I stood at the beginning of a worn-down dirt track that veered unevenly through the forest – Route 1. My heart was pounding desperately in my chest, and my legs itched to carry me forward. Beside me, my partner's fluffy wool sparked with static electricity. He pawed at the ground impatiently, huffing through his small nose.
“Chloe should be here soon, Wink,” I murmured to my Mareep, who bleated in response, retorting that she was slow and should’ve woken up on time. I smiled, shaking my head. Right, normally trainers don’t have an understanding of their Pokemon for a few years, but I’ve had Wink since I was 12, so two years. I understand him well enough now. The little electric-type Pokemon complained some more before going silent, staring curiously into the forest ahead of us.
It was finally time for me to leave on a Pokemon Journey, now that I’d turned fourteen two days ago. My best friend and I have been preparing for years already anyway, so it was just a matter of us getting to the right age. Well, technically Chloe could’ve left already, but she wanted to wait for me to get my Contest Pass, which you could get starting at age 14 to compete in Pokemon Contests- a combined show of beauty and skill with a team of Pokemon. Some other regions had different ages, like the combined region of Kanto-Johto let people start at age ten. They were very old-timey as far as policies were considered, whereas the regions that were established later like Paldea and Galar were much better at managing their trainer system. Eirelia was no different, being around the same age as Paldea and Galar. Granted, they’ve all been around for hundreds of years, so it's not like we’re new.
Thinking back on leaving my house, I wondered how my parents would handle everything. I have three younger siblings and, as the oldest, I was often the one to help care for them. Without me, they would have to rely on my brother, who is 12. They didn't seem sad to send me off. They were both typically pretty busy anyway, but they did instruct me to call and check in whenever I could.
My eyes stayed locked on the trail ahead of me even after a familiar voice let out a cry from somewhere behind me. “Alina, I’m here, Alina!!!”
That would be Chloe. Late as always.
I finally turned around, beaming as my best friend hurtled up to me with her Cubone frantically moving her little stumpy legs to keep up. Chloe smirked as she stopped beside me. “I’m so ready for this.”
I burst out laughing, leaving Chloe to give me a bewildered look.
“You’re so ready and excited, but you got here…” I eyed my Poketch watch. “Twenty minutes late.” Chloe flushed, an embarrassed smile taking over her face.
“Well, I needed to have enough sleep to be energized for today!” she readily supplied, her eyes brightening as she fleshed out her excuse. I sighed, rolling my eyes with a smile.
I greeted Chloe’s Cubone, Delta, before she and I started talking about what our travels might be like. Our conversation was interrupted by Wink bleating loudly, urging us to get moving. His wool crackled as he spoke, and I laughed.
“Okay Wink, we hear you. Ready? Route 1 usually takes new trainers about 2 days to get through, with trainer and wild Pokemon battles included.” Wink wasn’t listening to my explanation, already trotting ahead with Delta. Chloe and I exchanged a glance and laughed before following our partners.
---
We stopped for lunch when we reached a little pond where people often took a break. There were a couple of other trainers around, but they all had young Pokemon like Chloe and me. Chloe decided that she and Delta would be the ones to make us food with the portable cooking supplies her mother insisted she take, and meanwhile, Wink and I were going to train. Training for us meant going to a secluded area to work on our decent-sized amount of move combinations. We've never trained hard in our lives, but Wink had mastered his moves over the years, so we had a great baseline to work from.
Wink followed me as I trekked into the woods and we searched in the general area of the pond. I decided to train in a small glen not too far off. If we ran into trouble, someone would hear us.
"Okay, Wink. We need to get to work on fleshing out your moves because as it stands, we don't have many in our arsenal." I quickly whipped a leather-bound notebook and a pen out of the black bag slung across my body by one strap. "We've got Growl, which we can't use for much since all it does is make another Pokemon flinch, but Tackle, Thunder Wave, Double Team, Agility, and Thundershock will be great. At our level, Thundershock will be very impressive since it's such a big blast of electricity, so I want you to work on keeping electricity in your wool as much as possible. Another thing we can work on is Cotton Spore, but you need to control it so you don't get stuck in it yourself. I'm thinking if you charge up your wool enough, maybe the Cotton Spore would be full of electric energy and like a magnet, they'd kind of... fly around you, almost?"
I drew a diagram for Wink as I spoke, taking into account our visual learning style. He was nodding along though, so he didn't think it was impossible. Cotton Spore utilizes the fur on a Pokemon, and in Wink's case, his wool. It would slow another Pokemon down, but it would also make for a pretty move in a contest.
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"Finally, we need to keep working on Electric Terrain and intensifying your area." As a Mareep, Wink only had so much electricity stored up in his body, meaning he could use Electric Terrain, which in the afflicted area would strengthen electric-type moves, but there was a limited area that the move affected. Lucky for me, it wouldn't be hard for him to intensify it when he's known the move since he was in an egg.
"So, the final performance with these moves will go like this. You'll use Double Team to make clones of yourself, then Thunder Wave to freeze all the clones with paralysis, then you'll use Agility and run through to recollect that electricity you expelled. Then you'll create an Electric Terrain and use Cotton Spores infused with electricity that will in theory work against you like a magnet. Finally, you'll pop off a huge Thundershock that will explode the spores and make, like, electric glitter rain," I finished, my eyes getting brighter as the idea flooded into my head.
Wink's small eyes were full of determination as I stopped scribbling in my notebook and looked at him. "This is feasible, right?" Wink nodded, his wool crackling. He bleated loudly, eager to get to work. "Okay, go on. I'll give you as many tips as I can, just let me put the rubber on the bottom of my shoes. Electric Terrain can hurt me too, remember?"
---
Wink and I got in a good thirty minutes of training, which wasn't enough, even if my charged Cotton Spore idea was working. We divided our time, with the first half being used on Charge, a move that involved Wink charging as much electric energy as he could in his wool. He realized that if he jumped up and down or used Agility, a move that would make him faster, his fur would rub against itself and create more static energy, which he could easily turn into electricity that he was able to use. As for the magnet spores, if Wink's wool was charged enough, he could even charge the spores to the opposite of his wool somehow (he didn't know how to explain it). This led to the blobs of wool circling Wink's body. He was still working on the control of it. More work on Electric Terrain would come when Wink mastered Charge.
The only reason I even returned to Chloe was because she sent Delta to get me. I was so focused on training that I didn't realize my phone was vibrating from texts and calls, so I definitely could've stayed where I was all day.
---
"How was training?" This was the very first question my best friend asked me when I arrived at our little spot near the pond. I grinned at her, quickly reaching up to push my staticky blonde hair down when she laughed at my appearance.
"It was amazing. Wink's doing great! Thanks for making us food, by the way," I responded happily, smiling at my partner and then at the small batch of soup that Chloe made. My gaze turned to Wink, playfully circling Delta as she tried to lightly whack him on the head with her bone club. "Wink, are you hungry?" I asked. His ears perked up and his tail wagged, his head swinging around to look at me. "Mar-eeee! Mar!!" My yellow-woolen partner bleated, trotting back towards me.
Meanwhile, Chloe stood up from our picnic blanket. "I'm going to go challenge some of the trainers around here. I'll be back in a while, okay?" My eyes lit up. "I'll come to watch after Wink and I eat. Have fun!"
I finished my food as quickly as I could, nearly keeping up with Wink's speedy eating. The wooly Pokemon loved food.
The two of us walked in the direction Chloe and Delta went, finally seeing her short brown hair in a crowd of trainers. I heard shouting and quickly sped up, alarmed. Wink and I stopped on the outskirts of the crowd. It wasn't massive, just being around half the trainers in the area, but they were vehement about this battle. I shoved past a few people and Pokemon, Wink in tow, and finally got a good view of my best friend.
Delta and a black and white creature with spiky fur were facing off, both out of breath. The creature's pinkish-red tongue hung out of its mouth. The sneer on the Pokemon's face matched the trainer, a boy with tan skin and buzzcut dirty blonde hair. His eyes looked brown, although they might have been hazel.
The Galarian Zigzagoon attempted to slam into Delta with a Headbutt. Chloe ordered Delta to use Headbutt at the same time and both Pokemon were knocked out, ending it in a draw. The boy scowled as he recalled his Pokemon. I knew that Chloe was having a similar reaction, considering her competitiveness. This was also her first real trainer battle. I watched her hurry over to Delta and apply a Potion to the Pokemon's bruises before recalling her.
Meanwhile, two boys approached the trainer that Chloe battled. I ignored them as they approached Chloe, getting to her side before she stood up. I greeted the three boys with a nod, hoping they couldn't tell I was nervous as I looked them over. They looked a bit older than us.
The trainer with the Zigzagoon watched Chloe as she stood, staring down at her. He was much taller than her and not much taller than me. The second boy, my height with really pale skin and reddish-brown hair, had a Froakie sitting on his shoulder that matched his extremely blue eyes. The last boy looked to be Alolan or Egellan, with light brown skin and curly black hair. At his side was a Tyrogue that clung tightly to his leg.
"Good battle," the dirty-blonde-haired boy grumbled begrudgingly to Chloe. She held out a hand and shook his firmly.
"Good battle. Your Zigzagoon is strong." She sounded just as tense as he did. The other two boys stayed weirdly quiet, although I kept accidentally making eye contact with the ginger boy. His eyes were blue.
"My name is Jack by the way," the buzzcut boy told us, his tone becoming slightly friendlier. "These are my friends Kiaan and Will." Will, the ginger boy, gave me a hesitant wave, while Kiaan eagerly shook mine and Chloe's hands.
"My name is Chloe, and my Cubone is Delta. That's my best friend Alina and her Mareep, Wink." As Chloe spoke, she gestured to Wink and I. "It's nice to meet you guys."
---
We talked for a little while before returning to our stuff. I learned that all three boys were participants of the gym badge circuit, meaning that they'd circle the towns in Eirelia and challenge all eight Pokemon gyms in order to gather a badge from each, and with eight badges you'd earn the right to participate in the Pokemon Battle Conference at the end of the season. That was what Chloe was doing too, and similarly there were places for me to compete in Contests in most towns and cities as well, so us traveling together wasn't any sort of issue. Wink even befriended Kiaan's Tyrogue.
"Look at us, we're only half a day in and we're making connections," Chloe commented, her eyes bright. "Soon we'll be at Shamrock City, too, and it'll be time to start competing!"
We left the pond shortly after, both of us eager to get on with our travels and progress.