Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. I don't own anything. Sue me? You'll get nothing.
Note: I bet some of you've noticed that I didn't properly capitalise "Grand ones", ne? Well, I just didn't think to capitalise that "o", and now it's sticking like that, kay?
After a long walk through various weaving tunnels, Roger had finally led Ryou into what looked like an Eevee paradise. There were Eevees of all sorts of shapes and sizes and designs, and they were all happily playing various Eevee games. Ryou could only stare in disbelief at the sight, for he had never seen a single Eevee in his life, let alone so many at once!
Roger saw his look and blinked. "What's the matter, Ryou?"
"I've never seen an Eevee before," the boy replied. "They're supposed to be rare on the surface, but to see this many at once is astonishing! I just have to catch a few!"
He had a large grin on his face as he reached for a Pokeball with one of his trusted Pokemon partners inside. Roger cleared his throat, which took Ryou off guard, startling him into dropping his ball.
"How does someone from the surface like you capture a Pokemon?" Roger asked.
"We send out a Pokemon we've caught before to weaken the wild Pokemon and throw a ball at it, then hope it stays in." Ryou replied, picking up his Pokemon.
"That sounds very cruel and inefficient."
"Cruel? Inefficient? How?"
"Well, our Pokeball technology has advanced so far that we have no need to weaken wild ones, because the Eaveon X's have a 100 percent catch rate."
"100 percent? That sounds like a Master Ball. Those things are rare on the surface. How can you people have so many?"
Roger shrugged. "Our technologies are focused on keeping Pokemon happy while they're inside their X's. Scientists have found that no Pokemon is truly happy confined within a ball, so they experimented for years before they found a way that works."
"And how would that be?"
Roger shrugged again. "It was a complete fluke, really. After the first X was made, they couldn't recreate any more of them, so they tried getting Espeon to duplicate the X's while keeping both the original and copy in perfect working order. It's worked ever since."
"Wow. Can I have an X to try them out?"
"Sure. I can even transfer the Pokemon you currently own into empty ones so you can always have them with you at all times."
"Great!"
Ryou grinned widely as he gave his Pokemon to Roger. Roger then pulled a few X's out of his pockets and held one of them so that the button on the X touched the button on Ryou's Pokeball. The two objects glowed red for a second, then Ryou's ball fell to the floor as if it failed to catch a Pokemon. The X curled up and an orange orb filled the space inside it, and a crack appeared along the center. The red glow faded and the ball flew into Ryou's hands, catching him off guard for a second. The orange orb then disappeared and the X returned to its dormant state. This repeated for the five other balls, then Roger handed Ryou more dormant ones.
Ryou looked eagerly at the Eevee in the area and asked, "How do I use these to catch Pokemon?"
"Aim it at the Pokemon as if it were a scope with the button facing you, then press the button. A red dot should appear on the Pokemon you aimed at. If not, just move the X around until you get the dot on the Pokemon. Once the dot is clearly on the Pokemon, let go of the button, and the X will fly out of your hand and at the Pokemon, with the button facing the Pokemon. Once the X makes contact, the Pokemon will glow red and be drawn into the X. The X will then curl into a ball as you've seen before, then fly into your hands. Once that happens, the Pokemon is yours."
"What if the Pokemon gets smart and tries to run?"
"The X will home in on it as long as the red dot was somewhere on the Pokemon."
"Okay! Now, which one shall I try these things on first?"
Ryou scanned the area quickly, spotting a group of Eevees chasing after one another as if they were playing tag. They were all amazingly fast, but the one in front caught his attention the best. On its head were tufts of fur that curled up in the exact same ways his hair did, and it was at least three feet in front of the other Eevees playing with it. He aimed the X at this one, and pressed the button. A red dot appeared on the Eevee's foreleg, so Ryou let go of the button and happily watched as the X chased after it.
This caught the energetic Eevee's attention, and it started making various maneuvers to dodge it. It was making multiple sharp turns, multiple leaps, and it even ran at the X a few times to dodge it from underneath it. Ryou, along with the Eevees playing with this one, watched curiously and happily as their friend was trying to evade capture.
Eventually, the little thing made a wrong maneuver in rushing into a crowd of Eevees just curled up into little fluff balls napping, and crashed right into them. This awakened the napping fluff balls and allowed enough distraction to the target for the X to bump into its head, making it glow red and drawing it into the strange device. It flew into Ryou's hands while the Eevee's friends watched, and he blinked, staring at the ball.
"That was a great first try, Ryou!" Roger said suddenly, breaking the boy from his trance. "And it looks like you picked a good Eevee too. A nice, fast one, and it even looked like you to an extent."
"Thanks!" Ryou blurted.
His attention was diverted once more by what felt like a nudge on his leg. He looked, and all of the Eevee that were playing with the one he just caught were staring at him, as if a little child performing the puppy dog eyes maneuver on his or her parent to attempt to gain something from said adult.
"Hi!" Ryou said, grinning down at the cute Eevees staring at him. "Do you miss your friend already?"
The group of Eevees nodded. Can we go with you? Ryou heard in his head. It sounded like a group of small children to him.
He blinked, then muttered, "Did you guys just say something to me?"
The Eevees nodded and rubbed against him more, like a bunch of cats pleading for a meal. Ryou eventually gave in to the cuteness and used some of his X's to catch each and every one of them. They then flattened into their dormant state, so he put them in his bag in a pocket he never really used before.
"It's not surprising that those Eevee wanted to go with you," Roger explained. "Many Eevee don't like the idea of being separated from their friends, so when one of them gets captured, they tend to ask the trainer to capture the rest of them so they won't have to miss their friend. And the trainers always oblige, mainly because the Eevee act too cutely to be resisted."
"That's nice and all, but can we get to that first Grand one already? I wanna hurry up and battle!"
"Patience, Ryou. We have to make sure to register you first!"
Ryou nearly pulled an anime fall, and laughed nervously. "I guess I kinda forgot that I might have to do that here..."
"It's alright. You're new here, and you don't know the rules. We'll register in that building over there, alright?"
Roger was pointing to a small building with a purple roof on it. It had a set of glass double doors with small orb-ish handles, and the rest of the building was a sickly green color. There were red mats visible on each side of the doors, both inside and outside. It wouldn't have taken them long to reach the building, but a few groups of playing Eevee occasionally rushed in front of the two males, causing them to nearly trip each time.
Once they made it to the building, the doors glided open with a cool swoosh-beep mix of a sound, and they stepped in, the doors gliding shut behind them. A green haired woman, who looked like an officer of sorts with a purple uniform greeted them with a bow.
"Welcome, Roger. And your guest as well," she said formally. "May I ask your reason for visiting?"
Roger nodded. "I've come to get this boy registered."
The officer nodded and said, "Right this way," motioning with her hand the direction they should go.
They walked towards a large screen with a circular lens right at Ryou's eye level and a slot below it just big enough for a Pokedex.
"What's this for?" Ryou asked.
The officer smiled at him. "Just face the lens below the screen and make your camera face. The computer will then ask you a few questions, and then it will give you a Pokedex with your Eaveon trainer card through the slot. If you don't understand a question, just ask me and I'll do my best to clear things up, okay?"
Ryou nodded and faced the lens as he was told. The screen glowed blue, and then showed an image of Ryou and the environment behind him.
"Do you wish to be registered, boy?" a feminine computer voice asked.
"Yes, I do," he replied.
The screen took the image it currently displayed and shrunk it into the upper left-hand corner, showing a new screen with 17 different images of different Pokemon. Ryou could recognise only nine of them.
"Please indicate which of these Pokemon you own and how many of each," the voice instructed.
"I own nine Eevees," Ryou replied.
The screen then pulled the image of an Eevee from where it was on the screen and multiplied it by nine, and sent those images to the one of Ryou in the upper left-hand corner.
"Are there any others on this screen?" the computer asked.
"No."
"Are there any not on this screen?"
"Yes."
"Please let those Pokemon out of their X's so that I may register them."
Ryou did so, letting out his Floatzel, Staraptor, Heracross, Snorlax, Rapidash, and Torterra. This surprised the officer and Roger. The officer was more shocked, and Roger was more curious. The computer locked the individual images of each of Ryou's Pokemon, sending them to the image in the left-hand corner.
"Are there any more Pokemon?"
"No."
The images of the Pokemon disappeared and were replaced with a screen of various colors. Ryou then put his Pokemon away.
"Please pick your favorite colors from the ones shown."
Ryou took a look at the colors, then replied, "Red, orange, and yellow."
The screen now only showed those colors.
"Are these shades fine, or do you wish to change them?"
"Ummm, make them firey shades."
The colors changed, showing an image of a flame with all three of those colors clearly visible.
"Is this good, or do you wish to change it?"
"That's good."
The flame was sent to the image in the upper left-hand corner, and then the image there grew, along with smaller images representing each thing the computer had asked Ryou about.
"Please state your name."
"Ryou Hayaku.(1)"
"Is this information correct, Ryou Hayaku?"
"Yes, it is."
"Please wait as the information is processed."
The smaller images danced around on the screen while a loading bar appeared in the middle. It filled up quickly, and when it was full, the screen now displayed the word "Done!" with lines coming off of it like a kid would draw rays on a sun. A Pokedex popped out of the slot. It was very glittery in appearance, and as Ryou pulled it out, the colors smoothly changed from red to yellow and back again, as if from a flame. This happened mainly as he moved it around to study it.
While he was doing so, a card popped out with his picture in the upper left-hand corner, and the card had a fire pattern all over it. His name was in a bold green lettering in a pointy serif(2) font. There was also a white rectangle below the name. Ryou picked up the card and looked at the back. It had an image of each of his Pokemon on it. There were nine Eevees, and one of them even had the tufts of hair like he did.
How did the computer know what that Eevee looked like? He wondered.
Once Ryou finished wondering how the computer knew, he inspected his new Pokedex further. He found a button and pushed it. A screen slid out from one of the wider ends of the Pokedex, showing images of each of the Pokemon he caught. He touched the top of the screen, making it shrink back into the Pokedex. He now noticed a slot that looked just big enough for his card to slide in.
I suppose this is where the card goes. He thought as he returned it to the slot.
"You have to sign that before you leave here," the officer pointed out.
"Oh. Got a pen?"
The officer gave Ryou a pen straight from one of the pockets on her pants, and he quickly signed his card on the white rectangle, then returned the pen and card to their rightful places.
"Now you can go face the Grand ones," Roger said. "Shall we go?"
"Of course! I wanna hurry up and battle Shinju as soon as I can!" Ryou replied energetically with a wide grin on his face.
"Alrighty, then. Let's go."
And the two of them left the building, with the officer waving them off.
(1)Hayaku-This means early or fast in Japanese. I thought it'd go well with Ryou's character.
(2)Serif fonts-How to explain this... Okay, you know how when you write in printing, especially capital T's, that you'd generally draw two straight lines? Well, to make it look serif-y, just draw tiny little lines coming off of the edges of the lines. If you don't get it through my explanation, look it up on Google or something, kay?
WOO! NEW PAGE RECORD! This one got a little over six pages! And, it has enough words to make up for the fact that I didn't reach the 2,000 word mark on the last chapter. Yayz! 3