It is still quite early in the morning, so not a whole lot of places are open, or are there many people around. So Willow and I take some time to wander around the shopping district and get to know each other.

I start with an easy question, "What moves do you know?", Willow thinks it over for a second and simply says,"Tackle, Growl, and Withdraw. Not much but I hope to become stronger with you."

I nod at that and he asks me,"What makes you want to be a trainer? Isn't it dangerous recently?". I tell him yes and explain.

"Even though the region is a lot more dangerous thanks to the oddities, there seems to be a lot of reward to the risks. People have made names for themselves by making exploring the dungeons their profession."

"And you want to do the same?" He asks me.

"It's a start,' I say," we can explore the dungeons and get the treasure inside if we ever need money and maybe even find new members of the teams in them too."

"Aside from the oddities,"Willow moves on,"Why aren't we going straight to the next route?"

We finally stop our wandering in front of the Pokemon Center.

"I need to make a call to a really good friend of mine," I explain,"He lives in a different time zone, so I had to wait until the time he normally wakes up."

"What's a time zone?" Willow asks not knowing a whole lot of human terms, "Is it a place where time flows differently?"

"No," I say chuckling at the idea, "A time zone is just a way for people to maintain the same amount of hours during the day in their area. Each time zone has a different name to help people make time difference adjustments."

"I don't follow."

Realizing my mistake I apologize and try to give a simpler explanation.

"So right now its ten in the morning," I tell him, he nods, "And over in his time zone its eight in the morning, because the sun isn't as high in the sky as it is here."

"Ooh, I get it." Willow says no longer confused.

"Great, now to just make the call." I say, inputting my friends number into the video call machine that every pokecenter seems to have but don't have. After pushing call and waiting a couple seconds, he answers and I see his face.

His skin is a little pale, he has medium black hair and his blue eyes look very tired, due to him just waking up.

"Hey dude, good morning." I greet him.

-Yawn-"Good morning, why are you calling me right now?" my friend asks me.

"I just got to the Sandgem Town Pokemon Center from Professor Rowan's lab."

"Thats cool," he says rubbing his eyes, but then looks shocked and asks me," Does that mean you?

He didn't have to finish his question I knew already. "Yep, I got my partner this morning, Willow, Wanna meet my friend?"

"Sure," he says before I pick him up.

"Willow this is Bob, Bob this is Willow" I introduce them.

"Hi Willow," my friend greets. "Hi Bob," Willow greets back, but Bob can't understand him, due to not have a translator himself.

"So Turtwig is your partner, nice. Congratulations!" my friend says to me.

"Thanks man, so how have things been on your end?" I ask, now moving on to just having a conversation.

-An hour later-

"I gotta get going to work, I'll hopefully talk to you guys again soon." My friend says before he hangs up.

"See ya I guess," the call ends and the two of us notice we spent an hour just talking the day away. "Does that happen often?" Willow asks.

"The hour long conversations? Yeah." I answer, "We end up have a lot to talk about. You wanna head out to the next route?"

"Yes! Let's do this!" He yells excitedly.

With that settled, we leave the pokecenter and turn left, then left passed the center to begin our way to Route 202.

The fog has cleared and reveals the whole route, it's a bit longer than Route 201 and has a bit more elevation to it. I spot a couple trainers doing morning practices with their pokemon. Some of the wild pokemon are out and about to do their normal activities, foraging, training, or just lazing about in the sun. I see some Bidoof, gnawing on a few small trees, Starly flying over head or resting on the branches of the bigger trees, Kricketot are starting to hide from the sun and sleep during the day. Some other pokemon are hidden from sight in the brush.

"This seems like a good place to train," I tell Willow, "Let's try to get you stronger before we get to Jubilife City."

"What kind of training?" Willow asks me.

"We'll just start with battle training, get you used to battling and maybe try to have you learn Razor Leaf too."

"Sounds like a plan" With things agreed, we step into the tall grass to find a training target.

We find a Bidoof, and it looks pissed. Noticing us, it runs straight towards us to use tackle.

"Dodge it!" I tell Willow, who jumps to the side and avoids the beavers attack.

"Now use your own tackle on it!" Willow nods and runs at full speed into the Bidoof that is just turning around to see it.

Bam!

A direct hit into its side. The Bidoof gets sent skidding a foot or so and gets right back up, Running for another tackle. "To the side again and use tackle!" Not enough room to dodge, Willow ends up taking the tackle hit and skids a little bit, still standing. He runs back a bit to get a better run up to tackle again.

Bam! Another solid hit from Willow.

The Bidoof rolls to his side, not getting up this time. Winner Willow.

"Nice job Willow." I give my little partner a pet on the head, minding the small twig on his head.

"Thanks partner." He says, taking in the appraisal.

"Let's move on to the next one," I say, "After we take a small break outside of the tall grass." Willow nods at that.

We move out of the grass patch and relax a bit, letting Willow heal from his hit.

"You hungry Willow?" I ask him. He nods, "Ok." I dig into my bag and pull up a small package of sandwiches that we got from the pokemart this morning. "Want a sandwich?" he says yes and walks over to try out the vegetarian sandwich I got for him. He tries a bit and then eats the rest of the sandwich quickly.

"Slow down there, its not going anywhere," I tell him. He has already finished his sandwich and I turn back to my box of sandwiches to find them all gone. The sandwiches, not the box.

"What the?"

I hear a voice somewhat close by laughing.

"Looking for something?" I turn to see a Shinx with my sandwich on its back.

"Hey that's mine!" i yell at it.

"Not anymore human." The lynx looking pokemon says before running into the forest.

"Lets go Willow." I say to my partner who saw everything, he nods and we run off to catch the food thief.

Hey, sorry for the inactivity.

I have no clue why this chapter had me stuck for a while.

I have so many ideas for this story and I want to get to them, but the story must flow first.

Till next time!

UwU