Hope everyone that read enjoyed chapter one. I rushed it out and wrote it all at once. Will not be doing that again, was not a fun experience and I'm sure the writing felt rushed when you read it as well. Here's chapter 2 of 'A Special Bond'. Again, I, own nothing. R&R :)
The next few days flew by in a flash. Between getting used to houndour and getting him adjusted to my home, along with shopping for supplies for my upcoming journey, I was kept fairly busy. I had decided to journey on foot, as I felt taking a vehicle would cause me to miss out on too much experience, so shoes were high up on my list of priorities. After shoes I figured a good travel bag to store clothes and a sleeping bag in would come in handy. Add in other essentials for the trip, and I had already spent most of my graduation money, but again, they were essentials, so it was fine.
Using the last of my funds, I went for the trainer section of the nearest store, and stocked up on potions and full heals, plus a few pokeballs in case I found any pokemon I took a liking to. Upon returning home, I walked inside to find houndour attempting to catch furrett, and failing miserably. Furrett was clearly baiting houndour, with a mischievous look on her face, as she ran down the hallway, houndour hot in pursuit with the same determined look in his eyes as always, but there was a hint of happiness in there as well. 'Oh well, at least they're enjoying themselves.' I thought to myself, fondly.
After about half an hour they both returned to the couch I was relaxing on, and decided to hop up and lie down on my legs, and that was where we stayed for nearly 2 hours, all of us falling asleep comfortably.
Ding! Ding!
I was awoken to the sound of the doorbell ringing. As I opened the door, a man stepped in with graying hair and a lab coat, "hello! You must be Christian." The man said with a smile.
"Yep, that's me." I replied nonchalantly, as houndour walked closer to find out who was here.
"Ah, and this must be the houndour your father told me about, my my, a shiny, and a houndour no less. Did you know that houndour are actually extremely rare for this area, they're mostly found further west, and this is mostly mightyena territory. They must have been chased fairly far by those poachers you apprehended, fantastic work on that by the way, any friend to pokemon is a friend to me, and you have most definitely proven yourself a friend of pokemon, judging by you risking your life for them." The man said excitedly, clearly interested in houndours odd coloring, yet trying to make small talk.
"Uh, who are you?" I questioned.
"Oh, did your father not tell you I was coming?" he said "That does sound like him, he was always slightly forgetful... well my boy, to answer your question, I am the pokemon professor, Professor Oak, perhaps you've heard of me?"
My eyes grew wide, as I had heard of him before. Professor Oak was the name of one of the leading pokemon professors, possibly being the most well known of them all. "Yea, you could say that," I retorted weakly "But why are you here sir?" I finished respectfully, as I was now aware of his status.
"Please, don't call me sir, it makes me feel older than I already am," he joked. "And I'm here because your father told me you were about to start a journey and are in need of a pokedex." He then proceeded to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out said item.
"W-well yea, I am, but are you sure you want to just hand one of those out, they're supposed to be expensive!" I stuttered out.
"You know Christian, back in the days before these became mass produced for trainers, I personally handed these out to trainers I felt could be better off with them, not to mention they helped me study pokemon." The professor answered. "Just ask your father, I gave him his pokedex when he started his journey, he was very helpful for my research before he decided he had had enough of exploring."
"WAIT, WHAT?!" I yelled, causing furrett and houndour to jump. "Yes, your father was a fantastic trainer, although his focus was more on finding pokemon than it was about badge collecting, although if I remember correctly, he had 6 badges throughout 3 different continents before he took a job at my lab and settled down." He finished
"So... you're telling me, my father was a trainer too, and a good one at that." I double checked to make sure it was my father he was talking about.
"Yes, he was." The professor replied.
'Well, isn't this a revelation.' I thought, wondering what all he'd done as a trainer.
Professor Oak then reached out the hand with the pokedex to deposit it in my own hand. "Tell me, are your mother and father going to be home soon?" he asked, "it's been a long while since I've seen them, and I'd enjoy sitting down to catch up"
"Uh, they're at the grocery store at the moment, they should be home-"I was interrupted by the sound of my parent's car pulling up. "I guess they're home now." Oak laughed, and said "perfect timing then, oh before I forget, before you leave for my journey, you should stop by my lab, when you do, I'll gift you a pokemon from my lab, it's a tradition I used to do back in the day, and I'd like to keep it going." He finished with a smile, which I returned. As my parents walked in, I greeted them then retreated once again to my room to let them talk.
After spending some time figuring out the ins and outs of my new pokedex, I decided it was time to officially catch houndour, now that I had pokeballs. "Ok buddy, here's how this is gonna work, I'm just gonna tap this button against your forehead, wait a few seconds, then release you again, ok?" he didn't seem very enthused with the idea of going into the pokeball, but agreed with a slow nod. After the customary shake...shake...shake...ding! Houndour was caught, and I released him, which he seemed grateful for. 'Note to self, houndour doesn't like pokeballs, guess I'll be mostly leaving him outside.'
One visit to the gym and a shower later, I was sitting on the couch once again, the professor having left while I was gone, but leaving a note with the address of his lab and his phone number, saying "If you have trouble finding the place, just call for directions!"
I pocketed the note for later and continued talking to my parents, "So let me get this straight, you were a pokemon photographer?"
"Yep, I photographed and battled pokemon from many different areas for the professor, learning how they behaved in their natural environments was a great experience, along with befriending many people and pokemon." My father said, eyes seeing past me, reflecting old times.
"It's also how your father and I met," my mom continued "I met him on one of his final excursions; he was visiting the mid-west to photograph bouffalant herds and happened to stop in my home town. I was working as a waitress at the time and happened to overhear what he was doing and after that we started talking only to find out how much we had in common." She said grabbing my father's hand after finishing speaking.
"Right, well I'm gonna leave you two before I see something I don't want to see." I replied
"ok." Both simply replied at my lame attempt at a joke, smiling at each other.
Before I knew it, I was pretty much ready to leave for my journey. All that was left was to visit Oak's lab, which was about an hour long drive from my home. The lab he told me to visit was near a nature reserve in Missouri, and was one of nearly a dozen he owned across the US. Pulling in, the fence surrounding the compound seemed to go on for miles, with only a single, large building to show the area was inhabited by beings other than pokemon. After parking and approaching the building, I was approached by a scientist, or lab assistant of some sort, "excuse me, do you have business here?" he asked, a bit brusquely "Yea, I'm here to see professor Oak, is he in at the moment?" I questioned in return. "Do you have an appointment with him?" 'Ok this question for question shit is getting annoying' I thought, aggravated. "Does this count?" I replied handing him the note Oak had left me. Upon seeing it, the assistants eyes grew slightly and he said "Oh, you're the one the professor said to be waiting for, sorry about all the questions, but you know, you can never be too careful these days; now, come with me please, I'll take you to him."
'Wonder what happened to make that necessary.' I pondered. As we walked inside, we were greeted by a fossil of a pokemon, what seemed to be a kabutops. As we walked down a hallway, the assistant branched off into a side room, and I followed him in to see the professor and a Mr. Mime trying to calm down an angry ariados. "Ariados, we need you to stay still so we can get a look at your injury!" Oak said, with Mr. Mime seemingly repeating what he said to ariados. The ariados replied with a string shot to Mr. Mime's face.
"Um, do you need some help professor?" I asked, gesturing to houndour, who nodded in agreement. "Yes, I suppose we do, although I was hoping to do this without harming him..." Oak replied, as me and houndour took a battle stance.
"ar-ariados!" the spider pokemon also took a battle stance, flinging another string shot at houndour.
"Houndour, burn the web with ember!" I said, and houndour complied, burning through the web, and having enough leftover power to also hit the ariados.
"Houndour!" houndour seemed to be egging the ariados to get up, enjoying the battle.
Ariados did manage to stand up, but you could see the attack had done serious damage, as he was wobbly on his legs. Even weakened, it still managed to use poison sting, and hit houndour with it, although he took the hit in stride and countered with another ember, ending the match.
"Great job houndour!" I said, as oak approached us. "Yes, that was quite a good battle, you both make a great team." He said, applying a potion to houndour to heal him, then walking over to the ariados, and pulling a splinter of wood out of one of its legs. "So this is what was causing it to be so aggressive..." he said to himself, as he applied a revive and potion to it as well. As the ariados stood up, it seemed much calmer, nodding to the professor, then to me and houndour, then going out through an open window, back into the forest. After a moment of watching the window, Oak turned to me and said "Alright, let's get you your new pokemon then you can begin your own pokemon journey." He then proceeded to leave the room, so I decided to follow him out, the assistant staying behind to clean the room we were just in.
Back in the main room of the facility, the professor went to a table in the corner of the room full of pokeballs. "I've brought these guys here specifically because I think they are all pokemon that could benefit from seeing the world with you, Christian." He swept his arm over the table to emphasize his point. "the pokemon here all belong to different labs of mine, and I had them transferred here just for today, they all understand that one of them will be joining you, so go ahead, make a choice." He said, standing aside. "Ok, I'm just gonna make it at random if you don't mind, that'd be a lot of pokemon to look at, and I don't want any of them to feel disappointed if they don't get chosen, so random seems best."
"Sure, go ahead."
As I stood in front of the table with around 30 pokeballs on it, I decided to simply close my eyes and feel around for a bit until I found one I wanted to pull up. After around 20 seconds, I stopped and randomly grabbed one. Then I opened my eyes and released my new pokemon from its pokeball. "Raltz!" my second pokemon greeted with a smile, which I returned. 'A psychic type, huh.' I thought, slightly happy that it wasn't another fire or dark type, although I would have still used it because it was a gift from the professor, it would have been a disadvantage to have two of the same type on my team. 'Good thing I don't have to worry about that now.'
"Ah, good choice; Raltz is from my lab near the great lakes, she's very energetic and caring, you three will get along great!" He said as he pet Raltz on the head.
"well, now that that's taken care of, is there anything else you need while I'm here professor, I'm planning on leaving in the next two days, so this will probably be the last time I come by here for awhile."
"Now that you mention it, there is something I forgot to do when i gave you that pokedex, do you have it on you?"
"Yea, here you go." I said, handing him my pokedex.
"What I had forgotten to do was set a laboratory to send the data from your 'dex to, you see you're actually helping me out as well by sending me data on pokemon you find, it's fairly helpful to do this every so often to see how Pokémon's habits and habitats change over time, I am a scientist after all, and a scientist must keep accurate information. Anyways, there, I have it set now, here you go, Christian." He finished messing with the pokedex and handed it back to me.
"So, am I all set now?" I asked, Ready to go home and sleep before I leave.
"Yes, you should be, just remember my phone number should you need anything, Christian, other than that, good luck on your adventure!" he happily finished. Afterwards I shook his hand and proceeded to leave to begin the drive home, taking it slow as I wouldn't be in my truck again for a long while. Upon arriving home I parked my truck out of the way so I could leave it at my parents' house without it bothering them. Then I made my way inside, exchanged greetings with my family, and went up to my room, for the last time for a long time.
The next day arrived with both happiness and sadness lingering in my mind. While I was ready to begin my adventure with raltz and houndour, a part of me was still sad at leaving my parents so suddenly, and although they understood, I could see the same sadness reflecting in their eyes as well. Before I knew it, it was noon and time for my departure. My mother told me she'd drive me to the edge of town, just to get me started, and I agreed, not wanting to see anyone else I'd have to say goodbye too, because there was no one else I particularly wanted to say goodbye to.
She stopped at the edge of town and I hopped out of her sedan. As I got out, I saw her eyes tearing up, said one last heartfelt goodbye, and set out walking with houndour at my side, and raltz in her pokeball, not looking back.
AN: shorter than last time, didn't write it all at once, but now that I'm past the introduction and the familial goodbyes, I can get into the actual journey, and make things more interesting. Hope anyone who read enjoyed, see you next chapter.