Monday could not come fast enough for Isaac.
He looked forward to it with such anticipation that when it finally came, it felt odd, like a dream, or an experience felt by someone else. He said goodbye to his mother, brother, and father, a process that took much longer that Isaac had previously believed possible.
Zander had met him at the corner of his street. Isaac was surprised to see him there. He had been really shaken by the death of his cubone. He hadn't been returning his calls or talking with anyone.
Isaac had only seen him once since the incident, and that had just been a glance from his front door when his mother had answered it and told him that Zander didn't want to see him.
He had seen the little mound of freshly overturned dirt by the side fence.
The whole thing had to be hard.
"I didn't know if you'd be coming." Isaac said, trying to sound cheerful. He thought he just came off sounding stupid, but how was he supposed to know what to say at a time like this? It was not like they talked about this in any of the training magazines or in any of the pokemon classes he had taken.
"Yeah, well I'm here." Zander said, eyes downcast feet shuffling. "I couldn't miss this, no matter what." Zander turned his face away from Isaac, as if ashamed. "Your parents would not have let you leave without me anyhow. We should go."
Zander was never one to be overly positive, but this depressed mood was almost painful to watch.
"Did you get that program from your brother?" Isaac asked, trying to change the subject.
"Yeah,' Zander said, slightly more upbeat. "I uploaded it onto my pokedex last night. It works pretty well."
"Well, let's see it then, what pokemon should we be finding today."
Zander gave a weak smile, but it was a smile. "Alright, let's look."
They hiked a couple of miles out of town along the hetarun trail, they had only been able to catch a glimpse of a couple spearow from the distance, but nothing close enough to battle or catch.
"You sure your brother programed that thing right? We should have found something by now." said Isaac.
"Already losing your patience? Calm down, there are pokemon in these woods. We know that, we have seen them before. We should find one soon, tomorrow if we get further along we should get to the twin valley forest. It says there are tons of bug pokemon there."
"Yeah you are right, it's just four hours of walking seems kinda anti-climactic after the sendoff my parents gave me."
"There is more to being a pokemon trainer than battles." Zander said.
Isaac gritted his teeth a bit. Zander could lecture like a sniveling professor if you gave him half a chance sometimes. "I know Zander."
"Well, don't get defensive about it." Zander said. "I was just thinking if you needed a break, we could train for a while."
Isaac let out a sigh, "Yeah that sounds like a good idea. What did you have in mind?"
Zander pointed over to a low tree surrounded by broken rocks. "I was thinking some strength training."
They called out the three pokemon they had between them and Zander got to work attacking lengths of rope to the three of them. He tied burme and his panian to rocks and natu to the branch of a low lying tree. He then ordered the pokemon to pull with all their might. natu and burme looked at him curiously before Isaac repeated the orders to them.
Soon they had them all grunting with effort as they pulled with all their might to move the tree and rocks. Isaac and Zander shouted encouragement to them and helped them form up to get better leverage and traction. With great effort, and a lot of time panian and burme were able to budge their rocks ever so slightly at first, but then they got them rolling. Once they did they tied them to heavier rocks.
Natu never could move the tree, but he wasn't meant to. He got the branch to bend as he strengthened his wings and legs as he lept and flapped against the resistance. When he master one branch they found another slightly thicker one and repeated the process.
It was late afternoon when they stopped to rest. Zander was talking about how they could put a few more miles between them and their home town before dark. Isaac would have been listening but he was paying attention to a particular tree with gnarled tangled roots. He could have sworn that one of them had just moved.
Zander, noticing that Isaac was paying less attention than normal, tried to pique Isaac's interest by mentioning the increased likelihood of wild pokemon further from town.
It did it again, the root had to be moving. No, it could not be the root, it had to be something else. Roots did not move.
He glanced back at Zander and gave him a nod of agreement. Honestly he thought Zander was right, they should get going, but curiosity was getting the better of him.
Without a word he got up and started towards the tree. Zander was giving him an odd look. Isaac called Natu to come over with him.
When they got over to the tree, the root Isaac had intended on inspecting see,ed to have vanished. He was sure that it had been right there, on the left side of the tree, but he could not find it.
He stared at the ground in confusion.
"What is it Isaac?" Zander called from their resting place with the two other pokemon.
"It's nothing, I just thought I saw, no wait!" Isaac called back.
The soft earth where he had been expecting the tree root shifted ever so slightly. Something was digging just under the surface.
Whatever it was, Isaac wanted to see it.
"Natu, get him up out of there." Isaac commanded.
Natu, quick to obey, gave a quick hop over to the plot of earth and scratched at it rapidly with his claws.
A sudden burst of sand kocked natu into the air. The sand continued to flow until a solid cloud of dust filled Isaacs eyes. He coughed a few times, and heard Zander calling out to him. The sudden movement caught him off guard, but it would take more than a sand attack to make him back off.
"Natu peck." Isaac didn't know if natu had a clear shot at anything, but keeping his opponent off balance and watching his own back could lead to openings that Isaac was sure to take advantage of.
Isaac could hear a couple of dull impacts that were natu's pecks missing their intended target and hitting the ground.
"Keep it up natu."
Isaac could hear a hiss rising up from the ground. The sand was settling. Isaac could see his natu hopping around, trying to find his opponent.
With another hiss a four legged bug pokemon lept at natu. It dug its mandibles into natu's side and began to suck.
"Natu shake him off, get up to a high branch where he can't reach you."
His bird pokemon rolled to the side and knocked the bug pokemon off of him onto the ground. He then launched his light body up into the tree branches above him.
The dust had finally cleared, so Isaac could get a good look at his opponent. It was definitely bug type. It had four legs and two green wings extruding from its white body. Isaac recognized this pokemon. He had never personally seen one before, but there was no mistaking the nincada.
The nincada circled and hissed and his escaped opponent. He clamored to the tree trunk and began to climb it to renew his counter attacks.
"Natu, you got a clean shot at him?" Isaac asked his pokemon.
Natu bobbed in the affirmative.
"Then strike!"
Natu jumped off of his high perch and threw himself at the climbing nincada. He landed a solid peck squarely on the nincada's back.
The nincada fell off the tree trunk while hissing in pain, landing on its back on the ground. Natu continued on his downward trajectory after the attack to land smoothly on one of the many tree roots.
The big pokemon righted itself and rushed at natu, front claws raised for attack.
"Natu, you can finish him, attack."
Natu lept forward into the oncoming pokemon and landed another solid peck. The effects of the bird attacks on the bug pokemon were very noticeable. The beat up pokemon was moving slowly now and struggled to keep itself on its feet. He was weak and starting to get confused at natu's persistent attacks that were always changing direction.
Isaac grinned, now was the time to catch it. He had never caught a wild pokemon before, but he had been given a couple empty balls as a going away present from his parents. He was excited to catch the first of many.
He pulled the ball from his pocket and threw a perfect pitch right into the nincada's head. the force knocked the creature's head to the dirt. The ball bounced up above the stunned pokemon and opened. With a flash of light, nincada was sucked into the pokeball as it fell to the ground. The ball warbled as nincada struggled against his new confines.
The struggling grew weaker and slower until it stopped all together.
"You caught it! That is so awesome man." Zander was calling as he approached with burme and panian in tow. "Wow a nincada, I've never seen one before."
"Neither have I, but we will be seeing a lot more of this one." Isaac said with a confident smile.
"Let's see, I scanned it while you were battling and the pokedex is pulling up its information." Zander said, waving the red tablet between them. When he got close enough, they both looked at it.
The nincada was ground and bug type. It listed this one as level eleven in strength. Zander hit the tab that would pull up the program that his brother had sent him. Nincada were common in this area, but they rarely were seen above ground, making them hard to catch. Unless a trainer had a pokemon that could burrow, it was doubtful you would catch one.
Isaac guessed he had been really lucky to catch one in a rare moment that it had spent above ground.
Isaac clutched his newly filled pokemon with pride. One day out and already a new pokemon, and one higher level than anything in Calbed at that!
He was on cloud nine until they made camp for the night a few hours later.
Isaac; natu lvl 9 burme lvl 6 nincada lvl 11
Zander; panian lvl 6