Roy and Antonia

by Besprizornye

Roy and Antonia are two new pokémon trainers who have found themselves traveling through the Kanto region together. Roy is impulsive and excitable while Antonia prefers to do everything by the book. Their personalities and approaches to pokémon training often clash, but they will need to learn from each other if they want to beat their common rival, Roy's brother Jesse.

11. Chapter 11

That afternoon, Roy lost his match against Misty.

After the referee had announced the result and Roy had recalled his beaten pokémon, Antonia, Misty, and all of the gathered spectators had watched the boy's jaw tighten and his face go red. Before anyone could say anything to him, Roy had turned and ran away from them all and outside the gym all together.

Antonia hesitated between apologizing to the gym leader and following after him before taking the latter course. The onlookers for Roy's battle with Misty were easy to navigate with how they parted before her. She did not want to run, but Antonia thought that she could feel the eyes of everyone else in the gym on her, and so she let herself break out into a brisk jog by the time that she had exited through the pokémon gym's doors.

Because he had run off so quickly, Antonia thought that she would have to work to find Roy or catch up with him. But she found the other pokémon trainer standing against the wall of the pokémon gym and heavily breathing in and out. She saw that Roy's face had lost some of its color, but Antonia still waited a while longer before she asked him, "Roy? Are you all right?"

Roy breathed in sharply through his nose and then said, "No, not really, Toni." He looked up towards where the summer sun was hanging in the sky. Antonia thought that he would say something more to her, but instead he just shook his head and then set off walking.

"Wait, where are you going?" asked Antonia as she followed after him.

"I'm going to catch a new pokémon, one that will help me beat Misty!"

Even after they had found a small patch of woods and left the heart of Cerulean City behind them, Antonia's enthusiasm for this idea had hardly flagged. "This is a really great idea, Roy!" she said as they leapt over a narrow brook and went further into the shade provided by the trees. "It's good to see you planning ahead like this and not just rushing in without thinking."

"Right," said Roy absently. He and Antonia stopped walking and Roy moved to take his poké balls out of his pocket, but did not. "Forgot to go to the pokémon center," he muttered more to himself than to Antonia. "Doesn't matter, I'll just catch a pokémon myself, like I did with Nidoran."

With that declaration, Roy stomped off in a direction chosen on a whim. Antonia watched him go, and then sat down by the edge of the brook and looked into the water. Even though the patch of wilderness was close to Cerulean City, the sounds of the city seemed quiet and far away and Antonia enjoyed the refuge. The water added to the soothing atmosphere as it flowed lackadaisically to its destination, save for where fallen debris or thicker patches of reeds caused it to swirl around in eddies until a passage through or around the obstacle was found.

After Antonia had been sitting for a while, lost in her own thoughts, a few of the pokémon which she and Roy had frightened away with their approach began to creep back toward the water. Antonia watched clumsy round poliwag and a yellow-feathered psyduck waddle over to the water's edge, although they did not go in just yet. They were too busy watching Antonia, and she returned the wary pokémon's curiosity. The silence was broken abruptly by the sounds of frantic splashing further up the river and Antonia stood up to get a better view, even though the move caused the wild pokémon to flee once again.

The source of the disruption soon became apparent as a magikarp drifted down the brook, fighting against the gentle current and losing anyways. It was undeniably amusing to see the small pokémon struggle mightily against such an unimpressive force, but the helpless pokémon's panic was clear and Antonia felt bad for it. Carried along by the water, the magikarp came to a stop in a cluster of reeds and sent them bobbing. The pokémon's struggle ceased for a moment as it took in its new situation, and then it began to writhe frantically in the entangling plant life, its red body bouncing behind the backdrop of the thin reeds keeping it prisoner.

Antonia stepped cautiously toward the magikarp. She kept her distance less out of a concern that the feeble pokémon would hurt her than for fear of getting her shoes wet in the marshy ground. Pushing aside a few of the obliging reeds, Antonia found herself looking down at the magikarp. Her first instinct had been to simply clear the way for the magikarp to go onto whatever destination that brook bore for it, but something more calculating awoke in her as she saw the pokémon up close. Instead of helping the pokémon right away, Antonia slipped her backpack off of her back and rummaged around for a poké ball, forcing herself to do so slowly and methodically. After all, it wasn't as though her prize was going anywhere.

Once she found the poké ball, Antonia knelt down and pressed it gingerly against the still writhing magikarp. The pokémon's mouth was caught the middle of opening when it was consumed with a bright light and transported inside the red and white sphere in Antonia's hand. She felt the ball shake in her hand, but with as ineffectual an effort as the magikarp had been able to muster against the current or the reeds, and it soon settled down and accepted its fate.

For a moment, Antonia could not believe her good fortune and then she reminded herself that the pokémon which she had caught had not represented a real challenge. Still, the girl chose not to stop herself from looking down and smiling at the poké ball in her hand. It would be hard work taking care of and raising the magikarp she had just caught to maturity, but she had done her research so Antonia knew that it would be all worth it.

After that excitement, if it could be called that, Antonia found herself unable to relax by the edge of the brook as she had before her new magikarp had first appeared. She now paced along the side of the water, turning her head towards any sound, real or imagined, that might signal Roy's return. With the day growing longer and the sun starting to set, the isolation of the small woods began to feel less comforting and more alarming. After wavering back and forth on the issue, Antonia finally decided and was about to set out in search of Roy when he tromped through a line of trees and into the small clearing.

He didn't say anything at first, which gave Antonia time to take in his appearance. His jeans and shirt were bedeviled by small tears, his face and arms were dirty, and there were small leaves clinging to his blonde hair. Before he finally did speak, Roy let out a long heavy sigh, and only then forced a smile onto his tired face as he asked, "How's it going, Toni?"

"Um, it's going well, I suppose. Were you able to catch a new pokémon to help you against Misty?"

"Well, uh, no," admitted Roy. He looked over his shoulder at the path he had just taken and then sighed again. "I found a couple, I mean, but when I tried to catch them, they always ran away. My pokémon weren't much help either. Charmander's still in a bad mood, and something spooked Nidoran, so he tried to run away too. And all of the pokémon that I saw looked like plants too, so that was confusing too. I threw one of my poké balls, this beautiful throw, Toni, and it turns out that it wasn't a pokémon at all."

Antonia giggled at that before catching herself, but it was enough to make Roy smile. "So, that's how I've been doing. What about you, Toni? What did you do, just hang out?"

Roy's question drove the mirth from Antonia's face in an instant. "Me? Well, I actually caught a new pokémon," she said in a small voice. She watched the other trainer's face first turn to anger and then even more rapidly to disappointment. "It's just a magikarp though," Antonia added hastily, "and it was very easy, actually. It pretty much fell into my poké ball, to be honest."

"Oh," Roy said, "that's cool. Good for you, Antonia." His smile returned, but it had a nauseated quality to it and Antonia was relieved when he did not say anything more on the subject, but instead jerked his head off in the direction of Cerulean City. "It's starting to get dark, should we head back to the pokémon center?"

"Yes, I think that's a good idea." Antonia readily started off towards the city, and only realized after walking for a bit that she was in the lead and Roy was lingering behind her. He was keeping up with her, but also hanging back a few feet. Antonia thought about going back to join him, but while she was looking back at him, she almost tripped over an exposed root and that caused her to focus on the path ahead.

Giving Roy his space seemed to work at least well enough that he sped up to walk by Antonia's side once they were walking on the streets of Cerulean City proper, although he still did not say anything to her. When they arrived at the familiar red-roofed pokémon center, Roy gestured for the sliding glass door to open and then motioned for Antonia to go in first. No words passed between them until after both trainers had left their pokémon with the nurse and they started to go to their separate rooms.

"Will I see you at dinner?" Antonia asked, and then quickly looked down at her feet.

"Yeah, of course, Toni!" Roy said, and she was surprised to see the first genuine smile on his face since they had reunited in the woods. "Ten minutes sound okay?"

Fifteen minutes later, Roy was knocking on Antonia's door. "Are you ready to go?" he asked when she opened it. "I was thinking that we could check in with the nurse and see if our pokémon are ready to be picked up. Then they could eat with us."

Antonia agreed and the two of them checked in at the nurse's station, where they were told that their pokémon needed more rest and that they would be fed after their recovery. This left Roy and Antonia to walk to the pokémon center's cafeteria by themselves. Antonia was worried that a similar silence had fallen over Roy again, but when his stomach growled he smiled at her and she smiled back.

The two still did not speak until they had loaded up trays with the complimentary meal provided for traveling trainers, and Roy surprised Antonia by not immediately diving into his food but instead asking her, "So, what now, Toni?"

"What do you mean?" Her fork stopped its ascent out of her bowl of salad, and Antonia slowly lowered it back down.

"I mean, you got another gym badge, so you don't really need to stick around Cerulean City any longer, right?"

"Yes, that's true," agreed Antonia tentatively.

"So, where to next?"

Now, Antonia let herself have a few bites of her dinner and Roy let her have the time to think before she replied, "Saffron City, I suppose. There's supposed to be a pokémon gym there, and it's on the way to a lot more pokémon gyms further south."

Roy still hadn't touched his own food but he had a drink of water and then said, "That's cool. You're going to keep pressing on, huh, Toni?" He was looking at her, but when she didn't break eye contact, he did so instead. Roy used his fork to rearrange his own summer salad without picking any of it up. Neither trainer spoke, yet neither ate either out of an unspoken feeling of propriety. Ultimately, Roy had to falter in the contest. Antonia simply had much more experience remaining quiet. He grimaced and asked quietly, "Could I tag along with you for a while longer?" He did not make eye contact with Antonia when he made his request, but after he had finished speaking he looked up to gage Antonia's reaction and found the bespectacled girl looking at him curiously. "What?"

"Are you sure?" Antonia asked. "You would have to work hard and travel a lot to get the two badges I won but that you're missing. Is there enough time in the summer for you to do that?"

"Well, the way you're going, I figure you'll have everything you need for the pokémon league in two weeks," Roy shot back, but his laugh was strained and he fell quiet again under Antonia's appraising gaze.

"Roy, are you sure about this?"

His eyes dropped back down to the tray of food on the table before him. "I think so, Toni. I mean, you saw me against Misty. I was hopeless. And you, you were awesome. You were so smart and so confident. I didn't think I've ever seen you like that, not at school, not against Brock, ever. If I want to be a good enough pokémon trainer to prove Jesse wrong, I don't think that I can do it on my own. I mean, I couldn't even catch a pokémon properly today, and you caught one without even trying."

Antonia started to object, but Roy did not notice and talked over her, "There's only so much that I can learn on my own, and it would be a lot of trying and failing before I got something right. That would take more time than hiking back here or to Pewter City, I think. But if I'm with you, I can learn from you and you can teach me, and, well…" Roy trailed off and finally dared to look up and see Antonia's reaction.

Her round face did not betray any answers to Roy, and Antonia's mouth was a neutral line without any hint of smile or frown, which caused the corners of Roy's own mouth to turn downwards. "You want me to teach you," said Antonia slowly, as much for her own benefit as Roy's. "You asked me for that before, when we were in Viridian City. Have you learned anything from me, Roy? Have we kept that promise?"

"No," Roy said evenly. "I haven't asked you for help. I've watched you, and learned a little bit like that, I guess, but I haven't been a good student. I've never been a good student, really." He tried to smile at Antonia, but his joke fell flat.

"No, you have not been a good student, and I have not been a very good teacher either," said Antonia, and Roy was taken aback by her brusque tone. "I've been so focused on my own pokémon journey that I haven't been working to help you like you asked me to. You only train your pokémon when I suggest it and you don't plan before going into battles. You rush in without thinking and then you lose. What you need more than a new pokémon is discipline."

Roy looked glum and Antonia's impassive façade cracked enough for some of her doubts to show through, but before she could voice her apology, Roy nodded and said, "You're right. Can you teach me?"

Antonia swallowed but then mirrored the bob of Roy's head. "Yes. We'll start tomorrow."

"Bright and early?" asked Roy with a grin.

"Bright and early," echoed Antonia without any of his humor, and she finally turned her attention to her dinner.

The next morning, Antonia rapped her knuckles against Roy's door sharply and called his name in a matching voice. She was rewarded by the muffled sound of Roy falling out of his bed and then muttering unintelligible obscenities before finally opening the door. His hair was standing up in the back and his shirt was on backwards, but he was dressed and awake enough to try and make a joke. "I was just about to come get you, Toni."

Antonia let it pass without comment. "Come on, let's get our pokémon," she said to Roy and started off towards the pokémon center's lobby without waiting for him.

Roy caught up to her with a quick jog. "So, what's the plan, Toni?" he asked.

"We're traveling, south to Saffron City."

"Sounds great! Are you going to teach me anything cool today? I mean, I'm ready and willing."

Antonia did not look at Roy as they rounded the corner and saw the nurse's station come into view. "Lesson one is getting up and getting moving. I'll see if there is anything else I can come up with today."

Roy's smile faltered and he said, "Oh," but he waited patiently for the on-duty nurse to fetch his and Antonia's pokémon.

Once he had Charmander and Nidoran's poké balls secured in his pocket, Roy turned to Antonia expectantly only to see that she was already walking out the pokémon center and into the early morning air. Roy joined her and was surprised to see that the sun was still low enough on the horizon to be obscured by some of Cerulean City's taller buildings. With fewer people out and about and mist rising over the river bisecting the city, Roy and Antonia's surroundings had a dream-like quality to them. Roy especially rubbed his eyes more than once, and a whine crept into his voice as he said, "Look at how early it is, Toni! Can't we at least stop for breakfast?"

Antonia reached into one of the pockets of the cargo pants that she was wearing and pulled out a wrapped granola bar. She offered it to Roy who took it with a combination of gratitude and disappointment.

"Is that all?"

In answer, Antonia simply handed him another granola bar.

"Great, thanks," grumbled Roy even as he unwrapped the first half of his meager breakfast. "What about the pokémon?" he asked through a full mouth as they walked.

"I asked the nurses to feed them before I got our breakfast and woke you up."

"How early did you get up, Toni?" Roy asked.

Antonia shrugged. "You can decide where we eat for dinner if we make it to Saffron City before dark."

He didn't look happy, but Roy kept up with Antonia as the two young trainers crossed streets still bathed in the gentle orange light from Cerulean City's streetlights. They crossed over the river and then followed its course as best they could before they had to turn south. Soon, the sun crested the last building blocking it and illuminated Roy and Antonia in its light. Some of the sleep had left Roy by now, though he still glared at the people they saw stepping outside in robes and pajamas to retrieve the morning paper.

Before they knew it, Roy and Antonia were leaving Cerulean City proper. Under the guise of needing to tie his shoe, Roy stopped their progress long enough to look back in the direction where he thought the pokémon gym lay. He thought for a moment about turning back and trying to battle Misty again, but when he asked himself what he would try to do differently in a rematch, he could only draw a blank. So, with the word "discipline" muttered under his breath, Roy chose to follow after Antonia who had started walking again as soon as it was clear that Roy's shoe was secured.

The terrain to the south of Cerulean City was hilly, but Roy and Antonia were fortunate in that it was not as steep as the foothills which marked their passage from Pewter City to Mt. Moon and that, furthermore, they were walking downhill most of the way. It was still an effort to keep one's balance, and more than once Antonia stumbled and was caught by Roy. Each time, she allowed him to support her while she steadied herself and then pulled away from him as soon as she thought that she had found surer footing.

There were not many people on the path between Cerulean City and Saffron City from what Roy and Antonia could see. They could hear the rumble of motorized traffic further away, but the road they were taking had evidently been recently designed with pedestrian and bicycle traffic in mind. Cyclists in ones and twos, some of them pulling children after them, passed Roy and Antonia and waved as they did so. Even as he smiled at one older man heading uphill towards Cerulean, Roy said through his teeth, "Getting up this early. These people are all crazy."

By mid-morning, Antonia had finally consented to giving Roy a break and they sat down where one of the hills more or less leveled out and let their pokémon out of their poké balls. Charmander, Nidoran, and Bulbasaur all stretched and took in their surroundings and the fresh air. Antonia's beedrill immediately took flight and darted through the air above the trainers and pokémon. Her magikarp was less equipped for the travel, however, and was reduced to pitifully flopping on the grass, gasping for air until Antonia returned it to the safety and comfort of its poké ball with a sheepish expression on her face.

"Nice to finally meet your new pokémon, Toni," said Roy with a smirk. Now that the day was brightening up, he was in a better mood. It helped that his charmander and nidoran had both seemed to have shaken off the failures of the previous day and were playing a game of their own invention with Antonia's bulbasaur. Seeing them so happy made it easier for Roy to forget his crushing defeat against Misty.

The break was longer than Antonia would have preferred yet shorter than what Roy wanted, but with their pokémon now walking by their side or flying overhead neither trainer found it in them to complain. The group continued their walk, and now Antonia was quizzing Roy as they walked. Question followed question about his pokémon, pokémon they had encountered earlier in their journey, and those that they hadn't yet seen. Roy tried to laugh the exercise off, but Antonia's persistence, and the tone of her voice when she said, "That's wrong," soon had Roy growing more serious about answering her correctly.

Roy's pokémon seemed to have sensed the change in their trainer, and they were both acting more subdued. That came to an end when Antonia announced that they were breaking for lunch. Charmander set to pawing insistently at Roy for his food while Nidoran hopped and danced in a circle in anticipation of his own meal. The spectacle was such that, despite his protesting stomach, Roy broke open the pokémon food which Antonia had received from the pokémon center before tearing into the sandwich Antonia had procured for him.

"You know, this isn't too bad," he said. The spot which Antonia had chosen for their break was another space where the hill's slope had eased enough to be almost flat. Their group could see the skyline of Saffron City and hear its bustle in the distance while, closer by, there was a section of land bordered by a wooden fence which contained a single pleasant, if otherwise unremarkable, farmhouse. Roy paused from eating long enough to ask Antonia, "Do you think the people down there would mind if we cut through their property? Could save us a little time."

"I don't know," Antonia said and she was about to say more but instead let out a scream of terror. Roy similarly shouted and fell backwards as a gold-hued figure appeared out of thin air in front of him and plucked his half-eaten sandwich from his grasp. The apparition paused long enough to sniff at the pilfered food for Roy, Antonia, and their pokémon to get a good look at it. It was about the size of small child with gold skin and a kind of hardened brown armor on its upper chest and shoulders. Its lower limbs ended in claws and it had a powerful tail, but any fear that the pokémon might have aroused in the two surprised trainers was undone by the sleepy expression on its vulpine face. Indeed, the pokémon could barely keep its eyes open and closed them even as it sat on the ground eating what was left of Roy's lunch.

Roy pushed himself off of the ground and then launched himself at the pokémon, but before he could get his hands on the thief it was gone, vanishing just as quickly as it had first appeared. Roy landed on the grass and started to slide down the hill, but he stopped himself. As he was standing up and Antonia was coming to help him, a figure emerged from out of the farmhouse below and started to climb up the hill. It wasn't until Roy and Antonia were both settled on their feet that they noticed him, and by then the stranger had opened a gate to the fenced-in paddock and was climbing rapidly up the hill.

"Howdy, strangers," he said in a voice which ill-befitted his words or his appearance. The man looked to be a few years younger than the trainers' parents and was heavyset, wearing a red and black plaid shirt with short sleeves over a pair of jeans and work boots. Perched on his nose was a pair of thin-framed glasses, and the overall impression that he gave was of a man pretending to be something that he was not.

Roy and Antonia hesitated, but upon seeing the odd man huff and puff during his trek up the hill, they went down to meet him. "Thanks, kids," he said when they were close enough that he did not have to shout. Instead, he gulped down air for his aching lungs. "Did either of you happen to see an abra around these parts? It would be about yea big." He did not even get to raising his hand off the ground before Antonia said, "Yes, we have."

"Oh, good, so it hasn't gotten bored enough to totally run away just yet." The man seemed to remember that he had an audience and he quickly wiped the palms of his hands off on the legs of his jeans before offering one of each to Roy and Antonia in an odd pair of crisscrossed handshakes. "Francis, that's my name. Pardon for not introducing myself sooner."

"I'm Roy."

"And I'm Antonia."

Francis paused as if expecting more from the two children, but when nothing followed he asked, "You're both traveling trainers, I reckon?" When they nodded, he swung his arm back towards the land and farmhouse behind him. "Down there, that's my home, and my business. I run a pokémon daycare, you see, although I wouldn't fault you none if you called it a kennel or a hotel either."

Roy and Antonia glanced at one another, but did not say anything to Francis, leaving the man to shuffle uncomfortably on his feet. "Well, anyways, as I was saying, the abra. It's one of my charges, you see. Trainers ask me to watch their pokémon for one reason or another, and this one's been giving me a lot of trouble. Its trainer has his abra trained really well, taught it lots of useful tricks too. So when it runs away, it's hard to get corralled again." Again, neither Roy or Antonia spoke, so Francis finally asked, "Could you help me find that abra? You two seem like capable trainers, with some well-trained pokémon."

Charmander looked up at Roy, who looked at Antonia along with her bulbasaur. "I suppose that we could help, for a little while, at least."

Francis clapped his hands together and said, "Excellent! Good luck!" Then he started to walk back down to the ranch.

"Wait, aren't you going to help us?" Roy called after him, but all he got from Francis was a dismissive wave over his shoulder. "'Good luck', ha!" Roy grumbled. Still, he scanned his surroundings for any sign of the runaway abra. "So, any ideas, Toni?"

"How are we supposed to find a pokémon that can disappear and reappear like that?" she asked.

Roy looked back at where he had been sitting when the abra had first appeared and stolen his food. "How about we try and bait it?" he asked Antonia. "Do you have any more food?"

She handed him another granola bar and Roy unwrapped it as he walked back over to where he had been eating. He sat back down and tried to recreate how he had been sitting when his sandwich had been swiped. Conscious of how Antonia and the pokémon were all watching him, Roy took a bite of the granola bar and then another.

"I'm not sure this is going to work, Roy," said Antonia.

"Relax," he said through a mouthful of food. Roy swung around to look at her. "I'm finally doing some thinking ahead and planning and all that, just like you wanted me to."

As his attention was turned on Antonia, a shape materialized in front of Roy and a clawed hand grasped for his food. "Gotcha!" Roy said triumphantly and he swung his arm around and closed his free hand around the abra's thin arm.

Suddenly there was a crackling sound and a wave of electricity coursed through the abra's body and Roy received a short but sharp shock which made him release the thieving pokémon, and his granola bar. As the abra grabbed for the fallen food, Charmander opened his mouth and sent a string of fire at the other pokémon.

The abra's side was singed but it recovered quickly and rolled out of the way of Charmander's second attack. Antonia recovered from her shock and said, "Bulbasaur, hold it in place with your vines!"

Her pokémon responded to his trainer right away and sent out the now-familiar pair of dark blue vines out from under the bulb on his back. They shot towards the abra, but the yellow pokémon waved one of its hands between itself and the vines and the attack was stopped as if it had run into an invisible wall. Then, the abra vanished again, leaving the trainers and other pokémon to catch their breath.

"I thought that went pretty well!" Roy said while he flexed the hand which had gotten shocked when he had grabbed the abra. "Can we try it again? Do you have any more of those bars?"

"Sorry," said Antonia, "that was the last of them."

"Okay, so we need a new plan then, right?" Roy looked hopefully at Antonia but she just shook her head. "Well, trying to get it to come to us seems to work better than trying to walk around and around trying to find wherever it is hiding. Beedrill could spot it from the air, but we'd still have to walk over to it, and that'd just wear us out. So, we need to have some kind of bait." Charmander snorted, and Roy clarified, "But not food, since we're out of that."

Antonia nodded and asked, "What else do pokémon like? Food, water, shelter?" She ticked off her fingers, but nothing seemed like a good idea to her or to Roy.

"That stuff's too basic," Roy complained. "What's going to grab its attention?" Then he looked down at Bulbasaur's vines laying uselessly on the ground and at the pokémon gathered around them. "What about a game? What if we're having so much fun that the abra can't resist coming over and joining in? Then we grab it!"

"That's an idea, Roy. What do you have in mind?"

Roy picked up one of Bulbasaur's limp vines and said cheerfully, "Jump rope!" When Antonia made a sour face, he laughed. "Come on, Toni, don't tell me that you never jumped rope before!"

Through her teeth, Antonia sniffed, "Never by choice."

"Well, you can just watch then," said Roy, and then to the pokémon he added, "Come on!" After a quick explanation, Roy had his nidoran and charmander lined up and jumping over the vine which Roy and Bulbasaur were holding, the former more enthusiastically than the latter. In fact, Antonia and her bulbasaur looked to be equally skeptical about the whole endeavor.

Soon, Roy was singing a song half-remembered from the playground back home and his pokémon were also getting into the game. Nidoran was hopping higher and higher with each pass of the vine while Charmander was experimenting with turning around mid-bounce, although with mixed results. More than once the pokémon jumping became entangled by the vines and fell to the ground, sometimes taking Bulbasaur and Roy down with them.

There had been no sign of the abra yet when Roy asked his charmander to take over for him so that he could have a turn. Since it had been Charmander who had caused the last round of jumping to end in a tangled mess, the orange-scaled pokémon was ready to oblige his trainer.

Charmander and Bulbasaur started swinging the latter's vines and built up their speed while Roy and Nidoran hopped deftly over them. They were all getting into a good rhythm, and Antonia was about to tell them to call the whole idea off as a failure, when the abra made a sudden appearance a yard away from the jumping trainer and pokémon.

"Try to ignore it," Roy said in a sing-song voice. "Let it come to us," he sang.

Initially, the abra only watched the playing pokémon and Roy, although it also spared several glances back at Antonia to make sure that she wasn't moving from her seat on the hill's grassy surface. Only once it was convinced that there was no danger did the abra creep up to the outer bound of the swinging vines. Roy nodded his head and his charmander and Antonia's bulbasaur slowed the vine's rotation. Even with the others ignoring it, the invitation to join was clear to the abra and it used its spindly limbs to spring into the line with Roy and Nidoran. Just as it did so, Roy yelled, "Now!" He and Nidoran got out of the way of the vines and Charmander let go of them as Bulbasaur expertly retracted the vines as to entangle the startled abra in a snare. The abra writhed and there was smell of burnt ozone as the pokémon tried to electrocute its captor, but Bulbasaur's vines held fast and he even lifted the abra up into the air and eagerly showed off his prize to the others.

"I can't believe that worked," Antonia said with a shake of her head. She shielded her eyes and looked up towards the sun. "Let's drop it off with Francis and then get moving. It won't be much longer to Saffron City."