Spark was in many ways Blanche's opposite. The same day he skipped his high school graduation, Blanche received her early acceptance letter from Caltech. When a friend messaged him asking to join Team Instinct, he replied, "Hells Yeah!" and quickly set up a Team Instinct guild on the GovNet directory. And while Blanche caught her slowpoke in bed, Spark paddled his kayak through the choppy tide of Bremer Bay towards the gyarados he spent the last half hour tracking.

"It's right below us!" he screamed to Ruby in her kayak a few meters away.

"I can see it on my radar too." she hollered back to him. Ruby had never met anyone so excitable before, and the charm of it was beginning to fade. After an hour of battling magikarps, they were about to head in for breakfast when Spark spotted a gyarados on the radar's edge.

Ruby reluctantly agreed to chase after it. She tried to avoid most tourists off of her shift, but Spark won her over. She felt like he could go anywhere in the world and instantly make friends. Even the Pokemon liked him. Except for this gyarados. It swam away whenever they got close. But, sunburned and sore armed, they carried on after it.

Ruby glanced back to shore as she paddled farther out. The tourists weren't allowed out this far without a guide, and she wondered if even she was allowed out here on a kayak. The whale watching boats were one thing, but this didn't feel safe at all. She turned back to Spark to voice her concerns, only to find herself several meters behind.

"Hey, wait up!" she shouted instead.

They caught up to the gyarados icon on the map, and this time it stayed right with them. Somewhere beneath the waves. Spark stared intently into the crystal blue Australian water with an enormous grin plastered across his face.

Ruby watched his eyes search the depths for several minutes, all the while she grew more and more aware of how far out from shore the hunt for gyarados had led them. The beach was just a sliver on the horizon, even dipping out of view behind some of the larger waves. She looked back at Spark, still watching the water, completely oblivious to the danger they were in.

Finally she broke the quiet, "Spark, maybe we should-" only to be silence by Spark's battle cry.

"Pikachu!" he shouted and the Pokemon materialized on the bow of the Kayak in a flash of red light, "Thundershock!"

A jagged bolt of lightning snaked forth from Pikachu and connected with the water right above where gyarados was rapidly ascending, jaws held wide open for a bite attack. The discharge sent a thunderous roar echoing across the bay, followed shortly by an eruption of steam as the attack's energy set the sea to boil.

Against an impenetrable backdrop of steam, Spark and Ruby received a notification on their HUDs.

Foe gyarados defeated.
Earned: 500XP

"Oops," Spark chuckled, "looks like we're just too strong, huh buddy?"

"Pika," Pikachu replied with a proud smile.

"Are you kidding me?!" Ruby shouted over them. "We wasted hours of a perfectly good Saturday tracking down that fish, and you didn't even catch it? I'm putting an end to this trip right now."

"Aw, come on. Time is never wasted when you're having fun."

"Fun?" Ruby fumed, "Babysitting stupid tourists on my day off is not my idea of fun. Now let's get back to the docks before you get us killed." The steam slowly cleared away revealing her glare. Spark met her gaze with the best fake innocent expression he could muster.

"Or," he said with a smile, "I see another gyarados on the map. We could go catch it and make the trip worth it after all." His singsong voice would have convinced her back on shore, but it felt so wrong here, right after almost frying the whole bay. Everything was so casual to him. There was nonchalance, and then there was Spark.

"Absolutely not." Ruby slammed her fist against the water.

"Alright," Spark said with a shrug and dipped his paddle back into the bay, "you can go back to shore. I'll meet you there after I catch a gyarados."

Ruby shouted something after him, but her voice was drowned out by his paddling. He turned for a moment before she disappeared behind the horizon, raised his paddle to the sky and yelled, "See ya!"

Alone at last he thought. Guess she's more of a rule breaker than I took her for. I was sure she'd want to head back in after ten minutes or so. Nice to have her company and all, but now I can concentrate on the guild.

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: This whole conversation is pointless. The guild color is yellow and that's final

[Guild][Krys]: It's so bad tho. I wanna rep that team merch but it's so gaudy.

[Guild][(Officer)Courtney]: This issue was decided before any of us were born, instinct is yellow

[Guild][Drake]: Shouldn't it be green tho? Red, blue, and green like charmander, squirtle, and bulbasaur. There's no yellow starter.

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: Do you not know about the Pikachu trick?

[Guild][Drake]: Wait, you can get Pikachu as a starter?

Spark felt his pulse quicken without quite knowing why. He minimized the chat overlay to get a better look at the map. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the point he'd been following subconsciously.

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: brb

"Pikachu!" he shouted. The Pokemon appeared on his kayak in a burst of red light. The yelling was unnecessary, but they always yelled like that in the old animes, so it felt natural. The battle system was set up for voice commands, while stuff like summoning Pokemon was considered inventory management and thus handled through the menu.

Spark controlled his menus with a set of haptic gloves linked with his overlay contacts. He made a thumbs-up gesture with his left hand, the command he set to challenge the nearest enemy. Battle music began to play from his earing.

"No electric moves this time." he whispered to Pikachu, "As soon as it breaches the water, hit it with a quick attack."

"Chu."

Spark watched and waited as the shadow beneath his grew darker and larger. The urge to run was strong, but he forced himself to stay put. He held the paddle millimeters from the surface, ready at a moment's notice.

This is a game of strategy he thought. Every Pokemon battle begins with a game of chicken. Who can deal the first blow? Timing is everything, and Spark trusted himself to get it just right.

"Now!" he shouted. Spark stabbed his paddle deep into the bay and pushed backwards on his left, then arced around in one fluid motion to do the same on his right. Pikachu leapt off the kayak, pushing him further back.

Gyarados erupted from the water just inches from the tip of Spark's boat. As the Pokemon surfaced, Pikachu vaulted through the air, shoulder first, and struck it dead in the eye. Pikachu uncurled from its attack pose and kicked off the enraged gyarados to land back on the bow of Spark's kayak.

Perfect timing. The Pokemon had only a sliver of health left. That critical hit assured his victory. He clenched his left hand into a tight fist and a pokeball materialized in his right. The size and weight mirrored a baseball.

"Pokeball go!"

The gyarados turned to face Spark just as the pokeball hit its mark. A red glow encircled the Pokemon and then it broke apart. Nanites scattered into the sea and the pokeball was left shaking on the waves. Once. Twice. Three times. Ding!

Gyarados was caught!
New data added to Pokedex

Spark read over the notification with a smirk.

"Flawless victory, buddy." he said and gave Pikachu a high five. He paused a moment after that. He hadn't expected Pikachu to return the high five. Were all Pokemon able to learn tricks like dogs? Something about it felt odd.

He looked around the bay trying to get his bearings. After these battles, he wondered, why is it a stupid pet trick has me so concerned? Maybe the ability to control lighting should worry me more. But… that makes sense. It's part of the game. Pet tricks on the other hand...

"Pika."

Spark looked down at the Pikachu sitting on his boat. The real, actual, not fake, honest to goodness Pikachu. Then at the gyarados in his inventory. His gut told him something was very, very wrong, but his brain couldn't tell him what any of it meant. He knew only one thing at that point: life after Pokemon would never be the same. The world was in flux, and Spark's only concern was coming out on top.

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: Back, caught a gyarados.

Guild chat filled with the traditional "Gratz" and a few questions about where to find one. Spark waited for the chat to settle down before diving into the topic that had been on his mind all day.

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: So, has anyone found a gym yet? They were all over the place in the original game.

[Guild][Drake]: Stupid question, what's a gym?

[Guild][Krys]: They're control points for the game. And since it doesn't seem like the teams are official, we're assuming that it runs off the GovNet guild directory. We'll get some sort of points if we hold it.

[Guild][(Officer)Courtney]: They seem to be only in major cities. I have a friend who's working on a map, though. Where are you looking?

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: West Australia. Wanna invite your friend to the guild?

[Guild][(Officer)Courtney]: He's actually gonna join Team Mystic once someone makes it. And your nearest gym is in Perth. I'm close by, wanna meet up and capture it?

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: Sounds like a plan.