With my chin held almost as high as my newfound confidence, I continued along Route 29 toward Route 46. Every few steps, I glanced down at the pokéball that contained Rae and smiled. We were on our way to greatness. Nothing could stop us.

After a small bit of walking, we arrived at the Route Interchange Office and went inside. The office attendant gave us his greetings as we entered. There was a young guy in a tank top loitering in the office as well. He looked like a fellow trainer, so I gave him a nod to say hello. He apparently was looking for someone to talk to, because he immediately started going on about catching pokémon in the area.

"Different kinds of pokémon appear past here. If you want to catch them all, you have to look everywhere," he said, unsolicited.

"Oh... Okay," I replied with a shy smile. I quickly distanced myself from him and exited the office on the opposite side. He seemed to have more to say, but I couldn't spare the time. I wasn't about to come off my high talking to some know it all.

Outside the office was a small sign that read

ROUTE 46 - MOUNTAIN RD. AHEAD

I looked up toward the mountain's peak and felt the excitement flare up inside me again. I can actually do this. Right here, right now.

The mountain road was a rough one. There road was covered in the same tall grass that edged Route 29. But this time I wasn't afraid to step into the sea of grass, and I walked onward with confidence. I only made it a few steps into the grass before a familiar gust of wind announced another wild pokémon. It flapped it's wings and hovered above the grass. Another pidgey.

No, wait, this one was different. It had a sharper beak and a wilder plume of feathers. I pulled out my Pokédex, a gift Prof. Elm had given me a few days ago in anticipation of my journey. I pointed the Pokédex lens at the bird and the device identified it as a spearow. No other information was available. Prof. Elm must not have uploaded any data to the Pokédex before he gave it to me.

Data or no data, I knew I could handle it. The pidgey went down without much trouble. This wouldn't be any different.

"Go, Rae! Round two, dude!"

Rae materialized from the power held inside the pokéball and stood at the ready in front of the wild spearow. I could see the scuff on his shoulder from our last encounter. I made a not to patch that up with my potion after the battle. It would be fine for now though.

"Spii! Spii!"

The spearow let out a battle cry to coax us on. It was enough for me.

"Rae! Let's go - Mach Punch!"

Rae threw a hard swing at the bird and connected on the wing. The spearow flapped off the pain and launched into a hard tackle, landing hard onto Rae, beak-first. They squared up again, ready for the next attacks. I called to Rae for another Mach Punch, but this time he missed! The spearow was able to just narrowly avoid the hit. Rae didn't look happy about that, and the follow up tackle didn't make him any happier.

"Don't worry, Rae, let's throw another Mach Punch!" This time the blow connected, but the spearow took it easily. Somehow I didn't notice that the battle was shifting into the wild bird's favor. And before I knew it, the spearow's next tackle left Rae lying on his back, out cold.

I couldn't tell you what happened after that. It's all just a blur to me. I ended up back at my mom's house and took a long rest to recover, both for my sake and for Rae's. For an entire day, I laid on my bed staring at the ceiling while my mom's Pokémon Recovery Unit hummed in the corner. It was an old device from a PokéCenter that was given to my dad. He and professor Elm used to be colleagues, so we have random junk like that laying around all over the place. But since it's old, it takes a while to get the pokémon back to perfect health.

So, I went through all my emotions while I waited. I was embarrassed to have to come back home to Mom so soon after I left. I was angry that I let myself get overconfident. I was frustrated that my confidence was misplaced. However, much like the old Recovery Unit, I just needed time to heal, and by the time Rae was ready to go, so was I.