Disclaimer: Why yes, this will be a running gag! I'm not gonna be mean and copyright it, though.

Wander

Chapter 2: Hello World

"Some people just can't take a joke..." Dod muttered to himself, as he grabbed his preprepared escape pack from its hiding place among the shelves in the corridors. Kurt was a professional, so Dod was fairly certain he wouldn't harm him, but he didn't exactly want to deal with a bitter, uptight caretaker anyway (or take his chances at all, really). For all he knew, he could be forced to do chores or even have his time limit shortened out of spite. Either result would be quite unfavourable.

Anyway, Dod, mocking as he may be, wanted as much time as possible to do whatever he could to get both his caretaker and father off his back, and as soon as possible, since the struggled silence at mealtimes whenever things like this happened were just torturous, tension at an all-time high. That being said, his ideal plan this time was to secure a job offer, laze around until he just about reached the time limit, and then calmly reveal that he'd already sorted out his employment. Of course that might have meant lunch and dinner could be just as awkward, but Dod would just find it amusing to aggravate the only other diner, so the boy left his home responsibly with the intent to find something bearable to do for work nearby. It also helped that he had nothing better to do that morning.

It was only as he reached for his jacket that the boy realised he'd probably need the newspaper if he actually wanted any immediate progress. Since he wasn't exactly inclined to making any requests to Kurt, who'd undoubtedly be reading it after he was over his fit, he decided to try his luck in the local area instead.

The teen waltzed about the street, looking for opportunities and inspiration, appraising his surroundings with a keen eye. He hoped to at least gain an idea of what he could do as he scoured shop windows, signs and noticeboards within a sizeable radius around his home. Following the retrieval of some materials, including a pencil and a map of the city, from his handy backpack, he used paper clips to fasten tracing paper onto the map so that when he marked off the general areas that he'd covered the map would remain pristine. After all, finding clean replacement maps of similar quality was a bother, and Dod enjoyed the luxury of being crazy prepared with minimal effort spent on restocking.

During his expedition he met up with a few of his friends, one of whom suggested that Dod join him for his own gig at a restaurant that focused primarily on meat. It was that very dreadful focus which forced the boy to decline, as he had some sort of complex regarding the consumption of pokémon, who were so close to humans. The occasional burger he could stomach, because- as much as it saddened him- who can argue with such results? Even those were only taken when he was at a barbeque or something and he had little choice in the matter. On the other hand, the thought of working with meat or a butcher so often made him feel particularly uncomfortable.

For Arceus' sake, he had an Alakazam cooking his meals.

On that sombre note, he trudged back towards his house, discouraged by the lack of opportunities and blaming the recession that he knew nothing about.

Suddenly a poster dramatically flew in from the direction of the wind to slap him in the face and then miraculously lodged itself in-between his cap and his head, earning the teen curious glances and giggles from passers-by. Slightly disturbed by this turn of events, but thanking the universe profusely in advance for probably making his life a lot easier, he raised his hand to the piece of paper in order to retrieve it from its current location. He'd always been a believer of signs, so he shrugged and, grinning, studied the surface of the object that was now in his hands, expecting an offer, hopefully for something easy to do, like fluffing pillows, since he'd already been humiliated in public by being smacked around by litter in the air.

The redundant lack of opportunity certainly felt like another slap to him. It turned out to be a poster for Rad Rickshaw's Bike Shop advertising the new cycle models, which featured two basic, convenient, default gear settings and a much looser gear changing option (still on the same bike) for everything beyond and between them. "Does this mean I have to buy a bike?" Dod speculated, "Or should I try being a mechanic or delivery guy after all? Maybe is this some roundabout method of hinting that leaving home? I guess I could check out the store in question, unless that last one was true."

In the end it turned out the store had already closed by then, so he begrudgingly returned to his address, borrowing some guides, novels, clips and games based on training from the local library on the way.


"Okay," Dod reasoned somewhere in the back of his mind, "Perhaps bringing the games was a bad idea."

The foolish child had stayed up late playing video games like so many other teens left to their own devices, the literal device in this case still lying on his bed temptingly, daring him to grab a hold of it once again. Thankfully, the infernal racket produced by Dod's annoyingly efficient alarm feature on his Pokétch cleared him of such impurities, replacing them with the urge to smack it with his own tennis racket.

Barely resisting his newfound temptations, he calmly pressed the appropriate button, before realising that he was actually supposed to enter a password on the touch screen of the device.

It got louder.

Still struggling to maintain his composure, he punched in the godforsaken code and the noise finally died down abruptly.

Amazingly, the feature worked well, as he could not in good conscience return to his slumber (though he fell back on his bed for a few moments) and his attention had been fully torn away from the handheld game console resting on the bedside table.

Because Dod still felt a little bitter though, he decided to set a tennis racket by the front door so that he could hit something later.

Thankfully, breakfast was relatively uneventful, allowing for a peaceful departure compared to yesterday's dashing escape. After lounging around for an impressive period of time and putting it off until later, he decided to see if the folks at the bike shop needed any extra hands around.

As it turned out, they didn't.

Before the poor boy could open his mouth, the store owner, Rad Rickshaw, cut him off.

"No. Look, sorry, but...I've got more than enough help over here, maybe too much. In fact, I was thinking about...downsizing..."

Perhaps it was just his imagination adding its own twist due to tension from the refusal, but the teen could've sworn he heard a sinister chuckle, and shivered.

"Alright, now unless you're looking at merchandise..." It looked like he wasn't done, until he finished his statement, "beat it."

Well, now he was.

"Oh, come on!" Dod pleaded, "If I don't land a job soon, I'm gonna have to leave the house with some pokémon, and I'd rather do some kind of work than travel across Sinnoh being a trainer at the ever-present risk of losing half of my hard-earned-"

"Say, how about doing both?" By this point, Rad had perked up, and seemed eager to just spit out his new idea before the boy rambled on. Upon catching sight of Dod's incredulous look, he held his hands up in front of him in a calming gesture. "Just hear me out."

Either clearing his throat or coughing for effect, he began proposing his plan, "I actually need someone to get a package to Sandgem Town, and I'm hoping you could do it for me. From there, you can start your own journey towards wherever you want to go. This should work well for you because the pokemon there tend to be very weak compared to other places and that's where Professor Rowan's lab is. In fact, he's the one who needs the package!"

"I see where you're going with this," Dod interjected. "So I get myself over there somehow, deliver a parcel to the professor in town, and he could give me the starting pack for my real journey, at which point I'll make my way over to you for my real payment for the delivery."

"Drat, I was hoping you'd forget about that!" the shop owner joked, "But yeah, that's about it. Give it some thought. You said you had a week?" He paused as Dod nodded. "The cargo should be here by then."

"Understood," said the boy. "What's in the package, anyway?"

Rad shrugged, "I don't know. Doesn't matter unless it's illegal. It could be pokémon, pokéballs, pokémon in pokéballs, research papers or machine parts...all you need to know is that it needs to be taken to Professor Rowan, who should be in Sandgem Town. Now you move while I look for a feasible excuse to fire someone."

After leaving the store, the teen wasted the remainder of the day attempting to find a better offer. His search, of course, was in vain, leading him to prepare for the journey that many young children embarked on, the voyages that often excited little kids early in their lives, only a portion of which would survive the hardships that the first quarter of the gym circuit wrought. The wave of trainers making their way towards each gym would decrease along the way until only the most qualified remained, but every traveller would have tales to tell, and at the very least bragging rights. For the more successful and tenacious ones, new friends, funds, and fame awaited.

Maybe training wouldn't be so bad after all if he just kept thinking about it that way.

Until the time came though, he was perfectly content smacking tennis balls around with his friends on the courts while he had the chance, so he challenged as many players as he reasonably could using what little time was left that evening. Sadly, he only got to three opponents in total, and, disappointed, made a note to squeeze in as many sessions as he could before he eventually left, as he doubted he'd find another appealing opportunity so easily within a week.

"Well," Dod lamented as he fluffed his pillow that night, "At least I won't have to worry about doing this for a living."


Author's Notes:

Heck yes, just the chapter itself was more than twice as long as the first one, which didn't hit the 1000 word mark even with the author's notes and title stuff! Hopefully this'll get the story that many more views. I guess the next target is 10,000...which won't be for a while, considering how long it took just to get here.

Three favourites, reviews and four followers already! Man, you are very thankful people.

Those of you familiar with Sinnoh should be able to figure out where Dod lives by now. Don't uh, abuse that information or anything.

Contrary to what I said last time, my plans for this have already jumped around quite a lot...at my current rate, I should have plenty of time to work things out though.