After losing the match to Mark and picking up my now healthy Pidgy, my parents took me out to my favorite restaurant for dinner. They seemed proud of me for how far I got in the tournament. Eventually the talked turned to our deal.

"A deal is a deal, and you definitely held up your side of it." Said my mother agreeably.

"So this is what we propose," continued my dad. "The school year is done it a month. Mom and I would like you to complete this year at least. Any way you and Mark need time to prepare and research and plan your Journey. We spoke about it with the Hunter's, and they are in full agreement. We will get you all the books and maps you need. After the end of the year you guys are free to go with our blessing."

I thought on this for a minute. Even though I was excited to get going already, there was a lot of sense in what my parents were saying. I hadn't the first clue of where I would go if I left now. How would I pay for what I needed etc. So I needed time to plan anyway. If it made my Parents happy for me to finish the last month of the school year while I was here, that was fine with me.

Before I could voice my opinion my mother chimed in again. "I also invited an old family friend over for a few days. She can only make it at the end of the month. Uncle Dale will also be staying with us until then. We both agreed that you will really want to meet her. You should invite Mark over too when she gets here."

"Who?" I asked curiously.

"You will just have to wait and see" replied Mom.

A week later the interview with me came out in the school weekend addition of the paper. Most of it was fine, just a technical blow by blow of the matches I was part of for those who didn't attend. The last half of the article was dedicated to my personal life. Only child, live on the edge of town, A- student, have always loved Pokémon. Received my Pidgy as a gift when I was ten.

Alicia then did exactly what I hoped she wouldn't do and got into the fact that I switched Pokémon to one no one had ever seen me use before. She also called my bluff. She had done some serious investigative duty and had gone to the hospital and somehow found out the whole story of how I caught Venipede, calling me an Irresponsible trainer for allowing my Pidgy to get injured like that, especially the night before the finals. As if I didn't care about the effort my Pokémon had put in to get us all the way to the semi's.

The article was very upsetting because it rang truthful in my ears. The only thing that prevented me from really getting upset was what my uncle Dale had said to me in the hospital, and the fact that Pidgy didn't seem upset at all by our loss. It seemed that he just had a good time in the battles and hoped that we would do better next time.

My main take away from the whole episode was what my dad had said, in the future I would be very weary of the media.

Mark also had an article, but in the local newspaper. It was a great article. It also described the match play by play, but incorporating the crowd's reactions on every move. It made me realize that I had been so nervous that as soon as the match began I just tuned out the crowd, unable to pay attention both to them and to the match.

Otherwise the article delved into the fact that Mark and I were planning on leaving on a Journey. That was pretty rare for people from our town and it caused a stir. Also the fact that the winner and runner up were best friends seemed to endear us to the populace. Just walking to the grocery store on Friday to pick up milk for my mother, three people who I recognized by face but not name, wished me luck in my travels.

So as the month rolled towards its end and the visit from my mother's mysterious guest, Mark and I were in high spirits. We were splitting out days into four; we went to school in the morning as we had promised out folks. When we got back we would train together either at his house or at mine; me with Pidgy and Venipede, and Mark with Meowth (and occasionally a failed attempt with Magikarp).

After that we would pour over maps and books to try and prepare for our trip.

When we got tired of that we would split, each going home, where we would get in some more individual training before bed. It was an exhausting routine.

Over the second weekend after tournament, Mark and I made our first foray into the wild. We took three days and went up into the unpopulated hills just south of our community. It was an area that hadn't seen many humans in my life time.

We made camp the first night in a small clearing in a we found in the pinewood half way down a small hill. The night was quiet and we were up late talking, sharing fantasies about our upcoming trip. We were set to leave Sunday, two weeks from tomorrow. Eventually Mark fell asleep, and so I rolled over and waited for the warm arms of slumber to embrace me as well.

When I woke in the morning Mark was gone. He had used some of the charcoal from the night's fire to leave me a message 'gone looking for Pokémon. Be back by noon'. I thought that was a great Idea, and, checking my belt for my Pokeballs, headed out as well.

I hadn't gone ten meters when I found a little green snake Pokémon.

"Snivy!" it introduced itself happily.

"Is that what you are?" I asked it rhetorically. "Well, I think I'll catch you!"

"Pidgy! Let's go!" I called. Out of the ball I threw popped my tan little bird "wing attack!"

The Snivy dodged it quicker than I thought possible.

"Again!" I called, hoping that it had dodged through luck.

This time, as Pidgy closed on Snivy, he anticipated the green snake Pokémon to dodge in the same direction as before, and was ready to adjust its wing attack accordingly.

But once again, Snivy managed to evade the incoming bird, dodging in the same direction as before, but still too quick for Pidgy's correction.

"Wow, okay, quick attack" I commanded Pidgy. This time it connected and the little green Pokémon was tossed back. It didn't take it long to recover though, and it hopped right back in, hitting Pidgy with a tackle. Pidgy was knocked to the ground. Snivy then began to hit it with a crack of vine whip.

Pidgy was determined though, so I had it use its own tackle attack once more. He launched himself off the ground and into Snivy. Pidgy then managed to get airborne, and I ordered a gust.

Snivy was thrown back into a tree trunk with which it collided with a loud whack! I wasted no time throwing my Pokeball to snatch it up.

The red and white ball shook once, twice, three times before the light went off and it was still.

"Welcome to the team, little guy" I said, pocketing the ball. I was excited to show Mark.

Pidgy had done a great job so I let him hang around outside for the rest of the morning. I must have gotten pretty lucky with Snivy, since except for glimpsing a few green shadows that disappeared when I looked at them, the only other Pokémon I saw was a scurrying Rattata, and I was not interested in owning one of those. At a certain point I made it down to a small creek. I took a swallow of water from my canteen and decided to head back towards the campsite.

When I got back to camp Mark was already there, humming to himself quietly as he prepared lunch.

"So, how was your morning?" He asked.

"It was great. I caught something" I answered, purposely not giving away that it was a Snivy.

"Oh yeah? Awesome! I looked for hours… I was sure that there was nothing around. Finally, I ran into a Caterpie! Meowth had an easy time of it."

"Congratulations! It seems that this trip out here was worthwhile."

"Seems so. How about it though? A battle until lunch is ready? He had just put up a pot to cook on the fire. "Your new mystery Pokémon against mine?"

Mark seemed a little too eager. There was something mischievous hiding behind his pale brown eyes. But this was a challenge we were talking about, and I wanted to make it a habit to never back down from a challenge.

"Alright, let's go one on one." I agreed.

"Yeah buddy!" said Mark, rushing to create a space between us.

"On three" Mark said and I nodded. "One… Two… Three!" He tossed out his pokeball just as I tossed out mine.

I knew what to expect out of my pokeball, but what came out of Mark's totally surprised me. Instead of the small green Caterpie I was looking for, a larger orange dinosaur stood.

"A Charmander?" I asked, taken aback. Charmander was looking cautiously at Snivy, who just stared back at him, as if daring him to get close. "You said you caught a Caterpie!"

"I did! first I caught Caterpie, and then on the way back here, not twenty minutes ago, we ran into this little guy." He then peered over at my Pokemon. "What is that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, but I believe he is called Snivy. Caught him first thing this morning, "I said proudly. I then proceeded to size up Charmander again. "Seems like I am at a type disadvantage," I concluded dejectedly. As far as I knew that spelled certain defeat. His moves would deal much higher damage while mine would barely do any. But I had agreed to the challenge, so I figured I had to at least give it a shot.

"Let's go Snivy, use tackle!" I said. As with every battle of mine, as soon as it began my mind went into hyper mode, considering and discarding strategies and scenarios at a crazy pace. In this case I had to rely on the little I knew of Snivy, especially because of the type disadvantage. That meant utilizing the speed I had witnessed in our battle this morning.

That same speed seemed to surprise Mark as well, and Snivy slammed into Charmander before the fire lizard even had a chance to move.

I called for a vine-whip, and Snivy began to beat Charmander with thin green vines extending from its back.

"Yikes your Snivy is fast" commented Mark. "Charmander, chase it away with ember!" he called. Charmander had rolled into a ball on the ground flailing to avoid the stinging vines. He now flipped over and shot a small ball of super effective embers at Snivy. The ember was done in haste and went a little wide. Even so, without me needing to call out to him, Snivy used his extended vines to propel himself into the air and avoid the fire attack. He was clearly a very bright Pokemon. As I saw Snivy sail through the air I had a crazy idea.

Snivy landed and Charmander came at him with a scratch attack. My green snake Pokémon managed to avoid it once more. "Close in on him with scratch!" called Mark. It was clear that both he and Charmander were growing frustrated that they hadn't yet landed a single attack. Snivy was just that fast.

Charmander tried to close the gap between the two Pokémon to prevent Snivy from dodging his next attack. He managed to back Snivy close to a tree, and that was the perfect setting to try to execute my plan.

Thinking my Pokémon was backed into a corner Mark triumphantly called for another ember.

"Quick Snivy, vine whip on the ground into a tackle!" I wasn't sure if the command was too complicated, since this was the first battle Snivy and I had fought together. As it turns out, I didn't need to worry. He understood perfectly.

As Charmander let out its embers, Snivy threw itself into the air using vine-whip. He flipped right over the ball of fire before acrobatically turning his dive into a tackle that hit the surprised Charmander square in the chest, knocking it out.

Mark and I were dumbfounded.

"I…I can't believe that worked" I said, totally shocked, as Mark and I called our Pokémon back into their balls.

"That was absolutely insane" he said slowly. "I was sure I had you because of the type advantage. There should have been no way for you to win. But man, buddy, your Snivy is fast! Charmander couldn't even land a hit. You reduced my type advantage to nothing!" he ran a hand through his hair as if to clear it from the crazy image of my little Pokémon sailing through the air into a tackle. "Completely nuts. And you called it!" Mark said again, as if he just remembered. "It wasn't some lucky move! You told it to do that insane thing and it got what you meant and executed it! That must be one rare Pokémon you caught. What do you know about it anyway?" he said, finally coming up for a breath. Mark tended to rant when he got nervous or excited.

"I honestly have no idea. I only think it's called Snivy since that is the sound it makes. It may also have more attacks. I only know tackle and vine-whip since that is what it used against Pidgy when I caught it."

"How did you manage to catch it?" asked Mark. "Was Pidgy able to hit it?"

"Not at first, no. Snivy was able to avoid the first few attacks, but I hit it with a quick attack. And then Pidgy managed to surprise it." Something else occurred to me. "Mark, it could also be that you didn't manage to hit Snivy because your Charmander was a little less accurate. His first ember was shot pretty wide. He also wasn't able to anticipate and correct after missing. That is something out other Pokémon seem to do once they gain more experience."

Mark was just stirring the pot to see if lunch was ready. "You know, you may be right, Charmander could be really young. But am I supposed to find out if that is true or not? There is no way I can read up about every type of Pokémon out there on the off chance that I will catch one… that is an insane amount of information. I don't even know if it is possible to learn all of this stuff…"

We were silent for a couple of minutes, contemplating these questions. Meanwhile Mark declared lunch ready and gave me bowl with a nice steamy meat broth.

As we ate the answer came to me. " I know! We'll ask my uncle. We are hardly the first aspiring trainers, and there must be some answers at least! Uncle dale will definitely know."

Mark nodded enthusiastically. "That's a great idea. Actually now that you mention it we really should have been utilizing your uncle and his experience more with all our planning. We should run it all by him and ask him if he would train with us. Give us a few tips. We have a gym leader sitting under our noses and we have been totally ignoring this opportunity!" Mark was right. We had been idiots. We spent the last three weeks trying to figure it all out on our own when we could have asked for tips and pointers.

We resolved to ask him as soon as we got back to town. The plan was to spend the rest of the afternoon in the wild, sleep back at camp and walk back to town the next day. Judging by the time it took us to get here, if we left early morning we would be back home just before dark.

We didn't encounter any new Pokémon the rest of the day. Truth be told I don't think either of us was really trying too hard. We walked around. We made it all the way down to the creek I had gotten too that morning, but we were joking around loudly and kind of just happy with the progress we had made on this short pre-journey foray.

To me what I had learned at our battle today was most important: type advantage didn't assure you victory. Sure, it was important, but maybe not even as important as strategy and correct communication. I really looked forward to continue training with Snivy. I felt like the two of us had a lot of potential to improve even more.

We made camp that night not so far from the creek. I fell asleep in my sleeping bag listening to the soothing sound of water flowing over rocks.