"Hey, wake up!"
…I was shouting at Leaf in the morning. The girl moved a bit and made her face look like the squashed lemon. She definitely doesn`t like being woken up early.
"What… time is it?" she slowly asked half asleep.
"It`s five already!" I cheerfully announced. "When does the Safari challenge begin?"
"At nine, damn it!" Girl swore and turned away from me covering in the blanket.
Well, that was very sudden. I wanted to do this fast and proceed to training with Magikarp but now my plan looks to slowly fall apart. What a pity.
Looks like I have some time to process my plan again. I mean, I have time to start planning at all. So I quickly drank a couple of coffee cups and laid on couch and stared into the ceiling focusing on my thoughts. What info do I have? What info can Koga give me today evening? What can I do right now?
I have spent a little time thinking. All plans look horrible, risky and dangerous, but now I can use some more tricks in the whole operation. I just have to make sure I will have them.
"We can go!" Suddenly Leaf shouted in my ear. This time I wasn`t caught off guard; old instincts made me turn around and grab her head, but stopped from doing anything else.
This could look funny as I froze on place keeping my hand on her hair and Leaf looking at me shockingly. I was too busy thinking about other things and didn`t try to move away.
"Um… Are you going to scratch my head?" Girl modestly asked.
"No…" I confusedly replied still processing the situation. "I wanted to take off your wig and reveal you to be alien. This would explain at least something about you."
"You will be disappointed." She carefully took her head from under my hand. I finally snapped out of my own confusion and got from the couch. Some strange but pretty usual feeling like something is wrong appeared again and I looked at the window to notice the sun high in the sky.
"What time is it?" I quietly asked.
"It`s almost eleven." Leaf said with the smile.
"Eleven?" I shockingly shouted. "I must have spent a bit too much time on planning." Damn, it`s nearly six hours passed while I was thinking.
Leaf made some steps back and smiled again.
"You were so funny looking while lying on coach with closed eyes and swinging your hands in the air…"
"Really?" I didn`t actually know about that. Not much people actually saw me in deep thoughts. Also, I don`t actually go deep in my thoughts with people nearby. That`s too personal. "Ah, it doesn`t matter. Can we go now?"
"Yeah, we still have time. Let`s go." Leaf answered and together we left my room. I returned back my remaining pokemon from the treatment, fixed their pokeballs on my belt and followed Leaf outside.
To make sure we`re in time Leaf proposed to take a taxi and I was too lazy to refuse. The car carried us to the very north of the Fuchsia City where large fence marks the area of interest. For some reason this looked a little bit familiar to me.
I paid for the ride and followed Leaf into the building that separates city from the protected area. Quite a lot of people gathered here, heading to the Safari of out of it. The amount of warning signs told me that these people take their job really seriously.
While I was looking around the place and learning the rules, Leaf didn`t waste time and quickly ran to the manager.
"Hey there! Leaf Stone, the 'Kantonian Observer'. You must have been informed about me." She quickly talked to the man and attracted my attention. Is her surname actually Stone?!
I slowly approached them and silently stood near her.
"Is this your partner?" The manager nodded in my direction.
"Ah, yes, my cameraman. Two places were booked, right?"
"Yes. I will give you two special tickets wait here for a second." The man bowed and left us alone to have a serious talk. To make this more private I grabbed Leaf for her elbow and gently dragged away from all other people in the room.
"Seriously? A cameraman?" I asked her with suspicion. "And you booked the ticket for me earlier… because otherwise I don`t see your real cameraman. I have never seen him."
"You have your ticket for free, what`s the problem?" She smiled and headed away, leaving me alone again.
"The problem is I have no idea of how to film!" I shouted to her. This made her turn around and look at me angrily.
"Shush! Don`t spoil it!"
This girl becomes a real nasty pain in the ass… She didn`t look like that when we first met. I wonder who she learned that from? I hope not from the guy with scar in greatcoat…
I sat on the bench nearby and waited for Leaf to take care of all organization problems. She have dealt with this pretty quickly and returned back shining with smile and two digital devices in her hand.
"What`s that?" I questioned her about those.
"Controller bracelets. They will count our time in the Safari zone and teleport us back to entrance when it`s over." She explained while putting the device on my right hand. Somehow the portable teleporting device didn`t sound strange to me at all now.
"And how much time do we have?"
"Three hours exactly." Leaf answered and headed to the control zone. I sighed and followed her. I think that three hours will be enough to achieve our goal.
My companion approached the controller and showed him the bracelet. The man scanned it and the small lamp on device glowed green.
"You may pass." He approved her. "Would you like to take some safari balls with you?"
"Yes, please." Leaf nodded and took the bag full of small green capsules that worker gave her. She quickly checked their quantity and nodded. "Thank you."
The green light glowed on gates before her letting her proceed in the Safari Zone itself. Then it was my turn to check. The man checked my bracelet, made sure it`s okay and asked me too.
"You may pass. Would you like to take some safari balls?"
"Why would I need those?" I asked him. "If I wanted to catch new pokemon I would have pokeballs of my own, wouldn`t I?"
"Only Safari Balls are allowed." He strictly answered. "We block the functioning of any other. You can`t also release your own pokemon. That`s the rule."
"How interesting…" That made me think. For some reason that sounded logical for a preservation area. They allow to use only the pokeballs of their own production to actually control pokemon that were caught.
But not this thing worried me a hell of a lot… They have technology to jam pokeballs! And I definitely know who would like to learn more about it.
"And what if your wild pokemon will suddenly attack me?"
"They will not. There were no incident in our Safari Zone since the opening." He replied confidently.
That is strange… I have a bad feeling about this. If the local pokemon don`t actually attack anyone… even those who try to catch them… does that mean they are just too peaceful? Or pacified? This doesn`t sound too good anyway.
"Well, I don`t need new pokemon, I came here only for the HM. So… No, thanks."
The gates gave me the green light and let pass into the Safari Zone. I headed forward but then stopped for a moment and said to the worker:
"You may want to put those rules on signs too. Together with 'Don`t feed Nidoran', 'Don`t feed Rhyhorns' and 'Don`t feed workers'."
He stayed silent and I proceeded on my way on the first location of Safari.
Well… This place looks really amazing! The fresh breath of something really wild… Right from my point of view I could see the endless forest from the one side, the vast plain from the other side, the large beautiful lakes in the middle of all these…
"Wow. They made a really good home for pokemon to live." I praised the organization of this zone.
"Yep, they did." Leaf appeared near me and agreed. She put a small headset that I guess is her own camera and began to look around. I bet her device is recording a nice panorama now. "Both people and pokemon live here in harmony… People protect pokemon… And pokemon help people make good money on selling tickets. Some come here just to visit this place, to look at it… Awesome, right?"
She was right about that. I feel something really strange here… But this feeling is strange because it is… good. How did it come to this when feeling good is strange?
But then I suddenly remembered my regular dreams. And then - the events that I`m going to cause soon… I can only hope this is not the same thing. People fighting pokemon to death is… a horrible thing to see. But I got used to this so much that seeing a place where they live in harmony and peace is unusual to me. Maybe I should visit a psychologist…
The sight of cheerful pretty girl running around in tall grass and having fun made my mood a little bit better. I approached her and just then noticed that she is just pursuing a small female Nidoran there. The pokemon jumped out of tall grass and covered behind the stone.
"Come on, you cute thing!" Leaf called out to her. "I just want to make friend with you! Look what I have here!"
Girl took out a small purple thing that looked like something edible from her bag and carefully threw it to the pokemon. I made some steps back from my position and watched this show from the distance.
Nidoran looked over the stone at that thing and slowly headed to it. Leaf moved a bit further from her too and hold her breath. Pokemon poked the purple stuff with her nose a couple of times and then suddenly squeaked and like a lightning ran into the tall grass where both of us lost her forever.
"Ugh… What`s wrong with this thing?" Leaf shouted displeased. "I`m told pokemon like it!" She approached her food and angrily looked at it.
"What is it?" I asked her while walking there too.
"The bait. This should help me catch it." Leaf explained and sadly looked at me.
"Oh, come on, you will catch your Nidoran someday." I cheered her a little and put my hand on her shoulder. "Is this why you`ve come here for?"
"Actually, I want to catch a Rhyhorn too. Bill asked me."
"Bill? Oh, for his collection, yeah?" I assumed.
"Yes. He needs a Rhyhorn, so… I came here to make four things at once!"
That makes some sense. With my PokeDex updated to Bill`s collection I can tell he doesn`t have a Rhyhorn. But that doesn't bother me too much.
"We can do that on our way to the HM. Do you know where to go?" I reminded her of our quest.
"Oh, yes. And making a report for the newspaper." Leaf reminded me of her quest too and confused me with this at the same time.
"Wait a second… Newspaper journalists need cameramen?" I suspiciously looked at her. "Not a photographer?"
"Yeah, yeah, you got me." She boringly replied. "I work for two organizations at once."
This looked like an explanation. But this was too easy…
I just waved my hand and headed forward. I knew she is not going to tell me her secrets. And, maybe, that`s fair because I`m not going to tell her all my secrets too.
We were walking across the plain, passing some small service buildings and large flocks of wild pokemon. This place amazed me with the variety of species: I saw so many pokemon I have never seen before. Leaf was telling me what is that and what she knows about them – she worked like a PokeDex for me.
I was regularly checking the remaining time on my bracelet. It flows really quickly as we proceed deeper and deeper into the Safari Zone. Yet I did not see anyone that looked like a person to give away free HMs. But I managed to lose Leaf once to move away and contact Bill for some news. He was glad to her me talking and – especially – talking about the technology of jamming pokeballs. I have another plan and Bill has an idea how to make it real. When I returned back to Leaf she was still looking at the lake. She didn`t even notice I was absent.
Nearly two hours passed since the beginning and we decided to have some rest under the tree. I got quite comfortable on the grass, leaned on tree and closed my eyes, but Leaf carefully fixed her skirt and thought this through before deciding to sit on ground. The girl immediately began to search for something in her bag until she grabbed a pokeball.
"Okay, Zaura, let`s have some fun!" She threw the capsule on the ground before her but… it didn`t work. Pokeball just fell on ground and did nothing. "Oh, yeah, I forgot!" She gently smashed her face and got up to take pokeball from the floor. "Ow… This isn`t even Zaura`s pokeball."
"Ha! That would be funny if it worked." I quietly laughed without opening my eyes. I could perfectly hear everything.
"Oh yeah? It`s like you never mix your pokeballs!" She replied with offended tone.
"No, I never mix my pokeballs."
"Then… how do you differ them?" Girl asked me with interest.
I sighed loudly, opened my eyes and unzipped the greatcoat showing her my shoulder belt.
"See? All of them are always in a strict order of catching. The top is always Dumpling." I pointed at the highest pokeball there. "Then Reaper, Moment, Harry, Loser and Magikarp."
"You didn`t name it yet?"
"Well… I still don`t have a good name for him. He still has to earn it!" I explained and quickly returned to previous topic. "That`s how I always choose the right one."
"And if you take them form the nurse? On the plates they are always mixed."
"Ah, this will be harder to explain…" I unpinned the top pokeball and gave it to Leaf. "Do you feel anything?"
She squeezed the capsule in her hand and tried to understand what I mean.
"No…" Leaf confusedly replied.
"Well, if you try hard then you may actually notice that Dumpling`s pokeball is… pretty warm."
She actually stared on the pokeball, focused her attention until she suddenly made her eyes wide in surprise.
"This is magic! After you said this… I can actually feel the warmth!" She returned me my pokeball and stared at me after that.
"Ha! I`m no magician, I`m just learning…" I returned Dumpling`s pokeball on his place and closed my greatcoat. "Almost the same thing is with others. Reaper`s pokeball is always a bit… sticky. Clean, but sticky. Moment`s pokeball has a small dent on the side, and I can feel it. Harry`s pokeball is scratched after the explosion. Loser`s pokeball is the most mysterious of all – it feels dark and evil when you hold it. And also it`s a greatball, so it`s easier to differ. And Magikarp`s… Well, for now it doesn`t have any notable markings. But it`s the only greatball that is NOT feeling dark and evil."
"Wow." The girl clapped for me a bit. "You continue to surprise me, Ven."
"Ah, that`s not that hard. You can define your own markings. Just pay attention to the details. See… what no one could see…" I made her a very mysterious advice. "…or just glue big letters on it and don`t waste your time."
She laughed quietly and looked up at the sky.
"This is not that easy, you know…"
"Why is that?" I asked surprised. "But you managed to understand this isn`t Zaura`s pokeball. How?"
"Well… Pokeball of my Arcanine has a small scorch on the side. This one has it, so… it obviously does not belong to Zaura."
"Good start. I`m talking about marking your pokeballs, not for burning them… How the heck did you do that?"
She modestly turned away.
"It was stupid for me to check whether pokeballs are fireproof…" She answered.
"As I can see, they are. Partly."
She smiled reservedly and I returned to my quick nap. But now I was feeling I don`t need it anymore.
"Well, the break is over. Let`s move, we have just one hour left!" I jumped from my place and headed away from the tree.
"But it was two minutes long!" Leaf argued with me, but I didn`t stop to argue with her. She had to follow me on our way to the end of Safari Zone. Considering that we have no idea what direction it is in…
But we were walking not very long after that as we suddenly encountered a whole flock of wild Rhyhorns suddenly appeared over the hill and heading in our direction.
"Oh, isn`t this the luck itself? At last!" Leaf joyfully shouted and took a Safari Ball from her bag.
"Be careful with them…" I warned her. "I battled a Rhyhorn under Giovanni and that was one dangerous pokemon. He destroyed half of their base during the fight."
"Don`t worry, the manager told me they are peaceful." She tried to calm me down.
We carefully moved from the path of Rhyhorns to the side of road but they all suddenly changed their direction at us.
"This is not good…" I said. Because this wasn`t good at all. Looks like my bad feeling returned back and proved itself again.
"Maybe they want to play?" Leaf assumed.
I looked around to find any place where we could hide from the pokemon. The only place there was the tree, but I perfectly remember how good Rhyhorns can ram everything. They can just destroy it with us on the top.
And meanwhile the flock approached us and stopped. Rhyhorns were patiently looking at us and waiting for something.
"Here, try this!" Leaf grabbed a whole bunch of baits from her bag and threw to these pokemon. These 'spikes pokemon' paid attention to the food and gave us time to plan.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked Leaf.
"If they don`t like it, they just run away." Leaf explained.
"Okay, then this is a good idea." I nodded in approval and crouched to cover in the tall grass. Maybe we can hide right here – who knows?
Rhyhorns sniffed the bait thrown all over the ground and snorted some times. And it obviously wasn`t good enough for them as ten pair of angry eyes stared at us after that.
"Okay… That didn`t work." I said with disappointment.
"Maybe, this will?" Leaf assumed and threw her Safari ball at the nearest Rhyhorn, but the capsule just bounced off his rock-hard skin and fell on ground. Another pokemon immediately stomped it with his massive leg showing that their intentions are very clear.
"That was a bad idea…" I quietly said to Leaf.
"How can this be?" She asked surprised. "Maybe the ball was broken? I gotta check another one…"
"Don`t waste your time." I grabbed her hand. "I know what`s the problem. I encountered this before. It is time to run."
And we ran as fast as we could. Rhyhorns immediately rushed to us and were dangerously approaching. Maybe, in battle they are not the fastest pokemon in terms of reaction and performing but in this chase they had all the chances of getting us. And when they do it – they stomp our lifeless bodies into a jelly state… I don`t want to become a jelly.
"It is time!" I shouted loudly in the air. The couple of screeches replied to me from the sky and two figures immediately descended from above.
The 'Rock brothers' as Bill call them – Aerodactyles Ramos and Ramon – attacked Rhyhorns that chased us. They slashed angry pokemon with wings and claws, bit them with jaws, threw them around us until the flock was defeated.
"What the heck was that?!" Leaf was surprised and shocked. "Are these two belong to Bill?"
"Yep. And it was good I called them earlier to watch over us." I approached the two fossil pokemon and petted them a bit.
"How did you know that something like this will happen?"
"Oh… Girl, when you travel with me, something like this ALWAYS happens." I gave her a bit of judging look. "You should had understood that a while ago."
"I… I don`t understand. You said you encountered it before?"
"Yes. In Diglett Cave near Vermillion City wild Digletts and Dugtrios attacked me and Bill." I told her. "And they were uncatchable too."
"Does that mean…"
"Yes. Someone already caught them and sent into the wild. Someone controls the pokemon and hunts for us." I finished her sentence. This made her think a lot.
But I wasn't waiting for her and turned to Ramos again.
"You two were great, nice job. Now return to your positions, we may need your help again." I said them and Aerodactyles flew up to hide behind the clouds again.
"And what now?" Leaf asked me. "Will we… go shout at the manager?"
"Later, girl, later. We have half an hour to find the guy that gives the HMs and get the hell away from here." I said and headed to another plain that we haven`t searched yet. "I wouldn`t try to catch any Rhyhorns here if I were you."
"Thanks for the advice, ass…" She offended replied. For some reason I actually felt myself like ass…
We hurried to check all buildings we find but it was no use. We found some people that brag about cool pokemon they caught here, we found some more people that just have a rest here. Leaf have found the old Safari warden to shout at him because of hostile Rhyhorns, but we understood nothing he told us. Meanwhile I have found a TM dropped in the grass – which my TM Case defined as Steel Wing. Looks interesting… Maybe I can find some use of it later.
And finally we have found a building in the very deep forest. It looked pretty different from other huts we saw earlier… This one is two-storied and quite… new comparing to others. I bet our goal is there!
"Let`s go get us some Surfs!" Leaf joyfully shouted and ran in the direction of that house. Looks like her intuition tells her the same thing.
And so we entered inside this building. I noticed how well this place is designed – it look like a very comfortable log cabin. The hunter`s lair – the REAL hunter`s lair, nice and proud, not the trash I destroyed with Misty.
In the middle of all this one man was standing. When we entered inside his house, he turned around to greet us.
"Welcome, travelers! You managed to find me in time…" He smiled widely to Leaf and made some steps in her direction. But when he noticed my presence here, he had lost the reason to smile. "Anyway, you can take your prize. This month we give the Hidden Machines for Surf."
The man stepped away from the table where piles of small disks were placed. As I can see, not many people actually got here in time and claimed their prize. But we were lucky enough to get lost in this damn forest in the correct place.
We grabbed one disk each and hid them in our pockets. After a quick sights exchange we left the building.
"So… congratulations. We did it!" I said to her.
"Yeah, we did…" She finally took off her camera visor and looked at it. "It think I have recorded quite a lot of interesting stuff…"
"Are you going to return now and work on your material?" I asked the girl.
"No… Firstly I will find the manager of this place and give him a nice smack!" She seriously replied.
"What a good thing to do. I think I can return to my original plan and…"
But I couldn`t finish telling her my plan as she have just disappeared in a flash of light. I looked at the bracelet that stated my time for nearly a minute. That means her time is already over. Well, now I have a minute to release the Rock Brothers and to wait.
"Mission over, guys!" I shouted to them. "To your reserve positions!"
The couple of screeches from above stated that they heard me. That`s fine. One of them immediately headed home and the second one – to the place where I will need him again.
With the feeling of accomplished duty I lowered my eyesight on the plane just to see… another flock of Rhyhorns surrounding me. They move pretty quiet for a pokemon that weight that much.
This time they looked even more serious as angry red eyes were staring at me. This… is not good at all. Why the heck these pokemon pursue me? Maybe Digletts had some reason to attack us back then, but what`s wrong with these Rhyhorns? I did nothing to them.
They did not give me time to think and attacked at once. I ran back to the cabin but collided with another Rhyhorn there too. I was thrown back on ground where in a second a pile of enraged monsters will crush me…
But only if my bracelet will not be faster to teleport me back to the entrance. The moment of jump was sudden and caught me off guard – I needed some time to understand what happened.
"Are you all right, mister?" The controller asked me and helped to get up. "Steep slopes in our Safari, yeah?"
I got up and looked around to find Leaf. Looks like this girl has already ran away without me to shout at the manager. I would like to shout at him too… but I don`t want anymore. This controller is closer.
"Yes, steep slopes…" I sarcastically replied to the man. "And blood-thirsty Rhyhorns."
"What do you mean?" He looked really confused.
"Exactly what I said. Your… peaceful… Rhyhorns nearly killed me and my companion that returned a minute ago."
"Oh, a journalist? She headed to the manager for serious talk. She told us nothing… But this just can`t be true. Our pokemon have never hurt people before!"
I looked at his eyes and listened carefully. My indicator doesn`t feel lie in his words. He actually thinks he`s telling the truth. But that doesn`t mean he is not mistaken. Too bad I can`t see such things.
I just waved at him and walked away from here. I don`t want to waste more time here as the day slowly comes to evening. Time to disappear in the shadows and head to my meeting with Koga.
The game ended. The war begins…