Chapter Two

Sidetracking

The wind blew so strong that my leaf was beaten down against the side of my head. It appeared to be doing the same to the curled tail of the rattata bouncing to and fro in front of me. A fire burned in his dark eyes, but he grinned at me with his oversized chipped teeth. "C'mon, let's go!" he squeaked.

How had I even gotten myself into that situation? A pokémon battle within the hour of meeting my reluctant trainer, how ridiculous! Still, there I stood, face to face with the scruffy purple rat.

Pride. That's what had done it. Following our new trainers, the three of us were led into a path nearly swallowed by tall grass. At times it swayed gently, moments later violently twisting. It never stayed still. The windy weather must have been normal; none of the humans mentioned it. Instead, they voiced their shared displeasure with having to travel to Route Thirty on errand. Mostly it was Ivy that spoke. "I can't believe my dad is making us go see Mr. Pokémon. That man is so senile, he thinks that every egg he gets is some amazing discovery! He'd stop finding them if he'd keep his togepi apart."

"Hey, I think it's great that he still gets so excited about stuff! My dad says he remembers Pokémon being an old man when he was a kid," the male responded with a strange smile that was somewhere in between a goofy grin and a smirk.

"Whatever. I just want to get started already! Cyndaquil and I have a lot of training to do."

My trainer stayed mostly quiet, fumbling slightly behind the other two.

Ivy saw the wild pokémon first. Well, the cyndaquil did, nudging her leg eagerly. The flames on his back surged upwards an additional inch or so. "Hey, check this out," she called to the other humans. I skipped past mine and up towards the fire type to see what they were looking at. Off to the edge of the path, some partially concealed by the thick grass, were a gang of rattata. Eight of them in all. Three were particularly large, both in height and in stomach. Their coats were shiny and whiskers straight. The same couldn't be said for the other five.

"Any of you wildlings wanna try your luck against me?" Cyndaquil brazenly asked, taking three steps closer to them. The larger ones scurried into the grass, behind the others. I could still see their noses and knew they were watching though. One of the other five looked back towards them through his beady eyes. One was surrounded by puffy skin, a fresh scratch jutting across it, making the eye itself milky. A large one hissed at it to 'go on.' Heavy with reluctance, it approached Cyndaquil.

"Alright Cyndaquil, looks like you found our first battle!" Ivy boasted. She looked back, giving a quick smile to the boy before settling her gaze on my trainer. "Penelope, you don't have a lot of experience, so make sure to pay close attention to this."

I managed to catch a glimpse of my trainer flicking her eyes upwards for a second.

It only took moments for the wild battleground to be set up. Ivy stood with Cyndaquil in front of her a few feet up the path from the rest of us. Ahead of them even further, the wounded rattata sat alone. "Let's start this," Ivy commanded and then her pokémon relayed it to the wildling. "Cyndaquil, shake it up with the meanest leer you've got!" I didn't think that glaring at it would work, it's one eye being damaged and all, but it edged back the slightest bit. I was thankful to only be able to see the fire type's radiant back.

"No running!" one of its acquaintances called from the grass. "No food if you make human mad!"

This reaffirmed the rattata who charged forwards at cyndaquil.

"Dodge to the left and then keep going to the edge of the path!" Ivy shouted. Of course the little normal type missed, skidding to a stop directly in front of her. "Tackle it now!" Cyndaquil had just enough room to gain the necessary speed. Its much bulkier body crashed hard into the rattata, sending it skidding off, dragging its side across the gravel. Pebbles sprang everywhere like raindrops on the wood of the fence surrounding the meadow. With much wobbling, it rose back onto its feet. "Tackle again!" This time when Cyndaquil crashed into the wildling, it stayed down with a whimper.

"Beg now!" the bigger rattata called to it. The defeated rattata lifted its head miserably, but that was all it could do. "Get food or no come back!"

"Give it some food!" I squeaked at Ivy, who was beaming and congratulating her pokémon. She paid me no attention. The male human was also busy sharing in their victory, telling Ivy how she sounded like a professional. My trainer fumed at this.

The two water pokémon, each resting against a leg of their trainer, were the only ones to look uncomfortable about the battle. They exchanged a few whispers before the marill stood up and slapped the male's pants a few times. "What's up Rosa?" It silently blinked a few times, holding its trainer's eye contact. "You hungry again?" He then pulled a pack from off his shoulders and, with a few seconds of digging around, retrieved a clear bag barely containing kibble snacks. He poured a handful and then gave it to Rosa. "Make sure you share with your new brother now." When attention was taken off them again, the marill put one piece in its own mouth, gave a piece to Totodile, and then threw the rest at the grass where the other rattata were watching. The one that had battled Cyndaquil was off the ground and with the others so rapidly that I hadn't even seen it move.

The humans continued to talk about the battle, Ivy lecturing my trainer, the male agreeing with everything anyone said. Cyndaquil sauntered over to me. "I finished that pretty quick, huh? No wonder Ivy chose me."

"It was already hurt," I snapped and wrinkled my face. "Anyone could have won that."

"Whatever, Sally. I bet you've never even battled before."

"I have too!" I argued back quickly. Too quickly.

The cyndaquil chuckled and began to walk away again. "You really haven't! What a loser! Didn't they teach you anything at your precious meadow?"

Hearing him mention my home in such a callous tone, well it made me mad! My meadow had been perfect, lush and breezy. Not like that place with its violent winds and untamed grass. Not at all! I had to prove him wrong, and so I bounded towards the rattata aggressively picking over the remnants of food on the ground. "I'm going to battle with one of you!"

So that was how I landed myself in front of the eager rattata, my trainer slouching just behind me. I looked back at her and she was staring back at the male, tugging at one of her lumps of hair. "You'll do great, Penn!" he called. She started to shake slightly and gnawed at her lower lip.

"Okay, you can do this!" I thought to myself. "It'll be easy, just do what the bayleef used to practice."

"Are we going or what? I gotta prove myself to the guys!" my opponent called at me. "Get your human going already!"

Yet another hiss came from a huge rattata concealed off the path. "Never wins!"

"C'mon!"

Once again, I looked back at my human. She kind of almost shrugged at me.

Sounding how the meganium used to when speaking to unmanageable chikoritas, Ivy said to my trainer, "You have to say a command."

"Oh," my human breathed. "Um, go?" she said unsurely.

I didn't need her anyways. I could do it all on my own! I had been brave enough to stand up for my meadow, and had certainly watched training enough. I strode forward several steps and then stopped. I rotated my head slowly, getting the feel of my neck craning around in circles. Once I got the hang of it, I sped my motions up. Faster, then faster, until my neck became hot like the flames on Cyndaquil's powerful back. I fully expected a surge of leaves to fly from my body and cut down the rattata. None came. Not even a wimpy one. I had to stop when it hurt too much.

"Uh, what's Sally up to?" the male asked. I refused to look back at the unhelpful humans; I didn't want to see the sneer that would surely be on the pokemon's face.

While Ivy was lecturing my trainer on being specific, my opponent shouted 'hey' at me until he had my attention. "You gotta do what that snoot did to my friend. Throw yourself at me! Like this!" He darted at me, and I flinched. The impact wasn't too bad, he had slowed just before reaching me. In fact, it was just a little bump, enough to jostle me but not enough to make me lose my footing. "Not so hard, huh?"

The rattata scampered to his side and I was ready when my trainer finally told me to 'tackle or whatever.' I plowed into him with my little bean body and flat face. I pushed him down into the ground, but he was back up in a blink. Then I returned to my position and he hit me a little harder than he had before. With the wind's assistance, I stumbled. I tackled him harder than that. And then he hit me once again. This continued until his grin was gone and I found myself running at him as hard as I had run after Elm. I was small, but sturdy. There was a small pop when I landed and he wasn't so quick to stand again. In fact, he just lied there. As I waited for him to come after me once more, Ivy congratulated my trainer on a 'dull but victorious' first battle.

Author's Note: Gah! Sorry this took so long. I wanted to get it out, so I, yet again, spliced a chapter into several smaller parts. I wanted the whole introduction part of the game to be done with this, but, as you've seen, that did not happen. As always, thanks for reading!