"So do you have a name?" I asked the squirtle stood before me.
He gave a small nod, grabbed my hand, and tried to direct me somewhere.
I decided to follow his commands and let him lead me. He brought me over to a small tent that was made of leaves and sticks.
Inside was an abra with it's hands curled into "ok" symbols at its sides as it floated a few inches off the ground.
Upon entrance the abra turned it's head towards us.
Suddenly I had a small headache as I heard a small female voice in my head. [Hello.]
"Uh, hi?" I said outloud, confused of what had just happened.
[I'm communicating with you telepathically.] The voice spoke again.
I looked down at the abra. "You? Are you the one telepathically speaking with me?"
She shook her head and flashed a small smile.
Wow! I knew psychics could do this, but I've never experienced it for myself!
[The squirtle has acquired the title of 'Thomas' and would prefer to be addressed as such.]
"Oh okay! Thanks!" I said to the abra as I looked down at the squirtle.
"Thomas, huh?" I asked in confirmation.
He nodded and began to lead me out of the tent. I thanked the abra and left. Tom was leading me to a small white shack looking building.
Inside there was a number of pictures of various pokemon all over the walls displaying scenes of pokemon and young looking trainers happily standing beside each other. There were a few chairs aligned along the walls and a small counter at the back.
On the counter was a notepad that seemed to be stuck in place and it had a pen on a chain attached to it.
In the notepad there was a bunch of pokemon names scribbled on it with checkboxes next to them, some were empty others were filled with a check. I figured it was a census for the pokemon of sorts. Take one, check off its name to show it was removed from the enclosure.
"Do I check off one of the boxes by squirtle?" I asked Tom.
He nodded and I checked one of the boxes at random as there were four underneath the word Squirtle.
"So does that mean there are other squirtles around here?" I asked pointing to the unchecked boxes.
He scoffed and shrugged his shoulders.
"What, don't you like the other squirtle?"
He glared up at me and turned the other way with his arms crossed.
That would be a no.
I took one last glance around the tiny building and left, Tom on my shoulder.
Outside it was beginning to grow dark, and a lot of the pokemon had disappeared to various places, though some others were still playing or scurrying off to their little homes within the enclosure.
I figured Tom might have his own little home and asked him if there was anything he needed from it.
He pointed towards the pond in front of the swingset and made a downward spiral motion with his hand.
"You live a the bottom of the pond?" I asked.
He nodded and chuckled. He then waved both hands as if to say there wasn't anything he needed.
"Alright! You ready to start our adventure?" I asked excitement once again coursing through me.
He shook his head and let out a small yawn.
Oh...right. It's night.
I let returned him to his pokeball and rode home. I explained to my parents that we'd be staying just for the night before we head out the next morning.
They were happy to comply and let Tom sleep with Aqua, our feraligatr, in the bathtub that night. You know it really is a strange sight to see a huge blue aligator and a small blue turtle happily asleep in your bathtub.
But it is also quite adorable when Tom begins blowing bubbles with his snores and begins to cover both pokemon in a mountain of the things.
It felt good to sleep in my bed and I realized I would miss it. But that's just a small sacrifice that i'm willing to make in exchange for my new life!
I woke up to a face-full of bubbles as Tom decided it would be funny to try and give me a bubble beard while I slept. I looked in the mirror and laughed at the sight of myself with my newly acquired facial hair.
I swiped away the bubbles and got into the shower.
Oh, another thing i'd miss.
Tom hopped in with me, which was kind of weird. I mean considering he is the equivalent of a young child.
But he was my partner nonetheless and I knew i'd have to deal with it, that and he was good for helping me wash my back.
I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a two towels off the rack, one for me and one for Tom. I threw him his as I began drying myself down.
He mimicked my every move in order to dry off as well as I did, even down to when I violently shook the towel throughout my hair.
And let me tell you, seeing a squirtle vigorously rub a towel around it's head is the funniest thing I can imagine!
After I got dressed me and Tom went downstairs to find a breakfast laid out on the kitchen table with a note saying
"We went out for a morning training session for Aqua. If we aren't back before you leave just know that we love you! And always be safe on your travels!"
I couldn't help but smile at the note before digging into the amazing breakfast before me.
Tom did as well, surprising me when he ate the sausage and bacon.
I thought squirtles were herbivores? I scoffed to myself. So much for that pokemon's diet class, huh?
We finished up and I left the dishes in the sink before we raced out of the house.
"Finally! I've got my pokemon and license! Now I can start my adventure!" I shouted out loud with Tom happily bouncing around me.
We began walking north west towards lake verity, as I was hoping to go and catch a new pokemon and train Tom a bit.
We arrived at the scene of lake verity where the sun was shining and the water was a cyan shade of blue. You could see many different kinds of water pokemon swimming around. I spotted a finneon and a school of remoraid.
Tom looked at me with an excited look on his face.
"You want to go play, don't you?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
He rapidly nodded his head like an excited little child. Then he pointed at me and made a motion with his arms that looked as if he were diving and looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"Do...uh..do you want to go diving?" I asked, not sure what he was trying to signify.
I sat for a moment and let Tom act out the scene further, trying to decipher it.
Wait!
The translators that Rowan gave me!
I told Tom to wait a moment and reached into my pack for the little metal box. When I retrieved it I pulled out one of the six chips and pressed the red button, and sure enough a small needle emerged from the opening.
I looked at my little squirtle with a worried expression. "Hey, now this might hurt just a little, but it will let you be able to communicate with me easier!" I told it while holding up the chip for him to see.
He cocked his head sideways at the small grey cube, then took it in his hand and injected it into his upper left arm leaving a small trickle of blood from the puncture. He winced a bit then looked up at me. He opened his mouth to speak but was silenced by a small mechanical voice.
"DNA sample retrieved. Please remove the chip from the body of the pokemon and replace it into the cartridge."
I was confused, "So how does this work then?" I asked aloud, staring intently at the small chip in my hand.
Tom pointed to a white little sticker on the back of the box- or cartridge rather. It had directions and an explanation of the small chips.
It turns out that the spike holds a small amount of the pokemons blood and it translates the words of whatever the pokemon whose DNA it has. "Fascinating!" I said, impressed by the technology.
"Alright, Tom try to say something." I told the squirtle.
"M-master?" said a childish sounding voice with just a hint of rasp to it. He looked up at me with a confused look on his face.
"Whoah! They work!" I shouted excitedly.
He began to chuckle and clap his hands together and said " I want you to swim with me!"
"Ohh, that's what you were trying to say! Alright then, let me get my swim trunks and I'll come swim with you!" I said to him, watching his face light up.
I rustled around in my pack for the capsule that held my spare clothes in it, when I noticed my medical capsule and thought back to his little cut from the translator. I grabbed both my clothes capsule and the medicinal capsules and pressed their buttons without thinking.
Suddenly I was covered in a pile of potions, ban-aids, and various articles of clothing.
Ugh, how could I forget. These things are the opposite of neat.
I heard Tom laugh at me from beside me. "Laugh it up" I said as i quickly picked up my clothes and medical things, save for a band aid and my swim trunks.
"Here, Tom." I said, holding out a band-aid.
"What's that? Is it gonna hurt me again?" Tom asked. I sunk at his words "No! I'm sorry the chip hurt but I had to do it so you could talk to me." I explained to Tom.
"Okay, as long as it wont hurt!" Tom said as he extended his arm to me. I removed the seals from the band-aid and gently placed it over the small hole the chip left.
"There! All better!" I smiled at Tom.
"Now give me a second, i'm going to go change!" I said as I darted behind the nearest tree.
I emerged from behind the tree in my sharpedo-pattern swim trunks and started sprinting towards the lake. "Come on Tom!" I yelled behind me and the squirtle followed me into the lake.
We spent a while just splashing each other in the water and playing with a few water pokemon. A buizel with a little red ball swam up to us and seemed to want to play. Tom agreed and so did I. The buizel was an excellent catcher and thrower as well, constantly leaving either me or Tom to chase after the ball we didn't catch. It got bored after a while and waved goodbye as it swam to shore and scampered off into the forest.
After that Tom and I just sat floating on the lake calmly. But I had a strange feeling, it was as if something was watching us.
I mean of course there was! There were multiple pokemon beneath the surface staring up at us, but that wasn't it.
It almost felt as if it were hostile. I stood up and looked all around us. The only things I could see besides me and Tom were a few pokemon running and playing throughout the forest.
I just couldn't shake this feeling though! I decided to direct my focus back to Tom, who was lazily floating on the surface of the lake.
"Hey, Tom. You know what we should do?" I said to the zoned out little turtle. "Huh?" he asked without even looking up.
"We should work on some of your attacks! I know you can dispense bubbles but that's about it." his head shot up at my words "Okay!" he said, suddenly full of energy.
We waded back to the shore and I asked him to show me what he could do, and to focus his attacks at a tree a few meters in front of him.
He began to shoot bubbles from his mouth at high speeds that exploded into tiny bursts of water on impact, shaking a few leaves free of it and leaving small indents on the tree.
"Hey cool! What else ya got?" I asked, ready to see what else my little buddy could do.
He began to sprint towards the tree and leaped into the air, withdrawing into his shell as he did so. The shell began to spin and suddenly launched itself at the tree. The impact caused the thin tree to snap in half and tumble over.
Tom landed and popped out of his shell, pride obviously spread across his face.
I too shared in his pride as he began to confidently strut around the fallen tree. I couldn't help but laugh at his silly display.
I decided we'd set up camp for the night at our training spot just off shore from the lake. I broke down the collapsed tree into smaller pieces in order to be used for firewood.
Tom watched intently as I arranged a small fire pit and set up two sleeping bags around it.
I pulled a fishing rod out from my pack, looked at him and said "Okay, let's catch some dinner, shall we?!" He nodded and promptly made a beeline for the lake.
Before I had even arrived at the shore he already had a goldeen wildly flailing between his jaws. He shot me a wink before suddenly clamping down on the creature, sending a mess of blood and guts flying accompanied by a sickening crunch.
"You certainly are quite a hunter, huh?"I laughed and cast my line out into the lake, using a chunk of goldeen as bait. "Now don't get caught on that!" I instructed Tom, pointing to my line.
He nodded and swam off in the other direction. The sun was beginning to set so I knew it was getting late and decided to fish until it was dark out.
Time passed quickly as Tom and I had compiled a small fortune of various fish pokemon in a bucket.
Getting up to my feet I shouted out for Tom and his head popped above the lake surface with a happy smile. He began swimming towards me but was suddenly dragged underwater.
"Tom?!" I shouted after him.
I dropped the bucket full of fish and my fishing rod as I hopped up onto a large rock to get a better view of what was going on, but it was dark and all I could see was water being splashed wildly. I heard a few screams and panicked.
I shuddered on the spot and felt a crushing realization hit me.
I don't even have a weapon to aid my pokemon! What if its a gyarados trying to eat my squirtle!?
A flurry of thoughts and scenarios flooded my brain causing me to panic even further until I heard a large splash.
It was Tom! He had leapt out of the water and I could see he was bleeding from his left leg. Another creature had leapt out after him and from what I could make out it was a blue jellyfish with two large red jewels on its head and a third smaller one between it's eyes.
"Fuck!" I shouted to myself. "That's a tentacool! That little fucker can poison you, be careful!" I shouted out at Tom.
They disappeared underwater again. I watched with baited breath, hoping for Tom to pop his head up with his goofy little smile.
There was a small bubbling.
A sudden flurry of red water.
And a fleshy blob.
My partner! NO! This can't be!
"No! No no no no!" I screamed at the floating object.
There was another bubbling and the small patch of red water quickly turned purple.
And then the lifeless, one armed corpse of the tentacool floated on the surface next to what I had realized was it's other arm.
Tom shot up out of the water covered in purple and red fluid and shot me a grin accompanied by a wink before loudly splashing back into the lake.
He quickly swam up to my rock and leapt at me, I caught him and looked him over.
I noted a huge gash leaking purple liquid on his left leg.
"I...I got...I got him!" He said in between pants as he collapsed in my arms.
Cradling him like a baby I leapt down from my rock and into the water, washing all the gross liquids off of him, and raced him over to the camp.
I placed him down on his sleeping bag and quickly retrieved my medicine capsule. I knew it was going to make a mess but I had to get Tom patched up before it was too late.
I backed away from the fire and pressed the release button. Like usual there was a small explosion of items all around me.
Quickly searching through the pile with shaking limbs I finally managed to find the little spray bottle full of yellow liquid.
"okay, here's the antidote!" I grabbed a potion and dashed to Tom's side. He was breathing heavily and his gash was starting to leak more purple liquid.
"Tom! Listen to me! This will sting a bit but it will heal you!" I shouted at him while spraying the yellow fluid into the gash and dabbed at the purple goo with the bottom of my swim trunks.
He didn't move aside from his heavy breathing.
Fuck fuck fuck! He should have flinched or winced or...or something!
The yellow fluid absorbed into the gash and the purple fluid slowly disappeared. I sprayed a bit of the potion into the gash and waited for some sort of response from Tom.
He screamed and his leg shot up to meet my chin in a fierce kick.
I let out a huge sigh, and rubbed my chin. "At least your okay." I said to him.