Chapter 14

I looked down into the face of the small blue turtle Pokémon standing shyly in front of me. "Are you absolutely sure about this? You don't have to if you don't want to; I'm certain we can find a nice, quiet family with a nice quiet home for you if you want."

The small blue face shook from side to side, and a tiny blue claw tapped me in the center of my chest.

"Squirtle squirt."

"Alright alright. Let me do some switching around." Fiddling with the Pokédex, I sent Pidgeotto, Nidorina and Nidorino back to the ranch, requesting geodude and zubat instead. Then I reached for a spare pokeball, one of my last. "Last chance."

She crossed her blue arms in a huff, rolling her eyes at me. "Squir tal."

"Ok ok. You know you're awfully pushy for being the shy twin."

She gaped at me in mock indignation before giggling. Then, before I could react, she pushed the button on the empty pokeball, capturing herself.

Nearby, misty was in heated battle with the outgoing twin. "Staryu, rapid spin!"

The brown starfish spun through the air, knocking the small turtle into the dirt. "Squirtle!" She growled. The small Pokémon withdrew into her shell, before launching herself with a water gun directly into the star Pokémon, who flipped gracefully in the air to land on two of its five points.

"Wow, that was impressive! That's a pretty good combo, squirtle! I can't wait to refine it." Misty seemed enamored of the small turtle, who was very slightly blushing at the praise. "Well squirtle, let me show you a combo of my own! Staryu, water bullets!"

The starfish Pokémon spun on its gem, faster and faster, and as it spun, it shot off highly compact, unerringly accurate shots of water gun that impacted the young squirtle one after another. The almost machine gun rapidity of the shots gave her no time to recover, and she stalled by withdrawing again.

Unfortunately, that was not a wise move. Without the bracing of her limbs, the shots blew the tinyturtle Pokémon into a nearby rock, knocking her for a loop. With a graceful motion, misty wound up and artfully lobbed an empty pokeball. Squirtle was sucked inside and the ball quickly pinged as she was captured.

Misty squealed in delight, bouncing up and down joyfully. I tore my eyes away from the, ahem, distracting sight with great effort. Then she grabbed me, levered me into a hug, overwhelmed my defenses, mashed me into her chest and maintained pressure. Yes friends and neighbors, I had been GLOMPed.

Finally she let me go. "Thank you for letting me try with squirtle, Scott. It isn't often that a rare Pokémon that that comes along."

"It's no problem, misty. Besides it was more her idea than mine." Indeed, once the squirtles had seen Misty's Staryu, starmie, and goldeen, she had jumped at the chance to challenge them.

"Well either way, thank you."

We smiled at each other as we walked on to cerulean.

We had stopped to train as the sun went down, and my Pokémon were in fine shape. Ralts and vulpix had mastered telekinesis, pichu was launching thunderbolts without completely exhausting herself, and my three newest teammates were making excellent progress.

Zubat, a female, was a superb mistress of sneak tactics. Using supersonic to confuse and misdirect, she would often disappear in the heat of battle, only to reappear in her opponents worst defended position, usually with a wing attack or the first vestiges of an in-progress poison fang.

Geodude was a beast. His sturdy body was nearest one more weapon he could use to utterly crush his opponents. While his geokinesis was passable, he excelled in more brute force, physical tactics. So, when I suggested that he use his geokinesis to bolster his physical attacks with rock armor, he nearly cracked my ribs in a stony hug.

Squirtle, however, was an enigma. Quiet and shy off the battlefield, she was the most fired up and determined in the heat of a fight. She took to endurance training and combat tactics like a duck (or turtle) to water. I taught her some neat tricks, and she jumped at the chance. Within an hour she was beginning to grasp the basics of hydrokinesis, and was starting to be able to arch her shots towards a target. She had also rapidly learned how to use a spinning wall of water to defend from long range attacks, and her accuracy with her water gun was only getting better.

I had everyone resting in turns when it happened. At the moment, I had had geodude and pichu facing off. Pichu was working on her voltage and amperage, geodude was working on using stone armor to bulk himself up. They had been going at each other for a while at this point, and I was almost ready to call it a night.

Pichu, however, was only getting more aggressive as the session wore on. Scuffed and a little bruised, she was absolutely refusing to quit.

"Alright, pichu. This last shot, and then we'll turn in for the night, ok?" She shot me a dirty look. "Aw, cmon baby, don't do me like that. You know you love me." She shot a bolt at me, missing me by a mile, and giggled as she turned back to geodude. He smirked at her, slapping his left palm with his right fist. She glared at him, then shot off the biggest bolt of ever seen her make.

The night briefly light with the light of day, and when the flash cleared, pichu was still glowing. She grew taller, thicker. Her tail lengthening out onto the trademark shape that had launched an entire multimedia franchise. Her ears had lengthened, her coat turning from a pale yellow to a deeper goldenrod, crossed by bands of brown on her back. Pichu had become pikachu.

The celebrating was loud and joyful, and lasted late into the night.

Far away, in saffron city, a pair of violet eyes glowed blue with psionic might. A powerful, overwhelming mind had sensed something novel, something new. As the tendrils of psychic influence reached out across the miles separating them, she was stymied from her goal by a strange shield. Determined, and knowing she had drawn the attentions of two similarly powerful minds, she established a tether, a marker to keep her anchored to the whereabouts and goingson around this person. She smirked, realizing she had surprised the other two interested parties.

Sabrina had entered the fray.

Scott's Pokédex:

Caught: Squirtle, Caterpie, Metapod, Butterfree, Weedle, Kakuna, Beedrill, Pidgey, Pidgeotto, Rattata, Raticate, Spearow, Fearow, Pikachu, Nidoran(F), Nidorina, Nidoran(M), Nidorino, Vulpix, zubat, paras, geodude, Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Ralts