"Why are you taking me out here?" I ask, slightly groaning. I secretly wanted to go and watch the rematch.
"Oh Raphie, you still need to learn. To be honest, I believe in the prodigy thing since... Well, a Gym leader said it, but you need that little push before your destiny can take the wheel." Serena replies.
"D-Destiny? What kind of things do you believe in?" I ask, scratching the back of my head. "I don't have any kind of important destiny! I'm just traveling with you guys since I haven't traveled on my own before... Well, I did once but..."
I pull off my blue jumper then unbutton the first few buttons on my white shirt and pull down my sleeve. The scar from the knife remains. I quickly pull it up again and start putting my jumper back on.
"Woah... When did you get that?" Serena asks.
"Years ago, I got it the night my Papa abandoned me. Not from him though..." I explain. Oops, I let the 'Papa' slip out.
"Oh, that's upsetting... Uh, anyway, I was going to show you how to catch a Pokemon!" She ignores the Papa thing, maybe it's normal?
"First, let's find us a Pokemon in the tall grass. Preferably one I'd like to use... Ah!"
A blue mouse thing bouncing on a blue ball comes... Bouncing toward us.
"Quick, Paige!" Serena throws down her Pokeball and her Fennekin pops out. Serena then quickly pulls out her Pokedex. "Azurill, Normal and Fairy. Changes to a Water and Fairy type upon evolving." She says, without even glancing at the Pokedex. Wow, I admire how much she's researched into Pokemon and their evolutions...
"Try an Ember!" Serena commands.
Paige then spits out a small fireball that hits the Azuril. It's weakened now.
The Azuril then breaths... Water? Paige manages to leap out of the way.
"Got it's HP down enough, time to try..." She pauses her sentence and rummages through her bag. She pulls out a Pokeball. "THIS!" She finishes her sentence and chucks the empty Pokeball at it. It gets 'engulfed' by the ball. The ball drops to the ground and shakes violently.
A click is then heard.
"Yes!" Serena runs up to the Pokeball and picks it up. She then scans the Pokeball with her Pokedex. Her Azuril Pokedex entry then seems to produce more info on it, since I can see some bright white text appear that wasn't there before.
"Female, Level 7." Serena says to herself, then she puts her Pokedex away then scratches her chin as she stares at the Pokeball. "What to call you...?" She stares at the ball with immense concentration. Maybe if I leave now, I can catch a glimpse of the rematch...
So I walk off back into the city-esque town and see Calem exiting the gym.
"Results?" I ask.
His blank expression turns into a big smile, he pulls something out of his bag - some sort of small, thin, silver case - and opens it up. In one of the shaped slots lies the badge that's identical to mine.
"Sweet! Uh, that's a correct use of that word in this context, right?" I chuckle nervously.
"Yeah! Why you so unsure?" Calem asks, putting the case back in his bag. "Oh yeah, the 'not keeping up with the times' thing." Calem laughs to himself and lightly slaps his forehead. "Ahh, anyway, where's Serena?"
I point off into the distance, where she is still standing there and staring at her Pokeball.
"Ah, she'll be a while... While we're waiting, I'll take you into the clothes shop over there. If Serena were to take you, you'd be there for about an hour. I'm a good 10 minutes." Calem then grabs my hand and walks along the path, eventually entering the clothing store with me.
Mannequins everywhere, but only of the upper body since all that is on offer is a bunch of hat and hat accessories.
Calem walks off to stare at a few hats that are accessorized with a few buttons of the same colour
I look around, admiring all the hats..
Wait, what's THAT hat?
I run over to it and put it on. I feel fancy all of a sudden, with an urge to tip my hat...
"Huh? Oh, you found the Fedoras I see... Black with red ribbon? Interesting choice." Calm says, walking up to me an holding 3 black buttons. "If you want it, I can buy it for you." He offers.
My eyes twinkle and I excitedly nod, handing him the hat. Calem then walks off to the counter and buys the two items: Buttons and Hat.
He comes back with the items and puts the hat back on my head. I probably have the most embarrassing look of joy on my face but I'm too happy to care.
"Well, I'd say we're done here." Calem says, removing the shades from on his hat, putting them in his bag and clipping the black buttons on instead. We then proceeded to walk out of the store.
"Hey! Why'd you just walk off without me?" Serena asks, somewhat annoyed as she walks up to us.
"You were just standing there and I wanted to go see if Calem was done with his thing..." I answer a little nervously.
"Oh yeah, I won the rematch! That just means we'll have to watch your battle, eh sis?" Calem bumps into the conversation.
Serena nods. "Oh, nice hat Raphie... Maybe I'll see what they have on offer for myself..." Serena then walks into the clothing shop, although they should really change their sign to say hat shop or something...
"This'll take a while..." Calem says sighing, walking over to a nearby bench to sit down on. Guess I should go wait with him.