I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

The Johto League

Chapter 14

No Pokémon For You



When morning came we were still on our way towards Goldenrod, having left the forest far behind. I never thought I'd be so happy just to see the sun rise. In fact it took us a while to adjust to seeing in daylight again, the sun was blinding at first.

Umbreon stayed with us, out of his ball, since the night before. Either Gary didn't think it was fair to confine his favourite pokémon away after getting a new form or he just wanted to show off, or maybe both. Umbreon's jet black fur glinted with sleek shine in the sun. He also seemed to like that all the conversation was about him.

'Doesn't it seem weird? He was your first pokémon and now he's… different.'

For once Gary didn't act pretentious. 'I see what you mean, but it's not. I didn't expect Eevee to evolve but I like him this way.'

'So why didn't you ever evolve Eevee into something else?'

'I know the three stone evolutions, but none of them… felt right. I already have water, fire and electric types. Maybe I even had a hope that one day, if I waited, he'd evolve into something undiscovered.'

'Speaking of that, you'd better call Professor Oak and tell him about it. He'd be really excited to hear about Umbreon, I bet.'

'Oh yeah! Of course… hey, remind me to use the videophone in the Pokémon Centre when we get there.'

Umbreon happily bounded on ahead and made the most of his longer legs.

'Sheesh, someone's happy today,' Meowth quipped from my shoulder, and went back to his cat-nap atop my backpack, soaking up the warm sun. A little further on, we saw more than fields. We were walking alongside the sea - vast, sparkling blue filling up the horizon.

'Maybe there's some water pokémon around here…' I said, thinking about my lure ball.

'No time for fishing!' Gary declared, 'first thing is to tell Gramps about my Umbreon!'

'Pfft. You mean brag,' I muttered.

We were cut short when something actually materialised in front of us. A blue glow followed by a something appearing. At first I thought it looked like a child… but the light died down and whatever it was had a yellow body, a sturdy tail… ears…

'Hey, an Abra… how lucky!' Gary swiftly pulled out a pokéball. The Abra saw this, looked startled, and prepared to teleport again.

'Not so fast! Umbreon, pursuit attack!'

Umbreon was there in a flash, before Abra could escape, barrelled into it and knocked it over. Umbreon pinned its opponent down as Gary threw the ball. Although fast, Abra are weak, so being cornered it put up very little resistance, and Gary caught it.

'No applause, please,' Gary chuckled as he picked the ball up, just before it disappeared on auto-transport.

I blinked, 'Wow'.

'Just watch and learn,' he grinned at me.

'Hey, stop treating me like I'm a newbie! I've caught lots of pokémon…'

'When I had been a trainer as long as you I'd already caught three times as many.'

'Well, maybe I don't care about catching a lot… I just want to train them right! …Besides, I can catch them fine, just watch…' I started looking around as if there would be a convenient nearby pokémon to wildly throw balls at.

Gary patted Umbreon and walked on.

I kept looking around for a wild pokémon as we walked. I walked off the path a few times to search the surrounding grass but had no luck. Maybe Gary wasn't really good, just lucky, I kept thinking.

Eventually I gave up, sighed, and stared out at the nearby ocean.

'Maybe we should stop for a few minutes,' said Gary. I smiled bri efly at him and he got out a sandwich to eat. I was getting tired, so I sat on a small rock.

After just a couple of seconds the rock started wiggling. I shot back up and looked down, where what I'd been sitting on changed shape from a stone into a pink… blob.

'Ditto!' it squeaked.

Gary burst out laughing. 'You SAT on a Ditto ohmygod ahahaa!'

But I knew what I was going to do, I would act quickly and not let a rare pokémon like Ditto escape.

'Spike, come out and use quick attack!' I threw the ball and my Quilava burst out, flying straight into the Ditto in one bound. I nearly cheered, but Spike came flying straight back, flung by Ditto's rubbery body. Ditto morphed and became a Quilava, every cell of its body identical to Spike's now.

'Well, it's not rubber any more. Quick attack again!'

Spike rushed forward, but Ditto used a smokescreen. Spike couldn't see. He dashed blindly to try and escape the cloud. Ditto took advantage of this and hit Spike back with a quick attack.

I was stunned. This Ditto was using my own pokémon's attacks against me, better than we could! That wasn't right.

'You can do it! Use ember!'

But Spike couldn't start his flame collar in the smoke, and after another hit from the replicated Quilava, he fell, dazed.

'No, Spike…' I stood, stunned. Ditto's form melted back into an amorphous blob and it slithered away to find a more peaceful place to sleep.

I picked up my weakened pokémon and stroked him. He whimpered, sad to have lost.

'Don't worry about it. You did your best.'

'Qui… l-lava?'

'Sure, I'll get you one at the Pokémon Centre. Just rest in your ball for now,' I could feel him relax as he turned to pure energy and was taken back into his pokéball.

Walking was quiet from then on.

'…I wouldn't know how to train a Ditto, anyway,' I said, defensively, to no-one in particular.

'It would be tricky…' Gary agreed, 'you'd have to know the skills of any pokémon you could possibly come up against.'

I repeated to myself that a Ditto would be too difficult to have on my team and didn't even notice anything else until Gary stopped walking. We'd come up to a large house in the middle of this field. I looked ahead and could see, past a plateau of swaying grass and treetops, the skyscrapers of Goldenrod and the infamous Radio Tower.

'Gary, look, we're almost there!'

He stayed where he was. 'I wanna find out what they do here!' And he went on to the house's front door. A wooden sign stood outside that Gary must have read. "Pokémon Daycare Centre – all pokémon welcome!"

The front door opened as I approached Gary. A kindly elderly lady stood there, beaming.

'You must be trainers! Oh, come in, please!'

She led us inside. We'd only managed a few steps down the hallway when a herd of small pokémon hurtled past, nearly causing us to trip. Then they disappeared as quickly as they'd come.

'Mind the little ones!' said the old lady.

We made it to what looked like their living room without being randomly attacked again. It was a peculiar room. Down one wall were several chests of drawers, all lined up, with the drawers labelled. On the other side, a bookcase filled with files. Several cushions lay piled in the corner, with a Drowzee sleeping on them. A Snubbull snuffled around quietly in the corner.

'Welcome to the Pokémon Daycare!' the old lady said, immensely proud.

'It looks like you to amazing business!' I said.

'Yes, quite!' she beamed, 'many trainers leave their precious pokémon here to live and grow. They can come back whenever they like to pick them up. Not only do we feed them the finest speciality foods and let them run wild, as pokémon should, we give them daily training so they'll steadily grow and you'll have a stronger pokémon when you come back!'

Gary was silent, engrossed in observing the Daycare's system. She noticed and explained,

'We note down every pokémon and their owner, so they'll never get mixed up, and keep the registers in those files. And all the pokéballs are in those labelled drawers, but we never use them! My husband is out in the paddock, would you like to see?'

We all obligingly followed her out to the back, and were stunned. At the back of their house was an entire enclosed field, filled with all sorts of pokémon. Gloom and Tangela were resting in a plant garden, a graceful Ponyta galloped across the grass, we even saw a Rhyhorn in the background. A nearby pond had Slowpoke around the edge, soaking their tails, and many, many Magikarp leapt up from the still water. A couple of Growlithe came over and tugged one the bottom of my jeans. They were so cute, I couldn't help petting them, and they yapped happily. But since I was kneeling, they noticed Meowth and tried to jump up and play with him. The poor cat didn't like this and climbed onto my head, yowling. I laughed.

'Oh, new customers?' a voice said, and we turned to see an aged man approaching.

'I can't believe you have so many pokémon!' I burst out. The man chuckled.

'We are well-trusted to raise pokémon. And darn it if watching them grow isn't the most rewarding business in the world! Now, sonny, that's a nice Umbreon you have. Why not check it in for a stay?'

'Oh, sorry sir, but my Eevee only just evolved, so I… wait, you've seen one before?'

'Oh, running this Daycare I reckon I've seen nearly every pokémon there be!'

I was lost in thought, wondering if I'd actually want to let this kind couple look after my pokémon… they were awfully nice, but on the other hand I only just had enough pokémon for a full party. I decided against it, and so did Gary, who preferred to keep track of all his pokémon's growth.

'But I think it's a great Daycare! And it's so nice of you to run it… I'd love to get to raise all sorts of pokémon all day like that,' I said.

Gary spoke up, 'Oh, sorry, but that reminds me… can I used your videophone? I wanted to call my grandpa, Professor Oak.'

The lady cooed with admiration and took Gary back into the house.

'So, you think you'd like to be a pokémon breeder?' the old man said.

I looked out at the field of happy, energetic pokémon. 'A breeder?'

'That's what they call those who like raising pokémon proper-like! And, of course, sometimes they do breed. We find pokémon eggs from time to time.'

'Eggs?! Really?'

'Oh yes! We've never seen how they get there… but when two pokémon bond, we know it will happen. But they aren't truly wild, so the eggs have a hard time hatching. That's why we call up the trainers of the parent pokémon, and ask if they'd like to take the egg with them. Eggs cared for by trainers will always hatch'

'So one of the trainers comes back to get the egg.'

'Well, we'd hope so. Just the other day the trainers came back to take the mother and father of this egg, but neither wanted to raise a baby. So we've kept it, but it would be better in a trainer's hands…'

'I'll take it!' I immediately said, gleefully.

We returned to the main room of the house where Gary was still calling his grandfather.

'No, really, I still want to train Umbreon myself.'

'I understand. But a couple of new evolutions in Eevee's line are being studied, and the scientific world doesn't have many real specimens to observe… and he looks like a fine specimen!' I heard Professor Oak from the speakers. Umbreon jumped up at this to look at the screen, baying happily.

'Hi Professor!' I couldn't help edging into the screen for a quick hello.

'Oh, hi, Holly! How's your journey going? Have you sent many pokémon to Professor Elm?'

'…Not really. But I'm fine! And we're at a Daycare Centre where they said we could have a pokémon egg!'

'Really?' said Gary and his grandfather simultaneously.

'Yeah! But we have to keep it so it will hatch, so you can't study it. Sorry!'

'I doubt eggs can be transferred easily,' Oak said, 'and I won't ask you to come all the way back to Pallet Town for delivery! But this should be interesting. Tell me what hatches from it, won't you?'

'Okay,' we both agreed. Then we said goodbye.

The elderly couple brought out their abandoned egg for us. I'd heard about pokémon eggs, especially since Professor Elm had tried to study them, but this was my first time actually seeing a real one. A real pokémon, before life.

They set the egg down on their table. It was in an egg holder; a glass jar to protect it with a cushioned bottom. The egg itself was bright, glossy yellow, and had jagged black stripes around the sides.

'A real egg – oh this is so cool! It's like we're gonna be parents!'

'You're such a girl!' Gary sneered.

'Yeah, I am, thanks for noticing.'

'Just one thing though,' said the Daycare man, 'when the baby hatches one of you will need to catch it. The baby will already be attached to you for bringing it into the world and won't resist being caught. But it can only be registered to one of you, like all pokémon. So, to avoid having a fight over it, you should decide who it belongs to now. That way you don't have to carry around a pokémon that won't be yours!'

'It was my idea!' I pouted.

'Yeah, but I'm the better trainer. We don't want to cripple it before it's been born by leaving it with you!'

'Gary! Come on, I only just have enough pokémon as it is.'

The kindly lady interrupted us, 'You two should settle this with the fairest possible method – a game of Onix, Paras, Scyther!'

Gary and I took stances facing each other. With our hands behind our back, we slowly counted in unison.

'One… two.. three!'

And we brought our hands out. I made my hand into the shape of two claws for Paras, and Gary had two fingers extended for Scyther.

'Ahaa! Yes!' he jeered, 'Scyther cuts Paras!'

'Aww, man…'

I had no choice but to let Gary accept the egg. We thanked the old couple, wished them luck, and stepped back outside ready to complete this leg of our journey. I looked down enviously at the golden egg inside the case in Gary's arms. He suddenly looked disappointed as it dawned on him.

'Oh man… now I have to carry this thing…'