Pokemon Yang

Chapter 2

A New Step in Life

Author: Aegis Dragon

OC: Mathias

Hello everyone! My name is Aegis Dragon, the second member in this merry band of authors! I'm quite sure you haven't heard of me, but that's alright. I haven't built myself a reputation yet, but I'm hoping my part in this collaboration will help. So, without further ado, on with the chapter!

"Mathias," a voice called up the stairs of the lab. "You need to wake up! I have something for you!"

Mathias groaned as he sat up in his bed. It had been a month since he'd begun to work as Professor Juniper's assistant/apprentice, and there was one thing he hated about it more than anything. Waking up early. He had always been used to sleeping until the sunlight touched his face, usually around thirty minutes after it had risen. But ever since he started working for Juniper, he'd had to break that habit. And to this day, he was still trying.

Quickly getting dressed in a simple orange shirt and black cargo shorts, he looked into the mirror to make sure he was presentable.

He was 5'6", a little tall for a fourteen year old, with a lean build and slightly tan skin, and his dirty blond hair was messy, as usual. Nothing he ever tried seemed to tame it. His most notable feature, though, was his piercing gold eyes. No one, his parents, Juniper, nor himself, knew why his eyes were such an unusual color. He'd done research and even asked a geneticist, but to no avail.

He quickly went downstairs to the kitchen after he put on his shoes, and waved a quick hello to Snivy, who was sitting on the table eating her morning meal. She had been transferred there about a month ago from a region called Selos. She was rather shy and timid, though she still got along well with others. It just took her a little while to open up. Her biggest problem was her self-esteem. For some reason, she highly doubted her strength. So much so, that she shied away when other Pokemon were battling each other, which was unusual, as the starter species were usually very eager to compete with each other. But she and Mathias had hit it off pretty quickly, and she more or less acted normally when alone with him.

"Hi Matt," she said quickly, a smile on her face, before returning to her breakfast. Mathias gave no response as he moved to the main room of the Lab.

"Ah!" the Professor exclaimed. "There you are! I have something I want to tell you."

Mathias raised an eyebrow. Professor Juniper wasn't one to delay her research for a simple bit of news, so this was obviously something pretty important.

"I've decided that it's time for you to get your Trainer's license."

Mathias' eyes widened in excitement. "Really?!"

Juniper smiled at his obvious eagerness, as they walked back into the kitchen. "Yes. But I have something I want you to do."

Mathias' excitement dimmed a bit. "What is it?"

Juniper smiled. "Relax, it's nothing big. I want you to travel to Selos for me, and see if you can find anything different about the Pokemon that live there."

Mathias smiled brightly. "Of course I can Professor."

Juniper just continued smiling. "Now, we just need you to pick a starter for you to-"

"Snivy," Mathias interrupted without hesitation.

The Pokemon in question looked up at him in shock and surprise. 'But… why me?' She thought to herself. 'I'm nothing special. Not compared to the others.'

The professor simply smiled and nodded, obviously expecting this. "I thought as much." She walked back into the lab as Snivy walked over to Mathias.

"Why… why did you pick me?" She asked shyly. "I'm not as strong as the others."

"You don't know that," Mathias said as he smiled down at her. This was another interesting aspect of Mathias. So far, the only one in the town who knew was Professor Juniper, but he could understand Pokemon. "I've never seen you battle with the others or even train. How could you know what you're capable of if you never even try?"

Snivy just looked down and thought. 'Maybe he's right,' she thought. 'I mean… I've never actually even tried battling or using any moves.' She looked up to Mathias and nodded with a small smile. "Okay," she said. "But… I want to stay out of my Pokeball… with you."

Mathias smiled at her. "That shouldn't be a problem," he said as he picked her up. She let out a small squeak when he did, but calmed down and smiled happily when he put her on his shoulder. Afterwards, he walked into the lab, where Professor Juniper had everything ready.

"I've already got your plane ticket. You leave in a day, which should give you plenty of time to get to the airport."

Mathias smiled and looked onto the lab table. There were six Pokeballs and a Pokedex, as usual, and she'd taken the liberty of putting his red messenger bag with the assorted items, but there was something extra as well.

"What's with the belt?" He asked, referring to the simple socketed belt that was sitting next to the Pokeballs.

"Just a little something extra from me," was her simple response. "It's a place to put your Pokeballs so they're easy to get to when you need them. Oh, wait! I just remembered." She turned around and grabbed something off her desk and handed it to him. "One more gift from me to you."

Mathias looked down at the gift as he took it. It was a license. But it wasn't a trainer's license.

"You've completed and performed every task required for you to become my official apprentice. That is your Pokemon Professor in Training card."

Mathias looked up at Juniper in shock, then smiled. "Thanks. A lot" He really didn't know what else he could say.

"Now when you arrive in Halo City," the Professor said, "you'll want to follow Route 1 to Anvil town. You'll find the Regional Professor Willow in the lab there."

After quickly gathering everything up, Mathias quickly made his way for the Mistralton city airport.

Mathias and Snivy were both eager to get off when the plane touched down. It wasn't that they disliked planes or flying, or feared heights. They were simply uncomfortable in the cramped cabin of the plane.

Mathias looked around as he descended the ramp from the plane to the ground. Halo City rivaled Castelia when it came to sheer size. These buildings were quite tall, though a few of the skyscrapers in Castelia reached even higher. But that didn't stop him from staring in awe as he reached the ground. After all, he'd only seen pictures of Castelia. It was one thing to see a big city through pictures, but another thing entirely to actually be there.

He quickly found Route 1 and followed it down to Anvil to meet Professor Willow. Suddenly, he heard shouting in the forest. He went into the treeline, trying to find the source of the noise as the voices grew clearer.

"We can't let them get away," one, a man, shouted.

"What the hell else do we do?" a second, female, shouted in response. "We can't capture them! They'd never listen to us!"

"We kill them," the first responded.

Mathias was shocked at what he heard. He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't let someone be killed. He ran in the direction of the voices, when he heard an explosion and gunshots. Just then, he stopped as he felt a powerful psychic force comb through the forest frantically, looking for something. After a bit, it latched onto his mind as the foreign force surged into his head, depositing an image of a cave with an egg in it, and directions for getting there.

"Please!" the foreign mind shouted in a distinctly feminine voice. "You have to find her! You have to get there before they-"

Another gunshot. And the foreign mind was ripped away from his own.

Dead.

"Get back to the cave and find that egg," the first voice said.

With tears welling in his eyes at what he'd just witnessed, Mathias darted off in the direction of the cave, fleeting effortlessly across the forest floor, before finally reaching it. He didn't even take the time to observe the egg when he found it, just snatched it up and ran out. Until he heard a voice ahead of him.

"It's this way!"

He was trapped! He couldn't let these guys find him. They'd take the egg and do who knows what with it.

"The tree!" Snivy said from his shoulder. In his panic, he'd actually forgotten she was there. Did she know what was going on? Did the foreign mind speak to her to?

Not bothering to ponder these questions, Mathias climbed up the tree with an almost feline grace, struggling a bit because he was cradling the egg in his arm. After reaching the top and hiding among the branches and leaves, two men and a woman ran under him and into the cave. They were dressed in mostly normal clothes, save for the silver W sewn into the front of their shirts, and odd wristwatches.

After a while, they exited the cave.

"The egg can't have just disappeared!" The woman said.

"Who's to say it can't?" One of the men said. "Or that the parents didn't hide it? You know how powerful those Pokemon are."

"It was here the first time we came! They can't hide an egg when they're too busy running away from us!" the female shouted.

"And how would you know?" The male responded.

"Enough," the second man said in a low, commanding voice. "We can squabble about this later. We should regroup with the others before anything else."

And finally, they left.

After letting out a sigh of relief, Mathias took this time to observe the egg. There wasn't much to observe however. The entire thing was pink. Usually, monocolored, featureless eggs were representative of the type of Pokemon within them, which meant that this egg would birth a Psychic type.

Climbing carefully down the tree, Mathias foraged through his red messenger bag to see if what he was looking for was actually in there. And indeed it was.

When he pulled his hand out, he was holding a small cube. However, when he pushed the button on top of it, the cube expanded and showed that most of it was made of glass that had a holographic display on it. It was a portable incubator. After he and Juniper had come across an abandoned Minccino egg in the middle of winter one day, they'd both made it a habit to always carry one with them.

He placed the egg in the incubator and set the warmth a little higher than was standard, due to the cold temperature outside, and ran a diagnostic scan. After a few seconds, the scan came back positive. The egg, while a little cold, was otherwise completely healthy.

"Well, that's a relief at least," he said aloud. Snivy just nodded in agreement.

After adjusting the artificial environment in the incubator to make sure that the egg would remain in good condition, he carefully placed it in his bag and made his way out of the forest and back onto the Route.

After a while, he finally made it to Anvil Town. It was a quaint place that seemed to be architecturally similar to Driftveil, but it had the same peaceful, small town atmosphere that Nuvema Town exuded.

After aimlessly walking around the town for a bit, he found what looked to be the most modern building in the town.

"That must be the lab," Snivy said, voicing his thoughts. Mathias just nodded and walked towards it.

When he stepped in, he found a very wide open space, much more room than there was in Professor Juniper's lab. And at the back of the lab, at a new age looking computer, was the one that looked to be the Professor.

"Professor Willow?" Mathias asked. The man simply grunted in response.

'Must be focused on his research,' was Mathias' assumption. He walked over to the desk and tried to get a look at the computer to see what the Professor was working on. When he finally reached it, he saw that the esteemed Professor was…

Playing Solitaire.

"You're the child that Junie sent, right?" Professor Willow continued typing and using the mouse; he didn't even spare a glance towards Mathias.

Mathias frowned. This was the Regional Professor of the Selos Region? How did this guy even get his credentials?

"I'm Professor Juniper's apprentice, yes," he answered, his disappointment clear in his voice.

"Ha, you've been like, the seventh kid to give me that look today. I got all the info about you that I needed. Mathias, right?" The Professor snorted.

Mathias glared. "Yes," he said, his voice laced with distaste. "I'm here to get my Pokedex updated with access to Selos data."

"I know." The Professor sighed. "Take this," he said, holding a data chip to Mathias. "Since yours doesn't have it build in, just shove it into one of the slots on the side. Your pokedex is old and its model is wasting away. I thought Juniper would actually update her technology for once." 'Another hassle,' The Professor thought. He handed the data chip to the young boy.

Mathias' glare just deepened. Even Snivy looked angry. He snatched the data out of the Professor's hand rather rudely, just because he could, and gently plugged it into the proper slot in the Dex. After pressing the right buttons and following the procedure that Professor Juniper had taught him, the update was completed. He took out the chip and held it out the Willow, the glare still present.

"If all you're gonna do is be rude and glare, then shoo, get out of my lab." Professor Willow didn't even sound too perturbed, just kind of bothered. This kid's opinion of him didn't even matter. He'd be out and about soon enough.

Mathias just continued glaring and left the lab.

When he exited the lab, he nearly screamed in frustration.

"That guy was completely infuriating," he said, "not to mention very obviously incompetent. How much did he bribe to become the Regional Professor?"

"He is. It's better not to think about him too much." A passerby apparently had overheard his question, sitting outside the lab with two other people. "You're one of the new trainers, right? I'm Laurel. I started six months before you did. I'm here to explain and teach you all about the fundamentals. One more person needs to get here before we can start." The teenage girl clapped her pale hands together enthusiastically. "I hope we all get along." Her mint-green eyes glinted.

Mathias whipped his head around in surprise at the new voice, while Snivy had literally jumped and nearly fell of his shoulder. After observing the girl and listening to her, he nodded.

"I'm Mathias. Professor Juniper's apprentice in Unova. And this is Snivy," he said, gesturing to the small Grass type that had regained her footing, "my starter. She's a little shy, so she probably won't socialize much at first. I mostly know what I'm doing from what Professor Juniper taught me, but a few extra pointers would be nice."

"I'll gladly help you along." Laurel nodded, as though taking the information into account. "We're just waiting on one more person."

Mathias nodded, kneeling down and letting Snivy off his shoulder. "So who are these two?"

"I think they can introduce themselves." Laurel stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets, turning to the other two.

The first didn't respond right away. He had on a white T-shirt, blue jeans, brown hiking shoes and, of course, a slightly large backpack. A Chimchar was perched on his shoulder, both sharing an expression of indifference. "The name's Nate..." The boy spoke with a plain tone. His expression was pretty much void of emotion. The Chimchar merely blinked at the newcomer. "Pleasure to meet you."

Mathias reached his hand out and shook Nathan's. Snivy looked a bit disturbed at the seemingly emotionless Chimchar and waved shyly.

The Chimchar immediately perked up and waved back. But when Mathias looked at it, the little monkey looked away huffing.

The other man stood by just observing. He was the most imposing thanks to his size, he wore a woodland camo beanie with same color cargo pants and combat vest. Only thing he wore that wasn't of the same color was his brown hiker boots, olive green over the solder bag and black t-shirt. "Names Sergio-077," he introduced himself then pointed at the young and energetic red and blue crocodile nesting upon his head. "Totodile." He added.

Mathias observed Sergio, mentally noting his odd name and quiet disposition. Snivy, meanwhile, was once again waving shyly, this time at Totodile, and ducked her head a bit.

Totodile got off his trainers head and waddled his way towards Snivy. Once he reached her, he extended his paw to her.

Snivy was a bit shocked at the Water type's sudden approach and backed up a bit, but when he reached his paw out to her, she timidly took it before taking her arm back. "N-nice to meet you," she said, almost inaudibly.

Mathias just smiled down at the two, happy that Snivy was making friends so quickly. Perhaps this energetic Totodile would be able to help her break out of her shell? Whatever the case, Mathias was happy that he was here. After all, one didn't get the chance to begin an entirely new journey every day.