Anna’s pencil rolled around on the floor before Brandy jumped on it and took it over to a corner to chew on. She almost seemed frozen at hearing my words of how a legendary was responsible for my eevee’s.
“Impossible. Now I know that you are lying” she said unfreezing. “None of the legendary birds have that kind of power. And from what I have heard neither do the Legendary Beasts of Johto, not that any have been seen this side of the Silver mountains since well before the war.”
“Yeah but there is the other two that are found in original games. Sorry I mean Kanto. This is country is Kanto right?”
“TWO?!” Anna’s voice shot up several octaves fast enough that all of my eevee’s whined and drooped their ears. I was actually kind of impressive if it hadn’t also hurt my ears. “Bloody hell girl tone it down a notch” I complained. I swear I could hear my ears ringing, do humans here have their own moves?
“Two other legendary pokemon?! Don’t lie to me!” she half yelled standing up from her chair to point at me over the table.
“I’m not! Well according to the show one is made from the other so I don’t know if its real yet. But according to my world there is or will be another two based in Kanto! And I met one this morning so I know its real.”
“What does it look like? What is its name? Size? Type? Why aren’t you saying anything?! Tell me!”
With each question she had stepped closer to me until she was standing right in front of me and started shaking my shoulders as I wasn’t giving her the answers she was demanding. I found myself somewhat afraid and started to think I may have made a mistake in either trusting her or telling her too much. In amongst the angry shaking there was a knock on the door and Chansey stuck head around it into the room.
“Chansey chan chan!”
Anna stopped attacking and looked towards Chansey. “No everything is fine Chansey.” Standing upright she brushed her hands on the front of her apron. “Did you need something?”
“Chan Chan Chansey Chan.”
“Someone at the counter needing help? OK I’m on my way.” Anna walked back to her desk and put her pink wig back on before straightening it. She looked back and paused for a moment. “I accept your deal Josh. You tell me what you know and Ill help you get a trainer card a place to stay and feed you. Good, now stay in here. If you need water there is a cooler in the wait room otherwise I shouldn’t be longer than 10 minutes.” With that she walked out the door and shut it behind herself. I was left leaning back as far as I could against the wall while my team of eevee’s were all huddled together in a corner of the room. That girl was scary when she wanted to be.
“Well guys looks like we have the help we need. Hopefully I haven’t trusted the wrong person.”
“Eeee eevee eevee ve ve” called out Gin before slinking across the floor to hind behind my legs with his tail between his legs. “I don’t blame you buddy. I’d hide if I could too”. I spent the next 10 minutes waiting for Anna to return while patting my team as they calmed down and started to wander about the room sniffing everything. Anna entered the room bang on 10 minutes later and shut the door behind her.
“Ok, I have found someone to cover me for an hour, recall your pokemon and then follow me. You can stay in my apartment while we get you registered for a trainer card and then after that you can stay here in the pokemon centre dorms free of charge.”
“Recall them? Do you mean pokeballs? Because I don’t have any because of you know…” I trailed off waving my hand vaguely in the air. That made Anna pause in her pacing. She stared at me intently before staring at the wall deep in thought. “Ok, if you tell me how to evolve one of the eevee’s I will pay for enough pokeballs to hold you team. Deal?”
Sounds good to me. “I don’t need a trainer ID for them?” I asked as I stood up and started following her out of the room and pokemon centre.
“No, you don’t need to be registered. Not everyone is an active trainer, you just need to give them a name and address in case the pokeball is lost and found later on. So come on, follow me the store is this way.”
“Hold up Anna my bike is over there”. I said pointing at the quadbike parked on the side of the road. Anna paused in her march down the road looked at were I was pointing.
“You have a bike as well? Can you drive it?”
“Of course I can drive it” I replied. “And technically it is my bosses but I think that isn’t really an issue anymore.” Walking over to the bike I hopped on and gave a whistle and my team jumped up onto the bike behind me. Inserting the key I started the bike up and waved Anna over. “Jump on its faster than walking and I don’t really want to leave it here if we are going somewhere. Is there somewhere I can park it at yours?”
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Walking over Anna looked the bike over dubiously. “Yes we can park it outside my apartment. But where can I sit? Your team is taking up all the room.”
“Just jump on behind me, there is plenty of room still.” Anna paused and gave me a look. I’m not sure what I said to get that look but whatever she was looking for she relaxed and climbed onto the seat behind me. Gin took the opportunity to lick her cheek as she was getting into place. With a laugh Anna pointed ahead of us as said “Ill tell you where to go, there is a shop 10 minutes’ walk that sells pokeballs so start heading that way.” With that I pulled out onto the road and headed off.
It only took a couple of minutes on the bike to get to where Anna was directing us. Pulling up outside the building it didn’t look like the pokemarts you saw in the games. It just looked like and ordinary small supermarket with produce signs in the windows and a few boxes of fruit and vegetables. Once I turned the bike off Anna hoped off and straightened her uniforms skirt before turning back to. “Ok, now before I go and buy some pokeballs you have to keep up your side of the bargain. How do you evolve an eevee into one of those evolutions?”
I really hope what you do in the games is similar to this place. “Well from what remember of Glacion, the Ice type it is location based. You have to train an eevee next to something the people back home called the Ice Rock. Im guessing it’s a powerful type of evolution stone or something similar. I don’t think there is one Kanto, which might be why you haven’t heard of it. But my guess is that there actually is but that it isn’t common knowledge of where it is.”
“Location based?” I barely heard Anna as she mumbled to herself. Speaking up she asked me “Are you sure you don’t know where one is in Kanto?”
“I would guess those Ice caves somewhere near Cinnabar Island, the one with a volcano. What were they called, sea view, sea … sea something?”
“The Seafoam Islands?”
“Yeah that’s the one! I bet its at the bottom considering …” I trailed off. I’m not sure if the games are 100% accurate or even 10% accurate but casually mentioning where to find Articuno, or an Articuno as there is probably more than one probably isn’t a good idea.
“Considering what?” Anna asked watching me intently.
“O just, you know its where ice types are found I think?”
“Yes your right, but it is also off limits unless you have at least 6 badges I believe or are part of an organised group. It is too dangerous for the unprepared so the Pokemon League restricted access to it.”
Well that was new information to me. Also makes sense as even in the games it’s an island in the middle of the ocean. “So Anna, is that information up to scratch?”
“Maybe, I won’t know for certain until it can be verified.”
“Verified?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about that” she replied, “You just give me your full name and date of birth and ill go hold my end of the bargain”. I gave her my birthday and last name and she went into the shop and barely 10 minutes passed before she returned with a small carton similar to one you would use to hold 6 eggs. “You’re lucky, they were having a sale and where doing a buy 5 get the sixth one free. Here you go”. She reached out and gave me the carton which I opened up to reveal 6 small pokeballs contained within. Ill admit I got a thrill upon seeing them. I couldn’t help myself, I reached for one and held it in my hand. It was tiny, approximately the size of a golf ball with the iconic red top and white bottom and a white button in the middle. Turning it around I looked at it from all angles. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. “So how do I expand it? Or use it? Do I need to do anything to it first?”
“You really haven’t seen one before have you?” Anna asked quietly.
Looking up from the pokeball in my hand I gave her a nod. I think by her tone she really is starting to get that I’m not from here and am not just telling her a tall tale.
“Just press the button in the middle and that causes it to expand and shrink. After that it just needs to make contact with an unregistered pokemon and it will attempt to capture them. If its unsuccessful and the pokemon breaks out the ball is generally broken and needs to be replaced” Anna explained.
Pressing the button the pokeball rapidly expanded in my hand to the size of a orange. That by itself blew my mind. How? How did it suddenly expand itself? It feels like it’s the same weight but I couldn’t see or feel any ridges or gaps in it other than its centre crease around the middle of the ball. It felt more like magic than technology despite having it in my hand and resizing it several times.
“Press it to your eevees and as long as they don’t fight it they should captured successfully” Anna continued explaining.
“Ok guys you hear that? Don’t worry about it and it should all be fine” I said to my team as they looked at the pokeball I had been expanding and shrinking in my hand. As one they all looked at me and nodded their heads. I paused. That was them actually responding to what I said. It wasn’t just them listening to their trained commands and my voice, they actually nodded in response to what I said. I felt something in me change at that. They really weren’t just my dogs anymore, they really are smarter, sentient pokemon. With that in mind I tapped them one by one with my new pokeballs and each one disappeared with a red flash into the ball with a small ding. “How strong are these things?” I asked Anna quietly.
“Don’t worry, if the ball is damaged the pokemon is released without being harmed” she replied with a small smile. I think she knew what I had been concerned about having just captured my team. Anna hopped up onto the bike in the same position as before. “I suggest you put them in that box on the front of your bike if you don’t have anywhere secure to hold them. My place is at least another 5 minutes drive from here”.
Placing the last pokeball back into the carton I put the whole thing into the box on the front of my bike and closed the lid. Despite her reassurances I felt a bit nervous with my team locked up in the box. I’d had raised them all of them for years by this stage and having them disappear into red light into a ball I didn’t understand was making me uneasy. Anna had not even blinked when my eevee’s were captured into the pokeballs so I was assuming nothing had gone askew. Starting the bike I pulled out onto the road and we started driving towards Anna’s apartment.