Nils looked all over the place, but he couldn't find Felix...not that there was all that much to search. They had two arenas: one for water-pokemon training and the other for everything else. They had an information station, a medic station, a pokemon storage area, and a room for everybody to sleep in. There wasn't really all that much to this underground base; he always kinda thought that underground homes should have little houses and stores; kinda like a city, just about one millionth the size.

He sighed; Felix was nowhere to be found.

"Nils," Marcus said, catching his attention.

"What?"

"Are you lookin for Felix?"

"Yeah, it's just...idunno, I just wanted to tell him something."

"He's not here right now." I know. "He's at a different outpost."

"What? There are...what?"

"Yep. He's not gonna be back for awhile, now. He's an expert at flyin' type pokemon, so they needed his expertise somewhere else. He'll be back within two weeks."

Two weeks...

Nils didn't have anything important to do or talk about, so he decided to try and catch some pokemon.

"Marcus, would it be okay if I tried catching pokemon?"

"Of course not. Take these." Marcus fished aroud in his pocket for a while, then produced ten pokeballs. "Generally, the amount of pokemon a new Trainer is allowed to carry is only ten, so please don't disrespect that rule. When your skill is proven to be improved, then we can allow you more. This is because it's more difficult to take care of more pokemon at one time. However, nothing forbids you from swapping pokemon at the pokemon storage station."

A quick and effective way of teaching a newcomer about pokemon guidelines. "Thank you, Marcus."

Nils headed for the exit, then was stopped when Marcus said, "Where are you going?"

"What? I'm goi-"

"No! Not without a companion!"

"Oh..." Nils didn't think about that. "So...would you go with me?"

"No, I have to stay here and man the fort. Ask Janice or somebody."

"Ask me what?"

Nils turned to see Janice, standing there with her hands in her pockets. She had a bored look on her face.

"Ummm...Would you like to go...pokemon catching with me?"

Her face lit up like a firework, or a whole set of them. "Really? I haven't seen the sun in ages! When are we going? Let me get my pokemon!" And with that, she disappeared.

Nils stood there, feeling happiness. This is basically like a d-NO IT IS NOT! Dude, come on! She's a partner, a partner that will take down the government!

Nils looked at Marcus, then said, "Have fun together, just you and her." Then he smiled a smug smile, as if he planned this out.

Nils gave him a sidelong sneer, then Janice returned, and shouted, "Come on! Let's go!"

They left the fort, took a right, then headed through the tunnel system, barely big enough to fit three people wide, shoulder to shoulder. They rose closer to the ground, and Nils could feel the pressure lift. As they reached the trapdoor, Nils reached for it, but Janice smacked his hand away.

"What are you doing?!"

"What? I was just going to open it."

"No, for exiting, you still have to do the knock."

Nils looked at her with a blank expression.

"The knock...Huhh! Let me do it!"

Janice got closer, and knocked on the door in a familiar pattern, with the same familiar sounds. They then heard a man from far away yell, "Clear!", then opened the door, allowing the outside sounds and the blast of fresh air to hit them. Nils took a deep breath of the pristine air, and smelled what there was to smell. Fresh grass, pine trees, sweet flowers...no more of that rugged dirt smell they've been smelling for days...nine, to be exact.

Nils looked around the expanse of trees, the warm sun hitting his face, the sound of a brooklet nearby...wait, that's...water.

Nils followed the sound, but Janice grabbed his shoulder and stopped him. "Where are you going? We're here to catch pokemon, not look at a stream."

"But...there are pokemon at streams," he fought weakly, because he knew he had already lost.

"No excuse, let's go catch pokemon."

Nils sighed in defeat, and they both made their way towards a good place to find grass pokemon. They made it, and Nils looked around. It was just a bunch of tall grass...But, he thought, that would be where they like to hide. They are grass pokemon, after all.

Nils walked into the grass for pokemon, looking, on the prowl, wanting to show off to Janice, but knowing she could show him up. He saw a pokemon, an Oddish, from the looks of it, and released Vapor.

"Vapor, tackle it!"

Vapor immediately started dashing for it, and when the Oddish turned around, it was immediately impacted. It fell down, and looked dazed.

Nils took this opportunity to throw a pokeball at it. It hit the poor Oddish, opened up, and sucked in the pokemon with a reddish haze. The pokeball moved around a bit, but made a sonar sound, signifying it had caught a pokemon.

Nils tucked in an elbow and thrust a fist into the air, saying, "Yeah! That's one pokemon down! Now to catch nine more."

Janice intervened, then said, "Nope."

"What?"

"We're done here. One pokemon a day."

...

Nils undoubtedly had a confused look on his face, then Janice said, "I just wanted to spend more time with you, and doing things like this...ehh-" She cut herself off mid sentence, and blushed a bit. "Ummm...nevermind what I just said, I just think that, uhh, we should take it a bit easy. It is your first pokemon, after all."

"No, it's my second."

"Regardless, we're done for today. Let's go home."

And with that, they were already on their way home. Why did she get so flustered? Why does she want to catch only one pokemon a day? I better ask Sam.

They entered the base, and Janice said, "I had fun today, thank you for taking me up there." She then gave Nils a sweet smile, then dashed off for the dorms.

Nils watched her get out of sight, then headed for the medical station. When he entered, Sam said, "So, how vas eet?"

"I think it went pretty well. We definitely had time to catch more pokemon, or even train the one I had caught."

"I know! Yoo guys deedn't stay up there very long." A mischievous look entered her eyes. "Deed something happen between yoo two?"

Nils ignored the look, then said, "Yeah, I think."

Sam didn't expect this response, then asked what happened.

Nils told her the entire story, about going to the surface, catching Oddish, which he showed off and then realized he needed to heal, and then Janice and what she said.

"Yoo know what I think...She likes yoo!"

"What? No, she doesn't!" The thought of a girl liking him was weird...not in a good way.

"Yes, eet's definitely confirmed. Janeece likes Neels."

Nils stared at her blankly. He didn't know what to do now that a girl actually liked him. What is he going to do, bring her flowers? Stroke her hair, or-

"Don't take eet so seeriouslee! I vas jus' keeding. You're so cyoote when you're flustered!"

That statement deflated him. He didn't think that Sam would be so cruel. But...there still is a possibility that Janice liked him...but he shouldn't even be thinking that right now! There is a war going on, even if it's not a battle on the field, it's a battle of preperation.

Nils took a deep breath, then said ina very sarcastic tone, "Well, Sam, thanks for teasing me again. I will probably never recover from this one. You know exactly where to hit me in the heart. I'll go wallow in shame and despair."

"Don't forget to taike beetter malice with you."

"Oh, right, I almost forgot, let me start again," he said slowly. "I'll go wallow in shame, despair and bitter malice, resentment towards you. There is no way to gain my forgiveness."

"I'm sorry, Neels." She looked mock-sad, and started pouting.

"Okay, you have my forgiveness." And at that, they both had a good laugh, then Nils went to go sleep. Tomorrow, Janice was probably going to make him walk for forever. Time to prepare for it.

Felix landed on the earth of Yoma, the Yomish-speaking providence. He hadn't been here for at least a third of the year, so his sense of direction in this area was rusty.

"Steelwing, return," he whispered to his companion. He opened his pokeball, and his Pidgeot was enveloped in a red mist, and entered the pokeball. Now, he thought to himself, to find my way back to the base stationed here.

Felix studied the area, and noticed a couple things had changed. For one, many shops and stores had closed down, boarded up, disappeared. What was left of actual persons was slim, and that amount made this part seem like the ghetto side.

He entered the streets, no gate or wall for this city, and a man approached him, speaking Yomish. "Le bou mine line stin mo Felix! Mi ni ni lo sa coran!"

Felix was lost, but that's because he was unprepared to speak Yomish. He re-tooled his mind, and asked, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said, could you say it again?"

"You are the one and only Felix! Come to save us!"

"No, you must have mistaken, I am no such man, I'm just through passing. I am terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you such manner."

He still had some grammatical issues in speech.

The man deflated a bit, then said, "You look just like him," then walked away.

If everybody immediately recognized him like that, he would have a terrible time making it to the outpost. He would have to make it there quick.