Chapter 15

Now that we were not running around the forest trying to find Jess my team and I, minus Cape who was recuperating in his pokeball, could admire more the beautiful and mysterious forest as we followed Jess to the tree.

Ilex was a vast wooded territory that covered one-third of the path from Azalea to Goldenrod, in other words, a gigantic forest.

It had been discovered by settlers from Kanto more or less two thousand years ago. They reached the limits of the forest by following the shoreline of Johto and when they found the huge forest they were unable to rest or settle even near the forest because of the powerful pokemon that inhabited it and had to go the long way around it. Centuries went by until the first champion of Kanto, searching for new adventures the legend says, trailed the path that in the future would become the routes and reached the so-called Impenetrable Forest.

His guides tried to get him to go around it but he simply denied that strong suggestion and decided to cut straight through the forest with his legendary fire pokemon.

The ensuing hike through the forest was so impressive at the time for the people who knew that the forest had been impassible for almost one thousand years, that it was written down in much more detail than other events of the First Champion's life. It was the sole reason that we knew of one of his pokemon, an Arcanine.

He and his entourage became the first humans in recorded history to pass through this forest and, of course, just knowing that it was possible gave new life to the expeditions made to conquer the forest. Trainers from all over the, at the time, small regions of Kanto and Johto came to try to settle the forest and acquire the fierce and powerful pokemon within.

One hundred and forty years later the Angio clan established a base near the southeast of the forest and vowed to conquer it. Thirty years later Ilex was born and the rest is history.

Of course, knowing all this history did not do the forest justice.

As I observed the shaded trees that were so close together they almost didn't allow the sun to shine through. The soil was soft and all the plants and leaves had at least some water dripping down from them because of the humidity. The walk through the uneven soil of the forest, combined with the fact that the densely packed trees didn't permit wind to pass through and cool us down, made me sweat a bit during the walk.

Since we were still near the route we didn't see many pokemon, just a couple of scurrying Rattatas and one Fearow flying about. This could also be because of the Seviper that we fought.

After five minutes we reached the Minccino's tree, the young Zangoose walked in front, followed by Jess, her team, me, and my team, and finally the elder Zangoose at the rear. I glanced at Jess' shoulder bag where the little Minccino was placed after her arms got tired. He had his head out of the bag and looked up at the big tree with worried eyes.

I looked way up at the tree since it was a big one. The trees in Ilex averaged twenty meters high but this one looked to be, maybe, thirty meters high, full of branches that went in all directions and full of leaves. The base of the tree had signs of fight and also of slithering on the soil, there were many places in the bark that looked to have been slashed.

I looked at the high branches of the tree and saw that some pokemon had poked their heads out to look at us with alert glares.

There were five Minccino but I could also see many Caterpie and Weedle, a couple of Budew, Pineco, Oddish, Rattata, and even a Pikachu and a bunch of flying pokemon, many Pidgey and Fearow and a couple of Farfetch'd. It was obvious that these pokemon were not together in the tree because they wanted to but probably because the introduction of the trained Seviper upset the balance in the Forest and those pokemon were forced to group to survive.

They were wary of us but when they saw that the Zangoose were with us the pokemon visibly relaxed. The older Zangoose walked near the tree and began to speak up at the pokemon for a couple of minutes.

He finished his speech and then the pokemons in the tree began to celebrate, jumping up and down and giving out loud and endearing cries. Most of the grass and bug pokemon began to leave after a while, even the Pineco fell and rolled away, and soon enough just the Rattata, the Pikachu, Minccino, and half of the flying type were left on the branches.

I looked down at Jess, who was trying to get the little Minccino out of her bag. It was a struggle between the two but she was able to do it and then she extended her arms and presented the little Minccino to the tree like it was an offering.

The Minccino looked at the little one with huge and surprised eyes and then began to slide down the tree. The biggest of the group walked forward and stopped five meters away from Jess and began to scream with the little Minccino who, now that she was out of the bag, jumped out from Jess's arms and then began a screaming match between the biggest and the smallest.

Jess began to panic a little and put her hands on her head.

I didn't understand what they were talking about, of course, but I could at least guess.

"Velocity." The pokemon in question was perched on the branch nearby and looking around. When I called her she turned her head to me. "That Minccino, she fell from the tree or jumped from the tree?"

The Starly chirped two times and I nodded and turned back to the discussion.

The little Minccino had jumped forward to use Baby-Doll Eyes on the Seviper, so it had guts and when she was up in the tree she probably wanted to fight the Sevipers while the big Minccino and possible leader of the bunch wanted to hold on and defend the tree.

So she did not fall from the tree. She had tried to attack the group of Seviper and Jess had saved her from her foolishness.

As I came to this realization the discussion intensified and they began to scream in even more high-pitched noises. Jess's face turned to shock as she realized that the Minccino wasn't that friendly with the others.

When I was almost turning to Jess to say that we were done here the entire group of Minccinos seemed to come to a decision. The five Minccinos including the biggest one turned their backs on the little one and climbed up the tree. The little Minccino's big eyes were narrowed in slits and her little paws were clenched hard as she watched as they climbed away from her.

Jess made to speak but I gestured her to stay silent. The little Minccino put her four legs on the ground and began to walk the way we came and since it was the way we needed to take to go back to our camp we began to follow her. We, and also the two Zangooses for some reason, trekked behind the angry Minccino. We spend three minutes walking with the scowling Minccino guiding us in the direction of the camp.

When we got to a small elevation in the forest she stopped, stood up, looked around for a bit, and then fell on her butt and began to sob uncontrollably. "Minccino!"

The sob turned to crying and tears began to roll down from her big and closed eyes.

Jess immediately rushed forward to try to scoop her up but she pushed her off with her tail and continued to cry on the ground.

"Min, Minccino." She cried out.

I turned to the older Zangoose, pointed to the little Minccino, pointed back to the tree, and shook my head in a question. He nodded in response.

I sighed as I watched the Minccino cry and thought about what I should do here.

It probably would not be too smart of me to do this but the Minccino had helped us, showed courage two times over, I had space for a normal type pokemon on the team, and… Well now I'm just making excuses for myself.

The truth was that I was just feeling really sorry for her. Being banished from your home for trying to do what you thought best for your family must hurt badly. I remembered Mother Elena and thought about what she would do, what Alice would say in this situation, and what I wanted to do.

I walked around the Minccino and knelt in front of her. Then I picked up an empty pokeball from my bag, put it on the ground, and rolled towards her.

She saw the pokeball coming towards her and the crying and sobbing gave way to confusion.

"I was told that you jumped from your tree to fight the Sevipers right?" The Minccino didn't react, she just continued to sob and cry while looking at the pokeball.

"That was a stupid decision you know." The Minccino glared up at me through the tears but it didn't have much effect. "But you were courageous and you showed that you have guts when you helped us with the Seviper… Do you know what pokemon trainers are?"

Her face twisted in a "more or less" expression.

"We are humans who catch pokemon from the wild, like you, and make them stronger than they ever could have imagined." She looked between the pokeball and me. "You were banished by your family but if you want to you can come with me, to become part of my team and to become a very strong pokemon. You can click on the button on the pokeball and from here on out it will be my job to give you a home and to make you the strongest Minccino in the world."

The little pokemon thought for a long time and then turned back to look at the big Zangoose who now had his arms crossed. He held her gaze but didn't do or say anything.

She finally turned back to the pokeball, stood up, and walked forward. She reached near the pokeball and locked her determined big and tearful eyes with mine as she clicked the pokeball. She was turned into red and was pulled inside it.

The pokeball shook two times and then it stopped moving and the iconic sound of a successful catch went off.

Jess approached me while I collected the pokeball and put it on my belt. "I thought about doing it but you know…"

I nodded. She was thinking with her head and with the information she had and I couldn't fault her for it.

There were what pokemon trainers called unrecorded lines, it was a catch-all term to refer to all the pokemon lines that have not won any Championship or any Conference.

When someone wins the Championship their name goes up in the Hall of Fame, a specific place where the Champions of the region and their main teammates are engraved to be remembered for all time. When Johto and Kanto were unified for the last time the place that was agreed on to be the Hall of Fame of Indigo was a gigantic cavern in the Indigo Plateau.

And when the Conference system was implemented in the regions it was also planned for them to have an equivalent of the Hall of Fame. In Johto, we created the Winner's Monument, an obelisk in the middle of the Silver Citadel where a plaque with the champion's name and his teammates would be attached forever.

Unrecorded lines are pokemon lines that did not participate in a Champion's or Winner's team and therefore were not recorded in the Hall of Fame or the Winner's Monument. Most pokemon, of course, are not recorded there for many reasons, there were ones like Milotic or Slaking, who would be considered strong by beginners, but never had the luck of finding a trainer who was able to take them to the finish line and, of course, Western Continent's pokemon are rarely present in both, even the considered "stronger" ones.

Most pokemon, however, never got there because of bias, no one tried to catch what they thought were "weak" pokemon, no Raticate, no Beedrill, no Seviper, and no Cinccino.

"If the path toward the top was not clear, you were just gambling that this pokemon that you caught in the wild would be different from the dozens of other pokemon like it who hadn't reached the top." That was what a pundit in a TV show about training said when asked about unrecorded lines. I used to believe that shit too.

I looked at the Minccino's pokeball and remembered when, two years ago in the Silver Conference finals, a Thunder from a Pikachu ravaged an entire coliseum. It was needed the combined might of an Alakazam, an Arcanine, and a Nidoking to put down the electric type whose entire line, Raichu included, had never had a plaque before.

The truth was that there was no such thing as a strong or weak pokemon line.

There were just good trainers and bad ones.

Jess didn't have the confidence in herself to pick up and train a "weak" line and that was okay.

I did.