I let out one final whoop of excitement as the tropius descended toward a field just outside of Fuschia City, my wild green hair blown even wilder in the wind. I’d almost lost my cap in the first two minutes of the ride, barely catching it and stowing it in my backpack before it was lost forever in the mountains that separated Merraga and Fuschia. Now I let my hair flow free, enjoying the cool breeze massaging my scalp.

Hobbes was perched behind the tropius’ head, his purple shadows clinging to the larger pokemon’s neck as he chattered something in its ear — most likely trying to persuade it to do one final loop-de-loop before landing. He was unsuccessful, unfortunately, and we glided down to the empty field without any further aerial acrobatics.

Sableye had elected to stay in his ball for the journey, while Porygon had joined us in the flight for only the first five minutes before retreating to cyberspace on my phone. It seemed he preferred resting within the technology to a pokeball, and I wondered if I would need to upgrade my phone to something a little more sophisticated. It was an absolute brick of a phone, after all, and I would assume a more technologically advanced device would make the pokemon more comfortable.

Which made me wonder…did Porygon also have strange dietary requirements, in his case related to technology? He’d claimed to have been in a power-saving mode outside of Merraga — was that caused by the lack of technology for him to ‘feed’ off of?

It was one more reason to get them both checked out at the pokemon center, ASAP.

Luckily, I wouldn’t have to wait much longer. After a surprisingly gentle landing, a quick farewell to Officer Bragg, and a brisk walk into town, I was there: the Fuschia City pokecenter.

It was four stories tall, much larger than any building in Lavender Town. The top two floors of the center were shared rooms that trainers on their journey could use for a token fee, basically just hostels with lines of narrow beds and small living areas separated by curtains. There were also several hotels and motels in the city with more private rooms for rent for journeying trainers, but they were much more expensive.

The sliding front doors of the center opened with a whoosh, and I stepped into the air-conditioned space with wide eyes.

I’d obviously been inside pokecenters before. My family took Kisses to the Lavender Town pokecenter for a yearly checkup and Hobbes after any serious battles. But that was a small-town pokemon center; Lavender Town wasn’t the particularly heavily trafficked, as it wasn’t along any of the major routes and didn’t have a gym to attract wandering trainers.

The Fuschia City pokemon center was an entirely different experience.

Over two dozen trainers wandered around the main lobby, each of whom had at least one of their pokemon with them out of their balls. Some were visibly injured, having just come from losing battles, while others seemed perfectly healthy and happy, perching on shoulders and calling out their names while their trainers went about their business. On one side of the lobby there were a series of free-to-use computers, in front of which were several trainers calling home and showing off their newly caught or fused pokemon to their parents.

The diversity of the pokemon, too, was more than I was accustomed to. Paras, sentret, ledian, skiploom, shellder, doduo, flaaffy, gligar, exeggecute, magnemite— and those were just the ones I could see in a single glance. There were more beyond, many of them fusions that I couldn’t immediately identify.

“Look out! Coming through!” I heard from behind me, and I hurried to step away from the still-open doors as a trainer rushed in with a beat-up aipom in his arms. He immediately rushed to a counter on the left where a Nurse Joy waited

I followed the trainer to the counter at a slower pace, my head on a swivel as I walked, and by the time I got there the aipom had been returned to his ball and was being carried away on a cart pushed by a chansey-kirlia fusion.

“Greetings! Place any pokemon you would like healed on the counter in their balls, and describe their injuries, please.”

“Ah, I don’t need any healing, actually — I have two newly caught and one recently fused pokemon, and I’d like for them to have a full check-up.”

“Oh, for general check-ups you’ll head over there,” the pink-haired woman said with a smile and a gesture to the counter on the other side of the pokecenter. “They’ll take your pokemon and make sure they’re in tip-top shape! Now, if you could move to the side, please…”

I glanced back, seeing another pokemon trainer rushing into the center with an injured tyrogue, and stepped out of the way. Despite the trainer’s wide eyes and slightly frantic calls for assistance, his pokemon didn’t appear to be in nearly as bad of shape as the previous aipom. But Nurse Joy greeted him with calm, earnest concern, listening to the description of injuries while the tyrogue rolled its eyes and fidgeted in its trainer’s arms.

I decided to cut the trainer some slack. He looked about my age and only had a single pokeball on his belt — he was probably brand new on his journey, and possibly had just finished his first battle; it was understandable to be a bit nervous for his pokemon’s health in that situation.

“Hey, time to get back into your balls,” I said to Hobbes as we approached the second counter. “You too, Porygon.” Porygon materialized in the air by my side where my phone was stored, looking curiously around the center for a moment before zeroing in on the line of computers. “Nope, not right now,” I called before he could get any ideas, and the duck pokemon looked at me with sad eyes. “These don’t belong to us. I’ll ask permission from the workers, though, see if they’ll allow you to explore after your exam is finished.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Porygon nodded and gave a quiet beep, mollified for the moment, before he disappeared in a flash of red light into his pokeball. There was no line in front of this counter, and I set all three of my pokeballs down before explaining to the man in a white smock not too dissimilar from Nurse Joy’s outfit what I was looking to have done. After a few clarifying questions and filling out a form with my info, he took the balls to the back and told me they’d be returned in about three hours.

And suddenly, I was left alone in the pokemon center, without my companions or anything to do. It was strange, and not something I had expected for my journey. According to the web, the most dedicated trainers — all the ones who saw any level of success in the gym challenge — were going nonstop. If they weren’t challenging a gym, they were battling. If they weren’t battling, they were training. And if they weren’t training…they were falling behind.

It was part of why I had so little desire to be the champion. A journey like that left no time for sightseeing or adventure, no time for truly enjoying the journey instead of chasing the destination. But even if I’d planned to have some ‘down’ time, I’d expected that time to be spent with Hobbes and the rest of my pokemon, not alone in a new city’s pokecenter. Though, as long as things didn’t go terribly awry, this should be the only time I would be stuck completely alone. Somewhat paradoxically, more serious injuries from battling could be resolved much quicker than a full check-up of a new fusion or capture. A heal pulse or two, supplemented by a potion or antidote overseen by a Nurse Joy or someone else experienced in healing, and a pokemon could be back to full health in no time. A full check-up looked deeper, however, for potential underlying issues that a simple potion would not be able to resolve.

I glanced at the line of computers with a similar expression to Porygon before turning away. It would be nice to reconnect with my parents and Kisses, but Hobbes would kill me if I video-called them without him. Plus, I wanted my family to be able to meet my new team.

So I settled into a row of seats that were lined up against the wall, between a lanky teen with a brown farmer’s hat pulled low over his eyes and a youngster in shorts excitedly chatting with an older man on his other side. I pulled out my phone and opened the ‘ekans’ app, eager to see exactly how much of an effect Porygon had had on my earlier high score.

Five minutes and more than ten frustrating deaths later, I pushed the phone back into my pocket with an annoyed frown, as I heard a low voice from beside me. “…is he gone?”

I looked to my right at the lanky teen. Between the large fluffy scarf wrapped around his neck, the hat pulled low over his eyes, and how low he slouched in his seat, he looked to all the world like he was asleep. But I didn’t think I was imagining things, so after a glance back and forth to make sure no one else was nearby, I whispered back just as quietly. “Is who gone?

“The youngster.”

This time I was sure it was the teen next to me. The youngster on my other side had left sometime in the last few minutes, along with the older man, so I nodded. “Yeah, he’s gone.”

“Thank goodness,” the teen sighed, sitting up and removing his hat, and I got my first good look at him. He was tall and thin, with ash-white hair that hung almost to his neck, his bangs partially shading his eyes. He gave me a nod. “I thought he would never leave.”

“…you were avoiding him? By pretending to be asleep?”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t actually sleep. Believe me, I was trying. But I just woke up an hour ago.”

I looked at the clock — it was five in the evening.

“Don’t give me that look — I’ve got nothing against youngsters, usually,” he said, misinterpreting my questioning glance. “I used to be one not so long ago. But that kid…all he wanted to talk about was his shorts. ‘I like shorts! They’re comfy and easy to wear! These are my second favorite pair.’ And on and on…I had to do something to get away.”

I snorted a laugh. “I suppose that’s reasonable.” I gave him a nod. “I’m Marcus.”

“Sebastion, but everyone calls me Seb.”

“Nice to meet you Seb. But I gotta wonder…why didn’t you just leave?”

“Just got a new ‘mon, he’s gettin’ checked out now. I can’t leave him here all alone. Even if he never knew the difference — gotta be supportive, an’ all that.”

I nodded. “I just caught a couple of new pokemon too, they’re going through the check-up as well. What did you catch?”

“Slowpoke.”

“Oh, nice! Fishing off the coast?”

“Er…something like that.” I looked at him curiously. “Well, I was fishing. Just got a shiny new rod from the mart and decided to give it a shot. Found a preem spot on the coast: great sea breeze, some comfy roots to rest in, just the right mix of sun and shade…”

“…you fell asleep,” I guessed, and he nodded.

“When I woke up my rod was gone, replaced with a slowpoke. Great trade, I reckon.”

“Yeah, slowpoke are amazing,” I agreed. “Not the best first evo, but a slowbro or slowking? Especially if you’ve got one with regenerator, it’s one of the best water pokemon in Kanto, in my opinion.”

“Oh yeah, they’re great. But I don’t subscribe to too much of that ‘strategic’ team-building nonsense — just gotta find the ‘mons I vibe with, and the rest’ll take care of itself.”

“…do you not plan on taking down any gyms? Strategy is pretty important for battles.”

“Oh yeah, just finished Fuschia’s the other day,” he said before pointing toward his hat. Following the pointing finger, I noticed the tiny heart-shaped pin attached to the brown leather — the soul badge. And I struggled to keep my jaw from dropping.

“You beat Koga? As your first gym?!”

Getting a single badge this early into the season was an accomplishment — Seb already had more badges than my dad had managed on his entire journey. But to get that first badge from Koga? The notoriously difficult poison-type gym leader?

That was extremely impressive.

“Yep, mostly thanks to this little guy,” he said, patting his scarf. Two eyes blinked open, a tiny mouth stretching wide as the slakoth yawned tiredly before he adjusted himself across Seb’s shoulders and went back to sleep. “With a solid finish from my other pokemon, of course.”

My mouth opened and then closed several times as I struggled to find words. “…how?” I eventually asked.

“Like I said, it’s about how you vibe. The connection,” he responded with a shrug. But then he hesitated. “I guess strategy isn’t bad. I just don’t think it’s as important as some people say.” The nurse on the other side of the pokecenter’s counter called out Seb’s name, carrying a pokeball on a tray, and Seb stood from his seat. “But hey, you seem like a chill dude. Why don’t we put it to the test? Wanna battle?”

I shook my head. “Can’t right now, all my pokemon are getting looked at and won’t be out for another couple of hours.”

“Nah, not right now. I’ll give you my number and we can battle tomorrow. At the battle courts? First thing in the morning?”

I looked up at him, standing over me with a slakoth draped over his neck and soul badge pinned to his hat — and I nodded. “You’re on.”