It was almost surreal, to hold my first pokeball in my hand. What made it especially weird was that I knew for a fact that there was a creature inside that was over 10kg, but the pokeball was still lighter than an apple, something I was told would still be true even if the pokemon inside weighed tens of tons.

It was an incredible thing and something that I hoped I would never stop appreciating.

Unfortunately, my fellow two starting trainers seemed less inclined to behold the marvel of technology in our hands, as apparently, Blue had already challenged Red to a match.

On one hand, staying and watching their first, official battle would offer some insight into their battle strategies and the personalities and aptitudes of their pokemon, but since we had all been born in Pallet Town and had more or less grown up together, took classes together and had many mock battles, it wouldn’t be information that I didn’t already possess.

Sure, none of us had ever gone all out but that wouldn’t be the case here anyway, with each of them wielding one, mostly untrained pokemon that they were using the first time.

No, a head-start without either one of them bugging or following me was infinitely more valuable, especially since I had a plan that I had managed to conceal from both of them.

“Well, good luck to you two,” I said, before turning to Professor Oak, “thank you, Professor. Squirtle and I will be in contact.” I patted the pocket in my shorts which was housing my new Pokedex.

Red and Blue left the room while the Professor gave me a warm smile. “Of course, I am expecting greatness from all three of you, although I am surprised you do not want to battle now.”

“Those two hotheads were aching for a fight with each other, so no matter who I faced afterward, that pokemon would be tired and I’d rather face them when they are fresh.”

While Red wasn’t what I would call a graceful loser, he at least had the dignity to not make as many excuses as Blue. Besides, I wanted to crush them at their best, only that would be satisfying. Taking out an exhausted enemy was a valid strategy and something to exploit for sure, but this was not the time or place for something like that. When I beat them, I wanted nothing to taint that.

Oak chuckled, “Well, good luck on your journey, young lady. I’m expecting great things from all three of you.”

“You’re right to do so,” I said, grinning, before giving him a wave and walking out the door of his office and then the laboratory building itself not twenty seconds later. I passed by Red and Blue, who had started their duel like ten meters away from the entrance, with Blue’s Charmander fighting Red’s Bulbasaur. I couldn’t tell much with only a glance, but the Charmander seemed to have an advantage, which wasn’t surprising, given the type advantage itself but knowing Red, that was hardly a defining factor. Not to mention that with our pokemon being so inexperienced, none of them would have the attacks to meaningfully exploit the type advantages beyond one basic attack. Then again, they weren’t durable or experienced enough to deal with said damage, so it all worked out in that regard.

Putting them out of my mind, I pulled my collapsible bike out of my backpack, enlarged it, mounted it, and cycled away, rather happy that they had been too occupied with their duel to notice me. Their actual duel wouldn’t take too long, but afterward, they would want to have their pokemon healed before setting out. Not doing so would be risky, and while both were risk-takers as well, this was an unnecessary one that didn’t really offer them anything worth doing so. That meant I would have at least an hour or two before they would follow me.

Now, the direction I was going was hardly a secret. There were only two paths for anyone starting from Pallet Town. You either go north, following Route 1 to Viridian City or you go south, heading out to sea, following Route 21 to Cinnebar Island and the cluster of tiny islands a bit to the east of it.

Well, technically speaking, if you owned some kind of boat or sea vessel or a pokemon you could ride, you didn’t have to follow Route 21, and you could try to make it to Fuchsia City, Vermillion City, and Celadon City, since they all were port cities in different positions around the same body of water, but that wasn’t really feasible for any of us at this moment.

And while they could just book a passage on one of the ferries that traveled Route 21, the variety of pokemon was actually a lot more limited in that region, not to mention that once one left Cinnebar Island, the pokemon and waters became a lot more dangerous. It was not something to be braved without a few strong pokemon or under the protection of those who made it their life to travel those waters.

So, since we weren’t insane, Route 1 was the only real option. Well, kinda. I would be following Route 1 for a while, until I would leave the path halfway before arriving at Viridian City, to head to the Xanadu Nursery, the place where I would hopefully be able to get an Eevee. Professor Oak had allowed us to participate in pokemon courses in his laboratory, but after a while, first Blue and later on Red had stopped showing up. Blue, because he felt like the course was a huge waste of time, teaching nothing he didn’t already know or couldn’t learn faster by himself, and Red because he wanted to use his time differently.

Both hadn’t been wrong, in a lot of ways, the course had been a bit of a waste of time. The guy teaching it hadn’t been particularly interesting and the information he had been trying to convey had been rather basic and something we all had learned before, but I had kept going, mainly because the course didn’t take that long and I wouldn’t have been able to use my time that much better without it, not to mention that I very well might have been able to learn something that I hadn’t known before.

And while that hadn’t happened, I still had been lucky, as when the course was about to end, the teacher had handed out flyers about the Xanadu Nursery and their Eevee Adaption Program, and how one could apply for it.

That had made all the boring lessons and hours wasted worth it. Eevee was rare, valuable, and rather strong. You wouldn’t find many wandering the wilds and buying them cost a fortune, a fortune I didn’t have. People rarely traded them and those who did wanted equally rare pokemon for them, something I couldn’t exactly blame them for.

That left winning them in competitions or adopting them by applying for the license, a license which took around a year to acquire. It wasn’t exactly hard, since one only needed to prove one had the skills, knowledge, and patience, so one had to write a few essays on taking care of Eevees and its various evolutionary paths. That hadn’t been particularly difficult. The hard aspect was that since there weren’t that many Eevees out there, the license tests were designed to be as tedious and long-lasting as possible. The officials wanted to avoid some clever profiteers from breezing through the tests, adopting an Eevee, selling it for a lot of money, and then going through the process again or making a friend do it.

The way the tests and essays were all spaced out, one would need to devote a significant amount of time and effort into it, something that very few people had the patience to go through, not to mention that this didn’t guarantee and Eevee at the end. It merely offered the option to meet a few Eevee in the nearest location that was looking after them and if one of them wanted to go with you, you could take them. If all of them disliked you, well, you were shit out of luck.

It was a rather clever system since that also screened out those who only saw Eevee as a means for profit since Eevees were rather good at sensing and feeling the emotions of others.

So, while those two were busy, if I made good time, I would be able to reach the part of the path that would lead me to the Xanadu Nursery.

It wouldn’t make that big of a difference if they followed me there, I suppose. It was a mixture of a gigantic greenhouse and a pokemon sanctuary, so there were other pokemon there, and most of them didn’t require a license or anything of the sort, although a lot of fire and poison pokemon did.

But we all had qualifications for most pokemon, since passing those tests was what was required to be able to start the trainer journey.

It was just that most people wanted to catch their first few pokemon, but I had always wanted an Eevee, so stumbling on one of the few ways of getting one this early into my trainer journey was a very happy boon. And if that gave me a bit of an advantage over the other two who had stopped coming and thus never got the flyer, well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?

With that, I left Pallet Town and entered Route 1 with a smile on my face. The path itself was relatively secure. Pallet Town and Viridian City had a long history of travel, being the mainland city connection Pallet had. As such, Rangers were doing an excellent job of keeping the more dangerous pokemon at bay, who had long since been accustomed to staying away from the main road itself and remained away in the forests and more wild sections. Not to mention, that the area didn’t have the biggest diversity of pokemon and many of them were not particularly aggressive.

Of those, one should avoid angering Spearow flocks, which was just common sense and usually easy to do. More dangerous in terms of unintentionally provoking one was the smaller pokemon one could step on by mistake. Raticates were common and they tended to try and take a bite out of anything that scared or angered them, which was most things they saw and everything that stepped on them. There was also the occasional Oddish, who just loved spraying poison on people, and they could be very easily missed in the grass, especially since some liked to burrow a bit into the ground.

Watching where one went was one of the most important lessons every aspiring pokemon trainer had to learn.

Alongside Squirrel’s pokeball, I also had five empty ones, all of them the basic model, unfortunately, but replacing them with higher quality versions was a long-term project. And while I would hate to waste even one of the basic ones on something like a Raticate or Spearow, an Oddish would be a solid choice.

There were also some bug pokemon living in the trees, like Spinarak or Ledyba, and of course, pokemon migrated all the time, so from all I had read, you could always encounter something unusual that wasn’t really native to the region. You couldn't count on it, but it was technically possible.

This general safety made Pallet Town a bit subpar in terms of the pokemon catching experience for those aiming for the top in pokemon trainer and coordinator circles since there weren’t a lot of particularly unique pokemon. Mt. Hideaway was the one hot spot, but only for high-level trainers as that region was forbidden for anyone who was either not a Ranger, an ACE, or someone with at least six badges or its equivalent in qualifications. Mt. Hideaway was the home of particularly big specimens of Onix, which made traversing those mountains particularly dangerous, as any of the numerous, gigantic Onix could cause an avalanche of rocks or attack directly.

There were other pokemon, that one could naturally find in mountains and caves, and since they had to share a space with those Onix, they also tended to be a bit stronger, but it was mainly the place to go for those few who had the inclination and aptitude to go for the big rock serpents.

Mt. Hideaway was also said to be the training grounds of choice for Elite Four-member Bruno, who would go there for weeks at a time, training his pokemon and body. It made for good speculation on what exactly it was he was doing on message boards, and definitely something to consider, but for now, that place was unfortunately off-limits for me. An Onix was a cool choice, but even if I had been secure in myself that I could avoid the rangers patrolling and make it in there, I didn’t think one low-level pokemon or two would cut it. Sure, I could be lucky, but that was less of a calculated gamble and more just a fool’s way of lying to herself.

I didn’t intend to throw away my trainer career right at the beginning, chasing a pokemon I wasn’t particularly keen on. No, I had a different path in mind. One that would ensure that I would make it to the top, conquering the League, rather than a cautionary tale for other young trainers.

I had been tempted, of course, you couldn’t feel that strongly if you hadn’t at least considered doing that stupid thing, but while a strong Onix would be really, really cool, there was a reason that not many people were using one in the higher echelons of poke-battling.

The well-trodden path allowed me to cover quite a bit of ground. I was tempted to stop and have Squirtle fight a few of the Pidgey and Raticates I was seeing on the sides but I wanted to have a real conversation with him first. Occasionally I would brush my right hand against my belt where the pokeball was resting. It still felt a bit surreal, almost two hours in.

That said, with the sun being so high, I had started to get a bit sweaty and tired, and I should probably take a break and hydrate. It would also be the perfect opportunity to let Squirtle out for the first time as his trainer. I had planned this initial leg of my journey rather well, so I knew where I was going to stop and take a break.

A few minutes later, I arrived at the point I had in mind, right next to the first and smaller of the many lakes in the region, right below the shade of a big tree, where I could lean my bike and have enough space to sit without being bothered by the sun. Sitting down, I took off my hat and wiped the sweat from my brow, and then pulled out one of my three water bottles. After taking a few refreshing gulps, I leaned back against the tree, closing my eyes and enjoying the slight breeze. I had them closed for nearly a minute before I decided that was enough rest, and it was finally time to meet Squirtle again.

I grabbed the pokeball he was in, enlarged it with a click, and by clicking the button on its front, the ball opened and out of the white energy beam, Squirtle took shape in front of me, his large, purple eyes looking at me, before breaking into a wide smile, with his round head bobbing happily as it squeaked at me.

I knelt down and enveloped Squirtle in a hug, which he happily returned. “I’m so happy that we are finally a team, buddy.”

Since we all grew up in Pallet Town, practically in the lab, where the starters were assigned to the pokemon trainers beginning their journey there, and the fact that Blue was the grandson of Professor Oak, we had a few advantages that many other starting trainers didn’t have and one of them was premature access to our starters. It hadn’t been for a long time, mind you, but starter pokemon received a bit of training until they were deemed ready to be entrusted to a novice trainer as their first official pokemon with which they were expected to battle and catch wild pokemon.

Since the three of us had talked things over and had found out that all of us had been interested in different starters, it had been uncomplicated to get acquainted prematurely with our chosen starters.

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I know that Charmander is supposed to be the smartest choice, as its final evolution tended to be the biggest and most versatile powerhouse of the three, but there wasn’t really a bad choice to pick there. They all had different strengths and weaknesses which had to be leveraged correctly during battles, and I was more than happy with Squirtle.

“We’re on our way to the Xanadu Nursery, and I’m just taking a bit of a break. We’re not exactly hurting for time, but I do want to get there as soon as possible, but we will stay here for an hour or so. How about you take a bit of a swim?”

He would get more options to do so on the route I had planned, but water pokemon wanted as much swimming time as possible.

He squeaked in agreement and dove into the lake. I pulled out my Pokedex and scanned him. With roughly 60 cm in height, he was a bit taller than regular Squirtles and weighed a bit more too, which was always an advantage but Professor Oak was famous for handing out excellent starters, so I was sure that the starters of the others were equally well-bred. It had the ability Torrent, making his water attacks stronger once he was close to passing out, and the hidden ability Rain Dish, which actually made him constantly recover his health when it rained, albeit slowly and not that much. Enough to give him an edge in extended battles and keep him in the fight for longer, but not to mean that he was invincible during rain or anything.

Those two abilities had excellent synergy with each other and honestly, it was what I would expect from a man with the resources and know-how of Professor Oak, to provide us with such an excellent specimen.

The attacks he knew were Tackle, Tail Whip, Aqua Gun, and Withdraw. It should be able to learn Bubbles, Rapid Spin and Bite soon enough, at least that, and practicing those would be the priority for now. I also took out my small journal and a pen and started writing down the attacks.

I wasn’t planning on challenging gyms right away, the way I knew Red and Blue were wanting to do. I know Squirtle is a good choice to challenge Brock early on, what with the type advantage but I wasn’t in a hurry to do so. Going to Pewter City right now would mean crossing the Viridian Forest and going to Viridian at all, and I didn’t want to do either of these things. For one, there wasn’t really a pokemon I was interested in, in that region. Sure, there are a few decent ones, strong ones, even. Scythers were occasionally traveling through, but they were very rare.

But it felt a bit cheap to rush through with a type advantage. We had roughly nine months if we wanted to participate in the Indigo Plateau Conference, and the way I was seeing it, I could tackle Brock just as well when I was on the last leg of my journey rather than him being my first target.

To me, it was more important to build a strong team first. No one was guaranteed any particular pokemon they wanted, so one had to travel and hope for the best and it would maximize my chances since I knew which pokemon I wanted and I had researched where I had to go to have the best odds of catching one.

So, first Eevee, and then we would see.

I closed the journal, with one finger sticking between the pages where I had last been writing to not lose the spot, and I watched Squirtle swimming for a few minutes. The little guy was enjoying himself, chasing the occasional Goldeen and Magikarp. While I had little interest in Goldeen, a Magikarp was actually a promising prospect, since once evolved, Gyrados was a powerhouse. Very hard to control but if you managed to earn the respect and obedience of a Gyrados, that was the sign of a great trainer.

It was also a huge gamble because Magikarps themselves were very, very lackluster as far as pokemon went. They could barely learn any attacks, they needed to be in the water at all times and couldn’t be used on land at all, and even in the water, they were among the slowest water pokemon. The few attacks they could learn were Splash which did nothing but allow it to jump out of the water, sometimes very high, which looked cool but had limited applications, Tackle, which was the most basic attack, and Flail, which, while better, also wasn’t super great.

It was a slow, water-bound pokemon with no real water attacks, that was only good in close combat, which it was also rather terrible at.

So, trainers had to go through a lot of trouble, training a pokemon that was really bad at battling until it evolved into a Gyrados that was terrific at battling but might not listen to you and in worst cases, attacked you or people around you.

It would take a lot of time and effort and it wasn’t guaranteed I could do it in time for the Conference, but if I did, it would be one hell of a heavy hitter. I felt the smile on my face widen. It wasn’t without merit. I hadn’t really considered a Magikarp before, mostly brushing it off as a dud pokemon, but with Squirtle I had the optimal partner for training it, being a fellow water pokemon who would also benefit from training with it and was able to do so underwater.

I opened my map, checking the route I had planned. After this, there was a small lake close to the Xanadu Nursery, and afterward, I had planned to go to Hop Hop Hop Town, and while I originally had wanted to take the road for as long as possible, it was equally possible, if a bit slower since I would be walking a lot instead of riding the bike, to follow the coast and use that as an opportunity to train Magikarp. I could keep following the coast for a long while, or at least travel in such a way that I could always head back every few days, to keep a regular training schedule going.

It was very feasible, and while not a guaranteed success, that was a gamble worth taking. This time, I was focusing on the Magikarp my Squirtle was playing with. Not all pokemon were equal, and not any member of any species would do. Ideally, it would be a motivated and intelligent specimen, who would put in the effort and be able to think on their feet. Or fins, in this case. So, while Squirtle was chasing a few around, splashing and squealing in joy, there was one Magikarp among the five that were playing with him that stood out to me. I pointed my Pokedex at it, and it revealed to me, that it was roughly average in size, with nearly 1 meter in height, a tiny bit shorter than usual, and weighing close to ten kg. It was also a she and seemed to be in good health otherwise.

But there was no sense in being hasty, so I leaned back and was content to watch the pokemon continue playing for another half an hour, swimming around. And one by one, the other pokemon left, until it was only Squirtle and Magikarp, who were still at it. By now, they were playing some sort of tag, and Squirtle seemed to be winning most of the time, something that seemed to frustrate the Magikarp.

I put the journal down, grabbed some pokefood, and walked to the edge of the lake stopping at the edge. For a second, I considered getting in, but I decided against it. I still wanted to reach the big lake today.

“Hey guys,” I started, drawing the attention of both of them, with my Squirtle squeaking in response. “I saw you two having fun, and I bet you guys are pretty hungry by now, aren’t you?” I pulled out the container with pokefood that I had brought with me, poured one small pile right on the earth, in front of Squirtle and then I sprinkled a roughly equal amount into the water, which Magikarp immediately started eating. “Seeing you two get along so well makes me hate the idea to pull the two of you apart. So, what do you say, Magikarp, do you want to join us? Let me warn you, though, while it will be fun and you will see exciting new places, there will also be a lot of hard work and training in your future and when we get you to evolve, a lot of hard battles. And evolving will be your personal number one priority in my team. Are you in?”

Magikarp stopped eating for a second and jumped out of the water, with a lot of excitement, somersaulting over me and landing on my other side, on the green grass, and started flopping while yelling its own name with each flop.

“That’s the biggest yes anyone has ever given me,” I said, pulling out an empty pokeball and throwing it at her. It sailed through the air, hitting the fish pokemon while it had just flopped upwards and it dissolved into red energy and was consequently pulled into the ball. It landed on the ground with a soft, almost inaudible thumb, twitched three times, and stood still.

I pumped my fist in excitement. “Yes!” It was perhaps a bit too much excitement since Magikarp had been pretty psyched to join us, but still, it was my first self-captured pokemon and I didn’t have to browbeat it into joining.

I immediately released her into the lake again and poured some more pokefood over her head and watched her happily continue eating. “Welcome to the team, Magikarp. I can’t promise that you will see combat any time soon, but you will definitely train and work harder than you ever have before, so enjoy this meal.”

I looked at Squirtle, who had finished eating, and gave him a nod. “As to you, how are you feeling about some training, now that you had your fun for a bit? Still have some energy left?”

Squirtle punched the air and gave me an energetic cry. “That’s good to hear.” I checked the watch on my Pokedex and saw that it was close to 4. I still had several hours of sunlight, but I honestly didn’t want to travel after 19 o’clock. “Then we are going to do an hour of training and that still leaves me enough time to get to the camping spot I had in mind.”

I pointed at the tree that was roughly five meters away from us. “Okay, buddy, gimme your best Water Gun.”

Immediately, a torrent of water left his mouth and hit the tree. I watched him for ten seconds blasting the tree with water before the volume of water lessened and it ultimately fizzled out. “Not bad. Now dash to the tree, touch it and dash back. Three times please.”

He bolted, and I watched him do so. Squirtle weren’t necessarily the fastest pokemon out there, but their speed could surprise you if you weren’t prepared for it. A Squirtle would never be a long-distance runner, nor would he ever be a speedster but I still wanted the option to blitz pokemon who weren’t expecting him to do so to be on the table. But that was only the secondary aim of this.

The main goal was to exhaust him. He needed stamina. Squirtle had good stamina from the beginning, but I needed him to have as much as possible.

When he finished his three dashes, I could see him slightly panting. “Well done, and now Water Gun again, aim at the same tree.”

It took half a second of hesitation before Squirtle took a deep breath and fired his Water Gun again. He also hit the tree, but this time the water beam was less forceful but still acceptable. He only could hold it for eight seconds though. Still, it was more than expected, especially since the little guy had tuckered himself out by playing around in the lake with the Magikarp and Goldeen.

“And three dashes again.” He didn’t complain and instead bolted forwards on all fours.

After repeating it two more times he was lying on the ground, panting. I had opened my journal and was recording his times. By the last dash, his speed had dropped considerably and his Water Gun had barely hit the tree and the beam had lasted for maybe three seconds before it petered off.

All in all, it was a good showing but there was a lot of room to improve. By the time we reached our first gym, I needed Squirtle to be able to dash around the battlefield and fire off his Water Gun at full force.

Putting away the journal, I bend down and picked Squirtle up, carrying him to the lake, and promptly dropped him into the water. The cold lake revived him and he let out a satisfying squeal before floating contently on his back, with his face above the surface.

“That was a good start. Your Water Gun will be your primary mode of attack for quite some time, and while this blitz I want you to learn will not necessarily last into your Blastoise evolution, it will be part of your arsenal in your current form and as Wartortle. While you have the means to fight at any range, there is value in being able to choose the range for yourself, rather than letting our opponents determine it for us. If your long-rage options prove ineffective, you will need to get close to use your close-range attacks, and for that, you will need to dash towards them.”

I gave him a smile, which he returned. “But good work, rest for five minutes, then give me three sets of the dash and Water Gun again. For now, we need to build up your muscles and stamina.”

He nodded and closed his eyes to enjoy the rest of his break. Satisfied, I turned to my second pokemon and was pleased to see that Magikarp had watched us with interest. “You will be doing something similar, for now, at least. Until you evolve, or until we can buy the TM for Hydro Pump, which won’t be any time soon, I’m afraid, you will only have close combat options. So, if you have listened, the same thing applies to you, but even more so since you lack any and all mid-and long-range options. You will have to swim really fast at your opponent and then hit him with that momentum because odds are that they will be able to hit harder than you and take more damage than you. Your only option is to be faster and hit harder than they can expect and make them pay for underestimating you. Later on, when you are training with Squirtle, I will also need you to be able to take damage and work through the pain or dodge ranged attacks.”

At least Magikarp looked enthusiastic if her nod was anything to go by, but I wasn’t sure how much of what I had said she understood. But pokemon were smarter than one would think, so I had always pretty much just shared my thoughts with them. I did so with my parents' pokemon and I did so with the pokemon I interacted with at Professor Oak’s lab, and it had worked out so far.

“Okay, I need you to swim as fast as you can, for as long as you can, and then I need you to swim for even longer and faster after that. Follow the shore of the lake until you are back here. Go!”

And with that, Magikarp started swimming. I watched her swim pretty fast for twenty seconds before she started to slowly lose more and more speed. When she finally made it back to her starting position, having circled the small lake in two minutes, she was not even at half the speed that she had started out at.

“Good effort, Magikarp. Relax for five minutes and then give me another lap at full speed. I need you to do that three more times.”

She gave a tired nod, and while I wasn’t sure she could do it, I needed her to at least try and see if her motivation was strong enough to power through exhaustion and pain.

Tomorrow, in the big lake, I would be joining her with the laps. Right now, I still needed to cover too much ground to exhaust myself by swimming, but I also didn’t want to be lazily sitting around while my pokemon were giving it their all, so I pulled out my journal again and began to make more notes, writing down everything my pokemon were doing.

Weeks from now, I wanted to be able to read them the numbers they had now and how far they’d have come then.

I felt my heart pounding faster, as I was finally feeling like a genuine pokemon trainer.