The small living room was covered with festive decorations and sparkling tinsel, the rather large and overly decorated tree that was squeezed into the corner had a pile of large presents sat under it. Ready for the two small boys that where sitting in the middle of the room to open the next day.

“Ba! Of course pigeoto could beat wormio, he’d just use his special meat tube attack, and wormio would be split, I tell you good sir!” The more pompous one of the two boys said a little too excitedly. He pointed to his vast stash of pokemon merchandise that was arrayed in front of him, as if to prove his statement.

“Mert, pigeoto doesn’t have a meat tube attack, and if he did he wouldn’t use it on pokemon because it would be against the rules of the pokemon trainer. And speaking of rules, you promised mum you’d take off that monocle and waist coat you found outside and stop making me call you duke or whatever.” Tom said exasperated.

Mert’s face reddened. Drawing himself up to his full height, he yelled, “It's baron! Baron von mert, and if you have grown fond of your teeth good sir you’ll call me that!”

Tom rolled his eyes. “So I expect you’r gonna ask for a duel now? Well I’m tired of vibrating Mr twank and Mr flibble at each other until you get bored and declare 'victory is yours', so you can count me out.”

“I’ll take that as an acceptance to my challenge!” Mert said jumping up and running into his room. A few minutes later he reappeared with a small toy cat. Inserting the batteries, Mert flicked the on switch.

“Mr. Twank, I choose you!” Mert roared with all the might a ten-year-old could muster, then threw it in tom’s direction. Landing with a crunch, Mr Twank slowly started to vibrate round in small circles on its side. Tom looked up at Mert standing with a smug smile on his face, his monocle glinting.

“Wow, looks like you win” he said sarcastically, then got up and made for the kitchen.

“That’s right! Run from Mr twank! You’re his bitch now!” Mert yelled rabidly pointing in his brother’s direction. “And as your punishment for loosing, you must bring the baron some pie!”

The next day was as normal a Christmas as any, and for the most part the boys spent it playing with their new gifts and bickering. Mert sat in the middle of his pile of pokemon stuff, which had swelled since that morning with a new influx of gimmicky toys and other crap.

“Hey, Tom,” Mert said slyly. “I bet my pickachu could take your toy tractor”

“Shut up Mert, I’m playing farmers and erotic dancers,” he said with his tractor in one hand, and a Barbie doll in the other. Pushing the two together he wiggled the doll and said in a raised voice, “My, my you’re a big farmer, why don’t you sow your seeds over here?” Then giving the tractor a quick twitch he lowered his voice and said, “Aaayh’, bitch, why don’t you water my sprout first, see if it grows?”

He faintly heard Mert mutter, “Pickachu, I choose you” before the pointy plastic replica of his favourite pokemon smashed into his new tractor. Tom stood up fuming

“You fucked up little Bitch! Now we’ll never know what the farmer got!”

Mert was momentarily stunned by his brother’s out burst, but soon regained his smothering arrogance. “That sounds like you want a duel good sir! Choose your pokemon!” he bellowed standing up with Mr. Twank poised.

“You want a duel, do ya, Well hows about we play with real pokemon, and not your childish toys?” Tom said narrowing his eyes.

Mert cocked his head. "What? Pokemon aren’t real, remember, mom had that therapist in to tell me, and also to clear up that other, shall we say bed wetting matter.” He coughed embarrassedly and blushed. There was a long pause.

"MAYBE THEY ARE!" said Tom with a click of his fingers. "Think about it. Have you ever heard at school about any sort of animal that was born electric like Picachoo?!"

"Well, there's the electric eel" replied Mert, monacle glinting with triumph.

"Yes, there's the electric eel, but how about an animal that squirts water like squirtle?!"

"Well, there are Elephants. They do that, my good man."

"Oh yeah. Em, well, you never find animals like them in England, so that must mean English animals have different powers. Eerie powers. Eerie powerful powers." With this Tom let out a noise which sounded almost like a ghost being castrated, as if to act as proof behind his theory.

"Well, I can't fault your logic," replied Mert. Just then, with the timing as if this story was a work of fiction, the family pet dog walked through the door.

"Well. There's no more Pokemon on T.V. till tomorrow. Damn those holidays, so I guess now is as good a time as any to test our theory," Mert said stroking his prepubescent chin with a pondering, scientific look on his face.

"Yes. Test!" Tom replied.

With this they both ran at their dog. The dog was 16 years old and as such unable to react with nearly the speed needed to escape.

"Got you. You're a feisty one, aren't you my pretty?" exclaimed Mert.

"Dude?" replied Tom. "What do you mean? It barely moved."

"I demand a du..." Mert was cut short

"Later. Now that we've caught him, we should give him a name and work out his special power."

"I say we call him Bitchle. Bitchle is Japanese for dog," said the Baron, hoping his brother wouldn't see through his blatant lie. It worked.

"Bitchle it is!" Said Tom "But what could his special power be?"

"I know!" he exclaimed "He must have the ability not to catch fire! I've seen dad stub his cigar butts out on him more times than you've had pie."

"Yes. I was just about to say that. Bitchle, the flame retardant dog!" the Baron shouted excitedly.

"Now all we need is an opponent! Lets go and look for one!"

"OK, but first we should put the malignant Bitchle back into his Pokeball."

"Yes. Agreed," said Tom. "Em. Em, get me his Pokeball, would you Mert?"

"THE BARON OBEYS NO ONE." He stood proud for a moment, but as he realized that his brother had began to play with his Barbie again he walked off into another room briefly and came back in with two spherical goldfish bowls.

"Here it is" said Mert as he passed the goldfish bowl to Tom.

"Em, thanks" said Tom. He put the bowl down next to Bitchle. "Well, if we wait long enough, unless T.V. has lied, he should get in there of his own accord."

Three seconds of silence elapsed.

"Screw this" said Mert as he picked up the makeshift 'Pokeball' "Get in!" With this he managed to ram bitchle's head inside of the 'pokeball.' "That'll have to do" .

"OK" replied Tom. "Let's go find an opponent for Bitchle!"

"Let's start in the garden!"

The two boys walked around their family garden for about five minutes before they got bored.

"Let's go in, the Baron begins to tire"

"We can't go in until we've found an opponent for the mighty Bitchle!" replied Tom.

"OK. Let's just pick up the next animal we find then"

"Look!" Mert said pointing to the pond. He reached in and pulled out one of the goldfish which rested inside. "I caught a mighty and unyielding goldfish! Look how much it's fighting even me, it's master. Ba ha ha. Plus, it's going to be easier to fit him inside a pokeball."

"Well, when you say it like that, putting a fish and a dog together in mortal combat doesn't seem so stupid!"

When the kids got back inside they began to talk.

"What shall we call this one?" said Tom.

"I say we call it Minge, just like that magazine of dad's we found."

"Excellent. And it's power?" "The power of. Em, Love."

"Sounds good. Are you ready?" said Tom putting Minge into his pokeball.

"YEAH!" Said Mert picking up bitchle.

"Let's do it!"

They began to half-heartily dance.

"Bitchle, I choose you!" the baron cried as he threw the glass bowl onto the floor and it shattered. With a whine, Bitchle was released.

"Minge, I choose you!" said Tom, throwing his ball onto the floor, which shattered with equal intensity.

The pair stood there for a moment watching the final kicks of Minge's oxygen drowned life, and the last breaths of their beloved pet dog. Just then the boy's mother walked in from the kitchen.

"WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON IN HERE?!?!"