Walking down the dirt road to New Bark Town, Tony yawned. He probably would have reached the next stop on his travels by now if it was just Charizard and himself. It wasn't that Cordelia was a boring person, far from it. In Tony's mind's eye, it simply proved difficult if not impossible to talk to her about the things he deemed important without getting the feeling that he was boring her to death.
Cordelia, on the other hand, longed to ask him a ton of questions, but didn't want to annoy him and feel like she was intruding upon subjects that Tony might not want to talk about. The two of them continued in silence until they reached the edge of the woods. From a distance, they saw a person running towards them from New Bark Town.
"I wonder who that is." Cordelia voiced the question on both of their minds.
"Probably a new trainer." Tony replied with interest as the person got closer.
"Hey, are either of you a pokemon trainer?" the newcomer asked as soon as she got close enough to communicate normally.
"I am." Tony declared. "What's up?"
"Oh, wow! My first day as a trainer and I find someone to battle with right off the bat!" the girl squealed.
"Wait a minute. Just because I'm a trainer doesn't mean I want to battle." Tony spouted.
"What's the matter? Afraid that my pokemon will beat yours?" the girl taunted.
"No. That's not it at all!" Tony exclaimed in annoyance. "Who the heck are you, anyway?"
"I'm your next opponent, unless you're too scared to battle me." she teased.
"Oh my.." Cordelia muttered as she saw that Tony's ire had been provoked.
"Nobody calls Anthony Ketchum a chicken and gets away without eating their words!" Tony exclaimed as he pulled out Chikorita's pokeball.
"That's more like it!" the girl replied as she tossed up her pokeball. "Totodile, let's go!"
"Chikorita, let's show this upstart that we have the upper hand!" Tony said as he also threw out his pokeball.
As both trainer's pokemon emerged, Tony smirked. Not only did his pokemon have a type advantage, but he himself had several years more experience.
"Use Water Gun!" the girl commanded of her pokemon.
"Chikorita, dodge it and use Vine Whip to get closer to that Totodile." Tony called out.
As Totodile's attack neared the plant type pokemon, Chikorita dashed out of the way and extended its vines to wrap around Totodile's lithe body. The girl gasped with uncertainty. She wasn't prepared for a battle with a pokemon that was just that more quicker than her own. In a way, Tony was surprised as well, but more so impressed than anything else - after all, Chikorita did nearly defeat his own higher leveled Charizard.
"Use Bubble Beam, Totodile!" Without anywhere else to turn, the attack hit Chikorita straight in the face.
"Now Chikorita! Use Poison Powder!" Tony growled in anger.
"No! Totodile, return!" the girl cried out, while returning Totodile into its pokeball.
"What? Why did you do that for?" Tony shouted with a snort. "You started this battle, you should see it through to the very end, otherwise you have no right to demand a battle with every trainer you come in contact with!"
"You're right." The girl said dejectedly. "I'm sorry. It was my first day as a trainer. I guess I got a bit overconfident." She paused for a second, quietly trying to amend. "By the way, my name is Suriya."
"Nice to meet you, Suriya. My name's Cordelia." Cordelia replied while stepping closer to the pair of trainers.
Tony wanted to harangue some more, but one of Cordelia's hands landing lightly on his arm somehow managed to quell his anger. Tony looked uncertainly over at Cordelia, then at Suriya before sighing.
"To tell you the truth, that was Chikorita's first battle outside of the fight it had with Charizard before it joined us." Tony said.
"Chiko?" Chikorita wondered as it looked out at the horizon with wonder in its eyes.
"Huh? What is it Chikorita?" Tony asked before looking in the same direction.
"Oh dear. It looks like a storm's heading this way." Cordelia mused as she gazed at the fast approaching darkened rain clouds.
"What? The weatherman said there wasn't going to be a drop of rain today!" Suriya groaned.
"Time to get a new weatherman!" Tony said with a snigger before pulling out Chikorita's pokeball. "Return, Chikorita."
"Let's go! My Totodile might like the rain, but I don't." Suriya exclaimed.
"Right!" Tony and Cordelia said with a nod before following her to the closest building in New Bark Town.
"Thanks for the use of the towels, Professor." Cordelia said to Professor Elm as the trio dried themselves off.
"Yeah, thanks Professor Elm. I appreciate it." Tony added. "That sudden downpour caught us by surprise. If my Chikorita hadn't alerted us, we would have been even more drenched than we already were."
"That's quite all right." Professor Elm replied. Having all ready been told about how they met Suriya, the pokemon professor then asked, "Tony, may I have a look at that Chikorita of yours?"
"Uh, sure. I guess." Tony agreed as he released the pokemon from its pokeball.
"Fascinating." Professor Elm said moments later after giving Chikorita an once over and tested it for its attacks. "Chikorita's definitely something special all right. "You're lucky to have caught it."
"I'm just glad things turned out the way they did." Tony said with a slight flush to his face. Nothing was mentioned to Professor Elm about how Tony caught Chikorita and quite frankly Tony was not wanting to reopen those proverbial wounds that were still a bit to fresh in his mind.
"Chiko!" Chikorita exclaimed as it ran to the large sliding glass window. The sun had just begun to penetrate through the ominous cloud cover as the rain let up. A stray sun beam shined through the window. Chikorita closed its eyes and smiled as it soaked in some of the sunlight and sparkled for all of a few seconds.
"What's going on?" Tony asked in confusion. Having mainly trained with fire type pokemon, Tony wasn't sure what Chikorita was doing.
"It's called Synthesis. You mentioned the battle that Chikorita had with Suriya's Totodile before showing up here. By using Synthesis, Chikorita is able to restore some of its health accordingly depending on the weather." Professor Elm explained.
"Oh. Cool!" Tony replied with a broad grin.
"Indeed." Cordelia agreed with a nod.
"There's something I don't understand though. When I tested out Chikorita's attacks, I wasn't surprised when I saw Poison Powder or Vine Whip. What got me was that Chikorita knew Magical Leaf. If Chikorita knows that particular attack, then it's at a high enough level to be able to have evolved into Bayleef by now."
"What?" Tony said in surprise as he looked over at Chikorita who by that time had curled up near the window and dosed off. "I wonder why it hasn't evolved. But then, since it can't tell me directly, perhaps I'll never know. Oh well. If and when it evolves, that'll be fine by me."
"Now that the rain has stopped, I better get moving. I'm now officially a late starter for my journey." Suriya mentioned as she headed towards the doorway.
"We should get going too. It's still quite a distance between here and Pallet Town, more so for the rest of the Kanto region." Cordelia mentioned.
"Yeah. That storm took a sizable chunk out of our daylight travel time." Tony added. "Good luck Suriya, and remember to follow through with your battles!"
"I will." Suriya said as she waved and left to start on her travels.
Professor Elm turned to face Cordelia and Tony.
"May I ask a favor of you two? I have something that needs to be returned to Professor Oak in Pallet Town. I've been really busy lately and couldn't return it myself." Professor Elm requested.
"Uh, sure I guess." Tony said with a nonchalant shrug.
"Wonderful." Professor Elm replied as he handed over a pokeball. "This is Professor Oak's Seaking. Thank you and best of luck getting there."
"We'll make sure it gets there." Tony said as he pocketed the pokeball. "Good bye, Professor. C'mon, Cordelia. We're wasting time!"
Cordelia waved to Professor Elm before running to catch up with the now far ahead Tony.