Chapter 3
The sun rose around 7:00 a.m. this particular morning. As soon as the sun touched down on the Hoenn region, the paralysis-bracelet shut off automatically, and Olivia was immediately awoken. Dazed, she looked around her surroundings before accidentally looking directly at the sun, making her squint and quickly look away.
The next thing her eyes settled on was a sparkle in a nearby bush. Curious, she reached towards the vegetation and brushed it away to reveal a pair of...
"Goggles?" she questioned aloud to herself, "Why are there weird goggles in this bush?"
Intrigued, she put the goggles on and looked around her surroundings. Nothing seemed to look any different from before. However, the goggles were still interesting to Olivia so she decided to keep them on for a while. Then she glanced back towards the river behind her and remembered what happened last night.
"Crap! I don't have any more pokeballs left. I dropped them all in the river like an idiot, and now I can't catch a pokemon." She stood up and began pacing back and forth. "What do I do, what do I do? I need a pokemon to prove to my FRUSTRATING PARENTS that I can be a skilled pokemon battler..." Defeated, she decided to just head back towards Fortree City, hoping she could think of some solution on the way back, however she heavily doubted she'd be so lucky.
To get back to Fortree City, she would be forced to walk across the entire route, which is known for the river that snakes from north to south, which she is now very familiar with after last night. To reach the north end of the route, she was forced to cross several small, wooden bridges. When she reached the last of these bridges, she spotted something green on the other side, blocking her way from crossing.
Olivia was still wearing the goggles she found a few minutes prior, but due to being on the ground in the wilderness for a while, the lenses were smudged and a little blurry. To get a better view of the mysterious green object, Olivia removed the goggles to see... nothing? Confused, Olivia replaced the goggles to once again see the green figure, with its back towards her, seemingly sleeping on the other side.
"Huh? Why can't I see that thing without the goggles?"
She walked slowly, so as not to provoke the figure, and realized that it was some kind of pokemon, although she had no idea what kind. Never had she seen anything like this before. She instantly knew that she had to catch it. Then she remembered that she still didn't have any pokeballs and facepalmed, dropping the white bag in the process with a thud.
Olivia looked over to the bag. "Is something still in there?" She walked over, picked it up, and looked inside. "Of course! There's a premier ball! How did I miss that?" Winona bought the ten pokeballs at a pokemart, and since she bought in bulk, she also received a premier ball for free, which blended in with the bag she gave to Olivia. "I can catch it!" Olivia cheered.
However, the pokemon awoke to Olivia's shouting and turned towards her. "KECCCCCC!" it cried before charging at Olivia, similarly to the linoone from the previous day.
But this time, Olivia was ready. "Pokeball, GO!" She said loudly as she threw it at the oncoming pokemon, hitting it square in the center of the head. On impact, it immediately opened and encapsulated its target before falling to the ground. The pokeball shook once. Twice. Thrice. And finally, the pokeball clicked, letting out a flash of light. The pokemon was caught!
Olivia fist-pumped in celebration and walked over and retrieved the pokeball from the ground. She didn't stop to celebrate for long, and quickly rushed back to the city to have her first gym battle.
Before revisiting the Fortree City gym, Olivia stopped at the pokemon center, hoping the nurse could tell her about the pokemon she just caught.
"This pokemon is called Kecleon," Nurse Joy replied, "They can go invisible at will, which makes them incredibly rare. Congratulations on catching one!"
"Wow, that sounds awesome! What kinds of moves do they know?"
"Hmm, let me see," Nurse Joy replied. She pulled out her pokedex from her pocket and searched up kecleon. "Here's a list of all the moves kecleon are capable of learning and performing, but its hard to say for sure what yours knows currently. Try telling it to use each of the moves on this list to see what it does know."
"Ok, thank you Nurse Joy!" Olivia replied before rushing out of the pokemon center and towards the nearby gym.
This time in the Fortree City gym, Olivia didn't have the luxury of being able to fly over the gym puzzle with ease, so she was forced to push through the maze of rotating walls to reach Winona. It turned out to be surprisingly exhausting to make it all the way through, and she was gasping for breath by the end.
Sitting in a fancy, wooden chair on the other side of the battlefield was Olivia's opponent. Winona rose with a smirk and looked back at Olivia. "Did you manage to catch your own pokemon?"
"Yeah, I did," Olivia replied, still somewhat out of breath, "and I'm ready for our battle!"
"Ok then," Winona said before looking at the pokeball in her hand. She threw it towards the battlefield in front of her. "Go, Altaria!"
Altaria flew out of the ball and did a midair sommersault, then stagnated on Winona's side of the battlefield. "Allltaairrrr!"
Olivia expected Altaria to be Winona's choice for battling, but it didn't stop her from gasping as soon as it appeared on the battlefield in front of her. After a couple of seconds of feeling nervous, she shook it off and prepared her own partner. "Go Kecleon!" She threw the ball at the ground in front of her, and the pokemon inside popped out.
"Kecc kec," Kecleon cried, confused as to what was going on and how it got there.
"As the challenger, I'll let you have the first move, Olivia," Winona promised.
Olivia nodded. She looked at list of moves Kecleon could possibly know, at least according to the nurse's pokedex. She didn't know what would be a good move choice, so she just settled on what sounded the most powerful. "Kecleon, use dynamic punch!"
"Kec!" Kecleon cried, but nothing happened.
Winona chuckled. "Well, it looks like your pokemon doesn't know how to use that move." Winona took a step towards Olivia. "But I'll give you some advice: even if your Kecleon did know how to use dynamic punch, it's a fighting-type move, which wouldn't have done much to my flying-typed Altaria anyways. This is thanks to Altaria's favorable type matchup."
"Oh..." Olivia looked down, realizing how obvious that should have been.
"Hey," Winona responded, "I'm just giving you some tips to become a better pokemon battler!"
"But what if I don't want to be a pokemon battler..." Olivia mumbled quietly enough that Winona could not hear.
Winona stepped back to where she was standing previously. "Anyways, it's my turn! Altaria, use aerial ace!"
Olivia remembered watching the television show about the Kanto champion's life. One thing that made him such a skilled trainer is that he trained his pokemon to avoid attacks entirely on command. It allowed his pokemon to take very few hits per battle and outlast even the most powerful of opponents. "Kecleon, dodge it!" Olivia ordered
Kecleon jumped to the side as the opposing attack came in, but Altaria was too quick and hit it anyways. Kecleon was knocked back, suffering a lot of damage.
Olivia felt incredibly bad for her new partner, but also knew that she couldn't stay too distracted by it. She looke back down at the list of possible moves and chose another one that seemed powerful. "Use headbutt!"
Kecleon immediately charged forward towards the opposing Altaria. "Kecccleeee," it cried before leaping at its opponent, hitting it square in the chest, knocking it back several feet and dealing a lot of damage in the process.
"We did it, Kecleon!" Olivia cheered.
Winona shook her head. "Not yet, but Altaria did take a lot of damage. Let's fix that, Altaria, use cotton guard!" Altaria cried once again and began to glow for a brief moment. Afterwards, its cloud-like wings were much larger and puffier than before.
Olivia was still focused on Kecleon's previous attack and hardly noticed what Altaria did. "Use headbutt again!" Kecleon charged yet again at Altaria, striking it in the same spot as last time. However, this time it seemed to hardly have any effect.
Winona smiled, "Altaria's defense is now much higher, so we won't take very much damage anymore! Now use aerial ace!" She ordered. Altaria struck Kecleon once again, and now Kecleon seemed to barely have any energy left to battle.
Olivia gasped in shock, not wanting to lose the battle this soon. "Kecleon, are you okay? Do you need to rest?"
Kecleon nodded, before immediately falling asleep in the center of the battlefield. It did immediately appear to be much more healthy.
"What are you doing? Get up!" Olivia shouted, but Kecleon did not move.
"Use aerial ace two more times!" Winona ordered to Altaria, who hit Kecleon again and again, dealing a lot of damage and putting it at a critical amount of health once again.
"Aghh, what can you do if you're asleep, Kecleon? I don't know, snore?" Olivia complained. However, much to her surprise, Kecleon actually began to snore. The snores did not sound obnoxious at all, but instead sounded almost sing-songy, defying her expectations. The snoring even seemed to damage Altaria a small amount.
Winona clapped her hands together. "Alright, Altaria, let's finish this off. Use sky attack!" Altaria immediately began to glow with a bright light, charging the very powerful flying-type attack, but instead of attacking immediately it stayed still for a moment.
"Kecleon, wake up right now!" Olivia began to feel worried and skimmed through the list of possible moves to hopefully find something that seemed powerful. "Use ice beam!" Olivia screamed.
Kecleon immediately woke up and opened its mouth wide. Inside, it began to glow a shiny blue before releasing in a thin beam of light, aimed directly for Altaria.
"Now!" Winona ordered. Altaria immediately charged quickly at Kecleon, but was slowed by the ice beam kecleon released. Altaria continued to approach Kecleon, and a huge explosion erupted.
Olivia finally has her first pokemon, now will she and her Kecleon be able to win their first battle together? Enjoy this cliffhanger and find out next week :)
