"Welcome to the Petalburg Pokemon Center." Nurse Joy smiled cheerfully. "Do you need to rest your pokemon here?" I nodded and pulled out the pokeballs that held my pokemon, but Nurse Joy instead led us into a hallway next to the counter which led to a hotel. She handed us a card key for a room and opened the door with a mastercard. "This will be your room until you leave Petalburg. We hope you sleep well." Nurse Joy then walked away. Tecy stepped into the hotel room first and I followed suit. The hotel room we were given for the time being had two full sized beds as well as a TV on a cabinet, a small bathroom with a shower and a tub was off in the corner.
"What was all that about?" I asked my friend. Tecy glanced up and shrugged.
"My assumption would be that the pokemon world is nothing like the games. There aren't machines that automatically heal our pokemon, they have to sleep it off." Tecy let her pokemon out of their pokeballs and lay them down on one of the beds. Her three pokemon were really small and they looked so cute sleeping! I, again, refrained from hugging the three of them, knowing they needed sleep. I let out Treecko and Trouble, as they were the ones training the most. Snorlax was fine for right now, as most of the pokemon he was supposed to battle ran away. Trouble glanced around in the small room and meowed.
"So, captor, what is this?"
"I'm your trainer! Get it right." I huffed at my feline pokemon. She didn't say anything to that, just climbed onto the bed and fell asleep at the foot of it. Treecko practically fell asleep once let out of his pokeball, so I set him down on the pillow.
"What do you want to do now?" Tecy asked me.
"Clothes shopping!" I smiled. My anime shirts and stuff was awesome and all, but I totally wanted something steampunk for Hoenn. Tecy seemed a little panicked by my outburst, glancing at the pokemon. They were still asleep.
"Okay, whatever." Tecy said, grabbing her Trainer card and a key card from her bag and shoving them into her pocket. "Whatever floats your boat."
"Forget about boats, let's do ships!" I laughed, Tecy chuckled slightly. I pocketed my key card and we left the Pokemon Center. We glanced around at the shops around Petalburg, searching for a boutique. Tecy was the first one to spot a clothes store, but after an hour of searching, I couldn't find anything steampunk. I frowned at my friend's success in finding nothing but plain T-shirts and jeans. "Don't you want to try something new?" I asked her.
She looked down at the several T-shirts and pairs of jeans folded in her arms and frowned. "This is all I can find that I like." Picky, picky. I glanced around the store, other than the plain T-shirts Tecy picked out, most of the clothes were the modern hipster style clothes, which was not her style. As much as it bothers me, Tecy's more of a jeans-and-T-shirt girl than anything else. I'm gonna have to drag that out of her, get her into something gothic. Maybe Lolita.
"Okay, whatever. I'm ready to go when you are." I shrugged and Tecy bought her stuff by using the trainer card she had since. I guess the trainer card is an ID card as well as a debit card. Cool.
"So, where do you want to go next?"
"The pokemon gym!" I smiled.
"But our pokemon are at the Pokemon Center. Shouldn't we get them first?" I gave her a "no doy" look and we headed back to the Pokemon Center. We grabbed our pokemon- who were all completely healed- and headed over to the gym.
The pokemon gym was a huge, one story building with a symbol of the pokemon badge as its sign. I stepped up to the building, but the gym clerk at the front of the building told us that we had to have four other badges before you can attempt to battle Norman, the gym leader. "Well, that's a little disappointing." I sighed.
"You already knew this was the fifth gym, Kali. It's not that unexpected." Tecy frowned, "I guess we should head over to Rustboro; that's where the first gym is." I nodded and we continued on our journey. Tecy remembered at the last moment that we had to return the card keys to the Pokemon Center and she ran off to take care of that.
"Hello there, Trainer." Someone behind me greeted. I turned to face the speaker: a fat man, probably in his late twenties, wearing a baby blue hawaiian shirt and khaki bermuda shorts walked up to me. "The name's Scott and I travel the Hoenn region looking for talented trainers. I can see already that you have potential. Do you have a PokeNav?" I shook my head, Scott frowned. "Oh, well. We'll run into each other sometime, I'm sure." He walked off into the route and Tecy came back just then, huffing and puffing.
"Wh-who was that?" She asked, leaning backward with her face towards the sky.
"Said his name was Scott" I replied, trying to think of what he said. I wasn't paying that much attention "and I don't remember what he wanted."
"Ah. Well, whatever." Tecy panted. "Give me a second and we can keep going." She took a few long breaths before started walking again down the path to Rustboro.
The next route was a beach with a patch of tall grass a little way away from the sand. A dock and a house were standing on the edge of the beach, close to a forest. "That must be Petalburg Woods." Tecy observed, walking up to the bunch of trees. Captain Obvious strikes again. We walked into Petalburg woods and trained a little there, the pokemon here were a little bigger than the pokemon who lived in the routes between Petalburg and Littleroot, but Treecko blew through them like no man's business.
While we were training, a man came up and asked us, "Have you seen Shroomish? I love that Pokémon."
"Yeah, I'm battling one right now." Tecy said to the man. Charmander had just dodged a stun spore attack and was coming in with his claws, probably scratch. "If you get a pokeball ready, Charmander might let you catch it." The man nodded and took out a blue pokeball with red marks at the top. He threw the pokeball at the Shroomish, the shroomish disappeared into it. Shook once... Twice... Three times... Click.
"Thank you very much, miss." The man smiled, taking the pokeball back. "I need to get back to Rustboro now."
"Hold on, there!" Another man in a blue and black striped shirt, marking him as a team Aqua grunt, ran up, grabbed the man by his shirt collar and demanded, "Give me the Devon goods!"
"Yeah, I don't think so." Tecy said, pushing past the first man to sock the grunt it the jaw. The Aqua grunt stumbled back a few steps, rubbing the area of impact, and glared at Tecy.
"You're going to regret that, missy." The aqua grunt growled. "Go, Poochyena!" A black puppy pokemon came out of a pokeball that the grunt threw.
"Let's do this, Tecy." I said to my friend. She nodded "Treecko, I choose you!" I shouted and pointed at the poochyena. My tree frog pokemon leaped out a foot in front of me.
"Charmander!" Tecy shouted and Charmander did the same with her.
"Hey, whoa! That's not fair!" Another aqua grunt shouted at us and joined his comrade in a battle. "Let's even the odds. Go, Carvanha!" A blue, red, and gold piranha-like pokemon came out of this other grunt's pokeball. Some how, the pokemon was swimming in mid air and had no troubles attacking. He bore his teeth menacingly.
"Charmander, attack Poochyena. Burn him then slash at the burn." Tecy ordered. Her fire lizard pokemon blew a number of flames at the poochyena; it had no way of dodging and the flames made the black pokemon's fur, well, blacker. Without any delay, Charmander ran out at the burned puppy pokemon and, with a shining claw, slashed down at him. The pokemon dropped onto its side, asleep. Charmander then retreated in an attempt to get away from the Carvanha. I was so busy watching Charmander take down Poochyena, I almost forgot that I was a part of this battle too.
"Treecko..." Crap, what's his move set? I shouted out the first grass-type attack that I knew of "Use leaf blade!" my tree frog pokemon hesitated for a moment before leaping out at the fish pokemon and threw out leaves in a blade formation at it. Carvanha bit Treecko just as it was pummelled by leaves, the water pokemon fainted and left Treecko with a couple bite marks on his arm. My pokemon came back to me, favoring his bitten arm.
"Crap! We're all out of pokemon!" The aqua grunts cried out in unison.
"We have to retreat for now." The first one said, taking his burnt poochyena and running off.
The second returned his pokemon to its pokeball and grinned at the man menacingly. "We have business in Rustboro anyway." Our trainer cards made a "ding" sound and, after checking them, meant that our victory money was already banked. Cool.
"Thank you for helping me." The man said, rubbing the back of his neck. He took out two of the blue pokeballs from his pocket and handed one to each of us. "These are called Great Balls. They're just like Pokeballs, but they're a little harder for pokemon to escape from, making catching pokemon easier."
"Thanks." Tecy smiled, taking the great ball and shoving it into her pokeball pouch. I did the same.
"Wait, did they mention business in Rustboro?" The man asked, looking in the direction they ran to. "OH NO! This is a crisis!" He bolted off, much faster than I imagined he could run. Tecy and I exchanged looks, shrugged, and ran after them as well.
(A/N Tecy: Establishing some of the differences between my envisioned Pokemon World and the Pokemon Games. Also, it's just way easier having the Trainer Card be debit/ID, it just is.
Moving on, Team Aqua rears its ugly head. Lotsa fun, especially considering that mine and Kali's pokemon are a lot stronger than the Team Aqua grunts' pokemon.)
