We took off from the forests southwest of Viridian. We did it the same way we got to Cinnabar, with Luna handling lift while I handled thrust. At first we weren't sure how we were going to handle navigation, given this was a bit more than going south in a straight line until we hit the big island with lots of people. Then we smacked ourselves and just looked at our poketch. It was clearly not meant to handle the speeds we were going at, it glitched out regularly, but it was enough to more or less point us towards New Bark Town. Two hours and change later of flying and we touched down about three kilometers northeast from the town.

Then we smacked ourselves for being silly. It'd have been faster to go to Blackthorn City directly from Viridan than to come all the way down here to New Bark and then back up to Blackthorn. Ugh. Fine, whatever. We'd just take the time to visit Professor Elm's laboratories. Make the detour worth the time. We walked out into the fairly homey town, it was really quite similar to Pallet, which kinda made sense in a meta sort of way.

It tooks us about thirty minutes to get to the outskirts of the town, and then ten more to reach Professor Elm's labs. The lobby was really quite nice, very modern and with lots of informational posters about pokemon. The basics of what to do and not do if you wanted to survive as a trainer. It occurred to us we'd never actually seen the lobby for father's compound, given that we simply used the private entrances or teleported in directly. Something to do, maybe see if we could use that to start fixing our relationship with father. Yes, once we'd taken care of business we were definitely spending more time with everyone. We missed our mothers.

There was a tall, thin man with half-moon glasses, and a lab coat, he was reading a notepad, occasionally scribbling something in it. He looked up and saw us, a smile sprouting on his face.

"You must be Marina! Excellent, a little early, but that's fine. I must say, you seem much younger than your age would imply. Come, we'll get you your first pokemon and you can get started on your journey!"

I smiled. It felt weird. What the fuck, since when did smiling become something we did so little of it felt weird to do? Still, it seemed we'd walked in at just the perfect time to get a show. That was great. The name seemed pretty familiar too. They must be someone with a destiny we didn't fully remember. This had to be Professor Elm.

"Wrong person professor, we're just passing by on our way to Blackthorn and decided to visit such a famous lab. Though now that we know a new trainer is starting out we may just hang around, if that's okay with you."

"Ah, a visitor! My apologies. I'm Professor Elm, and here at my facilities we focus on studying pokemon evolution. I'm afraid I can't give you a tour at the moment, but if you wait until after the starting trainers coming in today leave, we can arrange something."

We shook hands.

"Pokemon Trainer Red."

"A pleasure. It's always good to see young trainers aiming high, although I would recommend starting with Falkner's Gym in Violet City. It's better for newer trainers."

"Thanks you for the advice, we'll take it into consideration."

"Hello? I'm here for my starter pokemon!"

A third voice, also female, rang out. She walked up to us. She was a bit older than us, though we didn't know how much, with blue hair and green eyes. And taller. I had this feeling people being taller than me was going to become a recurring thing. Damn you future sight, at least I had hope before.

"Ah, Marina, excellent. Come, come, the starter pokemon are this way."

We followed Professor Elm deeper into his compound, with Marina chatting all the way. She was… nice, very sweet and full of life. Hopefully she had a bright future ahead of her. Professor Elm gave her a pokedex too, which was good. When she stood before the pokeballs holding the three regional starters, she went with Totodile, and turned to us, an expectant look upon her face.

"Aren't you going to choose your own starter?"

"Ah, no. We just wanted to see someone get their first pokemon. It's such a special moment. Besides, big sis would probably get jealous if I were to choose another pokemon as a starter."

"Ralts." Luna poked her head out from my zipped up jacket.

"Yes, sis, I know no one compares to you."

"Has she been there this whole time?!"

"Sis can be very lazy." We all ignored her indignant cry of "Ralts!"

"Ah, a Ralts. You're very far from Hoenn." Professor Elm chimed in, looking fascinated by Luna. "Remarkable pokemon, truly."

"We're actually from Sinnoh, but we moved to Pallet Town a couple years ago."

"Oh, I know! We can have a pokemon battle! My Wani-Wani against your Ralts!"

"It wouldn't be fair to you, Luna and I have been together since I was born. She's actually older than me, but if you want, we recently got a new member for our team that would be perfect for a starting trainer."

"Alright, let's fight then. Go, Wani-Wani!" She was so energetic, she even did a little dance number when she told her Totodile to step forward. "Pokemon Trainer Marina challenges you to battle!"

We felt the future pushing us to go with our Torchic. We were loath to break our naming pattern for our pokemon, but my past life had always used a specific name for her Torchics, and we wanted to honor that. It was funny though, the name totally didn't fit.

"Pokemon Trainer Red accepts your challenge. Go, Zeus!" Our terribly misnamed Torchic came out of his pokeball, and did the cutest roar-chirp we'd ever heard. Holy fuck, that thing was hella cute. We did something we remembered from an old story and held out our hand to her. "After you, trainer."

"Water Gun!" Her Totodile spit out a very decent jet of water for a new starter. A mental command had Zeus dodge the attack, and it splashed against a barrier in front of us. "Again!"

This time Zeus was too slow on the dodge and got splashed back a few meters. A mental command had him jumping back to his feet and spitting a tight grouping of Embers at her Totodile.

"Dodge, Wani-Wani!" Unfortunately for her, my lack of a need for voiced commands gave us a speed advantage and the little balls of flame hit the Totodile full on. "Oh no, fight back with Bubble!"

We countered with more Embers. There was a simple joy in fighting a battle with no stakes. We didn't think Zeus could beat her Totodile even with our advantages, but we were certainly willing to try. They traded blows for a few minutes, before a Water Gun laid out Zeus again. The little guy had heart though, and spat out one last barrage of tiny fireballs that laid out Wani-Wani at the last second. Well. A double knockout. Better than we'd been expecting.

"Oh wow, that was amazing."

"Yes, very much so. You'll make a great trainer, we can feel it."

"Thank you!" She hugged me and then Luna, before running out. She'd been so warm, and we really wanted to follow after and keep hugging her. She was amazing. If only we weren't pressed for time we could maybe travel with her.

"Keep your eye on her professor, she'll go far."

Then she came running back in and gave us a slip of paper with a string of numbers on it. "I almost forgot, here's my pokegear number so we can talk later if you want to! I'd love to be friends with such a cutie, we'd look great together as pokemon idols!"

Then she ran out again. The fuck just happened?

"Yeah, okay. Uh, I'll see you later professor."

We needed breakfast. Yeah, food would help us process all of that. We found a diner after a few minutes of walking and we sat down to delicious greasy breakfast food. So, we needed to get a pokegear. Yes, definitely, we wanted to talk to Marina again, so we needed to buy a pokegear. That way we could call her without having to go to a city or town and find a terminal to use. We'd find a store that sold one, get it all set up, and then we'd continue on to Blackthorn City. It'd help with calling Daisy too and… yup, a quick look around our bag had yielded us Lucky-tchii's pokeball. Guess she wasn't giving up on that.