TOUYA

It had been three days. We had covered a bit over half of route 1 by now. My shoulders were constantly sore from carrying a backpack while walking. I couldn't imagine the weight of non-dimensional backpacks*. Whenever we rested my legs kept twitching. I had thoroughly underestimated how tired a day of walking can make you. Here I thought we had prepared at school going on some three hour walks every now and then. I could laugh at myself. Every night I've fallen asleep the moment I close my eyes.

Right now, I was walking with my oshawott in my arms. I still wanted to come up with a good nickname, but he rejected all my suggestions so far.

Bel was walking up front and turned around to take a picture. Cheren was walking beside me, Snivy was sitting on his shoulders. He'd decided not to give it a nickname, it didn't want one. And here they said oshawott mimicked me.

We came up on the side of Bel, she'd stopped walking. She showed us the picture. You could see the sunburn on our cheeks and noses, the sweat in our hair, but we looked a pair of happy friends next to each other. "Send that to me." I said to her and nodded towards Cheren too. "Send it to him too." He mumbled something about not needing the picture.

I gave him a little shove. "You're in love with me or what? Why don't you want the picture?"

"What? Of course, I'm not!"

A laugh escaped me, and I threw my arm over his shoulder. He tried to push me away. "I'm just kidding." I slowed down our pace a bit and lowered my voice. "I know you like Bel."

He almost stumbled. "How did you know?"

My chest puffed out a little bit. "I have a really good intuition." As I said that, a patrat jumped out in front of me. It puffed its chest up the same way I did. Oshawott squirmed in my arms and jumped down, grabbed the scalchop on its belly and pointed it towards the patrat.

"Huh? Seems like Touya will be the first to catch a new pokemon." Bel had watched our antics from a bit behind. She walked up and grabbed Cheren, dragging him with her a bit further behind to give us space.

I issued oshawott to use water gun. He'd been practicing along the route, so the spray of water made direct impact with the patrat's head. The little rodent seemed furious as steam started to escape it, engulfing it in a red light. I recognized that. Uh oh.

Oshawott fired more water guns after it, the patrat escaped only a few, most landed right on the mark. Its head. Having had enough of the water play, a white beam shot straight from it and hit oshawott directly in the belly. The little otter flew several feet back, and slowly got up on his feet, wobbling and bruised.

Not giving him a single second to regain himself, the patrat stormed the oshawott and tackled him. I shouted a command, and oshawott flung the scalchop at the patrat, cutting it deep enough to fall on the ground. Not wasting a moment, I threw a pokeball and the rodent got engulfed in a red light, disappearing into the ball.

I held my breath as it shook. All for naught, after one shake it clicked, and a beep was heard from my pokedex. The patrat was caught.

Without pausing, I ran to oshawott and dropped my backpack while going down on my knees. Rummaging through it, I pulled out a purple spray. Sprayingit all over the back of the odder, it started to take effect, and my eyes followed as the bruises healed. Next, I connected the potion to the pokeball, and another ping from my pokedex informed me that the patrat was being healed.

I picked up oshawott and pulled him into a big embrace. "You're amazing!" I extended my arms and held oshawott at an arm's length to look him in the eyes. "That last move when you flung the scalchop was epic, bro!"

"Osha!" it squealed in delight, wiggling happily in his hands. The scalchop was back and safely secured on its stomach.

Bel and Cheren rushed me congratulating in each their way. Bel with heartfelt compliments, and Cheren with a good old dunk to my back, letting me know I only get to win this round. I smiled back to both from the bottom of my heart. This was only the beginning.

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*Non-dimensional backpack: Dimensional backpacks are the equivalent to pokeballs. They can carry several times the weight and quantity of a normal backpack. They exist in different sizes and designs.