As Dan headed out of the professors door, he was temporarily blinded by the contrasting light between the professors lab and the bright midday sun outside. Once his vision returned he noticed Lyra playing with her Marill in the middle of town. Marill was running circles around Lyra as she tried to grab him. After a couple of spins, she noticed Dan had returned from inside the laboratory.
"Hi Danny" Lyra called. 'Danny' was the nickname Lyra had given Dan because of how he signed his name on paper, Dan.E. "Wow, you got a Pokémon? That's pretty cool."
"Yeah" Dan replied. "The prof wants me to walk around with him. He said he wanted a test subject for his research, he even gave me one of his special Pokémon he keeps in the machine."
"Oh, so you picked...a Totodile." Lyra exclaimed as the small reptilian poked his head out from behind Dan's legs. "Aww, that's such a cute Pokémon you picked. Did you give him a name?" Lyra questioned.
"Yeah" Dan started, "I called him Aqua. After all," Dan paused to look down at his newest friend. "He is linked to the water"
Lyra and Dan both chuckled. As Lyra started to pet Aqua, she looked up at Dan. "Hey Danny" she started "You know, if you walk with him, he becomes more friendly towards you, even if you put him back into his Pokéball. You should talk to him as well, get to know him better like me and Marill, right buddy?" she questioned as she turned around to face her partner.
"Marill Mar-Marill" The blue and white aquamouse responded.
"It will really help you understand each other Danny" Lyra continued, turning to look at Dan, who had now crouched down to lightly pet Aqua. "Oh" Lyra exclaimed as she suddenly jumped up. "You should go show your mum, you know, to make sure she's O.K. with it."
"Marill Mar-Marill Mar" Marill started to chant as he was jumping up and down impatiently.
Lyra looked to Marill with an understanding in her eyes. "You want to finish our game, don't you?" This caused Marill to grin widely, before he started to run off. Before Marill could go anywhere, he stopped to take one last, quick look at Aqua , before following Lyra, who had started to walk ahead.
"Well, I guess she has a point" Dan muttered to himself, before heading towards his house with his new friend in tow. Once he had entered the building, he walked up to his mother who was enjoying some scrambled eggs on toast.
"Hey Mum" Dan greeted, "Look at what the professor gave me."
As Dan's mother turned around, she was greeted by the grinning mouth of the big jaw pokémon. This new face combined with the unexpected arrival of her son momentarily shocked her. After she had swallowed the food she had in her mouth to prevent choking, she finally replied.
"Oh! Dan!" she started "That's such a cute Pokémon you have. Where did you find it?" she asked.
"First of all, he's a 'he', not an 'it'" Dan corrected his mother."Second, I didn't find him. I got him from Professor Elm. He said he wants me to walk around with him and he wanted me to pick something up from a Professor Pokémon who lives north of Cherrygrove City."
"Hmm" Dan's mum uttered, showing slight concern. "That sounds a little tricky. Although, I guess if someone asks you to do a job like that it must be important. Oh!" She quickly looked up at Dan. "I just remembered, while you were over at the lab, your pokégear came back from the repair shop. I'll quickly go grab it for you." Once she had finished her sentence, she rised from the chair and briskly walked over to the kitchen counter. "Here it is" she quietly shouted from the other end of the house. "Your pokégear, all fixed." she finished as she handed the pokégear over to Dan. "Call me if you get into any sort of trouble, O.K.?" she asked, with a stern tone to make sure Dan would remember.
"O.K., i'll call if anything goes wrong." Dan answered, with a small sigh. "Come on Aqua, we should get going, we don't want to keep the professor waiting long, do we?" Dan playfully questioned his partner. "Bye Mum, see you soon" Dan finished, quickly waving at his mother before exiting the door to the outside world.
Once Dan had made it outside, he headed straight for Route 29. Before he could leave town, Dan heard the professor yell. As Dan turned around, he saw the professor was heading straight for him. He decided to stop so the professor would be able to catch up just in case he wanted to talk to Dan.
"Dan" Professor Elm gasped, slightly out of breath, "I asked your Mum to tell me when your pokégear came back from the shop. I want to give you my number, just in case anything changes while you're walking to Mr Pokémon's house."
Dan passed over his pokégear to the wheezing professor. After Professor Elm had inputed his number into Dan's pokégear, he said a quick goodbye to Dan before heading straight back to his lab. Once the professor was out of Dan's eyesight, he decided to carry on to Route 29.
Route 29 was a small, straightforward route that smelled of freshly cut grass. It was surrounded by trees and contained large patches of tall grass that reached up to just above Dan's ankles. There were some ledges along the way that were too steep to climb over, but small enough that you could easily leap down from the other side. There was also plenty of places to meet wild pokémon but they were very weak. There were 3 different entrances/exits to Route 29. The first was the East entrance Dan used to walk in and out of New Bark Town. The second was the west entrance, which lead to Cherrygrove City and third was the North Entrance which lead to Blackthorn City, but was impassable from this direction as it was bordered off by a steep ledge.
As Dan started to walk down the path he used many times before, he heard a small noise emmiting from the grass. Dan chose to ignore the noise and continue onwards. After only a few steps, a small rodent appeared in front of Dan. As it came to a halt, it balanced on its striped tail, showing off its cream coloured, ring patterned underbelly. Once it was comfortable, it stuck its tiny brown arms out and perked its long, dark-brown ears up.
"A Sentret?" Dan questioned. He had seen them on the edges of the route before, but they had never appeared this close to him before. As Dan tried to walk around, the Sentret followed, blocking Dan at every chance.
"Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to test you out Aqua" Dan muttered to himself as he turned towards Aqua, who seemed to be glaring at the Sentret. "Aqua, I choose you!" Dan exclaimed to no-one but himself as he pointed towards the Sentret. "Alright Aqua, let's see what you can do. Use...umm..." Dan paused. It was at this moment, Dan realised he had no idea what moves Aqua could actually use. Instead of waiting for a command that was never going to be issued, Aqua's claws glowed white, before charging at the Sentret and scratching him across the chest.
"Hey, you know scratch." Dan responded, after watching Aqua attack Sentret. "Way to go Aqua. What else can you use." Hearing this, Aqua looked over at the waiting Sentret. However, before Aqua could do anything, the Sentret scratched Aqua across the chest in the same way as Aqua had done earlier. Not letting Sentret get the better of him, Aqua menacingly looked over at the sentret, with a slight glint in his eye.
"Was that Leer?" Dan questioned. He was pretty good at figuring out which attacks were what, but some very subtle attacks still confused him. "Hey Aqua, do you know anything else?"
"Toto" Aqua sadly answered, while shaking his head. While Aqua was responding to Dan, the Sentret started to use Foresight. As he studied Aqua very carefully, looking for a weak spot Dan saw an opportunity.
"Alright Aqua" he began, "Use Scratch". Happy that Aqua's answer didn't cause Dan to get upset, Aqua raced forwards to deliver the attack. Scratch, combined with the previous Leer, damaged the sentret so much, he became visibly weak, but the Sentret was still battling. As Sentret continued to study Aqua, Dan quickly ordered Aqua to use the same attack again. After Aqua had used scratch a third time, the sentret fainted, allowing Dan and Aqua to pass.
"Phew" Dan exhaled, showing his relief. "I wonder why that happened? It's never happened to me before." As Dan finished his sentence, he looked down towards the dazed Sentret. "I hope it's going to be alright. Well, I guess we should just continue on, right Aqua?"
"Toto-to" Aqua replied, happy that it had just won its very first battle. As Dan and Aqua walked along, more Sentret blocked their path. As with before, Dan and Aqua had defeated them all. Aqua even learnt a new move, Water Gun. Unfortunately, all of the fighting had taken its toll on Aqua. Fortunately, Dan managed to use one of the potions Will had given him on Aqua, which seemed to fully restore Aqua's energy.
"Why does this keep happening?" Dan questioned to himself after defeating the third sentret. "I know,"Dan realised. "I'm heading to a Pokémon professor's house, i'll ask them when I get there."
Just before reaching the end of the route, Dan heard a loud but quick pokémon cry, before a small cream and brown coloured bird dive bombed Dan and Aqua. The small bird had a cream underbelly with pink toes and white claws. It also had a short brown tail and a stubby pink beak. The wings were half brown, half cream and it had black markings around its eyes. It also had three small crests, two cream on the side and one brown crest in the centre.
"Pidgey" The small bird announced, flapping its wings once.
"So that's a Pidgey" Dan muttered. "Well, can't be any harder than all the Sentret we've already beaten, right Aqua?" Dan finished
"Toto-Totodile" Aqua replied, grinning at Dan before turning towards the Pidgey with a slight glare in his eyes.
"Alright Aqua" Dan stated as he began to issue a command "Use Water Gun!"
After hearing the command, Aqua began to prepare his latest move. He drew in a large breath which inflated his chest and then leant his whole body forwards, before unleashing a seemingly unlimited, forceful blast of water from his mouth. As the water splashed the Pidgey, Aqua stopped to get his breath back. This left an opening for the Pidgey who flew into Aqua's chest as hard as he could, almost knocking the wind out of him. However, Aqua didn't seem fazed by Pidgey's attack at all.
"Aqua, quick" Dan shouted as fast as he could. "Scratch him while he's close, he won't be able to fly away quickly enough." Aqua reacted as fast as he could, his claws on his right hand glowing with a bright, white light before scratching the small bird across the top of his head. Almost immediately, the small bird plopped onto the ground, with a dazed look in his eyes. After all of the Sentret Dan had already defeated, he knew this was the sign that a Pokémon had fainted and would soon scurry away to regain some energy.
"Alright" Dan slightly cheered "I knew that would be easy for you, right Aqua" he questioned as he looked at the small, smiling reptile. "Come on, we've reached Cherrygrove city, who knows what might happen to us." Dan indirectly told Aqua, as they crossed the border between Route 29 and Cherrygrove city, not knowing what was about to take place in his own home town.