Mohan woke slowly from his dream, reflecting for a moment on the words the pink pokémon had said to him. 'It was just a dream,' he told himself.
He glanced over to Lily. She was still sleeping soundly, her bulbasaur safely inside its pokéball. Charmander had woken and was watching him curiously.
"Do you ever dream, charmander?" Mohan whispered to his pokémon.
Charmander gave a nod.
He petted the pokémon gently on the head, and wondered what charmander dreamt about. It was no use asking him, pokémon couldn't communicate anything complex, due to the language barrier.
He got up and ducked out of the tent. Charmander stretched and yawned before following, still tired. It was early morning, the sun was just coming up over in the east. The pidgey were being noisy in the trees, waking from their sleep. He heard a rustling through the grass and a shrill cry – a sentret had sighted him, and was now fleeing to warn its kin. Maybe I should wake Lily... he mused, but decided against it.
Instead he sat down under a tree and took out his pokédex and began scrolling through the entries on the touch screen. The data contained in the pokédex was extensive. It was professor Oak's life work, and was compiled with the help of thousands of trainers. Mohan hit the search function and then search by location. He selected route 1. A list of pokémon came up; furret, hoothoot, ledyba, minun, pidgey, pineco, plusle, poochyena, rattatta, sentret, shinx, spinarak, wurmple.
"Wow, I didn't know all these pokémon lived here," he said to his charmander. "I bet Lily will want a plusle or a minun."
"Char," the pokémon said in agreement.
He continued looking through the data in the pokedex, wondering what he could possibly do to contribute to it. It seemed pretty comprehensive as it was. He read through the entries on charmander and spinarak, his only pokémon.
After a while Lily emerged from the tent. "Good morning, Mohan," she said, stretching.
"Morning," he replied, putting his pokédex away out of politeness. "Should we get moving?"
"Yes, the sooner we get out of this spider-ridden forest, the better."
"I thought you wanted a sentret? I saw one earlier... Did you know there's plusle and minun here as well?"
"Really?" Lily's eyes lit up.
"The pokédex says so."
"I hope we find one, then! They're so cute!"
They broke camp that morning and resumed the journey north. The ground began to slope upwards, and it was hard going up the rocky ledges. The flighty pokémon they encountered didn't give them too much trouble. Mostly pidgey and rattatta. Mohan didn't catch anything, the pokémon either escaped from the pokéball and fled, or charmander made them faint with his increasingly powerful ember attack. Mohan didn't mind this; he didn't want to capture mediocre pokémon anyway, he would wait until he saw one that had some spunk.
Later that morning they came to a clearing where a pair of sentret had made their home. Lily let out a small cry of joy and sent out her bulbasaur. "Go, bulbasaur!"
Bulbasaur let out a cry before focusing on the pair of sentret before him, and waited for orders.
The male sentret stepped forward to protect its mate, and started the battle with a scratch attack.
"Use tackle, bulbasaur!"
Bulbasaur charged at the wild pokémon and slammed right into the target-like marking on its belly. The sentret was flung several metres backward with the force of the attack. It picked itself up slowly, a determined look in its eye, before running at bulbasaur and executing another scratch attack.
"Tackle, again!"
Bulbasaur repeated the move, but this time the sentret curled into a ball and bounced away. Sentret uncurled itself and bared its claws again.
"Look out, bulbasaur!"
Bulbasaur dodged the attack, and shot three seeds from the bulb on its back. The seeds hit the wild sentret and quickly grew into vines sapping the sentret of its strength. The pokémon fell to the ground.
"Good job, bulbasaur. Go pokéball!" Lily tossed the ball at the wild sentret, and after putting up a weak fight against the capture device, finally gave up the battle. Lily jumped up and down with glee. "I caught a sentret!" she said to Mohan.
"I saw. I don't think it's mate is too happy, though."
Lily turned her attention to the now-lone female. She was looking at her angrily. Lily frowned and approached the wild pokémon. "Sentret! Sentret!" it cried.
Lily knelt down to be level with her. "I don't want to hurt you," she said. "I promise I'll take good care of your friend. If you want, you can come with me too."
The sentret frowned and looked at the pokéball in Lily's hand, containing her mate. "Sentret..."
Lily offered her an empty pokéball.
"Sentret!" the pokémon swatted the device away with its tail. "Tret, sentret!" She clenched a paw and her fur bristled. It seemed she wanted to fight first.
"Up for another battle, bulbasaur?" Lily asked.
"Bulba!"
Lily moved back to give the pokémon room to fight. "Let's start with that leech seed attack!" Lily commanded.
Bulbasaur fired three seeds from the bulb on its back, but the sentret was too fast, delivering a quick attack and slamming into bulbasaur. Bulbasaur tried to counter with a tackle, but sentret was too fast and ran rings around him. He tried tackle again and again, but missed every time. "Bulba..." the grass pokemon said, gritting his teeth. He was becoming tired and frustrated.
"Try to trip it up with your vines, bulbasaur!"
two vines extended from under bulbasaur's bulb, and sure enough, the tactic worked, sentret falling face-first into the grass. Bulbasaur followed up the attack with a vine whip, smacking the sentret and doing considerable damage.
Lily took a pokéball and threw it at the second sentret. The ball rocked back and forth, Lily watching and praying that the catch was successful. The ball went still, and flew back to Lily's hand. "Alright! Now I have two super-cute sentret!"
Mohan smiled at her. "Great," he said, and the two continued on their way.
They found the trail again later that day, which made them both happy. Pushing through the tall grass and undergrowth was hard work.
They reached the gatehouse by nightfall, with no sightings of plusle or minun, much to Lily's disappointment. Still, she was happy with her catches, and Mohan with his. Spinarak may not be the cutest pokémon, but its poison sting would come in handy in the battles ahead.
They dropped their pokémon at the pokémon centre for the night, and checked into a hotel conveniently located next door. As they were in the elevator, Mohan listened in to a conversation between two trainers.
"Hey, did you watch the news last night?"
"About the mew sighting?"
"Yeah."
"I think it's a hoax. I can't believe everyone is buying it."
Mohan hadn't watched the news for a few days now. It seemed he missed something big. He got off at his floor, pushing past the two trainers who were now engaged in a quarrel about whether this mew creature was real or not. He had never heard of that pokémon before, and once he was in his room took out his pokédex and looked it up. It had almost no data, but when he saw the picture – an artist's drawing – he dropped the device on the floor in shock.
The pokémon from his dream...