was talking about.

"Come on! Let's try walking down the river. Maybe we'll find something." Gon excitedly dragged the semi-conscious Kirua by his neck, oblivious to his discomfort.

"All right, all right, let me go, I can walk by myself..." Kirua wrung himself free from his friend's grasp and grudgingly walked alongside Gon. It was common knowledge that once Gon had his sights set on something, nothing short of hitting him unconscious would get him out of it - and even so, he would just go after it again when he woke up. The boy sighed.

A few more hours of walking later, Kirua collapsed in a heap by the riverbank.

"What's wrong, Kirua?" Gon turned around and asked, still rearing to go.

"NO!" Kirua blabbered incoherently. "I can't move anymore! Please, let's just stop here for the day... I'm tired, hungry, sleepy, thirsty, tired, hungry, sleepy, thirsty, tired- OOOH let's go home!!" He sat up and pleaded with his darker haired counterpart, who wore the same wide-eyed look he did when he left the house that morning. It was a look of utter determination. Gon would continue trying to find the Kurumon even if Kirua wasn't going to.

"....." Kirua was undoubtedly stuck. "... the sun is setting..." He pointed at the orange rays in a desperate bid to win Gon over. The boy only looked at him with more determination.

"I'm going to find it. Something tells me I am." The confidence was practically oozing out from his every word.

"Why are you so sure?" Kirua stared at Gon with his eyelids halfway through to the bottom.

"I just am." Gon nodded solemnly, and turned to go in the other direction. "You can head back first if you want, Kirua, but I'm staying for a while more."

He watched his friend leave, stumped. He could never figure out what was going on in Gon's spikey head. Soon, Gon was just a small bob of black and green vibrating on the flourishing grass, going downstream. The boy sighed, clambering clumsily to his feet.

"Hey..." He weakly called out, "... wait for me, Gon..." Kirua mumbled to himself, entirely unmotivated. "Don't leave me behind..." He continued to burble, walking half-heartedly and tripping over his own feet. If he could, he wouldn't be following anybody around. But Gon was different. Gon didn't demand that you followed him. Gon simply made you want to follow. It was a strange feeling, and yet Kirua was not adverse to it. That was how they hit off so well in the first place.

So absorbed Kirua was in trying not to step on his shoelaces which had come off, he didn't notice that Gon had stopped and ducked behind a few tall trees by the stream until he crashed into the trees himself. To that, Gon quickly spun around and put a finger to his lips, demanding silence. Of course Kirua gave him silence. In fact, that was all one could give when one was sprawled all over the mud after crashing into trees.

"Kirua, Kirua, you see that??" Gon's excited whisper brought the silver haired boy out of the mud. "I told you we'd find it today!" His voice was bursting with innocent joy. Gon was such an easy person to please.

"So where's the bunny bunny?" Kirua, however, was obviously unconvinced. He ignored Gon's chagrined look and poked his head out from the stem of the tree, peering downstream. Indeed. He saw nothing special. Nothing extraordinary was happening.

But Kirua could not believe his eyes.

Gon then stuck his head out as well, grinning madly. "See, Kirua? You see that?" He could not stop gushing about 'that'.

"Oh..." Kirua only managed to barely murmur, "... my gosh..."

They both stared.

And the thing in yellow suddenly moved.

It got up from the curled up position it had previously taken and sat heavily on it's butt - if you called that a butt. It then proceeded to scoop a bit of water from the riverside and use it to scrub at it's own face and bright, blond hair.

Kirua really could not believe his eyes.

It was yellow in colour, with golden hair. It had two parallel marks of sullen red splashed across it's back halfway towards it's front. It had a jagged tail which pointed to the sky. It had the head of a doll and the body of a... ball.

The silver haired boy never professed to be a scholar, but this he was pretty sure.

This thing was a Kurumon. And it was alive, right before their eyes.

"Let's go make a grab for it!" Gon made funny jiggling noises and tugged at Kirua's sleeves for his attention. "Aunt Mito would love to see it, I'm sure!"

"Wait, don't go out." Kirua held out a hand to stop his friend from intruding on the little creature's privacy.

"Why?" Gon whined.

Kirua coughed, putting on his best smart-alec expression. "The Kurumons are known for being hermit monsters," he explained in his wisest voice, "they don't like people and go to great lengths to try to avoid coming in contact with them. Therefore, if we want to catch it, we must be fully prepared and come out with a plan to...- what is it Gon, I'm trying to explain something here..." The boy snapped out of his reverie-like expoundation when Gon tapped him continuously on his shoulder in an attempt to get his attention. He looked at his friend with a blank look. Gon then pointed at his foot, with an equally blank look. Kirua stared at Gon's foot.

While he had been busy trying to explain, the Kurumon had bounded from it's original spot by the riverbank and was now clutching tenaciously onto Gon's foot, staring intensely in front and showing no signs of letting go.

To accentuate the point, Gon lifted his foot up - with the Kurumon clutched on, and then put his foot down, with the Kurumon still there.

"You said something about a hermit, Kirua?" Gon was smiling nervously, unable to believe it himself. Also, the Kurumon's claws were really starting to dig into his skin. It was very uncomfortable.

Kirua was unable to reply.

Suddenly, the Kurumon tightened it's grasp on Gon's foot, sending him into a yowl. Kirua's jaw dropped as he beheld the scene, aghast. Before they both took action, however, a loud voice from the distance alerted them to the presence of someone else.

"Kurapikachu!!!!!!!!"

The voice screeched.

Gon and Kirua turned blue on hearing.

"Kura... pika... chu???" They chimed in unison, blue tint slowly turning into black. Something about the name alone sent a chill up their spines.

As if in reply, the creature on Gon's foot squealed along, "CHU!"

There was a loud noise, and a weird man in black came crashing through the forest with soil, leaves, and smoke. He slid along the riverbank spectacularly, coming to a stop only when he reached the feet of the two younglings. Their eyes turned into minor dots, as they waited for the smoke to clear.

The man pulled his head out of the mud, not apparently for the first time, seeing the ease and perfection he did it in. He had a mane of well-cropped black hair which was currently caked with all kinds of things from the tropical rainforests. He had obviously been running around alot, although neither Gon nor Kirua knew what for. There were flames in his eyes as he looked straight at the yellow creature, who glared back with an equally thick formula.

Gon and Kirua kept their smiles intact. They did not, however, know what they were smiling for.

It was the man who broke the silence. He was still lying on the flat of his stomach, but he stretched his arms out and placed his hands around the Kurumon.

"You," he said, "are so dead."

"CHU!" The creature screeched and let go of Gon's foot, bringing them close to it's own body. A nasty bolt of lightning suddenly unleashed itself from it's eyes and zapped the man on his head with amazing accuracy. He didn't even had time to blink.

"ARGH!" The victim rolled and went on his knees, his hands on his eyes now. "You stupid yellow thing!" Was all he could say before the stupid yellow thing bounded over to his proximity and glared at him again.

"CHU! CHU! CHU!" The creature proceeded to zap the man more times until it was seemingly satisfied. Quickly it leapt back to Gon's foot and clutched on desperately.

The boys were very nearly turning into stone.

"What... in the world is going on?" Kirua found his voice first.

"CHU!" The creature in yellow replied after a while, when Gon appeared to be tongue-tied. Kirua found himself staring at it in exasperation. It did seem like the creature expected them to know what it was talking about.

Gon proceeded to give the creature a few quick pats on the head, before walking forward to the man who had just received the shock of his life and was still crumpled in a heap on the riverbank. Smoke was smouldering from his head. The creature panicked and leapt away from Gon to Kirua instead, hanging onto his foot and refusing to let go. It appeared to dislike this man in black very much.

The boy in green prodded at the man with a random stick. "Are you all right, sir?"

There was silence.

"Guess not." Gon threw the stick backwards, where it landed in a puddle of water. He beckoned at Kirua, who was busy trying to shake the yellow creature off his foot. When he saw Gon making signals, he shrugged and ran over. To his surprise, the stubborn Kurumon suddenly let go of his foot and stayed where it was - behind the trees by the stream.

The boy turned back to look at the creature, a little confused. The yellow thing had an expression of indignance on it's petite little face - although petite's probably the wrong word to use. Nevertheless Kirua could sense the displeasure of the thing by looking at it's face alone. If he could, he would ask it why it was looking so anal. Knowing it wouldn't reply him in a language he could understand, though, wiped that thought from his mind. He turned his attention to his friend instead, who was just beginning to speak.

"Help me out here? We gotta take this guy back to the village before he dies in the wild." Gon's absolutely ravishing smile did nothing to suggest the true seriousness of the event. It just made the whole thing appear like child's play. Which was exactly what was in Kirua's mind now. Gon never failed to make Kirua fail to understand him. And he definitely wasn't going to start now.

When Kirua got his thoughts back into reality, he noticed that Gon had stood up and was trudging through the mud past him. "Gon?" He asked, turning to see where he was going. The green-clad youth stopped in front of the yellow creature, bending downwards to talk with the thing on eye level. Still he was a little taller, so the creature had to turn it's head upwards to stare at the energetic youth.

Gon grinned.

And with one swipe of his hand gathered the Kurumon into his arms. The thing was surprisingly light for it's size, and didn't struggle in view of it's previous performances of ultra-violence towards the now unconscious man. It felt pretty comfortable in Gon's arms too, and that only made the boy grin even more. As he trodded back to Kirua, the silver haired boy stared at him in dismayal.

"Don't tell me you're going to carry that thing while I carry this thing over here," he pointed weakly at the man in black.

"Of course not!" Gon flashed as much teeth as he could. "You take his hands, I'll take his feet. And this creature over here," Gon held the yellow thing out like it was his child, "can sit here." He put the thing atop the man. The yellow thing was a little too stunned to react. It turned to look at Gon, as if sentiently able to transmit his demands for an explanation.

"Just sit there and don't move!" Gon smiled so brightly, the Kurumon had to duck in all directions before finally diving for cover under the black coat the unconscious man had on. When it poked it's head out they were already on their way out of the forest, carrying the man as planned. It blinked it's large eyes and scanned the surroundings, wondering what it's next step should be. It didn't have to, for Gon suddenly spoke out again.

"Sit there and clean yourself or something. We're taking both of you back to the village. Aunt Mito's going to love seeing you." The boy was nearly ready for another brilliant smile. Petrified, the creature dove back into the coat before the brilliance blinded it.

"Wait - shouldn't we let Reorio check him out first before bringing them back to Aunt Mito's house?" It was the other boy - the one called Kirua, who said that.

"Now that you mention it..." Gon could be heard trailing off to that idea.

In a while more, the sun finally set and the land of the Kujira Island was engulfed in pitch darkness once more.

And who knew, what the next day would bring?

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to be continued

22/5/2002

Revisions: Shuui, Fish, Nefas