"Goodness Reese, how long do ya have to help your dad out at the base?"

"'Til' bout five or six o'clock."

"Aww man...i was hopin' you could come over and play games with me for a lil' bit."

"Maybe tomorrow. But it's all good, Ives. Dad's gettin' us some Spike's Tavern tonight."

"Hmm...lucky you."

Two 4th grade friends, a Shiny Furfrou named Ivan and a Blitzle named Reese, glad to be done with school for the day, ride their bikes together on this partly cloudy mid-late afternoon in their home town of Table Rock, South Carolina, discussing what they're going to do the rest of that day and tomorrow, also bantering about a few other things and fellow classmates of theirs.

This goes on for a few minutes, and as they get done discussing some stupid dance an Eevee named Kurt has gotten into these last few days, they reach a very familiar intersection.

"Aight, Ivan. It's been fun, but i gotta get to the base." Reese tells him, making a right on his bike up Pisgah Street. "Catch ya tomorrow!" the Blitzle calls out with a wave.

Ivan waves back. "See ya, Reese! Have fun!" Ivan calls out. He then adjusts his top hat and green tie, and after waiting for a blue SUV to make its turn, pedals past the intersection and continuing west along Strawberry Point Road. Even in the south, Dandy Trim Furfrous are rare to come across, especially shiny ones, and Ivan had definitely gotten more attention from other students ever since getting this new look of his back around Christmas, but popularity wasn't a reason the 10-year-old chose this particular trim. Okay, it was a little. However, ever since first being taught about the various trims of his species when he was 4 or 5 years old, Ivan had always liked the Dandy look the most. Especially the idea of getting to wear a top hat all the time.

There was just one issue - Dandy is an expensive trim. Ivan's parents have never been rich, and back then, they certainly weren't doing well financially...heck, Ivan had lived in a trailer until he was 8. But eventually, things slowly but surely got better. And before he knew it, only two months ago, his dream of having a Dandy trim finally came true with the help of an uncle of his. And he was going to keep this for as long as he lived.

Now riding by himself, things go quiet outside of the noise of the occasional car passing by, chirping birds, and any activities that other local Pokemon are getting up to outside. It's peaceful initially for Ivan, who starts humming to himself. But after passing a few more streets, and starting to get into the western outskirts of Table Rock, a familiar pressure between his legs suddenly returns. And he gulps.

"Oh great..." Ivan utters. "Why'd whatever that sumbitch ate have to make him take the worst smellin' dumps ever?" he groans, as the need to pee is now stronger than it was when he initially left school. If it hadn't been for one opportunity he took to sneak off to a bush earlier during recess, Ivan would be faring much worse than this...and quite embarrassed. No one knew who it was...at least, in his class, but one of the boys either had a bug, or ate something that didn't sit well with his stomach, and had to run to the bathrooms multiple times. And the smell wasn't your ordinary bad one...it was so awful that Ivan and a few other Pokemon almost threw up.

Now, most of the boys were daring when bathroom breaks were either needed or came around and used the restrooms in spite of how much their nose hairs burned. Ivan, however, was not...it was too much for him, even if holding it wasn't the smartest thing to do. Part of him regrets this now, as now that he's out of the heart of town, there isn't much he could try to distract himself with.

"Oh no..." Ivan whimpers as the first tall hill on his usual route back to his lakeside home comes into view. It was a pain in the butt with quite a few hills, and curves. Even then, it's not a trek Ivan usually dreads, However, he hadn't been in a potty emergency like this until today, and it was a situation he never expected to find himself in.

"Kyah!" A sudden sharp pang gets Ivan to let out a yelp, putting his forepaws to his pants as he starts to shake. Tears begin to well up in the poodle's as reality starts to sink in. "I'm...r-really gonna do it." he whimpers. "I'm gonna p-pee in my pants like a little pup." Ivan adds, whimpering as he tries his best to hold back the tears. "B-but...if it's gonna happen, i'd rather it happen while still trying to get to a bathroom." he decides before beginning to pedal once more. The odds of making it are definitely slim, but he has no plans of just giving up and soaking his pants while sitting there.

Just then, he looks off to his right...and spots a railroad track.

"Or...is it?" Ivan expresses as an idea suddenly pops into his head. This track is the same one that comes close to his house, and unlike the curvy road he always takes, the track is mostly straight. The curve or two he'd encounter wouldn't be sharp at all. It was a really stupid and dangerous idea, Ivan knew, but he wants to keep his streak of dry pants alive more than anything. So he crosses the road, and carefully pedals down the clearing towards the tracks.

"Mom or dad would kill me if they knew i was doing this." Ivan utters under his breath, stopping once he reaches the tracks and looking both ways, squirming for this short period. Not seeing a train coming, Ivan gets the front tire of his bike across the rail, and starts to wiggle and shift around, thinking it'll help get the rear tire across.

"Come on...c-come on..." the Furfrou mutters. He struggles to do so, but he somehow manages to bring that rear tire over. Once it settles however, a little squirt suddenly shoots out into his underwear, causing Ivan to freeze and let out a little eep. Starting to blush, he is quick to position the bike straight ahead, knowing that the dam could burst any minute. At least he has a straight shortcut now.

"All right!" Ivan cheers, and although he's now shaking from how much he needs to pee, especially around his hind legs, he starts to pedal again. The rail ties are a bit bumpy, but they aren't too rough on the bike, and neither is the ballast.

As he pedals around a small curve, another worry arises. A very legitimate one. Images of an Operation Lifesaver PSA that Ivan and his classmates had watched a week ago, come to mind. In more ways than one, there was no genuine excuse for what the Furfrou's doing - especially since Ivan himself is a big fan of trains! He already planned to dye himself in the colors of the Southern Railway one day, his top hat becoming green and the green spots on the rest of his body becoming yellow. If a train were to come right now, peeing himself would immediately become the least of his worries. Trains are big, heavy, cannot swerve to avoid someone, and take a while to stop...not even having a powerful Psychic-type in the cab would make any difference.

However, it's okay for this one occasion, Ivan assures himself. After today, it would NEVER happen again.

"Come on...come on...come on..." he repeats to himself, starting to pick up the pace a little faster as a trestle across the lake comes into view. "Y-yes...s-so close..." Ivan strains out, fighting off a potty dance.

Once he gets to just before the trestle, Ivan quickly comes to a stop and looks around. As expected, there's a No Trespassing sign off to the side of the tracks, and looking directly down the trestle is enough to make him gulp. There's no guardrails on either side, nor is there even a maintenance walkway for him to use, and the drop to the water down below looks pretty high. As much as Ivan doesn't wanna do it...it will be better to walk if he doesn't wanna fall off the side.

The poodle slowly gets up off the bike, and just as he steps to the side, another little spurt comes out.

"N-no...not now!" Ivan shouts, squeezing his hind legs together as tightly as he can before grabbing one of the handlebars with his right forepaw and beginning to slowly walk down the tracks, and onto the trestle.

Not wanting to possibly slip and get a paw stuck between one of the gaps between the ties, the Furfrou reluctantly takes slow steps, forcing himself to either look ahead or look down to make sure he's positioning his paws right, forcing himself to not look to either side. At least the bike seems to be going along without any issue.

"Oh...o-oh gosh." he says before whimpering again, both from another pang he manages to fight off, and from how long the trestle looks to be...longer than he thought it was. He still had another minute of walking to do at the latest, it seems.

The walk continues, Ivan kicking a stray rock every now and then as he shakes and continues to take breaths. He's soon a quarter of a mile down the trestle...then a third of the way down. Then two fifths of the way. The more he walks, and the closer the other side slowly comes into view, some slight optimism begins to grow once again. Maybe he is going to make it! In spite of the bladder pressure, he picks up the pace as which he's walking slightly.

Next thing he knows, he's made it just over halfway there. "I....i c-can do it. I can do it!" Ivan cheers to himself, keeping himself from catching a wrong spot on one of the rails and potentially slipping. The progress continues. Three fifths! The end of the trestle gets closer and closer. Three fifths turns into seven tenths.

"Just a little m-more, a-and then-"

But before the Furfrou can finish...he is cut off by a sound. One that he usually enjoys hearing, but instead sends a chill up his spine on occasion. The blast of a Leslie RS5T horn. He gulps, before quickly turning around.

Just what he had feared...a train was coming. Right behind him!

Clenching the handlebars of his bike tightly, Ivan picks up the pace a bit more, as much as he can do without risking complete loss of bladder control in the moment. "G-go...g-go now!" Ivan calls to himself. Jumping into the water wasn't an option. Ignoring how high above the water this trestle stood, not only would his bike likely end up with a fair bit of rust and damage, but despite living next to a lake, he didn't know how to swim. This was really bad.

Even so, it hadn't fully sank in how much danger Ivan was in as he continued this brisk walk.

That is, until he gets four fifths down the trestle, when the horn blows again a few times, much louder and closer. Followed by a hissing noise...not one coming from his pants, but one that meant the emergency brake had been applied. Then came a shout from the cab.

"Hey Furfrou, jump!"

It really sank in right then and there. The train was much closer than Ivan thought or wished, and if he didn't act quickly now...he didn't want to think about what would happen next. As the adrenaline starts to rush, his brisk walk quickly turns into a stride down the tracks, about ten to twelve ties at a time. "Shit...shit...shit..." Ivan begins to cuss to himself, his pants accompanied by several short, frantic blasts of the train's Leslie horn behind him, slowly getting closer...

"This ain't worth dyin' for, get in the lake!" "Arceus, stop this thing, please..." "Forget the bike!"

Ivan could hear the shouts of the train crew behind him, clearly just as scared as he was. The horn blasts were starting to hurt his ears, but now wasn't the time to try covering them. The Furfrou was very glad to finally reach the end of the trestle, and the moment there was enough ground on both sides, he takes a dive right to the left, landing in the soft grass with his bike next to him.

He pants and shakes as he slowly gets up, looking up just in time to see the train pass by. The leading locomotive is a high hood in its familiar Norfolk Southern thoroughbred black paint scheme that Ivan's seen many of a times. It's SD40-2 number 1625 - as it passes by, it gives one more blast of its horn which makes Ivan jump a bit, and he can see the Heliolisk engineer look down at him, a mixture of relieved, disappointed...and a bit angry.

The electric lizard turns one last time at Ivan and sticks his claw digit out, shaking it profusely towards him. Pretty rude, but hard to blame him in the moment considering what he'd just gone through. 

"Ugh...that was way too close." Ivan pants as he goes to grab his bike, hearing the train come out of emergency brake. "I damn sure ain't tryin' that again."

As he stands it up before waiting and getting ready for the whole train to pass, it is right then and there that Ivan suddenly feels another sensation - one that makes him go red in the face before tilting his head down his shame.

Whether it happened during the run, when he fell, or with that last train blast, the dam Ivan had been holding back broke. For the first time in years, he had soaked his pants. He couldn't get a good look at how much damage was done, but he could tell it was a lot, as there were streaks running down both pant legs...and it was dripping on the grass between his hind paws.

"Eww...g-gross..." Ivan whimpers as the tears well up again, struggling to keep himself from starting to cry from the shame of it all. He's 10! He has great control over his bladder, and is too big for accidents like this. What will mom and dad say, especially when he tells them what led up to it...and if they somehow figure out that he took a really dangerous shortcut to try and keep from peeing his pants all for nothing. He'll definitely be taking a warm bath once he's home, before any homework he has to do.

Ivan sighs, continuing to whimper as there's a part of him that starts to think...with the danger he willingly put himself in, maybe he deserves this wet pair of pants. He'd just almost gotten himself seriously injured or worse, and had scared the hell out of train crew that's just doing their job. He could only imagine what that poor Heliolisk and the other Pokemon in the cab were going through in that moment...only delivering some freight presumably to somewhere in Georgia, and they find themselves getting quite the scare that neither of them expected or wanted.

Feeling guilty about that, Ivan finds himself unable to hold the tears back and lets them stream down his face and drip onto the grass as he watches the train go by. "*sniffle* I-if i g-get a ch-chance...*sniffle* I'll t-tell them i-i'm sohohohrry..." the Furfrou begins to cry, deciding there's no point in holding back any longer. The tears he wipes off with his paws are only replaced by new ones.

As the last few boxcars and coil cars pass by, Ivan starts pulling his bicycle behind him again. As this is a single track line, he doesn't look both ways before crossing as it'll be a while before the next train comes. And once he's across, he begins to walk in the direction of his house, which isn't too far away, continuing to cry. His wet underwear and pants feel quite unpleasant right now, but at least he won't be in them much longer.

All Ivan wishes for, is that neither of his parents, will have put much thought into the frantic horn blasts that cut through the air a minute ago. Or that no one else in the neighborhood saw and went running off to tell them.