At the center Armaina waited for Nurse Joy to get back with her new pidgey, which wasn't long.

"Well, your pidgey is just fine, and your pidgey is a boy."

"Ok, thank-you again."

"No problem."

Armaina took back the pokéball containing the newly caught pidgey.

"Well, looks like you won't be so outnumbered by girls, hun Blaze?"

"Growl!" Blaze barked his reply.

"So, how about we go greet our new member…"

Armaina then turned to Monarch who still rested in her shoulder.

"And feed him, so that he doesn't go after you again…"

"riee!" Monarch nodded rapidly.

Once outside Armaina released the pidgey from his pokéball. The pidgey looked around; figuring out where he was and who he was with. When he noticed the caterpie he had tried to catch earlier, he attempted to try and go after her again.

"WHOA! Wait a sec!"

Quickly Armaina pulled out some food for the pidgey, as well as putting Monarch out of the pidgey's sight. After pausing a moment to study the food, then finally dug in. Armaina sighed, glad that the conflict between the pidgey and Monarch would be over... well for the moment at least.

Armaina watched as the pidgey ate his food, as well getting out food for the rest of her team.

"Now let's see… you'll need a name. Hmm…"

Armaina thought of a good name for the pidgey.

"Well how about Cirocco?"

The pidgey looked up from his food, considering it a moment.

"Piddge!" he cooed, then returned to gorging himself.

"Well, that's great!"

Armaina watched her pokémon eat their food, then suddenly remembered Empress. She took out the pokéball, releasing Empress to join the rest of the pokémon with their dinners.

"Alright, now I know you won't listen to me, but you still gotta eat."

Armaina set down a bowl of food in front of Empress, who didn't really react to it right away. Turning her head she sniffed it a little then finally started to eat.

"Hey, don't eat too fast…" Armaina commented sarcastically at Empress's slow eating.

Once all her pokémon were given their meals, Armaina got some food for herself. Not a few minutes into her meal, she heard something not too far from where she was sitting. It sounded almost like some sort of trainer battle.

"Common Keith! You can get that rattata!"

Armaina got up from where she was sitting, though looking over her shoulder at her pokémon, to make sure that they were fine.

Upon passing a bush, Armaina saw just what she had expected, a trainer about her age was fighting, a wild rattata in fact. The trainer was shorter than she was, a girl, with black hair, done up in two partial buns, commanding a bubasaur, apparently by the name of Keith, to battle a rattata into submission.

"Use your tackle again!"

She apparently was a fairly new trainer too, since her bulbasaur was only using low-grade attacks, and she didn't really seem all too sure on how to handle the battle.

The bulbasaur's attack hit right on, and the rattata was tossed to the side.

"Alright! Now… let's see…"

The girl looked around, finally finding the empty pokéball.

"Ok!"

She tossed the ball at the tired rattata, catching it without too much trouble.

"YES! That's our first one!"

The girl jumped up and down picking up the ball.

"You see that Keith! This is the first step to starting an all-star team!"

She presented the ball to her partner.

"Bluba!"

Armaina still stood her ground watching, but not really sure whether to speak up or not. After a moment, she walked back to where her team was finishing their dinners. Armaina sat back down with her team, as the trainer and her bulbasaur walked into view out from the brush. The trainer paused a moment when she spotted Armaina and all of her pokémon out eating together, though what really got her attention was the oddly colored charmander. She decided to walk a little closer to see if the charmander was really a different color than normal, or if her eyes where just playing tricks on her.
Armaina heard the girl coming closer to them and turned around. The girl stopped in her tracks looking a little embarrassed.

"Oh.. uh hi.. I just uh… wanted to get a closer look at your charmander, I've never seen one like it before. I'll go now if I'm interrupting anything."

"No it's alright. The charmander's name is Empress… which I named her because of her attitude."

Armaina smiled at the girl, who became a bit more at ease with Armaina's friendly attitude.

"Well, at any rate, my name's Armaina. And you?"

"Oh! My name's Samantha, and this is my bulbasaur, Keith, we just finished adding our first pokémon to the team, a Rattata."

Samantha said proudly, then looked over Armaina's group.

"You've got quite a group of pokémon. Have you been battling long?"

Armaina shook her head.

"No, just started today. I guess I just kinda got lucky though!" She laughed a little.

Samantha looked to Empress again; who wasn't paying attention to either of the trainers, then sat down next to Armaina, Keith sitting by her side.

"So how did you manage to get a charmander like that anyway? I hardly doubt they would allow a new trainer to start out with a pokémon like that."

Empress snorted as she heard Samantha ask the question, in a manner that suggested she may have heard such a question before. Armaina shrugged.

"No, I didn't start out with her, I just got her from Prof. Ivy, that's all. Apparently the charmander has had some trouble with former trainers, and wouldn't listen to any of them. Actually, I started out with Blaze here."

Armaina reached over and scratched her growlithe's ear. "He's been in my family for as long as I can remember, so I had some training experience way before I started."

Samantha queried Armaina again.

"So did you catch the rest of your team today, or what?"

Armaina nodded.

"Yeah, heh… tripped over Monarch, the little caterpie over there, and then I caught Cirocco, and surprisingly enough, it was Monarch who did most the work for catching Cirocco."

Samantha looked over at the Caterpie she had hardly noticed before, seeing that it was albino.

"A white caterpie! You just have all the luck don't you!"

Armaina laughed a little, though her expression was more unsure than confident She never was one to take more credit than what she really deserved, thus creating a bit of awkwardness for her. It certainly wasn't that big of a deal.

"Well, I guess you could say that, though it's really not that big a deal. 'Sides, Monarch is blind, which will make her very hard to train."

Samantha paused a moment, looking at the little caterpie.

"She's also kinda small too."

Monarch started to get a little defensive at the comment. Armaina looked down at the caterpie, and shrugged.

"That may be so, but you know, size isn't everything, in fact, it could even be a benefit, it would make it harder for other pokémon to hit her, because of her size."

Samantha thought about it a moment.

"Yeah I guess…. You know, even though you said you're just a new trainer, you certainly sound as though you've battle a lot longer than that."

Once again, Armaina laughed at the comment.

"No, I just had a lot of time to think about it. I'm always strategizing, and thinking of various scenarios and such. Actually, I wasn't able to start my pokémon training until I turned 11... so I had a year where I was really anxious and read up nearly everything on pokémon."

"... You're 11? Why didn't you start a year ago?" Samantha's expression flattened.
"Err well, my parents are kinda... overprotective.. I had a hard enough time convincing them to let me go this year. I had to promise to call them as soon as I got to a phone, so that they'd know I was alright."

"Hmm.. I see... " Samantha had an almost 'sucks-for-you' expression on her face.

Suddenly, Samantha remembered the rattata that she had caught, than that she hadn't given it a name yet. She got out the pokéball that contained the rattata.

"You wanna help me give a name to the rattata I just caught?"

Armaina shrugged.

"Sure, why not?"

Samantha released the rattata, who stretched and looked about.

"So are you a boy rattata?"

Samantha asked, which the rattata vigorously shook its head to.

"Ok then, that means we need a girls name."

Armaina thought, though nothing interesting was coming to mind… well, any name that she wasn't already planning to use on her own pokémon.

"Violet?" She shrugged.

The rattata shook her head slightly.

"Well how about… um… Casey?"

Samantha suggested. The rattata thought a moment, then nodded.

"That's great." Samanatha smiled, picking up the rattata.

Samantha turned to Armaina.

"I'm going to go to the pokémon center to get Casey fixed up."

"Well, I was planning to go there myself anyway and spend the night there, as soon as my team was finished eating."

"Oh, ok then, well, I'll meet 'cha there!"

With that, Samantha stood up, carrying Casey to the center, Keith following not too far behind. Armaina looked over her troop. Most of them were finished, though Empress just took her sweet time.

"You know, even though I'm calling you Empress, doesn't mean I'm going to treat you like one."

Empress didn't even look up at Armaina, ignoring her entirely.

Armaina turned to the rest of her group.

"You guys all set?"

Each of them gave their own way of saying they were ready to get going, save Empress of course.

"Alright then, we're just going to the center to turn in for the night, that's all. We'll head off again in the morning."

The team acknowledged her statement, and worked together to get everything packed back up. Armaina turned back to Empress.

"I'd hurry up and eat if I were you, 'cus your food'll be packed up wither you finish it or not."

Empress glared at Armaina a moment, huffed, then finished off the rest of her food.

After things were set, Armaina and her team set off to the center. Since it wasn't that far away, Armaina didn't bother putting her team into their pokéballs, and let them walk with her to the center, so that they could enjoy being outside for a while longer. Of course, Empress trailed behind. Armaina walked into the center, where she saw Samantha getting ready for the night. Armaina walked over, followed by her team, and sat next to Samantha.

"So where are you headed to anyway?"

Samantha thought a moment, "Well, I'm not sure. No where in particular, since I don't have a real team built up anyway."

Armaina nodded.

"Ditto. I'm going to have to get some water pokémon before I can challenge two of the gyms. I could probably go to the gym on Navel Island… Though, I'd still have to train hard to get anywhere."

Samantha nodded in agreement.

"Hey, you wanna travel together? I know my parents are worried sick about me being alone and all, and we could help each other out." Samantha suggested brightly.

"Yeah, my parents are the same way." Armaina smiled, recalling when her parents 'sent her off' that day. "Well, I don't see why not, it makes sense to me. It'll even help with training."

Samantha was about to say something, when she saw Armaina's team was still out. "Aren't you going to put them back into their pokéballs?" "Huh?" Armaina looked back at her pokémon and shrugged. "I don't see why I should. I mean, they're all rather small, and they're not hurting anyone."

"Well, I guess so…" Samantha shrugged.

"Well, anyway, goodnight."

Samantha stated before, burying herself into her sleeping bag. Armaina finished setting out her sleeping bag, and took a look around to make sure her team was all right and settled, then climbed into her sleeping bag as well, letting Blaze snuggle up next to her like he would do at home, then slowly fell asleep.