When nidorina are with their friends or family, they keep their barbs tucked away to prevent hurting each other. This pokemon appears to become nervous if separated from the others.

            - Ruby Pokedex

"Ow…" Elliot whimpered, rubbing his nose. That was the fifth invisible wall he'd walked into, and his opinion of them had changed from being an extraordinary and clever idea to the belief they were the brainchild of a sadistic architect. He was completely lost. Not that he'd really known where he was going inside the building, but…

He stumbled over a knot in the wooden floor and threw out his hand. It caught on a wall – which immediately proved it was not a wall by sliding to the side. Off balance, Elliot tumbled ungracefully through into a large room.

A man laughed, a bit arrogantly, the sound booming in the quiet room. "So, you managed to find your way here. I am Koga. If you can win against my three pokemon, you will be rewarded with the Soul Badge."

Elliot nodded, accepting.

"Go, Venumoth!"

"Howler! Ember!"

Howler spat out several small glowing balls toward the bug type. It let out a chittering shriek of pain, thrashing its huge wings. A shimmering blue powder was released. Howler sneezed, then yawned.

"Flamethrower!" yelled Elliot quickly.

Howler, looking drowsy, opened his mouth again and exhaled a large burst of flame. It burned through the dust and scorched the venumoth. Koga recalled it.

"Go, Golbat! Supersonic!"

The bat opened its enormous jaws. Elliot couldn't hear anything, but Howler apparently could. The growlithe buried his head under his paws, whining.

"Wing attack!"

"Tackle attack, quick!"

Howler lifted his head but didn't respond before the larger pokemon smacked him with a wing, knocking him to the side. He got back up and tried to run at the golbat, but stumbled and hit the ground headfirst. This time, he stayed there.

"Return, Howler! Go, Din!"

The smaller puppy replaced the fire type, yapping defiantly.

Koga looked almost as though he was calculating something. Then the expression was gone and Elliot wasn't sure if he'd just imagined it. "Bite!"

"Din, use bite yourself before it gets you!"

Din latched onto the golbat's wingtip, biting into the thin skin for purchase and wiggling around to further throw the flying-type's balance off. They crashed into the ground together, a short fall of perhaps half a foot. Din jumped back to her feet immediately, barking. The golbat didn't look badly hurt either, with just a smudge of red from where Din's fangs had pierced. Koga recalled it, surprising Elliot.

"Ariados, go! Use spiderweb!"

Before Din could move, the spider pokemon had covered her in sticky white threads. She struggled, but only made the tangle worse. Elliot recalled her.

He was lucky Koga had sent out a bug type. "Go, Caw!" he yelled.

Koga looked…Koga looked…Elliot couldn't understand it. Almost angry. Like he'd been tricked.

"Sludge bomb!" Koga ordered.

"Caw, fly out of the way, then dive at it!"

The murkrow flew upward, dodging the ball of slime the ariados tossed. Then he dove down again, knocking the giant spider across the arena. It was over in a single hit. Elliot had won.

Koga's expression was aloof and controlled, nearly the same as it had been at the start of the match, perhaps a bit more respectful. He cordially handed Elliot a badge. "You fought well," he said, sounding sincere, and Elliot again wondered if he'd imagined the gym leader's look earlier.

Yet somehow, for all the words seemed honest, Elliot felt unsettled, a feeling that didn't leave until he was well away.

-

Elliot wasn't sure what he should do next. He'd been lying a bit when he'd told Luci he intended to go to the Safari Zone, but now that he was in Fuchsia, he didn't see any reason not to. He did need more pokemon.

He headed back up through the city. Like the gym, the Safari Zone was placed on the outskirts of town. The gym was to the south, and the Safari Zone was to the north.

He entered the zoo first. Not all of the pokemon in the zoo came from the Safari Zone, nor were all pokemon that could be found in the Safari Zone represented in the zoo. They were all mildly rare, not the sort that could be easily found in the wild but certainly purchasable. Truly rare pokemon are never in a zoo. They're on a trainer's belt, or perhaps the weakest in a lab somewhere.

The enclosures were all simple, made of simple wood fencing and hedges. The hedges were more of a barrier.

Elliot, perhaps because he had just come from a battle and pokemon power was fresh in his mind, wondered at this. The lapras was stuck, of course, by the end of the water, but why didn't any of the others leave? Perhaps they didn't want to, he thought, but then, why were there barriers at all?

He forgot his questions once he went into the Safari Zone entrance. He handed over the fee to the attendant and walked through the gate.

The ground inside was strangely hard and dry, with scraggly, rough grass growing in patches. Huge slabs of rock were scattered about, with crude steps carved in their sides. It was exotic-looking. Elliot began exploring.

He saw some nidoran and oddish, nothing he was interested in. He wasn't entirely sure what it was he wanted. He'd gone in based on the vague idea that he should have more pokemon, but which, he didn't know.

He heard a noise from behind one of the huge rocky plateaus. He clambered up the light brown stone, looking for the source, but only caught a glimpse of a large blue pokemon, with strange, circular ears and a huge mouth, as it disappeared into the grass. He didn't recognize it, but he didn't know a lot of pokemon. He decided against trying to follow it but resolved to search his pokedex to find out what it was.

The sound had stopped, so it must have been the noisemaker. He climbed back down from the outcrop, to look around at the inner area.

Part of the rock had been shattered somehow. The break was round, as if something had smashed into it. Elliot noticed how strange the jagged fragments from the broken area were, standing out from the rest of the smooth, rounded rock. Rock didn't break like that, he thought. Not neatly, with flat sides and sharp edges, like it'd been cut. Breaking was supposed to be random, like when you tossed a snowball and it fell apart. He picked up one of the bits gingerly and tossed it against the main stone. The piece split, and Elliot stared in surprise at the clean break. Picking up the two pieces, he realized he could fit them together so perfectly he couldn't even see the crack. Weird. He wondered if whatever had broken the rock had left unnatural fractures in the stone.

There was nothing else of interest, so he headed further into the Safari Zone. He saw a clump of nidorina, who let out frightened barks and vanished instantly, so tightly packed and quick moving they looked almost like one creature. He was confused by this, as none of the other pokemon he'd seen so far seemed scared. They'd mainly ignored him unless he tried to approach. This second oddity held his thought longer than the first. He mulled over it as he explored, looking for that pokemon, whatever it might be, that he wanted to catch.

He could see other trainers stalking pokemon. The pokemon didn't seem to be trying to be caught, but they weren't trying to get away either, with the exception of those strange nidorina he'd seen earlier. They didn't run until the trainer was almost next to them. The balls they were hit by wiggled like they were trying to escape, but Elliot couldn't see any of them trying to stay out of range of the Safariballs.

He wondered for the first time whether pokemon wanted freedom, only musing, but still, he wondered. If they didn't want to be caught, why didn't they try to avoid the trainers? Some of them would actually watch the trainers approach, only running when they got too close. Did they just not understand what would happen? But no, he'd seen some of the pokemon break out of Safariballs and yet still not run. It didn't make any sense.

He'd heard something about pokemon testing their trainers, seeing if they were worthy. Perhaps that was it.

He continued on, heading deeper into the park.

Elliot heard noise again. It didn't sound quite the same but he went that way, hoping it'd be the same kind of pokemon and that he'd get a better look at it this time.

But no, it was a jigglypuff, which seemed to be fighting with a male nidoran. There was something strange about it. Jigglypuff were common pokemon, and he'd seen them before. He couldn't tell exactly what looked different, though. He pulled out his pokedex and pointed. "Jigglypuff," it said, "the balloon pokemon. When its huge eyes light up, it sings a mysterious, soothing melody to lull enemies to sleep." The picture was of an almost perfectly round pink ball with pointed ears, gigantic, melting liquid blue eyes, and a large tuff of fur curled on its forehead.

The pokemon before him wasn't quite the same. Its coloring was slightly more purplish, its eyes large but not as large, its ears slightly rounder and curled over a bit. Its body looked slightly thinner than that in the picture, although Elliot realized that, checking the stats his pokedex gave, it was actually a bit wider, but taller by almost a half foot than normal, making it seem slimmer. Most noticeably, the noise it was making was far from soothing. Jarring cries filled the air. The nidoran was flattened against the ground, paws over his large ears.

Elliot, on a whim, flung a Safariball at the pokemon. It looked surprised as the device struck it. The pokeball wiggled twice, then quieted. As Elliot went to retrieve it, the nidoran skittered off.

His time was almost up. He headed back.

As Elliot exited the Safari Zone, he noticed a poster covering the wall. No, he realized, it wasn't a poster. It was an electronic screen, with the names of trainers on it.

Perfect Haul read the title. Below it, it explained that it listed trainers who'd managed to catch pokemon in every one of their Safariballs. There were a lot of names.

Elliot could almost hear the 'gotta catch 'em all' slogan echo in his head. He knew that everyone always said to catch as many as you could, but suddenly, faced with it so transparently, he felt it seemed…well, foolish. Why catch thirty pokemon, just to put twenty-four into your PC? Trainers could only carry and use six at a time. Sometimes people raised more than that, alternating their pokemon to give them all even experience, gambling that the greater diversity would make up for having overall weaker pokemon. But no one would ever use thirty pokemon.

Looking at the list, he realized that some of the names showed up repeatedly. In fact, many of the names were there at least twice, some four or five times.

"Pretty long list, huh?" said a boy. He'd walked up to see it as well. He was about as tall as Elliot, and might have been younger. He wasn't a trainer, Elliot could tell.

"Yeah," Elliot said, not sure how to respond.

"It used to be hard to get on," the boy continued conversationally. "But then people figured out that if you just go after weak pokemon that won't break balls, it's easier, so people started to just catch thirty oddish or some other pokemon like that. They're going to change the rules soon, I heard, so that you get points for how hard the pokemon is to catch."

"Who'd catch thirty oddish?" Elliot asked.

"Oh, lotsa kids here are bored enough. Their PCs are stuffed with 'em," the boy said carelessly.

"John!" called a woman.

"Well, gotta go," he said, walking off.

-

"There's no ferry?" Elliot repeated, dumbfounded.

The man nodded. "That's what I said."

"But- but-" Elliot gestured inarticulately toward the water. "It's right there. Why not?"

"How should I know," the man grumbled. "There's no ship to Cinnabar. You want to get there, you've got to go west, past the mountains, down to Pallet. The ships run there, and they'll take you."

Elliot was baffled – why would there be ships running on one half of the route and not the other? – but there was definitely no way of getting to Cinnabar from here, so he headed west, toward Viridian.

-

"Someone told you that?" The girl's voice was angry. Elliot shrank back slightly. "I'm sorry," she apologized quickly. "I just can't believe it. They're everywhere. Going to Erika-" She shook her head. "No one but an arc would say that."

Elliot had met Gabrielle on his way toward Viridian. She was going to Cerulean, and had offered to go with him until they got to the mountains. She was sixteen, the oldest trainer he'd ever met or heard of, outside of stories. Figuring she might know better what was going on, he'd recounted some of the stranger things that'd happened.

"So you know what it means?"

The older girl looked indecisive. "Well…" She sighed. "I suppose you're already in it. We don't usually tell new trainers, figure it's best to just let you have fun and drop out on your own, without anything bad happening. Plenty of cherubs quit on their own, without League interference.

"I don't know where the terms came from, if you're wondering. I heard from someone once that it started back when older trainers where nicknamed demons, but I don't know if that's true or even if there ever were older trainers. Anyway, the rest followed, or so I heard. So you guys are the cherubs, you're cute, innocent and not really the most intimidating fighters. I'm demi, a trainer who's got stronger pokemon than a cherub, doesn't look young enough, and has some idea of what's going on. Not much, not why, but what happens. Then there's archangels."

She stopped, thinking. "Arcs," she repeated. "They're…well, they're trainers who don't seem like trainers, I guess. Arcs have pokemon that they don't seem to have trained. They show up in Unrestricted tournaments, knock out a couple trainers but never win the title. Rumor has it they're connected with the League somehow, but they're practically invisible. I've never noticed one outside of a tournament. Sounds like the girl you met was one of them, I never knew they traveled with other trainers."

"But how can you tell they're not just good trainers?"

Gabrielle shrugged. "They seem wrong. Off."

"But then what are they?"

"Some demi think they're League watchdogs. They keep tabs on trainers, make sure no one gets too-strong pokemon or wins too much. They try to keep the cherubs and demi separate – that's why demi don't win at Unrestricted tournaments. Me, I don't know. You just see them, trainers whose pokemon are always strong but never go out of control or do even slightly too much damage. Trainers who can beat demi but not cheri."

Elliot thought this sounded a little farfetched, but didn't say anything. The idea of League spies and all that sounded too much like some paranoid conspiracy theory. "And Michael's ninetales?" he asked.

"I don't see why a Joy couldn't claim a pokemon was still injured when it wasn't," Gabrielle said, sounding strangely bitter. "If she says it's dead, what are you supposed to do, demand to see it? She's supposed to be the ultimate authority."

"That sounds more like something Team Rocket would do," Elliot said. "Pretend to be a Nurse Joy and steal pokemon that way."

"Yeah, maybe," said Gabrielle. "Just remember, if you want to make it as a trainer, don't take things at face value."

You don't need to take Gabrielle completely seriously, what she says is just what she thinks, and she could always be wrong about some of it or all of it. Well, now you know some of the slang.

Does everyone know how rocks break?

Next chapter: more things happen. Surprising, huh? We learn why Gabrielle doesn't like the Joys and why she's going to Cerulean. Something happens with a nidorina. And…well, you'll just have to see!