Chapter 2

Atsukai trudged down the long dirt path that leads to the next town. The cool air blew past his cheeks and his bare arms. Atsukai had now started to reconsider his choice of clothing. He was wearing a skintight biking shirt underneath his sleeveless grey and burgundy turtleneck vest. He was also wearing a pair of baggy black shorts and some scruffy old black buckle-up boots. His arms and legs felt freezing. What I do for the sake of looking tough… he thought, sighing hopelessly.

"Hey, you, Emo kid! Wait up!" he heard someone call, along with the beat of running feet. He didn't turn around. If there was one thing that he hated it was being called Emo. The person ran up next to him, panting like a dog, and slowed to a walk. "Are you a trainer?" the person asked, grinning widely.

Atsukai looked the person over, making sure to keep an un-caring expression on his face. The person was a boy who looked maybe a year or two older than him, with dark skin and shoulder-length blonde hair braided into hundreds of bouncy little braids. He was only an inch or two taller than Atsukai and was incredibly skinny. He wore a blue sweatshirt that had sleeves that ended at his elbows and dark blue pants that over lapped two sneakers at the bottoms.

"Well…" Atsukai said blankly, finally looking into the boy's bright blue eyes. "Who are you supposed to be?" The boy frowned disapprovingly, almost brokenheartedly, and then spat a reply.

"You're not a trainer, then, I suppose?" he said politely before turning and starting to walk away. Atsukai grabbed his shoulder.

"Yes, yes I am a trainer." He said distastefully, rolling his eyes. He could see the boy smirking plainly. "What of it?"

"I challenge you to a battle!" the boy yelled, as if Atsukai was going to run off at any second. "You can't turn down my challenge!"

Atsukai, while being able to keep his bad-boy appearance, was overcome with joy. His first battle. This is what he'd been waiting for. "Sure." He said, hardly resisting the urge to smile. He threw his poke' ball to the ground, releasing his absol, Luffy. "Luffy! Go get em'!" he shouted.

"Wow! An absol! Those are rare, you know!" the boy exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Smart and strong too!" he pulled a poke' ball out of his pocket and tossed it to the ground as well. "Go, Reffo!" a strange fish appeared before the boy, seeming to float in midair, almost. "Like my relicanth? Reffo's my buddy, right boy?" the relicanth made a weird squeaking noise that seemed to mean "sure am!".

"I'll go first," Atsukai said concentrating on Luffy's four moves. "Luffy! Um… use… use thunderbolt!" Luffy looked at him for a second before shooting a bolt of electricity at Reffo.

"Reffo, dodge it, quick!" The boy yelled, a satisfied look on his face. The fish swam to the side, avoiding the electricity easily. "Now use earthquake!" the fish sent a powerful force hurling at the ground causing it to shake madly. Luffy was hit directly by the force, stumbling over and collapsing to the ground. The boy waited for a few seconds before calling back his relicanth and grinning toothily at Atsukai. "I think that I've won."

Atsukai collapsed to his knees beside Luffy. "Luffy…" he breathed, bringing the pokemon's head to rest on his arms. "C'mon Luffy. Stand up." Atsukai himself couldn't believe that he was close to tears. It was just a pokemon.

"He's just fainted." The blonde boy said. "If you take him to the pokemon center he'll be right as rain." Atsukai glanced up at the boy, who was now standing next to him.

"Oh," Atsukai said embarrassedly, his face beet red. He returned Luffy to his poke' ball.

"My name's Sho Amai." The boy said, helping Atsukai to his feet. "I just defeated the gym leader in that last town. It's really fun to battle, actually. It was hard for me on my first try, too."

"How did you know that it was my first time?"

"Okay, not to burst your bubble or anything, but you know absolutely nothing about pokemon. Even someone who has just battled once knows more than you do."

Atsukai frowned. He didn't do that badly, did he?

"Let's get your Luffy to the pokemon center." Sho said sheepishly, changing the subject. "He's actually a great pokemon, you know. He just needs training."

Author's notes

My new character Sho Amai's name means "little sweet". Just throwing that out there. Damn, all my character's personalities are flipping out .

Oh yeah, while I remember this I should say it (write it) this turned out to be more of a comic layout than a story. Sorry bout that. That's why I'll never be a writer, just a manga artist ; I make all the readers suffer that way.