I began to stir as I felt a rustling sensation on my shoulder, thinking at first Sienna had curled up next to my head and was shifting about. I turned my head away and attempted to fall back asleep until I heard a voice saying my name.
"Alex…it's time to wake up…" the voice said, both familiar yet distant.
I turned and opened one eye to see the sun was just about to rise, meaning it was close to six in the morning. I just was able to make out two shadowy silhouettes standing off to the side of me. "Ugh…who's there?...What time is it?" I asked as I tried to open my other eye.
I heard both figures begin to snicker and laugh at my response. "Alex, it's Marc and Lee. You asked us to wake you up so you and Sienna could join us this morning. Remember?"
It took me a moment to recall, but I started to wake quicker once I did. I sat up and stretched, rubbing my eyes and yawning. That movement woke up Sienna, who moved slowly in the unfamiliar early hours. "Oh yeah…sorry Marc. I guess I wasn't prepared to be up so early." I slowly rose to my feet, Sienna following suit.
Marc laughed and just patted me on the back. "It's ok Alex, I would have been more surprised if you would have been easily awoken at this hour. I know you were pushing yourself hard those two weeks hitting both the books and the gym, but I never saw you out quite this early."
A look of confusion crossed my face as I was getting dressed. "What do you mean you never saw me out? Don't you live in Petalburg City.?"
"That I do, but occasionally my routine takes me to Littleroot Town. When it did, I usually did a lap through your neighborhood to see if you were out and about. I know that Ez and I agreed to give you your time to prepare for the exams, but I still wanted to make sure my best friend was ok." Marc had a soft and sincere smile on his face, nearly causing me to tear up hearing him.
"Thank you Marc, I don't know what I did to deserve a friend like you but I hope to keep it up."
"You are a good person Alex, a kind soul and someone who does the right thing. Those are the kinds of people I want to have as friends." Lee nodded in agreement as Marc spoke.
While any other time I would have melted from the compliments, instead I thought about how I was essentially lying to everyone in regards to the amnesia. "Alex sounds like he was a great friend and just a good person in general. I just showed up in his body and ended up blessed with good health, supportive parents, and amazing friends. I hate to even think about it, but I just can't shake the thought of what happened to the real Alex? Did he switch bodies with me or did I just overwrite his life and now he no longer exists?" These thoughts swirled around my head for the first time in a while and it seemed to visibly show.
Marc stepped forward with a look of concern on his face and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Alex, is everything ok?" He said, looking into my eyes. I didn't want to lie to him, but I also knew telling the truth could be disastrous.
"Yeah, sorry." I said, smiling and nodding. "I guess just having the lack of memories affects me more sometimes than others." I took a deep breath and did my best to put on a more cheerful persona. "So, what's the plan for this morning?"
Marc smiled again as he spoke. "Well, we are gonna go for a nice long run. It is a great way to loosen up the body and get the blood flowing. It will also give me a good idea of where you stand with your cardio and endurance, so I have an idea of what you can handle in future sessions."
"Sounds like you really have all of this thought out. Well then, you lead the way," I said. Marc and Lee nodded and began a good jogging pace headed east. Sienna and I followed close behind them, able to keep pace to start.
After a few minutes, Marc turned his head to yell back to us. "Ok, so now we will add in intermittent sprints. This is good to build up cardio and the ability to summon bursts of energy when needed. I'll signal when we will speed up and slow down. Let me know if you guys need a break." Sienna and I both shook our heads in agreement as Marc and Lee suddenly took off. We quickened out pace, just barely keeping up with them. Marc lifted his hand and made a fist about two minutes later and we all slowed back to a jogging pace. After a few minutes he raised his hand and pointed ahead, signaling to sprint again.
As we ran through the morning hours, it gave me a chance to see this world a little differently than I had before. It was much quieter than normal, with little to no Pokemon or other people stirring. There were bug Pokemon asleep on the sides of trees and flocks of Taillow and Pidgey in the trees. I never really took the time to look at nature before, but now I had much more of an interest. Was it because I found Pokemon more interesting than normal animals or maybe it was due to spending so much more time outside compared to my old life?"
Marc kept this pace up for the next forty five minutes and seemed to be going strong. I could feel my body straining as we went, not accustomed to the bursts of speed and the short breaks to catch our breath. I looked down to see how Sienna was doing, as she looked equally tired. "How are…you doing…Sienna?" I said as I panted for air. She yipped back weakly, showing she was getting worn down as well.
Marc yelled back to us, hearing me talk. "How are you holding up Alex?" Marc didn't even sound like he was breathing heavy, however Lee looked like he was pushing himself a bit.
"This is tough, man," I panted back. "I'm definitely pushing myself but I don't know how much more I can go."
"Not a problem Alex, we'll stop for a break after this sprint. Last push, make it count!" He called out as he and Lee thundered forward. Sienna and I did our best to keep up but we ended up falling behind. When we finally caught up to Lee and Marc, they were already stopped and catching their breaths. Lee was panting harder than Marc was, but still looked to have better composure than either of us. We simply collapsed on the ground and just laid there.
Marc walked up to us after a moment, Sienna and I opened our eyes to look up as he approached. "You guys did well, honestly better than I was expecting, I figured one of you would have needed to stop before we made it to town."
"Yeah…it was…tough…but we pushed…". I was having a hard time talking as I tried to focus on my breathing. After a moment, I realized something he said. I turned my head to see the sign for Oldale town just down the road from us.
"Wait…we just ran…all the way…to Oldale town…in an hour?"
"Yeah, you guys kept a good pace," Marc commented as he walked over to Lee. "I took it a little easy given how new you all are. If I pushed myself, I could easily make it from Petalburg to Oldale in under two hours."
I just looked at Marc with an expression of shock. "Dude, that's…insane. It took almost…a half an hour…to make the trip…by car…with my parents."
"That is true, but the highway has a few twists and turns. Route 102 is completely straight with nothing to slow us down. That, and I have been training myself for a few years. I'm sure you could do the same with a bit of time and training." Marc said, both coming off as confident and reassuring. I could tell he was not the boastful type, most guys I knew like him were cocky and arrogant.
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." I said as I slowly started to rise to my feet. "So, will we be doing the same thing on the trip back?
"Pretty much," Marc said. "I was gonna do some other things but I don't want to overload you guys on your first day of joining us. Let's rest a few more minutes and see if we can make the trip back in the same amount of time. Ez should be getting up around eight o'clock or so, which should line up perfectly with our return." Sienna and I nodded in agreement and we rested another ten minutes before making the return trip.
I looked down at Sienna as we stretched out. "You ok Sienna? That wasn't too intense for you was it?" I asked, hoping to have not pushed her too hard. She looked up and shook her head no.
"Ok, good. Well, I don't think we will be joining these two every morning but I think once and a while would be good." She smiled and nodded in agreement. Marc and Lee got a chuckle out of my comment about not being up for it every day and we began to run back to camp shortly afterwards.
We arrived back at our campsite right at eight o'clock, taking a little longer than the first half. We sat down as we arrived. The sounds of which began to wake Ez up.
"Mmmmmm….morning guys," Ez said as she slowly crawled out of her sleeping bag. "How was the workout?"
"It went well," Marcus said, stretching out with Lee. "Alex and Sienna kept a good pace and we ran to Oldale town and back in about two hours."
Ez's eyes suddenly went from sleepy to wide awake hearing this. "That took us almost all day to walk and you guys did it in an hour?" She exclaimed.
"Yeah…but we were…jogging and sprinting…the whole time," I responded in between breaths.
"If you would join us, I'm sure you could keep a good pace as well…" Marc said, trying to convince Ez.
I could tell Ez was about to say no thanks but looked over at me. "It would be nice for you to join us as a team sometime." I said as I smiled.
Ez smiled back and turned to Marc. "Maybe one of these mornings. You know how much I like my sleep though," she said as we all laughed. Ez made breakfast for everyone since Marc and I had to go to a nearby stream to clean up. After we ate, we packed up and continued our journey. We saw a few Pokemon and trainers as we went, but didn't get pulled into anything. None of us saw any Pokemon we wanted and we all seemed to agree to get up in Petalburg City before we started any serious battling.
As we arrived at the city limits, I was surprised to see just how big Petalburg City was. It was way bigger than Oldale, and even bigger than Littleroot. It felt much more like an actual city than just a bigger town. There were tons of buildings, both residential and commercial. A pair of sizable lakes with parks flanked the city to the north and south. As it was getting dark, we made our way to the Pokemon Center and were able to get a large room for the night. We each got a bed to ourselves and the last bed was shared by our Pokemon. I definitely know I slept well with the workout in the morning, and was ready to see both the city and what a Pokemon Gym was really like tomorrow.