"Steelix is trash." said Everette. He looked disgustedly at the cards laid upon the table before him. "It's got some good utility moves and its physical power is nothing to scoff at, but it's way too slow to amount to much in real battle."
"It doesn't need to be fast, it's a giant iron snake." Albert said. "It's one of the best physical tanks you could have. Plus, it has a truckload of resistances due to its steel typing."
"If it's too slow, it's going to get bombarded by attacks without even laying a scratch on the opponent while they whittle away at their stamina. Not to mention, the fact that its lacks any of the specialized defenses to protect itself against energy-based attacks. There's nothing stopping me from popping a fire blast in its ass." Everette said.
"It's the job of the trainer to cover for the Pokemon's weaknesses, which includes developing strategies to prevent the opponent from getting that kind of edge over you, like laying stealth rocks around the field to prevent hypermobile Pokemon from moving as they wish. As for the specialized defenses, there are plenty of moves one can use to mitigate the effect of an opponent's energy attacks, like sandstorm." Albert said.
"Who in the right mind would put sandstorm on their steelix? No one who ever brought a steelix to an actual Pokemon League Tournament, who probably had poor taste in Pokemon to begin with if they did, ever used that trick for a reason. Its time-consuming, energy inefficient, and honestly, if you want to run sandstorm for your team, you might as well just capture a tyranitar or hippowdon for the Sand Stream." Everette said.
"All that was before the soul link. There's a world of opportunities to explore now, and I'm not about to just pass them up because they're not popular." Albert said. His inflection rose, as it typically did when he got emotional about a subject. Of course, he thought that he was being perfectly reasonable. There hadn't even been a League Conference since the public release of the technology.
Everette sighed. He wasn't going to change his friend's mind on this, as usual. His friend simply had strong beliefs about how awesome certain Pokemon could be, regardless if those beliefs were countered by Pokemon League usage data. "Fine, but that doesn't change the fact that steelix loses to gengar."
Albert looked down at the table. He had completely forgotten that they were playing a game, not just having one of their typical arguments. On his side of the table lay 3 cards face down, and two face up. Of the face up cards was steelix, the Pokemon the argument was about, while the other was a vileplume, a Pokemon which, unfortunately, was sent out against an arcanine. Regardless of what ailments a vileplume could theoretically place upon an opponent, arcanine simply had too many advantages, not just typing, against the poor little flower. Knowing the outcome of that matchup, it was simply placed in the "eliminated" pile off to the right.
They were not exactly playing the Pokemon Card Game as one should, but that was not the point of it in their eyes. It was a medium of debate, with Pokemon as the subjects. The cards were not exactly necessary for a visual, as they certainly had the internet at their disposal. However, Albert owned a card of every Pokemon in the National Pokedex. He'd been collecting them since he was 10, and damn straight he was going to use them. Also, he really liked the artwork.
"You put way too much stock in the soul link, my dude." Everette said. He leaned back into his chair as if it were his own home. His jean-covered legs spread wide, as if trying to consume the table before them. A sharp crack was heard as he snapped his neck. "It's not like type matchups have changed because of it, or the innate abilities any one Pokemon has."
"I know that," Albert said, "but you can't just put Pokemon out of the game simply because they weren't good in a past system. We are still in the formative years of the soul link, and I want to be the one who codifies the sets the next wave of trainers will be dying to use." He grabbed his drink, a chocolate moomoo milkshake, and sipped at it in moderation. They were expensive, so he did his best to preserve the experience. He deliciousness hit him like a thunderbolt, except without the subsequent paralysis. "Aren't you glad they finally got a Pokemon Center in this town we came around?"
"It was stupid of them not to build one in the first place." Everette said. A tan hand reached across the table for some Kalos fries. They were Albert's, but he didn't eat fries, so they simply decided to split a combo. Albert got the drink, Everette got the Kalos fries and pidgey burger. The latter food item was snuggly in the steelix-hater's stomach. "How are you going to have a fucking research institute, but not a Pokemon Center? Shouldn't one like mandate the other's existence?"
"You don't need a Pokemon Center if there aren't any trainer's you'll be helping. Also, if the researchers needed to send a Pokemon to a center, they could just transport them via the PC system." Albert said. He noticed Everette's hand scratching his neck, a sign that the brunette desperately wanted to change the subject. He placed a W on his mental scoreboard. It was important to count your victories, as little as they were.
He put his milkshake down, having devoured the last of the sweet dairy which lay in the container. Truthfully, he would have opened it up and licked the inside if he wasn't in public, but he maintained himself. No need to suffer strange looks for his hedonistic tendencies.
An alarm sounded with the scarily low-pitched noise of a dodrio's cry. It reverberated throughout the Pokemon Center's lobby, bringing in dozens of unwanted glances. Well, unwanted on Albert's end anyway. His brown-haired "friend" was positively beaming as the noise went off. He took his sweet time pulling his phone out of his pocket and shutting the damn noise off. His smile throughout the motion reminding Albert what kind of man he truly was.
"Was that really necessary?" Albert asked. He did his best to maintain his composure as he felt the numerous eyes on the two of them. He began to mess with his short black hair, an act which he conveniently used to cover his face. Dark hands twisted and curled as he waited for a response.
"It was totally necessary." Everette said. Albert rolled his eyes. It was a barely 2 minutes before Everette's group was meant to enter the Union Room. If he was really worried about missing it, he would have entered the Room earlier. It was not as if anyone would stop him. However, it would be an act of immaturity to contest his friend's immaturity. He knew from experience that his friend was about as mature as a Naïve Togepi, so he let it slide. This was not an argument he cared to have, especially when his emotions were still running a bit high.
His smiling friend gave him a fist bump, and swaggered off to the escalator, seemingly unperturbed by the other people giving him dirty looks. What a guy, Albert thought. He felt mixed feelings of admiration and contempt. Certainly not equally mixed, but both present. The two had a strange relationship. There was certainly respect between the two, which hadn't always been the case. Albert remembered the years before they went to college, before high school even. Him and Everette would get into heated arguments as a near weekly basis. Considering their age, these arguments tended to get physical very easily. Teachers would punish them. Parents would tell them not to talk to one another. But they both shared one thing in common. They were both stubborn as Mudbrays. They continued to bicker. Albert would say that Fairy-Types are cool, while his would-be friend called him a faggot for saying that. He still believed that now, just as how Everette still disliked fairy types. Fortunately, he had matured enough to call them lame instead. Baby steps, Everette.
They respected each other because of competence. Battle competence. The days they spent challenging each other to catching contests and battle simulators was evidence enough. There was always tension between them. Always some strategy to argue about. Always a Pokemon which one of them thought had potential and the other thought should've gone extinct because of how useless it was. Friend might not be the best term for their relationship. Honestly, Albert didn't think it was sometimes. But Everette did, despite his disagreeableness and the constant arguments occurring between the two. He made that very clear when he wanted to. Regardless, they didn't hang out all the time, especially not once they both got into Pallet College. There was only so much interpersonal tension you could deal with and keep your grades up.
Everette was stopped by a round pink creature which stood before the elavator. Its head bore darker stubby growths on each side, functioning as ear. On its abdomen lay a pouch with a single egg inside. A chansey, he knew all too well. They were common in both in both the medical field and competitive battling arena. However, he knew their competitive usage much more vividly. Chansey were some of the best Pokemon for at tanking energetic damage. That isn't even mentioning their immense vitality and stamina. Combined, those factors meant that the attacker was more likely to run out of energy than the chansey was to be knocked out. It was a staple of stall-based teams, a kind of battling which was rather frowned upon for not being fun to watch. Everette flashed his college ID and the pink blob let him pass.
Albert shifted his mind off the chansey. It was a poor omen to think about such things, especially when he intended to start his first soul link in just under an hour. The alarm was enough excitement for him, he didn't need to risk any unnecessary stressors before then. Out of his pockets, of which he had many, courtesy of his black leather jacket, he grabbed his cell phone and a white bracelet, the latter of which bore spiral markings on their outside. Upon activation, the phone displayed a cute scene of a lapras ferrying a napping squirtle across the ocean.
He tapped the Heart Monitor icon after putting in his password. A graphic of a white silhouette telling him to put on his bracelet played, wasting his time, and making him once again question why these apps did not let the user turn off such notifications. Soon, the screen was coated in the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet dimly glowed in succession. Out of the colors materialized what seemed to be a little rubber duck. Its blue bill gave a big and joyful smile as it looked at Albert. Porygon2, a creature capable of inhabiting cyberspace by reverting itself into programming data. Of course, it was just an avatar, not an actual Pokemon. The porygon line was extremely rare and expensive to obtain, not to mention a bit creepy to look at. While Porygon2 improved in the cuteness factor, and the fact that it wasn't giving people seizures when the app opened like its predecessor, it didn't have the same warmth of an organic lifeform.
Albert pressed the start button and the porygon to shifted through the cascade of colors. It stopped once reaching a yellow-orange color. He began controlling his breath, keeping the inhale of air short and the exhale long. It took only seconds before the colors changed to a purer yellow, then yellow-green, and then to a pure green, the color which represented the greatest stability of one's heart. It was the midpoint between red, which represented greatest stress, and violet, which represented minimal stress. While it would certainly feel good to go to violet, green was where one needed to be in the heat of a Pokemon Battle, relaxed enough to not allow the stress to hamper your ability, excited enough to put all your energy into your decisions.
As he felt his mind sharpen, he searched the center for one thing to focus on. Throughout the lobby were trainers socializing with one another. Centers were more than just hospitals, they were hubs of activity. The Centers functioned like the commons for any trainer in a major city. Fortunately, Pallet Town was no city. That prevented the level of nightmarish congestion he'd heard about from classmate from Saffron. There were ways to manage the traffic, such as fusing the Poke Marts and Centers together. That strategy was so effective that it became the norm in most regions.
His eyes glanced towards the Poke Mart near the entrance of the building and he suddenly felt the urge to purchase another milkshake. He resisted the temptation, but found himself still looking in that direction, at the memorabilia specifically. The Pallet Town Titans, the two trainers which turned this dainty little town into a tourist attraction were ever-present. Dolls, shirts, and mugs littered the mart. Custom-made Pokeballs with the faces of the two were hung from the walls and sold as a steep price. Even underwear with the current champion's catchphrase "Smell ya later" was, somewhat untastefully, on display.
It was strange to him how quickly Pallet Town had blown up. The Pokemon Trainers known as Red and Blue had turned Pallet from a basic rural area into a major tourist attraction. They came to see what could've birthed those two geniuses, the young men who both set off on their journey together 10 years ago and changed the Kanto region forever. For Blue, it was his battle sense. At just 18, he had completed the Kanto League gym circuit in under a year, the fastest in history for a beginning trainer. As for Red, he became the youngest Pokemon Professor in the region, just as Blue was facing off against the Elite Four. Not only that, but he was the one to develop the technology which Albert, and many others across the world, would come to know as the soul link.
The soul link focused on energy, Poke Energy to be specific. This energy was what allowed Pokemon their fantastic capabilities, granting them mastery of elements, performing incredible feats of strength, and so many more marvelous powers. Humankind had always desired to uncover the secrets of Pokemon. The power that's inside their monsters. Albert shifted in his seat as he thought about it, trying to contain his childlike glee at the thought of finally achieving an energetic link.
Such links themselves were not a brand-new concept. Psychics had existed for as long as any other humans, and they had been able to form psychic links between them and their Pokemon, granting them greater understanding of their minds. However, such links were always something only a select few were able to obtain. The Energetic, the humans who, by some stroke of genetic luck, were able to produce Poke Energy. The Psychics were only one, but certainly the most common of that group. And, of course, with such power, Psychics were greatly over-represented in the Pokemon League championships, Gym Leadership, and Elite Four, along with other Energetic groups like the Dragon Tamers.
His teeth clenched as he began thinking about that last group. His mind went to an old recording of a man who once challenged Lance for his position as a member of the Elite Four, years before the soul link was even in development. The man was basic, a term for those who are non-energetic. He was a generalist trainer, one who had answer for any situation he came across. He stepped into every arena with a cunning strategy and a tactical mind only few could claim to have seen firsthand. Such ability paved a road of victorious through the Johto gym circuit faster than any trainer before him. He was Johto's rising star, a champion in the making. Of all the Elite he wanted to battle first, he chose the strongest. He chose the head of Blackthorn City's Dragon Clan.
That same choice resulted in him to leaving Johto for good.
The battle that followed his declaration was a slaughter by any other name. There were no tactics in the face of Lance's drakes. So, what if dragon types were weak to ice? So, what if their dragon energy had no effect on fairies? Lance's Pokemon acted like unassailable walls, taking hits that should be extremely effective against dragons, yet standing as if it had been tickled. Their attacks had a fury, a potency unseen in those Pokemon of the same species in the hands of other trainers.
That challenger became a gym leader of great renown in Hoenn, if Albert remembered correctly.
Albert noticed the porygon2 changing from green to yellow once again, obviously sensing his ire. Those born with talent would always rise to the top, for hard work can't beat talent when talent works hard. As much as he intellectually understood that fact, it still irritated him. It irritated him immensely. But his indignation would soon be found for naught. He hoped. He prayed. He believed that it was the soul link that would even the scales. It would bring all the basic trainers to the same playing field as their Energetic counterparts. He wanted to have a fair fight, one in which it was skill that dictated the winner not simply inborn ability.
He took another minute to stabilize his heart, feeling the air inflate and deflate his lungs. His mind shifted from his rumination, as if guided along by an abstract, yet caring hand. Doing so, the little duck avatar found its way back to green. He was glad he decided to take that biofeedback course last year. Aside from use in battle, it was also known to aid greatly with stress management.
Shortly afterwards, his own alarm, the simple and indoor-volume appropriate ring of a doorbell, went off. Turning off his app and packing his things, he headed straight for the elevator.
The Union Rooms were by far the largest rooms in the entire Pokemon Center. They had to be, for, aside from this special day, they would be reserved by other trainers, friend and foe alike. Local tournaments and auctions often took place in these expansive areas, as the folded-up bleachers to each of the four sides of the room could attest to. Despite being an area for battles, the room he sat in was rather well-maintained. It was devoid of the usual claw markings and dark spots indicative of a Poke Energy attack. There was obvious preparation for this event.
Today was the when Pallet College's 1st graduating class would be receiving their Starter Pokemon.
The preparation was shown by the array of stalls that lay off to a far side of the room, where bleachers were removed and replaced by tables covered in white sheet. The smell of fresh tauros meat, pidgey burgers, and fried tangela permeated the room, hitting him from the opposite side end like a Mach Punch. The tangela especially. It was a Pallet Town delicacy. He relished the thought of the crispiness of the vines and the satisfying crunch they made once bitten into. The spicy flavor of the vine Pokemon's only mildly poisonous powders. It was making his mouth water.
"Hey Bert!" shouted a feminine voice. Albert shot his eyes across the room. She had just entered from the massive double doors, made to aid the entry of dozens at a time. "Why're you here so early, ya nerd?" She said.
Hoping he didn't drool, he turned towards her, a lone figure approaching the seats of the raised platform. Albert sat the top right corner of the stands, an island amid a sea of indigo coated seats. Maybe he was a bit too early.
"You can never be too early for your starter." Albert said. Crap, that's not right, he thought to himself. Immediately, he realized that that wasn't true due to the youngster incident and the following bans pushed after all the juvenile deaths, but he pushed that thought aside. More accurately he pushed it to the back of his mind, as far as he could, hoping it would fall off a precipice and never return during a moment of anxiety.
Albert watched the young woman, Barbara, take a seat next to him. He kept his eyes towards the ground. He had a bad habit of staring and he needed to control it one way or another. This issue usually came up when a Beauty was around. Granted, she wasn't a Beauty yet, as the trainer class required acceptance into the regional association which represented that class, but his hormones didn't really know the difference. Her dyed blonde hair—it had to be dyed, since she was an Indigo native and certainly lacked the energetic genes to prompt such a phenotype—and pure outfit—shirt, skirt, shoes, nails, even the freaking jewelry—representative of the Indigo Beauty Association.
"How's your application coming?" Albert said. The blonde rose from staring at her phone, having pulled it out and apparently started texting before he was even able to utter his sentence.
"Oh, I got that thing done long, long ago." she said. Her hands were in the air as she made funny faces for her camera. He recognized only one of the poses, the lickitung, as it was simply rolling ones tongue out as far as possible. "I'll be heading to Cinnabar Island to compete in the Beauty and the Beach competition this year."
"That's a pretty big first step." Albert said. He had learned about the various Beauty competitions held throughout the region through all the flyers and social media posts the cosmetic trainers send out. It was annoying to receive so much, but the info was finally going to see some use. Cinnabar held a huge bikini contest each year
"Yeah, but I don't really need to be the best." Barbara said. She made a V with her fingers and put her tongue through it. He didn't know what that pose was called, but he wagered it involved a cloyster. "Just being in it and showing off by skills should get me some good publicity and help me get some contacts." She put her phone down, seemingly handing him her full attention. "How about you?"
"I'll be heading to get my first badge at the Viridian Gym." He said.
"Oooh, ambitious." Barbara said. "I heard the leader's like, really hard on the first-timers though, you sure you wanna fight him first?"
"If I don't, I'll have to come right back to Viridian for him later. Better to get him out of the way now." Albert said. He found himself wringing his hands together, his telltale sign that he was lying. It wasn't complete untrue that skipping Viridian was could him to have to backtrack later, but that inconvenience was greatly diminished by the Kanto Poke Ride service, which basically allowed anyone with enough money to get anywhere in the region they desired. What he wanted from Viridian was to face Giovanni, the only basic gym leader in Kanto. The man was able to keep pace with the most powerful trainers in the League, even being runner-up on more than once occasion during the League Conferences. There was no way he could wait to meet such a person.
"Well, if you hit up the Celadon gym within the next few months, I'll be there doing my training as a Lass for the Beauty Association. Don't be a stranger." Barbara said.
The two classmates continued talking, sharing what stories they could. As friendly as Barbara was, they weren't close friends. She hadn't taken the same route as he had during their academic career, focusing much more so on Pokemon cosmetics, whereas he focused primarily on battling. There interactions were few, but pleasant. The positive side of this was that it seemed like each time they met, they learned something new about the person, like how she had apparently been planning to earn at least three badges to qualify for the Battle Girl title. She seemed to care more about the aesthetic than the competition, but her drive was real, and he respected that.
As they spoke, the room began to fill with the rest of their graduating class. There was a great variety of looks among their course, as the recent Pallet Trainer College had drawn in persons from across the region, including Albert. His own dark skin, indicative of his Sevii Island descent, stood out amongst the many Indigo natives. There weren't many of his ethnicity at the institution, but the ones present tended to cluster in small groups. Similarly, a small group of girls on the cosmetics course formed around Barbara. He didn't try to wedge himself back into the conversation.
His brown eyes scanned the room for persons he would remember after today, for he didn't keep a large friend group. He tried to convince himself it was because of a lack of extraversion and not a lack of social tact, but there was evidence for both sides. It would only benefit him to keep in touch with other soul link trainers. Sadly, the other students who took the battle route tended to form tight groups, ones which he regretted not involving himself with earlier in his academic career. It wasn't as if he couldn't join or socialize with them, but he just felt out of place. It was like bringing someone new into a long-established friend group. He had regretted not joining interest groups such as the Sevii Island Student Association, but he had long come to terms with it.
Barbara, he already knew and shared contact info with. There were plenty of others he'd taken courses with and had decently good interactions but following up on social encounters was not his strong suite. There was a muscular man with hair dyed blood red sporting a tight-fitting tank top. That guy was one of the best on the route survival courses he took, making him a valuable contact to him if he wanted a traveling party. Another person, a ghostly woman from lavender town, donned a black evening gown and matching gloves. She had once frightened an exeggcute they used during an evolution course so much that it wouldn't evolve, even when exposed to multiple leaf stones. It was only after she offered to leave the room that it did, which got her some stares. He made a mental note to get her contact info, if simply to keep the memory.
The clamor in the room died down as a certain someone entered the room. The man who first put Pallet Town on the map, long before the rise of Red and Blue. For a man of his age, he moved with a youthful step. His white lab coat bounced as he climbed the steps towards the center podium. One could hear the jingling of items inside. Suddenly, a flash of light left his right breast pocket. The light coalesced into the purple form of a large-eared rodent. It ran past the old professor, towards the podium. The structure was nearly three times the creature's height, but it continued jumping at it, aiming for the top. The professor stood and watched as it pursued its goal. Finally, on its eighth try, it succeeded. The audience gave a round of applause as its achievement.
The nidoran oriented itself towards the audience, horn pointed straight at the microphone. Raising its head, it let out a high-pitched squeak, prompting an array of awes among Albert and his fellow students. The researcher laughed a guttural, jovial sound. He brought his hand to the purple Pokemon's head. The creature knowingly brought his ears towards him to receive a pleasant rubbing, as one could tell by the following noises made.
"I suppose I won't be using the microphone today." He said. A round of laughter blurted from audience. Surprisingly, without even touching the microphone, his voice carried across the room. "Very Adamant, this one." He let himself chuckle once more. "I brought him with me today for two reasons. Firstly, and more personally, he reminds me of my own grandson. Never gave a damn about what I said to him, always wanting to show off to a crowd, and I think most accurately, never gave up when he found something challenging." He paused. "The second reason, which I think is more directly applicable to you all, is that he is a product of years of research into the field of Pokemon behavior. A specimen—actually, let's not use that word—a subject that shows how far we've come, as a human civilization, towards bettering our understanding of our Pokemon. If I was told that my starter, a nidoran, would know how to release itself from its own Pokeball all those years ago, I would've told that person to share whatever oddish he was smoking." Another, but lighter, turn of laughter took the audience.
"Now that I think about it, maybe neither of those are particularly relevant to you. With so much that has happened in the last decade, I've lost the need or reason to continue scripting my lecture. Forgive me and my senile ramblings, if you can." He said. Despite his smile, the wrinkles on his face appeared stronger than before. "I know what you're all here for, and it's exactly what I'm here for as well, so let us not beat around the bush any longer. You all are Pallet College's 1st graduating class, a remarkable sight I never thought I'd see in my lifetime." He paused again. "I've already met with two prior sessions of your classmates, so I've grown a bit tired." He reached into his coat and took out a smartphone-like object. "Please, tell me what this device is, any one of you."
Hands shot up from the crowd, Albert not being one of them. The elderly man pointed a withering finger at a man with deep blue hair. "It's a Pokedex, and the most recent model of it from what I can tell." He said. The student's confidence waned as he ended the statement.
"Absolutely right, young man. This device is the latest version of the National Pokedex, a high-tech index of all known Pokemon species. As trainers, you will find this device invaluable for catching, battling, coordinating, or even just playing little minigames. But what you'll find especially pertinent for your travels is the soul link application." He held up what appeared to be a small flash drive. "These little items here are called Link Cables. Each of the Pokedexes you will receive have been optimized for use with these cables, allowing you the safest possible energetic link we currently have available. The soul link is more than just connecting energies, as I'm sure you all know, but I will say it anyway because it fills my heart with too much pride." His voice slightly cracked when he finished that statement. The nidoran on the podium began rubbing its flank on the professor's chest. He let out a palm, and the Pokemon nuzzled it, keeping its toxic horn away from his skin as well as it could.
"Perhaps, I once again, have spoken for too long." He rummaged his coat for a single Ultra Ball, the most powerful general-use ball on the market. With a practiced flick of his wrist, the professor tossed it into the air before him. From the ball came a burst of light. What emerged from the flash was a large rectangular table whose silver shone brilliantly in the light of the room. Upon it lays dozens of the same model Pokedex the Professor had held not five minutes prior. Along with them were Individual Pokeballs, all of which holding a specific Pokemon.
"As per proper decorum," the professor began, "we will call upon you to pick up your Pokedex and starter Pokemon by last name in alphabetical order. Please be seated until then and do not release your Pokemon until all your peers have received theirs as well." With that out of the way, the first person was called onto the stage.
"Albert Alexander."
Albert strode forth from his spot on the bleachers. He made a slight imitation of his Everette's swagger as he walked, hoping to exude the confidence he saw in his friend. Upon reaching the professor he was handed the two devices. He could see the Link Cable already inserted into the Pokedex as his hands clasped the technology.
"Do your very best with this, young man." He said.
Alberto took words with him as he stepped off the platform. The rest of the students gathered around him as they each received their devices. When all the students were standing below, the professor gave a final instruction.
"Upon turning on your Pokedex, you will see a wide variety of options. What you should search for is the one entitled soul link. Inside, there will be a single option to choose from, as each of you has only one Pokemon registered. The soul link will activate as soon as your select that Pokemon, after which, I'll leave you to experience it for yourself.
Doing just as the professor said, with the push of a button, the Pokedex's screen flashed on. He filled out several miscellaneous information such as Name and date of birth before he could see the installed applications. Upon selecting the soul link app, he saw the one Pokemon registered and pressed the big Start button at the bottom of the screen.
Soul Link Activated
Link Level: 1
Link Type: Normal
Link Species: #133 Eevee