"That fucker! That absolute fucking bastard! I've always hated him, but that is just too far!"

So Dave wasn't really the founding member of the Gary Oak Fan Club.

"I suppose so," I shrugged, calling Flame back. We'd been battling playfully, not really serious about it, but Flame and Ace were happy about it. The Magikarp, which I had still yet to name without the use of profanity, had yet to battle but I really didn't want to use it. The stupid thing probably only knew how to splash around and that wasn't going to help me.

"I can't believe that," Dave said again, stroking Jett as both of us sat down on the grass. "I can't believe it! You are alright, though, yeah? I'll kill him the next time I see him! We've always had a rivalry, he used to hang about in Vermilion all the time, and he'd start causing shit like the arrogant fuck he is. I always tried to stop him, he was such a fucking tool-"

"Still is."

"Exactly!"

"What should I name this thing, man?" I quickly steered the subject away from Gary. Like hell did I want to talk about that fucker. "I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl."

"Check the barbels. The male has tan ones, the female has white. And the male is just generally bigger, I think."

I released the Magikarp from its ball and held it down, looking at the barbels. They were tan.

"We have a boy."

Dave had his bag open and was flipping through a small blue book, with Jett staring at it with curious eyes. He was murmuring to himself, then looked at me. "They learn Tackle when they reach level 15, apparently. So you aren't completely screwed. Your best bet would be to bait and switch. The method is painstakingly awful but it works."

"You mean send it out to battle then change to another? Sounds fine."

He kept on flipping through the book, and then stopped at a page near the end. "There's a glossary here of Pokémon words…mostly Water-type related stuff…Hydro Pump…more irrelevant…hey! Why don't you call him Storm?"

"It works," I shrugged, looking down at Storm's Poké Ball in my hand. "Welcome to the family, boy."

Dave put his book back into his bag, and sent out Shadow. I sent out my newly-named Magikarp, and hoped Dave's method would work.

"When the honest hell does this thing evolve?"

"Level 20. If you had a Pokédex, you'd be able to see their exact level and how much they need to grow to the next…"

A lightbulb might as well have appeared above my head: I had completely forgotten that Professor Oak had given me a Pokédex. It was in my bag somewhere. I spent the next five minutes inspecting my Pokémon and their levels, and I had been right with a lot of my guesses. Flame was level 13 - he'd be evolving soon - Ace was level 12, and Storm was level 6. Dave was lacking in the Pokédex department, and he desperately needed organisation.

"How did you get one?"

"A gift from the dear old Professor."

I had been sure that Storm was well below level 10 when I first caught him, but Shadow and Jett were tough Pokémon, somewhere in the early level 20s. Dave relied totally on random guesses, and the need to get a Pokédex was growing stronger. Despite what people might have believed, I actually did love being an organised person and I was also the kind of person who would catch the same Pokémon twice without any sort of list of what I already had. Thank God for that invention. Dave wanted one, and I was going to help him get it.

Although, I wasn't someone who aspired to catch every Pokémon. No way. I'd thought about the whole aspect of it and at the very least, I wanted four on my team. Dave had a high chance of conquering the Elite Four with just Shadow and Jett. I already had three. A Fire-type, Electric-type, and a Water-type.

"I think you just ask for one," I told him, not adding that I didn't actually ask for anything I was holding in my hands - or anything that was standing at my legs, wanting to battle. "They might cost money."

"Shit. How much money?"

"Couldn't tell you, mate."

"Double shit."

I sighed.

"I guess knowing what level your Pokémon are at is just something you pick up, man," Dave countered back, giving me a one-armed hug. "It's like an intuition. Did your mum ever say that? 'Mother's intuition'. It's like that. But I want one, because I'm very unorganised. As you can see."

"I'll help you out, definitely!"

"Thanks, mate."

He grinned at me, and then spoke again. "Where are you headed, Darrell? Overall? Are you going for the badges or what?"

"…well, I planned on just travelling. Seeing where the road took me. And get the badges if the chance comes up. But if I had to give you one, then…yeah, it's probably that."

He looked nervous; blushing, almost, and I raised an eyebrow.

"Well…would you mind if I, like…tagged along? Travelled with you, I mean?"

I looked at him. He was smiling. My heart began to pound. At school, I didn't even have that many friends, and it just became even worse when Joel moved to Lavender Town, leaving me alone. People liked to ask me about him but they didn't actually care about Joel. They just wanted the satisfaction of knowing every fucking thing that went on in everyone's lives.

Most people I talked to were just class acquaintances.

Most of them were all fucking idiots.

But Dave was different. We weren't in school anymore, and in the space of a few hours, I already considered him my second closest friend. He was offering to travel with me, all the way around Kanto. He was offering to put up with my bullshit. He was offering to potentially risk his life - trainers and Pokémon could die out on their journeys. It wasn't unheard of. And there was no way I was going to go through this alone. I needed someone. I needed Dave, whether I knew it or not.

"Hell yeah! Of course I don't mind. I want you to come. I thought that went without saying!"

We hit each other high fives, and a rush of determination and confidence surged through my body, my heart, my lungs. We grinned at each other goofily for a few moments, and then he looked back down at his bag, still with an enormous smile on his face. He said nothing, but we both sent out Pokémon. Storm against Shadow, ready for the method once more.

"Tell me again what the plan is?"

Dave had a notebook in his lap, concentrating hard on our plan. His spare notebook was now dedicated to our plan of travelling through Kanto. Another was a diary and I bought one from the local Mart after a few battles. I sneaked a peek at his plan-of-action book and was honestly astonished at how neat his writing was. The pages were blank and none of his lines were slanted, and he'd even drawn a map of Kanto at the start of the book, naming the cities and some of the main routes. My eye strayed towards Lavender Town. It didn't look that far away.

"Okay. Easy. We get the Boulder Badge from here - Pewter City - and then head eastward towards Mount Moon. Going through Mount Moon takes you to Route 4, which leads to Cerulean City…we get the Cascade Badge from there, and then go south to Vermilion. But the alternative is this from Cerulean City: we go eastward again and go through Rock Tunnel, which takes you straight to Lavender Town. You can only get there if one of your Pokémon has a certain technique, though. That's the plan. Sound alright, bro?"

"Sounds fucking boss."

"I want a Machop," Dave declared, shutting the book and looking up at me, Jett circling him protectively. "I think they might live in Mount Moon. I really fancy a Fighting Pokémon, you know?"

A Haunter, a Jolteon, and a Machop. Dave just had it planned out. He frantically opened the book again and on the inside cover, wrote down his team and then mine.

"This'll help me keep track. Of what types I can think about catching. Ghost, Fighting, Electric…what other could I use?"

I shrugged again - this was quickly becoming a Darrell trait - and thought of the most obscure type I could. "Not a fucking clue…Ice? Dragon? I don't know."

"Dragon! That's a good one!"

"They're really rare," I told him, bending down and petting Jett on the head. He'd started trusting me some more, and I welcomed him gently. Dave had been right. Jett really was protective once you gained his trust. Ace was relaxing nearby, not wanting to miss out on the sun; Flame and Storm were currently in my pocket. Technology astounded me. "I read that you can catch Dratini at the Safari Zone."

"That's in Fuchsia City. We're about an entire sea away."

"Then, we waste no time!" I declared, jumping up. "Let's get our badges and get outta here!"

The confidence just wasn't going away - but hey, I wasn't going to complain, was I?

"Alright then, dude!"

This was going to be fun.