Chapter 3

The next morning, Shane woke up and nudged Electrike awake. The pokémon obliged, and yawned a bit. Shane figured that now was the right time to have their talk. He wasn't sure how much Electrike knew about training, but he figured not too much, knowing the idiotic government, As he couldn't directly translate what Electrike was saying, he basically summarized everything up.

After the whole summary, the little guy seemed a bit confused, but he finally nodded after some thought. Shane couldn't tell what his confusion was about, and he had no way to pinpoint it. He then recalled the guy, and decided to finally head out. Before taking off, however, he inserted more money into the paper machine, and bought another copy of The Kanto Post. He was in such a hurry that he stuffed the thing into his backpack without reading it.

Shane wandered around Pallet for a bit, until he found a signpost showing the way out. Shane was too distracted to notice last night, but the town was rather small. It was bigger then Cinnabar, but still small. He read the signpost, and took the path out of town and toward the route to Viridian City.

Shane entered the route and look around at the surroundings. They should be heading north, but the thing wasn't much of a route. There wasn't even a path! It had trees, fields, and even a stream going through it. Shane stopped there to fill his bottle, and to scrummage through his backpack. Finding his compass, he held it in his right hand. He was going to need it if he didn't become lost in this place.

After some time, a Rattata scurried by and stopped in front of Shane, questioning him, Shane took a look, and noticed it was a purple mouse-like creature with creamish underbelly parts. It was rather cute, and did look like it wanted a battle. Electrike did need some practice after all.

Shane grabbed his ball, hesitating. He threw it to the ground, and the little guy came out, and examined his surroundings. Completely ignoring the Rattata, he jumped onto Shane, and started licking his face again. Shane put him down, but the Electrike still din't notice the Rattata. He was more focused on a Caterpie, and started curiously following it.

"Electrike, listen. It is rather good that you're curious about everything, but this purple rat Pokémon looks like it wants to battle. Are you up to it? You can go explore the fields a bit afterward." asked Shane. Electrike tore his eyes off the Caterpie and nodded.

Electrike faced the Rattata, with Shane behind the Electrike. The Rattata stared down Electrike, and started running toward it. Shane and Electrike just stood there for a bit, never being in a battle before. Shane suddenly seemed to get back into focus.

"Electrike! Move out of its path," commanded Shane. Electrike walked away from the path it was charging into, and Shane rolled his eyes a bit. They were going to have to talk more in detail about this later.

Electrike, to his credit, at least had his focus on the Rattata, and not something else. That was something that sometimes became a problem. "Electrike, see if you can run toward it, and tackle it," stated Shane. Electrike nodded, and ran toward the Rattata. He jumped into the air, preparing to land on it, but the Rattata moved out of his path at the last instant, and Electrike ended up falling on the hard ground. Electrike just lay there. He wasn't knocked out, but he was hurt a little, and didn't feel like getting up. It was actually very minor, since he landed on all four feet, but it made those feet sore. He knew he should be battling, but figured resting wouldn't hurt any.

Rattata, taking advantage of Electrike's hesitation, tackled straight into the Electrike. It barely did anything, due to their sizes, but it was enough for Electrike to get up. He really did not like that tackle. Electrike sighed, and started running toward the Rattata. His head then made contact with its body, and that sent him flying onto the ground. Shane was impressed.

"Nice job, Electrike. It looks like you got it. That was a good practice, but we do need to work on this a bit." Shane sighed, and gave the Electrike a potion. He glanced in the Rattata's position, and was relieved to see that other Rattata were already tending to it. That was good. He didn't want to just leave it there.

He let the Electrike wander around, keeping to his promise of letting him explore the fields some. The routine continued like this for a little while, until they were interrupted again, this time by something more unpleasent. Shane groaned. This was literally the last thing he wanted to deal with right now.

The thing in question was a man who came out into Shane's line-of-vision. He looked sinister, and was even wearing an expression to look it. Shane took one look at the outfit, and recognized it. He read about these people so much in The Kanto Post that he immediately knew who they were.

"Hello there, little kid. I demand that you hand over your Electrike right this instant," said the man. That was the last thing Shane expected. True, it was a Rocket member, but his Electrike was only a new starter. Shouldn't they be after something better?"

"What do you want with me, Rocket?" asked Shane. "I just received this Electrike yesterday. Shouldn't you be after some stronger pokémon?" Shane was utterly curious.

"Don't ask about things you shouldn't be concerned with. Go, my pokémon! Get the Electrike!" He threw his own ball, and a form began to take shape. It enlarged, and started forming into none other then a Sceptile.

"Trike!" cried the Electrike, obvious fear in its voice. It was scared, very scared, and immediately jumped into Shane's arms, shaking all over. The Rocket and Sceptile, however, seemed to care less. If anything, the Rocket looked even happier about this.

"Sceptile! Go get the boy and his Electrike!" The Sceptile seemed to understand, and took off after them. Shane sighed, and began to run, fast. very fast. There was only one thing he could think of to do. Electrike was obviously no match for the Sceptile, even if he wasn't shaking all over.

"HELP! There's a mad Rocket after me, and he sent his Sceptile after me to steal my Electrike. HELP US!" Shane yelled it as fast as he could, and he could of sworn he heard the Rocket curse. At least he was annoying the guy some. That helped a bit, but not much.

"Leave them alone!" sounded an unfamiliar voice, a male. "Go Houndoom!" A black canine came out, its white horns gleaming in the sun. "Houndoom! Attack that Sceptile with Flamethrower. Houndoom nodded, and an orange and yellow flame came out of his mouth, and hit the Sceptile by surprise. The Sceptile looked very shocked at the surprise attack, and slashed the Houndoom, without being told to.

"Sceptile! You're not supposed to do anything unless I tell you to! Tyler! Why do you always disrupt my plans?" screamed the enraged Rocket. Sceptile flinched, but looked proud of itself for slashing the Houndoom anyway.

"Houndoom! Sunny Day!" yelled the other man, Shane assumed it was Tyler. Houndoom closed its eyes, and the sun came more into focus, and began shining even brighter then usual.

"Sceptile, use Slash!" yelled the trainer. Sceptile didn't look happy about being commanded to use the same attack it was yelled at for earlier, but ran toward Houndoom anyway, who managed to jump out of the way that time.

"Houndoom, finish it with Flamethrower!" Houndoom sent out another orange flame from its mouth. The sceptile, still mad with its trainer concerning the Slash, didn't even attempt to dodge the thing. As a result, it fainted.

"You have failed me, Sceptile. Tyler, I will revenge you one of these days." The Rocket kicked the Sceptile, followed by recalling it into the ball. He then took out toward the East.

It was at this moment that Shane got his first look at Tyler. He was average height, and had friendly brown eyes. His reddish hair was waving around, and he did chase off that Rocket. "Thank you, Tyler and Houndoom," said Shane in appreciation. "We were really scared."

"No problem, kid. You did great, Houndoom." Houndoom barked in appreciation, and was recalled by Tyler. "That was a very smart thing you did back there, yelling for help. If it wasn't for your yelling, I wouldn't of ran down here in the first place to help. Anyway, bye. Good luck in the future." Tyler seemed regretful about something, butthen walked away before Shane could ask more.

"Well, Electrike, that was very interesting."