Boom! Crash! Kapow!
...
Ok, nothing THAT exciting happened. But today I started my Pokemon journey! That made me feel pretty good. Even if there weren't LITERAL fireworks.
Taking my kid brother along does not make me feel good.
My parents were old-fashioned... or were they new-fangled? Anyway, living out in the boondocks, on our Apricorn farm, my parents wanted us to wait a little longer to set out. Every year, on my birthday, I'd ask if it was time.
This year, I turned 18. I was getting antsy, well a little. My parents finally said it was ok... but only if I took my 13-year-old brother to the Lab too.
I only have to take him that far. That's the deal. They looked at me with puppy eyes and said it would be nice if I looked after him after that, but no way. I'm going to be the oldest newbie Pokemon trainer as it is, I don't need to be a babysitter too.
Anyway. My story.
So we're biking to this town, right? We live in the middle of nowhere, I mean there is NOTHING NEARBY. Just ranches, far as the eyes can figure it'll be a few days before we reach any sort of civilization, which, if we went the right way, should be the town we're looking for. We don't have any Pokemon yet, but we see a few around - Ratatta, running through the tall grass, a Pidgey or two in the trees - but we're staying on the path and not troubling anyone.
Well, I'm not. My bratty kid brother thinks it'd be funny to see if I'll react if he strays into the grass. He's trying to get a rise out of me. But, I figure, I've got a maximum of a week left with the little twerp, I can ignore him for that long. But as he gets close, I tell him he's gonna get eaten if he goes in.
He looks at me with this innocent look on his face, and makes a beeline in.
I'm not following him in. But I don't have to.
He's in there for 45 seconds, maybe a minute, before there's this mini earthquake, rumbling and eveything. The kid comes biking out for his life. I hesitate, but speed up a little.
Then this gigantic... thing comes of the grass. I guess not out of the grass. Out of the *very earth itself*. Did I mention it was big? Like, HUMUNGUOUS.
I, naturally, panic. I bike straight ahead, fast as I can go, faster even. I can hear the thing's giant plodding behind me, I know it's getting closer. I know I'm about to be trainer tar tar.
But there's the fork in the road up ahead. So I yell for us to split up. Maybe we can get away. I go left, the twerp goes right, and eventually I don't hear it behind me anymore. All I hear are the bug Pokemon around me. I'm alone.
That's ok, I can get along fine. My kid brother should not be alone. So I pull out my map.
The town is going to be on the left fork, eventually. The right fork leads to a mountain range. The paths all stop there eventually.
But he'll come back. He has a map too. Or I think he will. He's a little slow, but he'll figure it out.
Or that's what I tell myself as I bike slowly down the road.
*~*
