CHAPTER THREE: CATCHING NEW 'FRIENDS'

"STARLY!"

"Go, Turtwig!"

The wild pokemon battle had begun.

"Turtwig use Razor Leaf!" Lucas Diamond called out.

But, the Starly was too fast. The wild Starly dodged the leaves and struck Turtwig (or 'Twiggy' as Lucas sometimes called it) with a wicked Wing Attack. Super Effective!

Turtwig could hardly stand up.

"Turtwig! You can do it!" Lucas encouraged.

"Tur-Tur-Tur-" Turtwig began to glow with power. "TWIG!!" A powerful jet of grass-like bullets blasted out of the twig on its head.

"It's Bullet Seed," Lucas said with amazement.

The Starly stopped in its tracks. It still had a little strength left, but Lucas knew the drill.

"Go, Pokeball!" Lucas tossed the simple red and white ball at the bird-like pokemon.

The pokeball hit the Starly in the forehead and a jet of red light burst from the ball and the bird went inside.

The ball fell to the ground. It glowed and spun back and forth.

"C'mon, c'mon," Lucas urged.

The ball stopped and produced a clicking noise.

"YEAH! I caught a Starly!" Lucas cheered.

Lucas and Turtwig did a strange sort of victory dance that didn't make any sense.

"We did it Twiggy!" Lucas said running up to his pokemon and petting it like a puppy. "We got ourselves a new friend."

Lucas sent out his new Starly and said, "Hi! I'm Lucas. And this is Turtwig."

"Tur-Twig!" 'Twiggy' greeted.

"Star-ly!" Starly said in return.

"Okay, both of you back in your pokeballs," Lucas said, a green ball and a red ball in his hands.

Lucas had been walking through the route for about an hour, he was determined to get another pokemon before going to Jubilife City. He just couldn't find the right pokemon. He didn't want another Starly and he sure didn't want a Bidoof. A Bidoof was an annoying beaver-like pokemon.

Suddenly, it happened. Lucas saw a beautiful cat-like pokemon in front of him, and no it wasn't a Glameow. It was, it was, well Lucas didn't know what it was, but it was certainly the pokemon that he wanted. So...

"STARLY, I CHOOSE YOU!" Lucas cried. He tossed up the red and white pokeball. KSSH!

"Star-ly!" Starly cried.

"Starly, Wing Attack, but not to hard, this is my next pokeball challenge!" Lucas ordered.

Starly flew to the pokemon and whapped it with its wings.

"Shinx!" The pokemon supposed would be 'Shinx' cried out. Lucas also supposed that it was an electric type from the color of its hair, blue and yellow.

The Shinx wasn't finished yet it ran up to Starly and Tackled it. Starly was mad and went on its own schedule now. Starly started to peck it furiously.

"Starly, STOP!" Lucas cried. He couldn't take it any more he tossed two simple pokeballs in the middle of the battle. One for Starly and one for Shinx. Starly obediently went inside knowing something had went wrong. It suddenly forgot that Shinx had ever came, that Lucas couldn't catch it. Well, he hoped Lucas didn't catch it.

"Starly, come on out," Lucas said. He tossed out the pokeball and the bird-like pokemon came out, crying, "Starly!"

"Meet, Shinx," he said pointing his finger at the blue and yellow cat.

All anger came back as Starly glanced at Shinx. Soon, fighting broke out. Starly whapped Shinx with its wings. Shinx got mad and used Spark on Starly. The small electric bolt paralyzed the bird pokemon in its tracks. Starly couldn't move even if it wanted to.

"Shinx, Starly, stop," Lucas ordered. He couldn't understand. 'What is wrong with them?' he thought. Suddenly, he had an idea to keep them away from each other. He just wouldn't let them out of their pokeballs at the same time. 'That should be easy,' Lucas thought. Lucas returned his three pokemon into their pokeballs, putting Starly and Shinx's pokeballs at the front of his belt...

"We both challenge you to a double battle!" The young twin sisters cried.

"How do you double battle?" Lucas asked.

"You send out the first two pokemon set in your party to battle two opponent pokemon," the twins replied.

"Okay. I accept." And without noticing, he grabbed the two pokemon at the front of his party...the two pokeballs at the front of his belt...the two pokeballs of Shinx and Starly...

The double battle raged on, and it was horrible. Lucas couldn't switch his pokemon even if he wanted to, because of the pokemon move, Mean Look. The battle companions were Shinx and Starly on Lucas's side. The two pokemon on the other side were Zubat and Zubat. 'Two of the same pokemon should be easy,' Lucas had thought at the beginning of the battle. 'Especially with Shinx out in front compared to the two Zubat out, this should be easy!'

Wrong Answer.

Shinx was too busy trying to beat up Starly than beating up the Zubat. But, suddenly, Zubat fired a Confuse Ray at Shinx. It got caught in the trance of confusion.

Shinx couldn't see where it was going. Soon, instead of hurting Starly, it started to attack the Zubat. And if you know your type-matchups well, you would know that this is perfect. Since Electric type moves are good against Flying types, all that we needed to hope for is that Shinx keeps firing off Spark in confusion.

After a while, Shinx snapped out of confusion and it was able to attack Starly again.

"Confuse, my Shinx again!" Lucas cried since it was the only plan he had to win.

"No way!" One twin said.

"We know your trick, now!" Said the other twin.

'What am I going to do?' Lucas thought. 'Better just watch and see what happens. Since I can't command them to do anything but attack each other.'

The Zubats started to attack Shinx with full power. Shinx could hardly stay standing; one more hit could finish it.

Starly saw what was going on, and thought that maybe Shinx wasn't that bad after all. Starly started to think about what was happening. One more hit could take it out, and Starly didn't want to find out which 'out' it was meaning.

So, Starly did what Lucas wouldn't ever expect from him, he leaped out in front of Shinx and used Protect. While using the protection move, Starly looked at Shinx with an 'I'm sorry' face. It was soon changed to a 'It's your time to finish' face.

Shinx nodded an agreement, and jumped out of the protection zone, and used a Spark with all its power. The Zubat lay unconscious in seconds.

"You guys did it!" Lucas shouted. He couldn't believe it; they had learned to work together and had won the battle.

"Here," said one of the twins. "For winning we give you some money so you can pay for any items that you may need later on." The twins handed him some 3,000 in pokedollars.

"Thanks," Lucas said, he stuffed the cash in his pocket, and then he walked proudly the rest of the way to Jubilife City.