Alex

July 8, 798 UNE Shortly Before Noon

Dreams and Thoughts

The flowers seemed fantastically beautiful, fluttering gracefully in the quiet, soothing breeze, preserving the life and hope of the future. The smell of mist could be sensed all around from the gentle thundering sound of a waterfall close by. No one could miss the glorious presence of the cherry blossoms surrounding the meadow with grass that came up only to the knees of his dark, pale green cargo pants, hiding his black athletic shoes. The sun shined bright on his short sleeved, sand tan jacket that covered most of his black T-shirt printed with an oriental dragon design and metallic gold Japanese writing on the front. He ran his semi-tanned white hand through his dark brown hair then across his neck, feeling a small sweat. Though he was five eleven and a half, he still felt insignificant against the grand forest. "If only it were real…" He thought and then heard the sound, the growl, and knew it was time.

Alex, opening his eyes, standing tall and firm, pointed straight ahead and commanded, "Luxray! Shockwave attack!"

The canine in front stood three feet at the shoulder, supporting a large head with long fur spiked out in the back of its head. Its large yellow eyes with red whites gleamed a piercing gaze across the field. From its pink nose on, it had navy blue fur on top of its snout to match the color that dominated its head, long haired mane, front legs, long haired rump, upper hind legs, and tail. A cyan blue occupied its cheeks and jaw, rounded ears, torso including underbelly, and lower hind legs. On the bottom of its front legs, on the joint above its paws, it had an interesting strip of cyan blue divided by three yellow stripe markings that flickered with sparks. The tail was long and thin, tipped with a clump of brilliant yellow fur that was spiked into a four pointed star.

"Laaaarx aux." It bellowed, letting every bit of yellow on its body begin to glow fiercely, holding its mouth open and straight ahead at the titanic foe ahead, marching closer on its four spider legs. It was a shiny metallic blue. The central body was like a short cylinder with a cone on top with the top half lopped off. The bottom part of the cylinder piece was an upside down cone with the smaller half cut off and the base having a smaller radius then cylinder's. A silver X lay on the front of its face, hugging body with the bottom ends finishing with jagged teeth, immediately below the central cylinder. Within the left and right open ends of the X were two crimson red eyes having a vertically elongated pupil. The body was suspended above the ground by four massive legs, evenly distributed in a circular formation about the head, each connected with a ball joint on the upper cone section. The two jointed legs began with a rather tiny, long, perfectly cylinder piece but then the second joint began with a tall, massive cone arcing slightly back towards the body, possessing all sorts of large bulges and indentions about the cone with a cylinder for the base of the leg. Every time it raised its leg to move, it revealed three sharp, silver triangular claws in a circular pattern, giving it proper grip to move. Metagross approached.

Electric bolts began jumping around in Luxray's mouth till they became so concentrated that all one could see was a ball of light. Luxray launched the ball from its mouth, zipping across the field, landing a direct hit on Metagross's head, causing lightning bolts to arc all around its body. The creature flinched, its red eyes fading out since it had no eyelids to close. It took a few steps back, its eyes reappearing, and then opened up its mouth like a sliding door on its lower cone section, having two fangs on the "door" and two on the "jaw". An inorganic, deep sounding roar bellowed from its mouth, sweeping the landscapes. Suddenly, a metal sphere shot from its mouth like a cannon ball towards Luxray. It jumped out of the way as the ball hit the ground and bounced pass with a heavy thud.

Alex gave his second order, "Luxray! Prepare yourself with Charge." He had always loved the feeling of authority, a commander of Pokémon creatures; a trainer.

Luxray crouched its entire body close to the ground, sparks jumping across its long hairs like static electricity, and markings glowing like the sun. Metagross began a charging run towards Luxray, its weight seeming to make the earth shake. Alex scrambled to think of the next command then spoke, "Luxray, circle Metagross and hit it with Spark attack." As he said that, he mimicked the path of the attack he wanted with his hands.

The Pokémon bolted off in a wide arc around Metagross who had to come to almost a complete stop to try and turn to keep Luxray in front. Luxray raced in from behind and jumped onto its foes head, sending a pulse of electricity into Metagross through its pads and claws. Metagross roared and reared up onto its back two legs, sending Luxray sliding off onto the ground, unable to get any traction on the metal body.

Metagross was a psychic, able to detect its surrounds without a terrible need to use its eyes, despite how inefficient the power was. It raised the leg closest to Luxray and slammed it down as Luxray darted out of the way. It moved about ten feet from Metagross and stopped. Alex commanded, just as Metagross jumped and spun to face Luxray, "Now, Charge Beam!" A web of bolts ran up Luxray's legs, along its body, up its neck, around its muzzle and became a large bright beam, quickly approaching Metagross as it opened its maw and launched an eerie black blob straight towards Luxray. The beam connected with the blob, hastily deteriorated the electricity, and continued its course to the target. Luxray jumped over the passing blob that exploded into a black fire when it hit the ground.

Opening its mouth in quick succession, Metagross fired another blob from its mouth, this time a deep purple gunk that spawned bubbles at it flew through the air. Alex quickly commanded, "Thunder Fang attack!" With that, Luxray ran under the blob just in time, getting a small amount of slime on its hind legs as it exploded. Luxray's teeth flickered with electricity as it snarled its mouth, closing in on Metagross as it reared on its rear legs, letting its front two be surrounded by a glowing purple aura. It slammed its legs into the ground. The earth ruptured and shifted with some parts collapsing, others up heaving. Luxray weaved through the shifting slabs, carefully keeping its balance. Alex added, "Aim for the metal X on its face!"

A fissure opened in front of Luxray, prompting it to jump over. As it landed, Metagross took a heavy swing nearly horizontal to the ground. Luxray jumped onto the leg, finding enough traction to make another jump onto the face, latching its teeth onto the X. The discharge was incredible, sending large bolts of lightning high into the sky. Luxray held its bite for a few seconds, and then leapt back to the ground from the stunned Metagross.

"Luxray! Withdraw!" Shouted Alex, prompting it to do so. Metagross's eyes had a red swirly insignia on them, followed by a plain horizontal red line, and then finally returning to its normal eyes. It bellowed another metallic roar and suddenly jumped high into the air toward Luxray. It ran backwards out of the way as Metagross shook the earth as it came down.

"Quickly Luxray! Your finale, Thunder attack!" It made a long jump back, electricity flying wildly from its entire glowing body. It roared, sending several bolts of lightning high into the air, that arced and struck down Metagross in a massive explosion, sending up earth, grass, and a wall of smoke towards Luxray.

"This battle is won." Said Alex, proudly, putting on hand on his hip and a smile on his face. Luxray looked back at Alex and cried, "Aray aray!" Alex paused, taking in the feeling of his victory but after several seconds, Luxray loudly cried, "LUX!" Returning its look to the smoke. Metagross's leg swung out of the smoke and hit Luxray in the side, sending it airborne into a tree. Luxray hit on its side then collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

Alex slapped his hands on his cheeks and yelled, "Aaah! Noooo!" He sprinted for Luxray till he was standing over it, trying to figure out how this could happen.

A voice that seemed to come from nowhere sounded, "Luxray is unable to battle! The winner is Metagross!"

Alex put his hand on his face and muttered, "But this battle was mine…" He looked up at the sky, which began to turn a pitch black at one point, spread out till it met the horizon, and rushed over the landscape, turning everything except Alex into a wire frame of light. Then the environment faded into blackness, Alex remaining standing on nothingness, till eventually he blackened out.

He opened his eyes to see the ceiling of a room, feeling the helmet and wires attached to his head and body. Alex sat up and started detaching the equipment from his body. A voice came from behind the table. "Well, that is what you get for setting the difficulty level of this new game too high." The man laughed, standing up from behind a chair, taking off a microphone headset, and setting it on the keyboard of the computer he had been sitting in front of.

"I just had to try Jason." Said Alex to the tall, muscular man. "I do not feel I improve much by batting with easy and weak Pokémon. It is time I go beyond all those kitty battles."

Jason ran his hand through his short blond hair, brushed off his plaid T-shirt of dandruff, and rested his hand beside his blue jeans. "Well, it's kinda understandable. You play that game all the time in your free time. Your family tradition of not becoming a trainer till your late teens is so strange. You know, seventy percent of the world's population of boys and girls at the age of twelve become Pokémon trainers of some type or another and look at you. You are eighteen and have never had a Pokémon of your own."

"I get plenty of experience tending to Professor Maple's Pokémon and playing these games. It is those little tikes who are doing it all wrong. Setting out into the world with hardly any education of today's society. They only do well because so much of today's goods and services are free or are paid for by those kid's parents." Alex put his hand on his chest proudly and said, "At least my family believes in a proper education on surviving both the environment and society before running off into world of today."

"Ha!" Jason chuckled. "Well, I set out as a trainer when I was twelve and I fared just fine, just like tens of thousands of new trainers worldwide. Anyways, you learn so much worthless crud in school." He shrugged. "Like algebra." Then he went into a sarcastic voice. "When am I going to need to use letters in math when I go to the store to buy Pokéballs or potions?" He looked away confidently and added, "Or what about chemistry and physics? I couldn't care less about atoms and calculating inertia. They don't help me worth a darn. Besides, I'm in construction. All I need is a good balance, pencil, and paper and I can build great things."

Alex grinned. "Humph, that is just because you happen to be able to do it all in your head without math. Any other person needs to know how to solve for variables, proportions, and angles to do truly extraordinary buildings."

"Well, what's so ordinary about the house you live in? It's survived dozens of storms since it was built by me." Jason made a proud pointing at himself with his thumb. "It keeps you high and dry, and that is all you need." He laughed.

"The point of studying math and science is probably not so much what you are learning but how you are learning the material. I have learned how to problem solve quite well outside of math such as learning how effective certain characteristics of Pokémon are against other characteristics, well beyond the obvious such as water effective against fire and electric against water."

"Waste of time." Jason laughed again. "What faster way then to learn it in the field." He waved his finger at Alex. "Studying in a room is nothing like being out in the wilderness with your very own companion Pokémon. Studying does not prepare you for what it's like to have a companion that you need to care for, even when it is beaten into critical condition."

Alex knew he was losing the argument like he always did and concluded with, "This is a pointless debate. Neither of us prevails over the other." He shrugged.

Jason made his way for the door, "Well, I better get back to work. It is still nice to tutor you in battles, even if they are fake. That video game is just so realistic. I can't believe the things they come out with these days. Still a waste of time though." He laughed and exited.

Alex sat in his chair by his desk alone in his bedroom. He sighed and gazed at walls filled with photographs, magazine cut outs, and drawings he made of Pokémon around the world he loved to look at. No one knew how many Pokémon existed in the world. At least over five hundred and fifty. More than half of them he had never seen or heard of before. "Pokémon." Such an odd and dorky name for a race of animals that have become so integral to today's society.

Memories of not just the battle he just had, but countless before he had simulated. All they were for was to see who could do the best at bonding to and raising these creatures. Battles were just organized competition for not just thrills but also for developing the human spirit, more than simply the Pokémon itself. The thought of simply having a creature as a pet to keep you company when one got home from a day's activity would be quite dull.

Alex picked up a small black fox figure with yellow markings and gazed at it. The competitions were violent and dangerous, but that was how the world had developed. Some day in the future, society might look to the world of this day and wonder why people did such activities. Society evolves but that takes time. He shifted the figure until its intense red, plastic eyes gazed into his. All one can do today is live with and adapt to the views of society at the present, no matter how illogical they are.

He turned to his desk and looked at all the books piled about it with titles like: Introduction to Calculus, Essentials of Physics, Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones, and Principles of Natural Disasters to name a few. Alex sighed and thought, "Is this all worth it? Should I even be touching the academic world if I want to be a trainer? What good is integration towards Pokémon conditioning? Or what about thermodynamics towards berry potion making?" He flipped through the Natural Disasters book and continued, "Maybe this has some use. After all, these lands are plagued by more natural disasters than any other region on the planet. Understanding these phenomena is key to survival here."

Alex returned the book to its neat stack, picked up a pencil and fiddled with it in his hands, gazing at the pictures again. He wondered what they were really like. What would his first Pokémon he would acquire and train to be his companion be like? Alex put the pencil down, rose, and made his way for the door, still deep in thought.

After opening the door to his room, he maneuvered through the simply furnished home, till he reached the home's entrance. Opening the door, his gaze fell upon the many buildings that made up the colony of Hurricane Bay.