Chapter 3 – Forest

"- you're very lucky that your gible didn't bite down harder. Their jaws are strong enough to break through concrete, you know," lectured the pokemon center nurse as she bandaged my injured hand. "Just what did you do to aggravate her, anyway?"

I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly with my uninjured hand. "Umm, well, I was trying to pet her. Offer her my hand as a sign of trust and all that?"

My gible sat on the floor nearby looking extremely guilty. Well, as guilty as it could be with those big eyes and pout, that is. And the thing was practically a walking mouth! Obviously, such a pokemon couldn't look that remorseful even if it tried.

"That was seriously a foolish thing to do, young man!" the nurse shook her head. "You see a pokemon with one of the biggest jaws for its size, and you offer it your hand? Tsk, I've heard of spinda with more common sense than that!"

"Well, it looked scared..." I mumbled, before the meaning of the nurse's earlier words finally sank in. "Wait, did you just say that it's a female?"

"Why of course!" she said, turning to point at the gible's head fin. "All female gible have a fin like that, and the males have a notch on the back of it. It's really the only way to differentiate between their genders until they evolve."

I looked at the gible's fin, and sure enough, it lacked any notches whatsoever. "So once she evolves I won't be able to tell her apart from other gabite?"

"Most probably," the nurse replied, as she finally secured the safety pin that would hold my bandage in place. "But dragons tend to retain scars even after evolving, so any battle experience she has would probably aid in making her distinct.

"Not that you should be deliberately putting her in harm's way, that is," she added, giving me a steely-eyed glare. "Is that clear, young man?"

"What?" I blinked like a noctowl at her. "You're not saying that I would... hurt her, are you?"

She sighed, and shook her head as she got up and packed up her stuff. "We get all sorts of people passing through the tests nowadays. The government claims the testing process weeds them out, but really, we don't think it's really as good as they make it out to be."

"I'll never hurt her," I said, noting that my gible was watching us intently, apparently listening in on our conversation. "Anyway, can I go now? I'd like to get started on my journey."

The nurse gave me a brief once-over, and nodded. "Alright, then - just remember to let that hand of yours air a little every now and then, and to get the dressing changed at the next town's pokemon center."

Getting up, I walked over to my gible, and took out its – I mean her – pokeball. "Alright, girl - do you want to go in a pokeball, or by walking?"

She gave me a curious look, and got to her stubby little feet. Walking forward slowly, she hesitantly nudged my foot, and looked up at me expectantly. When I raised my eyebrow at her out of curiosity, she nudged my foot again, and pointed to her own legs.

"You want to go about on foot, then?" I asked her, causing her to nod vigorously – it almost looked as if her entire body was rocking back and forth when she did that. "Okay then, but as soon as you try to make a break for it, you'll be back in your ball faster than a skittish jolteon, you got that?"

She let out a little sound that resembled a cough, and did her nodding thing again.

Just as I was about to leave the nursing station, I heard the voice of the woman in the pokemon-distribution room calling out to me. "Hey, kid!"

"Eh?" I turned to look at her, even as my gible let out a squeak and dove for cover behind my legs.

"I almost forgot to tell you this," the lady said, as she walked up to me, waving her sedative dart gun around absent-mindedly. "But you are aware that all pokemon that you catch will need to be registered using your pokedex, right?"

"They do?" I gave her a blank look. She definitely hadn't mentioned that to me.

She nodded. "Just aim the pokedex's antenna at them, and press the start button. It'll automatically scan them and register their species. Then, once you get to the next pokemon center, get them to insert a GPS chip under the pokemon's skin, and get any additional details filled into the pokedex. Got that?"

"Whoa... I think so," I said, as my gible let out another terrified squeak and actually began hugging my legs, trembling as she did so. "What's up with you, girl?"

"She's probably just scared of me," said the woman as she pocketed her dart gun. "White coat phobia or whatever, but I'll still be inserting that GPS chip under her scales before you leave."

I turned my head and looked down at the shivering gible, and sighed. "Do I need to hold her down or something?"

"It would be preferable, yes," replied the woman, as she took a syringe-like device out of her pocket and began tearing off its plastic wrapper. "And it's really quite a small chip, so it shouldn't sting that badly."

"What about the wound?" I asked her, right before my gible decided to try and run for her life. "Hey!"

Before I could even take a step towards the fleeing pokemon, there was a whistling sound, and a tiny, silvery dart seemed to sprout out of my gible's back. With a hiss of pain, she stumbled and fell, rolling like a ball for a bit before coming to a stop against a sofa in the waiting area.

When that happened, almost everyone in the room turned to stare at her, then at me.

"And what the hell are you people staring at?" snapped the woman as she slipped her dart gun back into her pocket. "Never seen a pokemon being tranquilized before? Mind your own fucking business!"

Aghast at her language – effective as it was in making all the bystanders get back to whatever it was they had been doing before my gible made a break for it – and wondering just which deity I had angered to merit receiving such a starter, I followed her to the snoozing pokemon, and watched as she prepared her little tracking device.

"Are you sure she'll be alright?" I asked, looking worriedly at the little dragon's slumbering form. "That looks like quite a heavy dose you gave her."

"Nah, she'll be fine," she said dismissively. "Now, just help me hold her in position... like that. Good, now... it's done!"

"Wow, that fast?" I squinted at my gible's back, trying to see the wound left by the syringe. "And there's no wound!"

"Reptilian pokemon tend to have muscles that reflexively contract to make their scales overlap over wounds," she shrugged. "Your gible will be coming back to consciousness in half an hour or so, I think..."

"Thanks a lot, miss," I said, as I picked the unconscious gible up and tried to carry it comfortably around its fins and limbs. "Which gym would you recommend for our first battle?"

She stopped to think for a bit. "Well, all twenty of the gyms are required to have pokemon that can battle for all levels of experience – that's why they scan your pokedex before battles. From there, they'll see which of the leader's pokemon are best matched to your experience level. So it probably won't make a difference which gym you start at, though.

"And I do suspect some of the shrewder gym leaders of using the scan as a means of sneaking a look at your team to gain an advantage in the battle. So it'll be best if you caught more pokemon and rotated your team, I think. That way, the leaders wouldn't be able to predict your battle tactics that easily."

I was stunned – the gym leaders cheated, if what she was saying was accurate! "They can seriously do that? Cheat using the scan, I mean."

"Oh, yes," she nodded. "There was a scandal sometime back with the leader of... I think it was Betwixt City. He was apparently using the scan to determine what pokemon his challenger had, and then using a team of disproportionate strength against them. Can't remember what happened to him, though."

"Well, shit!" I grunted, as I adjusted the sleeping gible in my arms – she was drooling as she slept, her little forked tongue lolling out of her mouth. "Any advice on which gyms I should avoid until I'm better, then?"

"Hmm..." she hesitated right at the door to the room that was her workplace. "Well, I suppose you could begin at Eterna and then head on to Oreburgh. Roark's been dealing with new trainers since well before... the revolution. And of course, Vaikuntha's always been kind to his challengers.

"You'd best be heading out soon, though; Eterna forest is nearly a day's walk from here, and it'll take you at least three days to make it through the forest."

"Alright, then," I nodded at her. "Thanks!"

But by then she'd already entered the room, shutting the door behind herself. The soldier guarding the room gave me a disinterested look, and I decided that it was time to go.

Or maybe I would have to wait for my gible to wake up. Nearly forgot about that minor detail.

xxx

"So, what should I name you?" I asked my gible, as I poked at our little campfire with a stick. "Can't be calling you 'girl' or 'gible' all the time now, can I?"

She looked at me and scratched the side of her head with a paw, seemingly mulling over the question. After a while, though, she apparently gave up and let out a little grunt.

"Hmm, you're a little dragon," I mused, as a bird of some sort let out a cry, causing her to jump. "What? Was it the bird?"

She squeaked and hurried over to bury her snout in my side, looking as if she was trying to hide from the night's darkness. The fact that we were camped just about a hundred feet away from the Valley Windworks building didn't seem to put her at ease, though. We had come across a small tree by the side of the path leading to Eterna forest, and had decided to camp out underneath it.

I sighed, and petted on her back – the poor thing was still shivering. "Look, I don't like having to stay out here either. But if we get an early start for our trek through Eterna Forest, we could probably get a travelling buddy."

A muffled squeak was all that I got as a reply.

"Well, I really ought to name you sometimes before we go to bed," I told her, shifting about and carrying her up onto my lap. "How does... Lin sound?"

She nibbled on her paws for a bit, before shaking her head – again looking as if she was doing a little jiggling dance of some sort.

"Oi, quit that!" I muttered, as her head fin slapped me in the face. "From now on, make one... hiss, sound, whatever for yes, and two for no. That work for you?"

She grunted once, causing me to let out a sigh of relief.

"So let's run through some names. Lilith?"

Two grunts.

"Hmm. Let me think for a bit," I frowned. It seemed that naming a pokemon was harder than I'd initially thought.

Dragons, dragons, dragons... Images of video games and comic books flashed through my mind, as I tried to think of a suitable name for my starter. Some of the more common names like Draco were horribly overused, and so I decided to keep them in mind only as some possible last resorts.

Plus, the gible was female. As much as I'd have loved to try naming her Smaug, I doubt she'd have found it amusing (even if Smaug was a kickass dragon from JRR Tolkien's incredible imagination). But what the hell – I wouldn't know if I didn't try it out now, would I?

"How does Smaug sound?"

If looks could have killed, I'm sure that my starter would've murdered me right there using those big, shiny growlithe's eyes. Somehow, I was sure that she was feeling murderous right then as opposed to amused, despite how adorable she looked.

The two grunts merely confirmed it.

"Huh," was all I could say, as I resumed my poking at the fire, all the while trying to think of a name that the two of us would agree on.

I chanced a sideways glance at my starter, and saw her gingerly nibbling on a twig. From what I knew about carnivorous pokemon, those that could manipulate tools tended to do that after meals, to try and keep their teeth clean. Although admittedly, it was more due to the desire to not let scraps remain between their teeth rather than a fixation on oral hygiene which kept them at it.

In the firelight, she looked almost like a living cave painting or something like that – all shadows and blurred lines. For a moment, I was struck by how... at peace she looked. Gone was all the nervousness and timidity that I'd seen earlier, replaced by what seemed to be an air of contentment.

For the record, though, just where and how she'd managed to hunt down that starly, I didn't want to know. All I knew was that I'd been the one to slaughter it and cook it for the two of us. Smiling bemusedly to myself, I turned back to the fire, and froze on the spot.

There was a boy in the fire. Or at least, there was the image of a boy in the fire.

Not knowing what to do, I squinted to try and see his image more clearly. However, the more I tried to concentrate on him, the more the image seemed to blur.

All of a sudden, the fire seemed to flare up. Before I could do anything, the flames washed over me like a breaking wave, and I could barely even make any sounds as I was burned. The fire swirled around me like a living shroud, filling my lungs with its choking odour.

It took a few moments for me to notice that I wasn't actually on fire. In fact, the fire felt strangely comforting as it continued to burn around me – almost as if it was actually a sheet of lukewarm water. Looking back in my starter's direction, I saw that she was still picking her teeth for scraps.

Right in front of me, though, was the boy. And he wasn't alone.

I could somehow see his image in full color, despite the orange tint of the firelight. He was a little on the short side, and had brown hair. Next to him were two lumpy shapes that I presumed were boulders, but which were growing steadily more visible as the seconds passed. Behind him, in the distance, was what looked like the Valley Windworks building – but that couldn't have been it, since I was camped out a good hundred feet down the road from it!

As I tried to say something, anything, to the boy – who was looking more solid with each passing moment – but I seemed to have been rendered mute by his appearance. My mouth opened and closed like that of a beached goldeen, but no words left it. At last, the two shapes flanking him became clear enough for me to make out just what they were. And surprisingly enough, they were pokemon.

The mysterious boy had a shroomish and a numel by his side, of all things. He turned away from me, and seemed to be studying the building which resembled the Valley Windworks. The two pokemon accompanying him did the same, and for a brief moment, I got the impression that the three of them were... just tired.

With that, the swirling flames disappeared, plunging me into the dimness of my little campsite once again.

I looked around in bewilderment, trying to see if an abra or perhaps a mischievous ghost-type had been pulling pranks on me. When I felt a soft nudging against my side, I nearly jumped out of my skin, until I realized that it was none other than my starter. She had nuzzled up against me side, and already had her eyes closed. The twig which she had been using to pick her teeth clean was already stuck in the fire, and her rounded body seemed to be slowly undulating as she breathed.

Leaning against the tree behind me, I gently pushed my starter off me for a bit. Then, I took off my jacket and brought her a little closer to myself. She stirred a little in her sleep, but otherwise remained still. I draped the jacket over the two of us like a blanket, and slowly dozed off.

That night, my dreams were filled with dancing flames that had blurry faces in them.

xx

The night passed without any unusual incidents after the fiery hallucination, and so we headed towards Eterna forest after a quick breakfast of roasted starly that had been our dinner leftovers. It didn't take us longer than half an hour to get to the edge of Eterna forest, and so we settled down there to wait and see if anyone else was headed into it.

Hey, there might have been a cleared dirt track heading through the forest, but that didn't mean we were going to blunder head-first into the forest, alright? I'd overheard some pretty nasty rumors about the things that lived in there, and I was still pretty shaken up from the strange things I'd seen the night before.

On the upside, though, I'd found inspiration for what to possibly name my starter.

"How does Courtney sound?" I asked her, as I leaned against the sign which read 'Eterna forest' in faded black letters. "As your name, I mean."

She turned to regard me with a curious look, and let out a low growl.

"Is that a yes?"

Two grunts was what I got in reply.

"Hmm, then..." I frowned, realizing that I still had no reliable means of understanding her speech. "What is it? You want an explanation? Maybe change it a little?"

She sent one grunt my way. Finally, progress!

"You want me to change it, then?" I asked her, causing her to shake her entire body in response. "Alright, so you want an explanation...

"Well, I once watched this sitcom on television. There was this fierce lady in it named Miss Courtney, and so... yeah. Her staff and students called her an old dragon."

My gible made a huffing noise, and batted at my knee with one of her forelimbs. I looked down at her, feeling the beginnings of frustration. Seriously, naming her was harder and much more annoying than I'd anticipated it to be.

I looked her in the eye. "So, is Courtney fine with you?"

She rolled her eyes a little, and gave me a grunt as her answer.

"Finally!"

And that was how my gible ended up being named Courtney.

xxx

According to my watch the time was presently three in the afternoon. Courtney and I were staring hard at the path leading from the Valley Windworks to where we were, but not a single person had appeared since the morning.

"It took us nearly half a day to get here," I said to Courtney, "and we're the newbies! You'd think that someone would have come along by now, eh?"

She growled and clawed at the signpost a little, leaving several shallow scratches in the time-worn wood.

"You know what, Courtney? I'm starting to think that we should go in there on our own."

Courtney turned to look at me, and I didn't need to be an expert at pokemon speech to know what that expression meant. After all, 'are you crazy', 'have you lost your mind', and several other synonymous phrases tended to have a certain look associated with them, if you know what I mean.

I held up my hands. "Hey, we'll get some training done and stay near the edge for now, alright? Maybe later someone will turn up."

A growl was all she offered me.

"If we wait here any longer, we'd probably be old and gray before someone came along, I think."

She gave me a flat look, almost as if she was saying, "Oh, really?"

"Hmm, fine then," I huffed. "I'll tell you what – we go in there on our own, and by tonight, we catch you a partner."

Yup, her expression definitely looked as if she was questioning my sanity.

"So... what are we going to do now?" I said, feeling like an idiot. Here I was, having an argument of sorts with a pokemon that wasn't even tall enough to bite me in the balls if it got pissed when I was standing up.

Courtney started chewing on the signpost, something that I watched with a detached sense of amusement. Hey, no one was in sight, and I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to mistake this forest for some other patch of greenery. Everyone knew where Eterna forest was, after all.

Or at least, I thought so.

"Okay, girl, we need to compromise," I told her. "Otherwise, this is going nowhere. Agreed?"

She seemed to think it over for a moment – signpost still firmly between her jaws – and gave me a muffled growl.

"Hmm, I'll take that as a yes, then. We'll wait here for one more hour, and then we enter the forest, alright?"

For a moment, she seemed to smile, making me think that we had finally managed to come to an agreement.

Then the signpost finally snapped, and fell onto my foot.

xxx

"As long as we stay on the path, we'll be safe. Now shush, girl – there might be predators about."

Courtney let out a little hiss, and continued looking around as we made our way along the path that wound its way through Eterna forest. However, there wasn't just one path, but a multitude of them, all equally worn by usage and time. So we were basically winging it. She had been upset at first, until I pointed out that she had very nearly maimed my foot and and hand in the same day.

I did try to mark paths that we'd passed through, though. As we moved along, I used my penknife to carve two crosses and an arrow next to each other on the trees at intersections that we passed – the arrow would be pointed in the direction that we had gone. So far, we had only ended up retracing our steps once, and Courtnety had managed to dispatch several caterpie that had tried to harass us at one point.

Seriously, if I hadn't known better, you could have probably fooled me into thinking that she had been trained at some point in her past. The way with which she attacked the caterpie also left me wondering about how well she seemed to know the weak points of other pokemon.

It would have been scary if I hadn't been so happy with her battle skills, frankly.

"Now keep your eyes peeled for some low-leveled pokemon, Courtney," I said softly, as we continued along the pathway. "We could do with the additional eyes."

She grunted and continued looking around as we walked on, until the two of us saw something that stopped us in our tracks.

"Is that... is that a backpack?" I asked her, my voice barely more than a whisper. She let out a low grunt, and moved a little closer to me.

The backpack in question seemed to have been torn off its owner, by the looks of it. Its straps were shredded into ribbons, and a mass of soggy-looking stuff was sticking out of a large rip in its side, like the stuffing of a damaged sofa.

"Be alert," I whispered to her, as we passed the backpack. Around us, the sounds of the forest were still ongoing, which I took as a good sign – insects usually stopped singing when predatory creatures moved in for the kill.

With that sobering sight, we kept walking, heading deeper into the Eterna forest.

Through the thick canopy above us, the sky could be seen fading into twilight.