Mira woke up the next morning to the sound of a bird Pokemon chirping in the trees outside the window.
Or rather she woke up to both that and Cheryl, clad in pastel green pyjamas, standing beside the sofa bed.
"Hey, get up! If we're going to reach Sandgem Town by tonight, you're gonna want to be ready soon!"
Mira sat up slowly, and rubbed her eyes. "You're excited for this, aren't you?"
Cheryl spun around, running her loose hair through her fingers while doing so. "Of course I am! I've never travelled the Sinnoh region beyond Eterna City before, so this'll be the first time I've seen the whole region. I never had the confidence to go alone before, but now I've got somebody to go with!"
Mira laughed. "Mira is excited too! Mira wants to explore Sinnoh, and defeat all the Gym Leaders!"
Cheryl grinned, and wandered over to the kitchen area to find food for Mira. "Who knows what kind of people and Pokemon we'll see? What friends we'll make? What rivals and enemies we'll strive to defeat? It's all a mystery, and that makes it even more exciting."
Both of them spotted Turtwig still snoring in the corner, and laughed.
"I'll wake that little one up when we really need to go," Cheryl said, "I don't think it needs to be awake just yet."
Mira settled her feet on the floor, and stood up. She had borrowed a pair of Cheryl's pyjamas that were too small for Cheryl, but fitted Mira perfectly. Mira appreciated the shade of pink the pyjamas were dyed. "It must be nice to wake up to this beautiful house and the bird Pokemon chirping outside. Mira feels really happy to be here."
Cheryl returned to Mira with a small bowl of cereal. "Glad you enjoy it. If you want to know the name of the bird Pokemon, it's called Starly. They tend to be common where we are in south Sinnoh because north Sinnoh is considerably colder."
Mira took the bowl of cereal and wandered to the table, where she sat on the chair beside it, placed the bowl on the table and began eating up.
Cheryl walked to the mirror by the table and began to braid her hair. "The tents are all packed in their sacks. I put one sack and some food in your backpack, and I put the other one and the rest of the food in my own."
Mira nodded. She didn't say anything, because her mouth was full of food.
"Aaaand done!" Cheryl turned back from the mirror, her hair tied into a loose plait. "What do you think?"
Mira finished off the bowl, for it didn't contain much cereal, and smiled. "Mira thinks the style is really pretty, and suits you perfectly!"
Cheryl grinned in return. "I think it does quite a bit too! Anyway, I'm gonna go upstairs and get dressed. Feel free to do your hair up and get dressed yourself down here."
And with that, Cheryl disappeared upstairs to her bedroom and wardrobe.
Mira placed the empty bowl in the kitchen area, and went back to the sofa bed. She had left all her clothes and her hair fasteners beside it last night, and at that moment she picked them up and placed them on the sofa bed.
She chose to do up her hair first.
Mira rushed over to the mirror, and began to separate her long, pink hair in two. There, she fastened one half and left it hanging down, while she brought the second half back up to her head and fastened it in a loop. It was a neat little style her mum had taught her oh-so-long ago, and Mira still loved it to this day.
Next, she returned to the sofa bed and began to take on the task of getting dressed.
Cheryl returned down the stairs, now clothed in her usual green, brown and white dress to see Mira fitting her feet into her shoes.
Mira's outfit consisted of a white t-shirt with pouffy short sleeves, and a small scarf that matched her hair. Speaking of her hair, it was fastened in two yellow sphere-shaped fasteners, with one half left hanging down and the other brought back up in a loop. She wore incredibly short shorts coloured in a similar pink, with white leggings underneath to compliment her shirt. The shoes she was putting on as Cheryl observed were pink as well, and had pouffy white fluff around the top.
"You look adorable," Cheryl told Mira.
"And you look beautiful!" Mira said in return.
Cheryl ran towards the door, where her boots resided. There she sat down hurriedly, and pulled them onto her feet in rapid succession.
"You are definitely excited for this," Mira said to her, standing up and picking up her backpack.
As Cheryl stood up and found her backpack, a forest green hiking bag, she nodded and grinned. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Cheryl walked to the corner Turtwig was sleeping in. "Turtwig! You need to get up! It's a big day today!"
As it opened its eyes meekly, it yawned with a little whimper at the end.
Both Cheryl and Mira giggled, and Cheryl scooped it up in her arms.
Route 201 was particularly pretty this morning as Cheryl and Mira hiked along it, backpack straps slung across their shoulders and discussing various topics.
"My first Pokemon I ever obtained was my Happiny," Cheryl said to Mira after about an hour of walking. "Like you, I was given it by my mum. She works at the Pokemon centre in Eterna City, so she doesn't come home often, which is why I'm often left to my own devices. I still visit her once every couple of weeks while she's at her job, though. She got my Happiny as a present for me when she first started working there, since Pokemon centres rely on its evolution, Chansey, to heal Pokemon, and her bosses allowed her to bring me back one as a friend for me."
"Woah," Mira replied, "she must be really good at healing Pokemon if she's been employed by the Pokemon centres. Mira is very impressed. Mira also wants to know something - what does a Happiny look like?"
Cheryl turned her head to face Mira. "I guess I could let it out of its Poke ball."
She held her Turtwig in one arm, and with the other she found the Poke ball containing the only other Pokemon she currently possessed.
There, she held her arm back, before throwing the Poke ball forward and calling out, "go! Happiny!"
The Pokemon which emerged was one of the cutest things Mira had ever seen.
Happiny was a small, round, pink Pokemon with an adorable facial expression. It had a large tuft of fluff protruding from the top of its head, and it had stubby little arms and legs. Its body appeared to settle in a pocket of some kind, and in that pocket its arms held what appeared to be a tiny white egg. It blinked, and looked up at Mira with wide, curious eyes.
"Happiny," Cheryl said to it, "this is Mira. She's a new friend of mine."
The Happiny paused, then broke out into a miniature smile, making a quiet squealing noise and jumping up and down as it did.
"I think Happiny likes you," Cheryl told Mira.
Mira smiled at the little Pokemon, and knelt down beside it, before giving it a pat on the head.
This made the Happiny go hyperactive, running around in circles and continuing to squeal with excitement as it did so.
Mira laughed, while Cheryl smiled and sighed. "I should've mentioned that Happiny adores being patted on the head. Even if you dare try to, it will not stop running around for hours on end unless it returns to its Poke ball."
Cheryl held out the ball that had contained Happiny. "Happiny, return!"
Happiny allowed itself to go back into its Poke ball.
"If you're wondering about its egg," Cheryl mentioned, "in Chanseys, that's the main ingredient in healing Pokemon, and is why Chanseys are so useful in Pokemon centres. However, Happiny doesn't actually have an egg of its own, and can't make one until it evolves. What you saw it holding there was a white stone mimicking an egg. It holds onto that stone until it evolves, when it can finally make its own eggs."
Mira stood up, a wide grin on her face. "Mira thinks that Happiny is adorable!"
"And I think likewise," Cheryl replied. "Anyway, it's getting towards lunch time now, so you should probably get some food from your backpack."
As the two girls continued along while munching on lettuce sandwiches, their trains of thought and conversation became distracted by a faint whimpering noise.
Mira finished off her previous bite from her sandwich, and looked at Cheryl. "Mira can hear something very slightly. Can you hear it too?"
Cheryl nodded, for she hadn't quite finished off eating.
"Mira thinks we should try and search for the noise," Mira told Cheryl, "do you think we should?"
Cheryl finished off the sandwich quickly, so she could reply to Mira with actual words. "To me it sounds like a Pokemon in pain. We should definitely search. I'd say it's coming from our left, where the trees are, so let's look there."
Both of them diverted their course towards the rows of trees, and began to track the sound of the noise.
It wasn't long before Cheryl had tracked the noise to the bottom of a particular tree pulled back a thorn bush.
A sudden gasp startled Mira.
"Mira! I think I've found what was making the noise!"
Mira stopped searching where she was entirely, and instead ran over and knelt beside Cheryl.
There, in front of the two of them, was a tiny bird-like Pokemon. Its body was mainly a shade of light brown, and its wings, neck and rear head had fluffy black feathers surrounding them. Upon its belly resided a small, murky-white circle, the same shade as the feathers that surrounded its face. Its beak was predominantly orange, but the tip was black.
Just from here, Mira could hear its little chirps of pain.
"It looks like its wing was injured badly," Cheryl murmured, "judging by how young it looks, I'd say it was trying to fly away from its nest and failed."
She turned to Mira. "Hold Turtwig for me."
Mira obeyed, picking up the Pokemon from within Cheryl's arms and holding it tight.
Cheryl carefully wriggled her hands under where the injured Pokemon was lying, and being sure not to nudge its wing, gently lifted it from the dirty floor.
"We need to get to Sandgem as fast as we possibly can," Cheryl said to Mira, her tone suggesting that business here was serious. "I don't have any potions at all, and I'm assuming you don't either-"
"Mira doesn't," Mira interrupted.
Cheryl paused, then continued. "So we need to get to a Pokemon centre. As fast as we possibly can. And the nearest Pokemon centre is in Sandgem."
Both of the girls stood up abruptly, Mira holding Cheryl's Turtwig and Cheryl herself holding the injured bird Pokemon, and the two of them began to run.
They hadn't planned on running, but the situation had gotten urgent.
They returned to the main path, so as to not trip over any tree roots that were planning on ruining someone's day.
"If we alternate between running, jogging and walking," Cheryl said between breaths, "we will likely make it to Sandgem in about two hours."
Mira nodded.
Cheryl made sure that she wasn't damaging the Pokemon nestled in her arms too much by running, before adjusting its position to make it more comfortable.
"You had better be good with cross-country," Cheryl called out to Mira, "we'll be doing this for a while."
No such relief had come to either Mira or Cheryl in a while when they finally saw proper civilisation on the horizon.
The two of them slowed their running to a jogging pace, the two of them trying to find their breath.
As they entered the town, however, Cheryl started up again, forcing Mira to keep up with her.
Cheryl rushed towards the white building with a red roof, with Mira struggling to stay close behind her.
While still gasping for breath after running for so long, Cheryl activated the automatic doors to the building, and entered, Mira following shortly after.
The Pokemon centre blasted the two girls with warm air when they got into the main lobby.
The main lobby itself was extremely appealing to the aesthetic eye. Blue and yellow cushions in various sizes surrounded low, clear-glass tables. In the two rear corners of the room there resided two beautiful bonsai trees in clay pots. Beside one of these plants was a small, green bookshelf which held various books of all shapes and sizes to keep Pokemon trainers occupied while their Pokemon was being healed. Near the other plant was what appeared to be a blue PC that Mira had seen others use to store Pokemon in. On either side of the main lobby were two escalators, one going up, the other going walls themselves were orange, and the floor was a pale yellow. In the middle of the floor, there was an engraved Poke ball to signify the connection the centre had to trainers.
And at the very back of the main lobby, there was a red countertop with a gap in it to allow people to pass to the back room. Behind this red countertop stood a young woman with light pink hair wearing a blue surgeon's outfit. Behind her was a small tabletop with six indentations embedded into it, suggesting that it was a trolley upon which Poke balls would be held to take them to the back room for healing.
Cheryl rushed to the Pokemon centre lady as fast as she could, which at this point wasn't that fast because of how exhausted she was.
As she reached the desk, the Pokemon centre lady spoke up. "Welcome to the Pokemon centre! Back again, Cheryl? What needs to be healed now?"
Mira was at first confused as to how the Pokemon centre lady knew who Cheryl was, but then remembered how Cheryl's mum also worked in a Pokemon centre. Not to mention that Cheryl had probably walked this route enough times for her to get familiar with the locals.
She was too out of breath to say anything, and just gently let the Pokemon she had been holding rest on the desk, before finding the nearest cushion and practically falling onto it.
Mira had been seriously worn out too, so she let her legs collapse onto a cushion beside Cheryl, and for a few second they just sat there, gasping for breath.
"I'm assuming I'm healing this little fellow up?" The Pokemon centre lady called out to the two of them.
Cheryl turned to the lady and nodded.
The lady smiled in return. "Alright. I'll take the poor thing into the back and try to work out what happened and how to solve it. I'll call you two when I've worked out what I should do."
And with that, the lady disappeared into the back room, carrying the wounded Pokémon with her.
Mira and Cheryl just sat there for a minute or so, waiting to get their breath back.
Once they felt they could talk again, Mira spoke up. "Well, that was eventful."
The underwhelming reaction caused Cheryl to burst out laughing, which was apparently contagious as Mira began to laugh too.
"Anyway, Mira needs to give back Cheryl her Turtwig."
Mira let the Grass-type fall into Cheryl's lap, where it abruptly fell asleep and began to snore. This caused the girls to go into another miniature laughing fit.
They were soon interrupted by the Pokemon centre lady, who had returned from the back room. "Ok girls, I've identified the problem. Follow me to the back room."
Cheryl looked back at the lady and stood up on shaky legs, taking Turtwig with her as she did so. "I guess I should. Come on, Mira."
Mira nodded and slowly stood up. Together the two of them found themselves walking through the gap in the red tabletop to the back room, where the healing operations usually took place.
Within the room was a large hospital bed with silky white bedsheets covering it. To the left of it was a bedside table themed like the tabletop outside. Upon this tabletop resided an oak lamp, which was currently switched on. A small monitor was placed on a table by the right side of the room, and the monitor was currently recording a heartbeat with a green line on a black background.
The injured Pokemon was so small that it barely took up any space on the bed. Its right wing was bandaged up.
"We worked out," the lady explained, "that the injury is most likely a broken wing. From the minor scratch wound we found, it's safe to assume that it was taking off for the first time and crashed into a tree by accident. This will take me a few hours to sort out, but it should be sorted by the time the sun's gone fully down. You two can find something in Sandgem to keep you occupied for now."
"Yep, that right there was a Starly," Cheryl explained to Mira. They had been waiting about half an hour now, and Mira had realised she still didn't know what Pokemon they had just used all their energy saving.
"Really? The Pokemon Mira had heard this morning?"
"Yes. To be honest, I'm surprised you didn't ask what Pokemon it was earlier."
Cheryl had been gently stroking her Turtwig while it was sleeping in Cheryl's lap, and it made a small whimpering noise as though it was sleep-talking in its own language.
This caused both girls to pause, then quietly laugh at how undoubtedly cute it was.
Their friendly conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone entering the building and heading their way.
The girls turned around to see the boy from earlier who had been with Professor Rowan, Lucas. His white scarf hid his neck entirely, and his blue jacket appeared to be the sort that would keep someone warm, no matter the weather. He wore simple black trousers and trainers to counterpart them, and atop his head was a red hat. He held a backpack. He cleared his threat to get their attention.
"I was told to find you by Professor Rowan," he told them, "he wants you for something, apparently. I asked a local if they had seen either of you around, and one said they recognised you two running in here. If it isn't too inconvenient, would you please come along?"
Both girls nodded, and stood up from the cushions, Cheryl scooping up Turtwig along the way.
Both of them followed Lucas out of the Pokemon centre, and he led them to a building with a cyan blue roof and a sign outside that read "Pokemon Professor's Lab".
All three of them entered to find Professor Rowan, Dawn and Barry already inside.
"Hey, you guys!" Barry called out to the girls when he saw them, "I chose to stay in Sandgem for a day or two once I had started my adventure, and then Professor Rowan called me here for something... and I guess he called you too?"
Dawn, who wasn't really talking to anyone, sat in the corner writing something into a notebook. She, too, wore a jacket like Lucas, but hers was a shade of dark pink and doubled up as a skirt. She wore knee-high white socks and ridiculously long bubblegum-pink boots. Her head was covered by a white beanie, but it still allowed her dark hair to fall down her back. She also had a white scarf, but hers was tied up in a slightly different style.
Professor Rowan smiled at Mira and Cheryl as they entered. "Ah, so it didn't take long to find you two, then! Were you staying around Sandgem Town like Barry was?"
"Actually," Cheryl replied, "we sort of did that. We arrived about half an hour ago after we found and injured Starly. We were waiting for it to recover."
The Professor nodded. "Ah. I wish that Starly well. Anyway, let's get to the subject of why I called you here."
Dawn stopped writing in her notebook, and picked up a box that was next to it. Then she proceeded to walk to the Professor's side.
"You see," he explained, "I've been looking for people who can help fulfil a task for me. Dawn and Lucas have been doing pretty well so far, but it would be a lot more helpful and quicker if I had someone else also on the task."
Dawn opened the box she was holding.
Barry peeked inside, and gasped in awe.
"I have two Pokedexes remaining," the Professor continued, "and I was wondering if any of you wanted to take on the challenge."
Cheryl then proceeded to gasp in almost exactly the same fashion as Barry had done earlier.
Mira, in the other hand, shrugged slightly. "Mira is happy you offered, but Mira isn't really interested in catching all Pokemon. Mira is more interested in forming her own team and taking on the Gym Leaders."
"Well, that's perfect!" Barry exclaimed, "I can get a Pokedex, and Cheryl can get a Pokedex!"
Barry didn't hesitate to grab both from the box and give one to Cheryl, who had to let Turtwig onto the floor so she could open it properly.
The Pokedex was an interesting little device. From the outside, it looked almost like a small case of some sort, and it was coloured a bright shade of red. A black section stuck out from the right side, and this black section had some sort of green button located on top. The other side had a black section sticking out too, but the top of the Pokedex blocked it.
When Cheryl opened hers, Mira could properly see what was on the inside.
Not only could she now tell what the other black part held (a D-pad), but she could also see two separate screens, one located on the inside of the Pokedex top half, and the other located on the inside of the Pokedex bottom half. A blue light, which as of right now was switched off, resided to the right of the top screen.
Cheryl and Barry both grinned with delight.
"If you want to ever scan a Pokemon," Professor Rowan told them, "press the green button. If you want to look at which Pokemon you've already seen and information concerning them, use the D-pad. Do you need to know anything else?"
Both of them looked him. "We're fine, Professor Rowan."
As Cheryl and Mira returned to the Pokemon centre, the discussion was nothing but excitement. Cheryl had wondered if this was the thing she could do for a living.
Now, a few hours later, the two of them were beginning to get a little drowsy. They had just settled their heads within their arms on the table (while Turtwig slept even more by Cheryl's side) when the Pokemon centre lady startled them.
"Hey, the Starly's all fine now!"
Cheryl shook her head to wake herself up along with Mira, and together the two of them followed the lady, with Turtwig being yet again picked up by Cheryl.
"There we are," the lady said once they had entered, "all safe and sound."
The Starly sat in the middle of the bed. When it spotted the two girls enter, it chirped happily at them.
"This Starly should be free to go now," the lady informed them.
"Thanks a lot," Cheryl told the lady, "we wouldn't have been able to save it without you."
"And I wouldn't have been able to heal it without you!" The lady replied. "Anyway, it's night time outside now. Are you going to stay here for the night or continue your journey?"
Cheryl didn't hesitate to answer. "Staying at a Pokemon centre where there is proper food and warm beds is much better than camping in the cold with mediocre sandwiches. We'll take two rooms for the night."
After Mira and Cheryl had stuffed themselves on Sitrus berry pie and sent themselves to bed, Cheryl woke up to the sound of a Pokemon chirping.
Cheryl looked out into the room to see the Starly from earlier, hopping around near her bag.
Cheryl had let the Pokemon stay with her for tonight, but it seemed slightly eager to get something inside it.
Cheryl sighed, and got out of bed. There she wandered over to where she had dumped her bag and sat down cross-legged beside it.
"What is it you want?" She whispered quietly, and picked up the bag.
She rummaged through it, until she came across a sandwich.
She brought that out and offered it to the Starly, but it refused, backing away and chirping a little more loudly.
"Shh!" Cheryl said to it sharply. She didn't want it to wake up Mira, who had been sharing the room with her.
She continued to look through her bag, and brought out an unused Poke ball.
The Starly, upon seeing the Poke ball, waddled over to it, and before Cheryl could even think about what it was trying to do it had clicked the button on it with its beak, causing it to become encased within the ball.
The small circle of black that surrounded the button glowed red once, then faded. Then did so again, then faded. Then did so for the third time, then faded.
Then a noise made by the Poke ball signified that Starly had been captured.
"Woah..." Cheryl mumbled, too tired to comprehend what had just happened.
She picked up the Poke ball and let the Starly back out again.
It flew over to her shoulder and sat on it, causing Cheryl to tense up in surprise, but then calm down again.
Then an idea occurred to her.
She rummaged through her bag once more until she found her newly obtained Pokedex. She aimed the front of it at the Starly, which had flown from her shoulder and into her lap, and pressed the green button.
A sudden loud, electric voice startled her out of her skin. The blue light from before began flashing in correspondence to the voice.
"Starly, the Starling Pokemon. Starly normally travels in a flock, but is hard to notice otherwise-"
"What is that noise?" Said a voice from the other side of the room.
"Sorry, Mira," Cheryl told her, "I woke up to Starly making noises, and then it wanted me to capture it. I tried to register it to the Pokedex, but it didn't realise it read out its information via voice."
The Pokedex was still rambling on about how Starly was a Normal and Flying type, its height, its weight and so on. Both girls tried to ignore it.
Turtwig had been sleeping on Cheryl's bed until that point, but it was now wide awake and moaned, most likely about how its sleep was interrupted.
The Pokedex finally shut up, and the light stopped flashing, and the sudden silence felt almost overwhelming until both girls began laughing with how ridiculous the night had become.
After they had stopped rolling around on the floor giggling, Cheryl sighed. "Well, we should probably get back to bed now. I'm exhausted from all that running earlier today, and I don't want to be waking up at midday when I've got an adventure to go on."
It was an eventful first proper day of adventure for Mira and Cheryl! After finding an injured Starly within the trees of Route 201, they were forced to run to Sandgem Town to make sure it was healed. During the wait for the Starly to become healthy again, the duo were called by Professor Rowan to see if either of them wanted to take on a great task - filling up the Sinnoh Pokedex! Cheryl and the newly-returned Barry picked up one, but Mira chose against it. Once the evening was over and Starly had recovered, a surprise occurred during the night and Cheryl ended up catching the wounded Starly! Who knows what will happen next? The journey continues!
Hello dear reader! I will apologise right now for the length of this part - nearly double the length of last part. It just felt like it was better off as one long piece than a two-parter, and it's more content for you to see, so why not? Either way, I have a couple of weeks off from Friday onwards, so I'll be hopefully producing a lot more Tano Platinum content during then, so look forward to that! Enjoy!