AN: I have a few chapters written out already. I figured I'd post the first two (maybe three) daily and the rest weekly. Once I'm caught up I'll be posting bi-weekly, hopefully.


"Okay Yun, you can do this." She slapped both her hands against her cheeks repeatedly. Skorupi, now named Reign, scuttled along beside her.

He send her a confused look. "Sko?"

They had been traveling for a couple of hours until Yun's legs had started to cramp, now she was mostly dragging her feet to try and get more distance between her and the others.

"We're going to take on the league." She said conversationally. "To do that we need to gather eight badges."

"Skorupi."

Maybe he already knew all this, she couldn't tell by the sound of his voice alone. But she wanted to fill the silence.

"But the very first thing to do is training you up and maybe find ourselves another Pokémon. Gym leaders tend to have more than one."

"Rupi." Reign regularly replied to the things she said. She didn't know what he said, for all she knew he could be trying to tell her about the weather, but it managed to make her feel like he was listening at least. As a bonus, it made her feel less alone.

Though the fantasy of a best friend starter had been crushed by Yun's instinctive 'yuck' reaction towards bugs, she did feel more optimistic now then when she first saw him. She could make this work, not all of her team needed to be cute or hug-able. They needed to be strong. Her mind kicked in gear as she grabbed the Pokédex to check out the Skorupi's moves.

Reign could become strong as she shouted orders from a distance, she didn't need to come close to his poisonous pincer. Drapion appeared in the league sometimes and seemed quite fearsome. As Xavier had mentioned, they took forever to evolve though, so she needed to have two or three easy to evolve Pokémon to support him when he started falling behind.

She was deep in thought of what those Pokémon might be while checking Reign's type defenses on the Pokédex when she tripped and fell face first on the forest floor.

She groaned while rubbing her nose. "Okay, I'm officially too tired to lift my feet."

Reign scampered near to her but she stopped him before he got too close for comfort. "You stay over there Reign, I got this."

After picking up and brushing off the Pokédex, asserting it was fine after its collision with the ground, she started to set up camp near the base of a large tree. There were camping sites and bathroom stalls on the main path but Yun felt too tired to make her way over to one.

She made sure both herself and Reign were fed before she recalled her Skorupi and breathed a sigh of relief as she removed the stuffy gloves. Though league guidelines advised to keep at least one Pokémon out with you while on a route, route 202 had nothing worse than a few Starly or Bidoof. At this point rolling onto her poisonous starter in her sleep posed more of a threat than the local wildlife. She felt perfectly safe.

Still, camping outside was new for her and she struggled with finding sleep so far away from her bed while the route didn't seem as quiet as she first believed. There were still rustling leaves and Pokémon sounds resounding through the trees. After tossing and turning in her sleeping bag for what felt like hours, she finally managed to find some light sleep.

Light had started to filter through the leaves when something heavy landed on her chest. For a moment she believed it was just her family's Meowth bothering her. But when she moved to push him off she noticed its red color through blurry eyes.

She blinked, this wasn't her room, she was on route 202. Awake now she stared into the beady eyes of a red shelled bug, its creepy back antennae twitching repeatedly.

She screamed loudly while swatting it off her chest. It bounced on the ground and rolled over a few times before coming to a stop.

"Krrrrrr"

There was no mistaking it, the thing gave her a deeply angered look. Paling in fear, she scrambled for her starter's Pokéball. The bug started crawling towards her with alarming speed.

Where was it, where was it?! She couldn't remember where she put it before going to sleep. It wasn't in her bag and she hadn't donned the belt yet. In her pocket! Through her panic she remembered she had stuffed the minimized ball in her pocket the day before.

"Reign, help!" Her voice sounded shrill as she released her own bug with the red one just a few feet away.

He looked dazed as he appeared and his opponent growled at him.

"Bite, use bite!" For a moment she worried that Reign might not be able to handle the fight but then he bit the other Pokémon, his mandibles holding it down.

The other bug that, as the blind panic cleared, she now recognized as a Kricketot, struggled beneath the slightly larger Skorupi. And while Reign ended the fight with a poison sting of his own initiative, she also remembered that at this level they had no directly offensive moves. She felt a bit silly now that her fear had resided.

Standing beside the fainted Kricketot, Reign turned to look at her. It seemed like he expected something from her but she couldn't tell what that might be. Perhaps an explanation for why he was woken up so early to battle a wild, and kind of weak, Pokémon or maybe why she had been screaming about it?

Instead she smiled shakily at him. "Good work, Reign."

He tilted his head. "Skorupi!" He sounded cheerful.

A bush started rustling nearby them and Yun felt her stomach drop as she realized the commotion may have attracted more Pokémon. Sure enough, after a few seconds a Bidoof popped its head out of the beaver Pokémon was out for a battle so Yun instructed Reign on how to fight it, this time much more calmly. He defeated the Bidoof with the same ease as he had the Kricketot but almost directly after, another one showed up. Enough was enough, Yun decided to leave the battle up to Reign as she packed up her stuff in record time.

Her Pokédex dinged brightly to inform her that her Skorupi had gained a level by the time she had finished cramming everything into her bag. Reign looked a little haggard after his third battle in short succession but he didn't seem hurt.

"Okay, that was..." She heard more rustling, this time coming from the trees.

"Time to scram, Reign!"

Two, no three Starly popped from the sky and pelted towards them. Yun knew that there was simply no way Reign could handle all of them so instead of giving him orders to fight, her voice rose high as she told him to run.

If anybody asked her, they made a tactical and level headed retreat of a battle they couldn't win. The truth was she bolted through the underbrush, screaming and swearing as the Starly targeted her head while Reign followed her, occasionally shooting a poison sting that missed more often than not.

In retrospect, she'd rather he wouldn't have done that. It was almost lucky he managed to miss her completely but he did manage to hit the larger and meaner looking Starly. The bird Pokémon gave him a vengeful look, turned away from Yun and hit Reign with a wing move that made him roll onto his back and curl up. He didn't get back up.

Still swatting at the Starlies, she fumbled to recall Reign. After which she made a mad dash back towards Sandgem. The stupid birds only gave up and turned back just before she hit the town.

The day started with her running from baby bird Pokémon and ended with her sulking in the Pokémon center, her started fully healed by then. She had to take another look at the Pokédex to figure out why Reign had gone down in one move. It wasn't the other battles, like she had originally thought, but rather his type weakness to flying. Generally speaking the Starly of route 202 weren't high level enough to know flying type moves but she had strayed far from the main path where the rangers kept out the strong Pokémon, so it was only natural to run into higher level ones.

She shouldn't have a problem making it to Jubilife city on her second try, given she didn't wander off again, but eventually the routes would get harder and the Starlies stronger... she needed another Pokémon, and soon. One that would cover her starter's weaknesses. Reign had the disadvantage against four types, two of which concerned her most. Fire and psychic were rare to find in the wild so she should be fine. Even against trainers, since they were both the most expensive types save from dragon.

Rock and flying on the other hand, were a common sight in Sinnoh. Most of the routes housed flying types and all of the caves she needed to get through were home to rock types.

Yun spend some time wondering about the kind of Pokémon she needed and wanted to add to her team before turning into bed. She had looked miserable enough that nurse Joy had given her a room for free that night. It did brighten her mood a bit and she slept much better with a roof over her head.

The next morning she started her second attempt at route 202 with renewed energy. It was almost a good thing that she had to return to Sandgem, at least she wouldn't be at risk of running into her classmates anymore. They were probably far ahead.

On the first day there were a few trainers looking to battle but none of them proved to be too much to handle for Reign. One of them had a Starly, which made both of them flinch, but it was too young to know a flying move. The periodic ding her Pokédex made to let her know her Pokémon had gained another level further lifted her spirits and the money the victories brought in helped as well.

The second day proved to be more frustrating. She was looking out for a new Pokémon but all she ran into were Bidoof, Starly and the bug type Kricketot. After being chased and pecked by them she had lost any love she might have had for Starlies, she didn't need nor want another bug in her team and while she had no distinct reason not to want a Bidoof, Akane's mocking tone still rang through her head every time she considered it.

A Shinx would be nice, and solve her flying type problems in the long run, but they proved to be more elusive then the other Pokémon so she only caught glimpses of them far off the path, where she was still reluctant to venture. After a few more days of the same she decided to move on and try her luck on another route.

She stopped by Jubilife city briefly to stock up on supplies and to call her parent's with one of the videophones of the Pokémon center. They were not as averse to her starter as she had expected. Apparently Skorupi were hard to find in the wild and sort of pricey if you wanted to buy one. Although she wondered who would want that. They could poison you after all.

"That's a lovely name sweety. What made you choose it?" Her mother commented, her smile beaming brightly at her from the screen.

Yun couldn't help but smile back shyly. "It just seemed to fit."

Of course she had made a list of cool potential names for her starter when she knew she was going to get one but that sounded kind of lame to admit, even to herself.

They continued talking for a while, mostly about her plans for another Pokémon, before Yun hung up with a promise to call again after she had gained her first badge.

When she went to ask for a room she was appalled to find how much they charged for a night. Despite not having a gym, Jubilify was frequented by a steady throng of trainers due to it being located between two gym cities. This had the rooms in the center in high demand. She could stay in a dorm room that had over twenty beds, those came dirt cheap, but the thought of having to sleep with up to twenty strangers made her skittish.

In the end she moved on to route 203, deciding to camp out instead.

In hindsight, she should have stayed on route 202...


AN: Sorry this is going to be a long one. Feel free to skip.

So some of you may have noticed I haven't used honorifics in the previous chapter's conversation. I doubted whether or not I wanted to add them, I mean the setting is supposed to be Japanese but the story is written in English... To be honest I barely knew the gist of it and took a deep dive into this subject that lasted several hours (why oh why do I want this story to take place in a japan like setting). Honorifics will be used but it is situational.

To explain there are several layers of circumstances that can affect the use of honorifics. The first is that my characters are basically children/young teens and honorifics, while still used, carry less importance to this age groups (this day and age). It will become more and more important as they get older and they often have to take classes to use them properly to prepare them for the business world (which is apparently a must). Some parents do teach their children the honorifics form birth and even use them within the household... It has a lot to do with social status and these are typically the more traditional families.

The second: Japanese language is gendered, meaning boys speak different than girls. Generally girls will use honorifics earlier on and even use them for their close friends, especially in public. They can drop them in private conversations. Boys tend to bother less and talk to their friends and family without honorifics more easily, even in public. There are apparently many other small ways in which male and female speech differ from one another, which is fascinating but I don't have to worry about since I don't/can't write in Japanese.

The third is quite literally the situation itself. When conversations are private, and the people talking know each other, honorifics are often times not used. From the moment it is public and there are spectators, they are more likely if not sure to be used (by adults). The level of politeness depends on who those spectators are and if they're important (the media, your boss, the police, etc) or not (kids, random strangers, waiters, etc)

So uh... yeah I'll do my best here. Sorry for any inaccuracies. I might add/remove them later on if I feel like it's becoming detrimental to enjoying the story.