Chapter 3: Jet

"I got a bug?" Priscilla exclaimed as she finally opened up her safari ball. She was back in Pastoria City proper, out of the Great Marsh, and after a good cleaning to get the caked mud off the lock on the ball, she finally took the chance to see what sort of pokemon she ended up with.

That pokemon was, in fact, a bug.

And not just any bug – a yanma.

"Yan?" the dragonfly asked as it buzzed around in front of Priscilla. She didn't know anything about the yanma, as she didn't have any sort of information-giving device with her, but it seemed fairly aware of its surroundings and situation.

Maybe the Great Marsh pokemon all knew that trainers were going to come in and catch them, and once that happened, they were on a trainer's team, and that was that.

"Um," Priscilla began, watching as her pokemon hovered, zig-zagging about while keeping its gaze on her. "It's nice to meet you…"

The bug buzzed its mandibles, creating another "yan" sound. Priscilla hoped that meant something along the lines of, "It's nice to meet you, too."

Amelia had always taught her daughter to be polite, but above all, to be extraordinarily polite to the pokemon that would eventually be on Priscilla's team. Even if you only had a pokemon for a day or two, such as if you were transporting it for someone else or finding one to make a trade, you had to treat it like it was a god come to earth.

After all, if it came to a life-or-death situation, you really wanted your pokemon to actually want to run in front of you and protect you from whatever oncoming dangers there might be – or, at the very least, just do what you told them in such a stressful situation. The way you got to that sort of team dynamic was, in Amelia's (and, by association, Priscilla's) opinion, through politeness and civility.

And if things weren't working out, she told her daughter, just get the problem pokemon off your team. Trade them, release them, sell them, just get them away before the bad apple spread its rot to the others on the team. It wasn't worth it to wreck your team in the name of stubbornness.

"Uh, can I give you a name? I don't wanna call you 'yanma'."

"Yan."

Priscilla took that as a yes. "How about…umm…"

The bug stared at her, unblinking and expectant. Obviously, the dragonfly wanted a good name, or it would have lost interest in its new trainer already, but it didn't seem to have any input.

That made the whole thing a lot more of a pressure source than Priscilla wanted.

"How about I just give you a name later," she offered weakly, holding up the safari ball as if that would explain her reasoning. "I'll take you to the Pokemon Center first, and they can tell me if you're a boy or if you're a girl, and then I can give you a name."

The yanma seemed to be perfectly fine with this idea, and Priscilla zapped it up into the ball for easy transport. Sure, the bug would probably be okay flying alongside as she made the trek through the city to the Pokemon Center, but she didn't want to strain it.

Plus, Priscilla hated awkward silences and was notoriously bad at making conversation. Even with her classmates, who could actually speak her language, someone else always had to provide the conversation topics when around her.

Awkward silences and bad conversation skills did not mix at all well, especially when on top of a language barrier.

Priscilla sighed. Even though she had a pokemon and wasn't even out of Pastoria City, she couldn't help but feel alone, lost, and disoriented. She didn't know where she would go after leaving Pastoria, she only sort of had someone to talk to, and her only source of direction was a strange man who came to her in a dream.

Yeah, that would definitely go over well when traveling alone in Sinnoh.

"Your yanma is fine; perfectly healthy, full health, no defects. Male, level twenty-eight in the level system, primary attacks are uproar, sonicboom, detect, and supersonic. He has the 'speed boost' ability, by the way," the on-site nurse told Priscilla as she went in for a cursory healing and checkup. The nurse, a middle-aged brunette in the standard uniform, gave Priscilla an amused look. "I also took the liberty of cleaning up his safari ball, by the way."

She handed Priscilla a somewhat-cleaner green-and-orange safari ball, a slight smile on her face. Priscilla looked down, mumbled something about the mud in the Great Marsh, thanked the nurse, and slid out of line to let the next trainer pick up their pokemon.

The girl stood aside for a moment, holding the safari ball and thinking. The Pokemon Center didn't exactly provide the greatest creative environment, what with its white fluorescent lights and attempting-to-be-cheery light orange walls, but Priscilla wanted a name for her yanma before she left.

If there were one thing Priscilla didn't think would be polite, it would be referring to her yanma as "Yanma" for the rest of their training together.

Finally, when no ideas came to her, she decided to do the next best thing: steal the first boy's name she came across.

Priscilla happened to be standing near the line for trainers dropping off their pokemon for healing, so she stepped over to stand somewhat near one of the older boys in line. He looked battle-hardened and experienced, his black hair rough from the road.

That, and right next to him was a toxicroak that looked very satisfied with itself. Priscilla assumed that from the smug expression on its face and the fact that it looked as if it had just taken a shower that both the boy and the toxicroak had just come out of a successful challenge against Crasher Wake and the Pastoria City Gym.

"Um, excuse me?" Priscilla asked, stepping up to the boy's side.

The boy looked down on her – he stood over a head taller than her. "Yeah?" he asked, his voice already deep from loss of youth. He crossed his arms. "D'you wanna battle Toxy, or something? She's all I can fight with right now, 'cause my other three are kinda tired from the gym battle." He flicked his wrist toward Priscilla to show her his watchband – there were five gym badges attached to it, one of them being from Crasher Wake.

Priscilla shook her head, eyeing the toxicroak. It – no, she, the boy had called her a "she" – grinned back at Priscilla. The frog probably wanted to show off a bit more. "N-no, I'm good. I, uh, I just started out."

The boy raised a single eyebrow, still looking down. "Oh? What'd you get?"

"Um, I only got a yanma. I got it from the Great Marsh."

"Just now?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. So did I," he added with a grin, gesturing towards Toxy. "I caught her as a croagunk in the Great Marsh. You from here?"

"Y-yeah…"

"Me too." He stuck out his hand. "The name's Jet."

"P-priscilla," the younger trainer stuttered, taking his hand. "Um…"

"What?" Jet asked, Toxy giving Priscilla a weird look from behind her trainer.

Priscilla blushed. Her plan was an embarrassing one, to say the least. "Do you mind if I name my yanma 'Jet', too?"

Jet looked rather taken aback, and Toxy burst out laughing from behind him. He smacked his pokemon, then turned back to look down on Priscilla. "Uh, sure, I guess."

Priscilla thanked him, then dashed out of the Pokemon Center, leaving a confused (human) Jet far behind.

She pressed the button on her safari ball as she slowed to a stop, a confused (yanma) Jet appearing in the air in front of her.

"Your…your name…is Jet," she wheezed, bending over to get her breath back.

Jet buzzed in response.

At least he seemed to like the name.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. I do own this story.

Author's Note: So, uh, my hard drive crashed…and I have all that I've written backed up on my DA, but it's a pain to copy things over from that. But don't worry – Chapter 4 will be here on Monday, March 9 like normal.