Chapter 6
First Catch
The next day came, and most of it went, as Mikey and Jun spent most of the time helping around the house or just taking it easy, as the game wouldn't properly progress until the evening, which only served to get on Jun's nerves. He wanted to get out of the whole thing as quickly as possible, so just sitting around waiting just didn't sit right with him, but he had no other choice.
Finally, the sun started to set.
Everyone was on the porch, looking at the sunset and the beautiful array of colours that accompanied it.
"What a stunning sunset!" Mikey's mom said, basking in the last of the rays. "All right, today's the day that I finally unpack-"
The 'ding-dong' of the doorbell suddenly cut her off, and she looked into the house.
"Was that the doorbell?" she asked in surprise, not expecting anyone at that hour. "Go see who it is, Mikey."
"Sure thing, mom."
Mikey headed back inside and made his way towards the door, with Jun right behind him, but they didn't even get halfway before the door opened, and Kukui stepped inside.
"Hey there, Mikey!"
"Some manners." Jun muttered, and Mom and Meowth joined them.
"Professor?"
"It's about time we set out for the festival, yeah! But first… I've got something to teach you, yeah, now that you're a real Pokémon Trainer. It's the most basic of all the basics. Come on- to Route 1!"
As Kukui hurried back outside, Mom placed a hand on Mikey's shoulder.
"Have fun at the festival, sweetie!" she said with a big smile. "I'm sure you'll have a good tie with your new Pokémon pal! Me and Meowth will be sure to unpack every last box here- you'll see!"
Upon hearing that, Meowth looked shocked, and worriedly looked around at the large amount of moving boxes.
"I feel ya, buddy." Jun said sympathetically. "Good luck."
As soon as Mikey and Jun got outside, they spotted Kukui at the east path of Route 1, now with a bag in hand.
"Mikey! Hurry it up, cousin! Pretend you're a Pokémon and use your Agility!" Kukui called over before continuing up on Route 1.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Jun asked.
"What other choice do we got?" Mikey countered, and they both followed the somewhat excentric professor.
"Yeah, over here!" Kukui shouted and waved from further ahead on the path, close to a large area of tall grass, the bag now resting on the ground beside him. Mikey and Jun quickly joined him.
"So you know that wild Pokémon will sometimes jump out at you in the tall grass, yeah?" he asked.
"I sure do. Saw that for myself back with that Yungoos thing."
"Right. Now that you've got Litten there, you can not only fight wild Pokémon, yeah… you can also try to catch'em! Woo!"
"Finally! I've been waiting for this!" Mikey exclaimed, and Kukui chuckled at his enthusiasm.
"I'm going to show you how to catch a wild Pokémon, all right?" he said, pulling out a Poké Ball from his coat pocket. "Keep your eyes on the prize!"
Gazing into the grass, Kukui scanned for any movement, and soon spotted a Pokémon.
It was a small grub like creature, about a foot long, with a mostly white body with three small nubs for legs and two yellow spots on each side. It had orange chitin plate with a thick yellow strip around on the top of its head, and two large yellow mandibles with orange tips that made up almost half of the length of the Pokémon.
"There!" he shouted and tossed his ball. "Go! Rockruff!"
The ball opened and released the white energy inside, taking the form of the same brown dog that Mikey had seen months ago on the video call.
"Tackle that Grubbin, yeah!" Kukui called out and Rockruff did as told, smashing into the smaller bug Pokémon, sending it rolling across the ground. Angrily, the Grubbin retaliated by clamping down on Rockruff with its large mandibles, but it seemed to do very little, as Rockruff simple shook off the bug.
"You've gotta weaken a Pokémon up a bit before you try lobbing a Poké Ball at it!" Kukui explained, pulling out another ball from his coat pocket and throwing it at Grubbin.
The ball hit Grubbin right on its head, opening and sucking the bug Pokémon inside. Landing on the ground, the ball shook once, twice, and thrice, then it clicked and remained motionless.
"All right!" Kukui cheered as he walked over and picked up the ball. "Got myself a Grubbin!"
He then walked back to Mikey.
"Wild Pokémon do sometimes attack people if they get close, but catch'em and they'll join your team and be a great help to you, yeah! And if your Pokémon get all tuckered out, you can always head home and rest up a bit, yeah?"
"Good tip. Thanks."
Nodding, Kukui picked up the bag and gave its contents to Mikey.
"Here's some Poké Balls and Potions to get you started out."
Mikey recognised the spray bottles, the Potions, as being similar to the ones Lillie used to patch up Jun back at the bridge, and the Poké Balls were exactly the same as all the others that he had seen and used so far, with the exception that they were only the size of ping pong balls, however, he did have a memory of seeing the balls being able to shift between that size and the standard baseball size in the anime, and assumed that it was the same here.
"Cool! Thanks, dude!" Mikey said graciously, taking the items and quickly stuffed them in his backpack.
"No problem, cousin! Why don't you have a little adventure of your own on the way to Iki Town, yeah?" Kukui then looked at Jun. "Take good care of Mikey, Litten!" he said before taking his leave and headed back to Iki Town.
"Good riddance. He could at least use my name while speaking to me. It's not like he wasn't there when you 'named' me." said Jun.
"Cut him some slack. He's just an NPC."
"A what?"
"NPC. It means 'non-player character'. Pretty common game term."
"Never was much of a game guy growing up, didn't suit me. I was far more active, got into fights and the like."
"Hey, I was trained as a ninja since I was a little turtle tot, and let me tell you, master Splinter's training was very active, and video games suited me just fine once I had the time."
"Each to their own, I guess." Jun shrugged. "But there is one thing that's bothering me."
"And that is?"
"I'm no expert on Pokémon, I mean, I could probably count the ones I know on one hand, but this whole catching them and all… It doesn't sit right with me."
"Why is that, man?"
"I mean, first you use one beast to beat up another, then you throw a ball at them to catch them and force them to fight for you as well, in exchange for not beating them any more. Now, I'm no expert on these sort of things, but it sounds like you're forcing some kind of Stockholm syndrome on the critters."
"Stockholm syndrome? You made that up, didn't you."
"No, it's a real thing. Long story short, there was a hostage situation in Stockholm, Sweden, where the hostages started to sympathise with their captor after a while."
"Huh, I never thought about it that way. That's probably why those Peta nuts went even more nuts back when Pokémon Black and White were released."
"Always thought those guys were idiots."
"I hear you, and I think I see what you mean. But again, different world, different rules. Besides, none of this is real."
"Fair point. It just feels so real."
"Sure does, and that's great!" Mikey grinned. "Well, enough about that now, we gotta expand our team. And I think…" his eyes stared out into the distance. "I think that we should look over there. I got a good feeling about it."
It took only a few moments before Mikey spotted something in the grass.
A green caterpillar with yellow underside, yellow teardrop-shaped tail, and yellow ring markings along its sides. Large round black eyes with yellow rings, red split antenna, four small round feet at the front. It was about a foot long, and looked around with great anxiety.
"Sweet! It's a Caterpie!" Mikey whispered to Jun. "This is just like in the anime, except you ain't a Pikachu."
"And that worm is gonna help us? It looks like a wimp, at best."
"Trust me, that will change quickly." Mikey said with a smirk, readying an empty Poké Ball.
Pressing the button, it grew from ping pong sized to baseball sized, just like in the anime. Taking aim, he pulled back his arm and threw the ball with all his might, sending it flying at the Bug-type like if fired from a cannon.
Right before it struck its target, the Caterpie turned around and managed to see the ball coming at it just a second before.
"Wha?" the Caterpie said, right before it took the ball in the face and was sucked inside of it.
"Did it just… speak?" Mikey wondered, eyes wide.
"I… think it did." said Jun, just as the ball stopped shaking and clicked.
"Something's wrong here." said Mikey, as he walked over and picked up the ball, looking at it for a while before opening it. "Come on out, Caterpie."
The worm materialised in front of them, and looked around in great shock and confusion.
"What just happened?!" it said in a female voice that the duo recognised. "Where am I?!"
"Chloe?!" they exclaimed.
And now we know that more than just Mikey and Jun are stuck in the game, with Chloe the (former) Butterfly joining them.
Stockholm syndrome is also a real thing, even if it just mentioned in the most simple way here, and people have compared catching Pokémon to just that.
And Peta did make their own dark parody game of Pokémon Black and White versions, called Pokémon Black and Blue, focusing on how horrible it was to have VIRTUAL creatures fight each other. Seriously, they don't have anything better to do?
