Brian: Starting in Kanto
Chapter Four: Applegreen Forest
The new morning came with a fresh breath of air, cold but refreshing. Rob was up early, gathering some more wood for the fire. The flames rose high by the time Brian woke up, breakfast was already unpacked and a couple of eggs was laing in a frying pan next to the fire. Brian quickly finished his breakfast and walked over to where Rob was sitting, polishing his pokeballs. With a cry he fell over, he had let his Voltorb out of its ball again. "I think you better train your Voltorb not to attack every time you release it from its ball" Brian helped Rob up on his feat again. "I think you might be right or else I get scared every time I'm releasing it." Voltorb had an apologizing look upon its face.
They collected their gear and entered Applegreen forest. The plan was to take it slow and challenge all the pokemon they encountered, and hopefully catch some new pokemon for their party. They encountered some caterpies and some weedles early on, but they all managed to escape. One or two rattata was seen sprinting over the path, but they were also too quick for Rob and Brian too catch.
They were about to give up and take a break when they herd the faint sound of a song some way up ahead. They followed the sound and finally came to a clearing in the forest. There a young boy sat in front of a small fire stirring in a kettle. It took awhile for the boy to notice Rob and Brian and once he did he jumped to his feet, knocking the kettle over. "Woha... Don't sneak up on people like that, you made me spill my lunch!", the boy quickly grabbed the kettle again and released it with a scream, it was still quite hot. "Oh, we're terribly sorry" exclaimed Rob "You see, we heard you sing and just followed your voice. About your lunch I think we are able to share some of ours. I'm Rob by the way, and this here is Bryan. We just started on our journey yesterday". Rob reached out his hand to shake hands with the boy, feeling rather silly when he remembered the boy had burnt his hand and surely didn't fell like shaking hands at the moment. The boy lowered his shoulders and grabbed Robs hang giving him a firm shake. "I'm Murdoc. I didn't intend to shout at you, it's just that you appeared so suddenly that you game me quite a surprise. Don't worry about my lunch, it was only some thin lion tooth-soup, quite bitter at taste and I've already finished most of it".
Brian and Rob sat down on a nearby log, talking with Murdoc while eating a few slices of bread with freshly picked berries on them. Apparently Murdoc was also a newly made trainer from the city of Odderwick, half a days march northwest from Applegreen forest. He was a few years older than Rob and Brian, but this was because Murdoc had worked as an assistant at the local pokelab. He was especially interested in special pokemon. He was in Applegreen forest to hunt a special Caterpie someone had seen a few weeks ago. "You see, this Caterpie is an albino. It got almost no color pigments. They told me It was of a creamy color with faint yellow dots on its back. It must be an unique pokemon, and I would really like to catch it". It was decided then and there that Rob and Brian would help Murdoc with his search, at least until they made camp for the night.
They set of as soon as the lunch was finished and the fire was put out. They decided to go with some space in between each other to cover more ground, just like a search party would. Murdoc said that the Caterpie was last sighted a short distant east from where they had met. At first they saw little or no sign of pokemon at all. Once and a while they found leaves or berries that something had taken small bites of. After some time they came to a small stream running through the forest, cutting of a small part of it from the rest. The stream was not very wide, but at the same time too wide to jump and too deep to wade across. The company turned upstream and followed it until they found a place to cross. After a short time they found a large tree that had fallen over the stream. It looked like it had been there for a long time. Vines had grown around it and the tree was covered in moss. Carefully they crept over, taking great caution to the slippery surface. After a short time and a near slip by Rob they all came safely across. At once they noticed that the trees and plants grew closer together on this side on the stream, cutting of more of the sunlight and giving a lot more shelter for pokemon to hide in. The searching went on slower by this time, mostly because they needed to pick their rout with more care and searching all the obvious hiding places. Several times they got small glimpses off pokemon before disappearing into some form of shelter. Twice Brian managed to engage a Caterpie to battle, and lost both times to Caterpies string shot attack, packing Ditto into a fine silk like fabric, making Ditto unable to counterattack to Brians frustration.
The search had gone on for several hours and the small company was starting to get hungry again when Murdoc suddenly stopped in his tracks and gazed hard into some plumberry bushes of to his right. Soon they all stood beside each other and stared towards the point Murdoc was staring. They stood there several minutes, just staring before a colorless Caterpie slowly crept out of the bushes, looking for one more of the sweet tasting plumberries. Brian, Rob and the Caterpie all jumped as Murdoc gave out a sharp cry and sent out his pokemon. In a great cloud of smoke Brian could see a great ball forming, keeping a few feet of the ground and kept spewing out more smoke. Brian whipped out his pokedex to get a pokescan. "Koffing" came a bright computerized voice "Lighter-than-air gases in its body keeps it aloft. The gases not only smells, they are also explosive".
Murdoc quickly commanded his Koffing to lay a blanket of poison gas, making it nearly impossible to see what was going on. This was followed by a few quick tackles. The Caterpie did what it could to defend it self, strings of silk flew all over in a frantic attempt to hit the Koffing. It was a fierce battle, but it was not long before the Caterpie started to wear out. Murdoc saw his chance and threw an unused pokeball at the Caterpie hitting it square on its head. In a flash of light the Caterpie disappeared into the ball. The ball kept wriggling on the ground a few seconds and the button on top blinked a bright yellow, then it lay still. Murdoc gave out a cry of joy and hurried over to pick up his new pokemon and gave his Koffing some words of approval before returning it to its ball. "Finally, my journey has begun, I've captured my very first unique pokemon." He danced around the small clearing looking rather silly before finally began acting normal again.
The day had nearly come to its end when Brian, Rob and Murdoc gathered around a campfire waiting for some stew to get ready cooked. Murdoc had let out his new albino Caterpie, feeding it with some freshly picked plumberries. Brian and Rob decided to spend the night with Murdoc and get on with their journey the next day. "So Murdoc, where are you going now that you have captured your Caterpie?" Brian asked. "I heard a rumor about a blue Abra near Saffron City, so I think I'll try my luck there, what about you guys?". Brian shrugged "I think we will travel towards Ottawa a bit northeast from here. I hear they got a new gym for beginners over there, giving you some basic training tips and a badge if you manage to beat the gym master there. Also, they got a breeding center over there where we can earn some money or provisions. I hoped we were able to capture at least one pokemon before we get there though". They talked further on until their eyes grew heavy and they crept inside their sleeping bags to gather strength for next day of travel. Both Brian and Rob hoped to capture some new pokemon and felt they had learned much from Murdoc on this part. He had given them several how-to-capture-a-pokemon tips while they ate and they were both eager to try them out. With the adventures of the day fresh in their mind they quickly drifted of to sleep.