Chapter 3

I don't even remember the journey to the pokemon centre, just handing my pokeballs over to the nurse on duty, whilst booking a room upstairs for myself. It wasn't until afternoon of the next day that I eventually worked up the courage to come down and eat. Someone informed me that Artemis was in intensive care, but fortunately the danger had passed, all she needed now was rest. She also told me my other pokemon was fine to pick up, and it took a while for me to register what she meant. I took my looted pokemon back and held onto it with no other options available to me.

For 3 days I didn't even leave the pokemon centre, and ashamedly, it had nothing to do with Artemis's recovery. Most of my days had me waking up covered in cold sweat; A habit that would take me years to quit. I'd have probably stayed there longer too, stewing in my own paranoia, if not for the single worst and greatest meeting of my entire life.

There was this one wall in the centre that I would spend hours staring at, an otherwise unremarkable notice board except for the fact that it had been set up solely for dozens of missing persons notices. Missing children's notices.

I wondered, how long until the boy I'd run into was added to the list of missing children, just another face on a wall, nobody caring to look for him, nor daring to hope for him.

My hand was shaking by its own accord, "I don't even know why I bothered with this journey. I'm out of my depth," I muttered under my breath.

So completely lost in my own thoughts, I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of a voice at my ear, "Hey kid, how do I get to the pokemon mart from here?"

A pink blob was honestly my first impression of him, which turns out was actually quite an apt description of the teenage boy who had just come up on my right. From his (glaringly) obvious dyed pink hair to the pink overcoat he was wearing and straight down to the massive pink pack he had hefted on one shoulder. He was an advocate of his favourite colour. And a master of subtlety.

He cleared his throat expecting an answer. I instead told him, "You're wearing an awful lot of pink", before turning my back on him and returning to my musings of lost children.

Never one to back down from a fight (as it turns out), and intensely competitive by nature, he stomped around to my front, then promptly huffed and turned his back on me.

The nerve of some people!

I retaliated articulately, "Aauauuuccghh".

"AAUAUUUCCGHH!" was his response, a perfect (albeit louder) mimicry of my previous articulation. I couldn't help but glare my eyes.

Done with this little game, I stalked away to a different side of the pokemon centre and grouchily took out my Pokedex, scanning through the list, and pretending to be engrossed with the habitats of Rattata all over Kanto.

"And you're wearing an awful lot of blue!" A shout resonated from across the centre, shocking me enough to drop my Pokedex.

I ignored him, picking up fallen Pokedex, grinding my teeth.

"You heard me Blue Boy!"

I had a black jacket on, khaki pants and brown hiking boots. The only blue on me was my half hidden blue shirt, and even that wasn't really blue! It was navy! A fact which I yelled back at him in a higher octave than I'd have liked.

"Navy is Blue you moron!" Came his retort.

"Navy is Navy! If Navy were blue then it would be called blue!"

"It's a shade of blue!"

And so our shouting match continued, the hapless onlookers of the pokemon centre both trying to ignore us and simultaneously pay attention to the spectacle. It wasn't until a nurse dragged us both by the ear out to the curb that we eventually settled down. Also because I'd won.

"Nice going Blue. Now are you going to take me to the Pokemart or not?"

I'd long since been glaring daggers at this pain in my ass, to little effect it seemed, and so with nothing else to do for the moment, I headed for the pokemon mart. Making sure to audibly grumble about pink wearing hermaphroditic, shit eating, half witted, butt munching, annoying sons of Grimer. My new friend didn't mind though, for all I knew he seemed to enjoy the attention.

The journey itself was less than interesting, the pokemon mart and pokemon centre were really close to one another, a fact which I'd learnt on my first trek through Viridian a month or so ago. Back then I'd been mentally preparing for every situation being a trainer could throw my way. Escorting pink clad pricks was undoubtedly not what I had predicted.

I did note that he was a pokemon trainer when I saw him buying pokeballs and other necessary travelling items (if only acceptable attire had been on his list of necessities), and figured he had to be a pretty good one too when I saw the wads of cash he had no doubt won from pokemon battles. Unless if they were from newbie trainers; He seemed like the real slime ball type.

I suppose he'd spent the trip feeling guilty about getting me thrown out (just as well, considering it was his fault), because he offered to buy me lunch after he was done shopping and never one to turn down a free meal, I graciously accepted. By ordering the most expensive, most unappetizing thing on the menu. I was Mew-damned magnanimous.

"You're a beginner aren't you?" his question came out half lost around his club sandwich.

My stomach grumbled as I glared at my own Parasect 'Mushroom Delicacy', which was nigh untouched. "I started almost two weeks ago."

"How many pokemon have you caught?"

"None." I tried to convey my unwillingness to talk about the subject, but as per usual this guy (whom by now I learnt was called Cooper) either didn't notice or didn't care about hints.

"That's cool, there aren't that many interesting pokemon around here anyway, unless you have, like, a weird Rattata fetish, or I suppose the odd Mankey has been spotted just off from Route 22." He motioned to my belt where I still had the pokeball of the pokemon I looted, "So is that your starter? What is it? Actually, battle me so that I can see it!"

"My starter is back at the pokemon centre in intensive care."

"Oh." That at least managed to get him to shut up for a time, as he munched on his sandwich a little more. Tentatively, as if he were considering each word before he spoke, he began again, "So, you said you hadn't caught any pokemon yet? What about…" He motioned once again to my belt.

SHIT! Cursing my lack of foresight, I leant back in my chair to appear nonchalant, "That was a gift." I said cryptically.

"What pokemon is it?"

DOUBLE SHIT! "The shut-up-or-I'm-going-to-hit-you pokemon."

Far from the desired effect of shutting him up, this merely seemed to feed his energy, a goofy smile returning to his face, he lunged at it so unexpectedly that I fell back in my chair singing a chorus of "Fuckyouuuuuuu" all the way down. Unperturbed by my predicament he made another lunge for it, and thus began the most stressful game of keep-away I'd ever had to play, leading all the way from the café to some park halfway across Viridian, where he stopped mid stride.

"I think we just stole a free meal." We had indeed left before paying for our food (if that's what you want to call my Parasect Mushroom Delicacy). A glance passed between us, when before we knew it, we were cackling like old women, leaning against one another... for only a short time, until I came to my senses and pushed him flat on his ass. I mean he had gotten me kicked out of the pokemon centre after all.

With as much grace as an elderly Muk, he got back to his feet, "This has been sweet, but I actually do have things I need to do before it gets dark. And you should work on training that pokemon of yours, I still want that battle." I bit back the retort I was thinking, "I'll catch you round… uh, I don't think I got your name?"

"Nat. People call me Nat"

"Catch you later Nat", and with a wave Cooper headed off, leaving me with one less of an eye sore, and one big dilemma at my belt. I unclipped my pokeball and with an odd sense of déjà vu, tried to discern what pokemon was inside.

"I could just send you back to Oak," I informed it. "Tell him I found it on Route 1 and be done with it." Fat chance of that I knew. I couldn't just return the starter of a missing trainer and expect to be allowed to go on my merry way. "Well then in that case I should just sell you, or drop you in a garbage can somewhere".

Once more I peered into the red depths of the ball, looking for any sign or indication of its contents. This thing connected me to the scene of a bloody and highly suspicious murder. Had I any common sense I should just drop it in the grass and leave. I didn't owe this pokemon anything. Nodding to myself, I held the ball aloft, and dropped it.

And with an ironic twist the ball landed face down, the small button in its centre was pressed and out came what was to become the second member of my pokemon team.

A little white Meowth.

Now I won't give you any lies about how it's big round eyes or soft purring melted my heart as if I were Scrooge himself, in all honesty I'd probably known that I would keep it the moment I looted the damned thing. Tamed pokemon were hard enough to come by and finding one for free was better than lucky (despite the mentally scarring, nightmare inducing situation). Even still, it wasn't until I had spent a good few hours training with her and witnessed the sharpness of her claws when I tried to pick her up (at least I didn't get it as bad as the Rattata that got too curious) she had become mine. I supposed her previous trainer hadn't done much work with her. By the time I started heading back to the pokemon centre I was enamoured. She was a tad snooty, completely vain and perfectly deadly. And what can I say? Her big round eyes and soft purring really did melt my heart.

And that's the story of how I met Felicity the Meowth.

Despite his promise of a pokemon battle, I didn't actually see Cooper for a few more days, by which time Artemis had fully recovered and I was getting ready to head out to Viridian Forest. I had put so much time into training Felicity too. It was by pure dumb luck that we both happened to be heading out on the same day when we ran into one another.

I noticed him before he noticed me, (it might have been the hair) he was on the outskirts of Viridian being lectured by some decrepit old bastard on how to throw a pokeball. Determined not to get caught up by perhaps one of the few people more annoying than Cooper, I marched right up to the old man (who was blocking the only exit towards Viridian Forest like a chump), and palmed him to the side, not even breaking stride, resulting in a barrage of insults from his general direction.

It wasn't until a particularly heinous remark about my mother and a group of rowdy Tauros that I turned to face him, holding Felicity's ball in my hand. I may be a number of things, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let some old perv with a bad habit of harassing children talk smack about my mother. On the verge of releasing the true power of my Meowth's kitty wrath, that old sack of shit was lucky Cooper dragged me away by the arm.

Some distance away I finally stopped resisting, rounding on Cooper. He had forgone his more flamboyant outfit (thankfully) for something a bit more practical, wearing a dark olive jacket over army camouflage pants and a plain black tee. His hair unfortunately remained its usual vivacious self, remarkably reminiscent of a cotton candy. Short at the back with a long, messy front and top (no doubt gelled up), there was just no denying it. Cooper was an attention whore.

"Isn't there some rule about mixing pink and green?" I eyed his hair and jacket.

His usual, unreasonably broad smile splayed out across his face, "Not for me!"

I fixed him with my best 'I am so done with this shit' stare before enquiring, "What are you even doing out here?" Begging whatever pokemon gods existed that he wasn't heading through Viridian Forest.

"Heading out through Viridian Forest, it's the only way to Pewter" CRAP! "You're not going that way too are you?" An evil smile (okay maybe it wasn't intentionally evil, but Mew dammit did I interpret as so) danced across his face.

"No."

"You totally are! This is perfect! I hate travelling alone, I mean, I know I've got pokemon, but there's only so much conversation they can provide, you know?"

"No."

"There's safety in numbers too!"

"I'm not travelling with you."

"What's to stop me from following you?"

I didn't respond. I couldn't. There was absolutely nothing stopping him from following me, especially considering he was a higher level trainer. He had me in a jam, so acting with poise and grace, I nodded once, kicked him in the shin, and bolted down the road.

I'd have lost him too if the world hadn't suddenly become tipped upside down. Looking down (or up) at my feet, I was being held upside down by a Machoke of all pokemon, whilst Cooper was casually strolling towards us, tears streaming down his face from laughing so hard.

"You should have seen your face! Oh boy!" He stopped to catch his breath, paused for a moment, and began a new round of hysterics, "You looked like a Jigglypuff! Your eyes! Oh Mew, your eyes were so wide!"

My glaring seemed to have little effect on him, and even less on his Machoke, who picked his nose disinterested.

Eventually when he'd calmed himself a bit, Cooper told Machoke to let me down gently, and despite a dizzying rush of blood to my head, I managed to stand myself up without tipping over from nausea, look Cooper square in the eye and flip him off. With my normal aura of elegance and serenity of course. He didn't deserve my words.

I was about to aim a second kick for a much more tender spot of his, Machoke or no Machoke, when he said perhaps the only phrase that could stop me in my tracks.

"How about we settle it with a pokemon battle?"