"where do you think these guys are hiding?" Whitney asks as she fanned herself with her hand.

I rubbed the beads of sweat on my forehead. Even under the shade of a tree, I still couldn't escape the heat of the mid-day sun. I looked at my black sleeve and sighed, "in retrospect, wearing this thing feels stupid," I groaned when the brunette gave me an incredulous look, "seriously."

"should have that of that when you were thinking of going into the wilds." Whitney retorted, "seriously, why would you wear thick clothing when you're planning on catching pokemon?" she raised an eyebrow, "the only thing that can make it worse is when you're actually planning on wearing that sort of thing when you finally go on your journey."

I frowned, "what if... I told you I was?" I met her eyes,

"I'll slap you and then drag your then coherent self into the Department Store so you can buy proper journey clothing." she replied,

"what even is that?" I let myself drop down on the thick grass, "proper journey clothing I mean."

"hmmm... I guess they're easily washable clothes that are not only cheap, but also effecient." she replied, then paused. "wait, don't tell me you're actually planning on wearing hoodies when you go on your journey?"

I held back a frown, "well it's not like I knew any better."

"what? wearing airy clothing is just common sense!" I felt her walking up to me and I started rolling away, "only Ho-oh could make the days here any hotter!"

I couldn't roll away in time, my forearm was pinched, "how am I supposed to know that?!"

"what?" I grabbed her wrist before she could pinch me the second time and she flicked my hand before pinching me while I was reeling for good measure, "what do you mean how are you supposed to know that?!"

I tried to dodge by getting up when she was about to pinch me for the third time and I came face to face with Vhira and before I knew it, my head met her stomach and we both fell.

"sorry," I rubbed my forehead, "I'll take Whitney's pinch next time." - "you better!" I heard her reply as I got up. - I dusted myself off and offered Vhira a hand, "so, you found any nidoran yet?"

she shook her head, "nothing,"

"I'm sure we'll find them."

I nodded at Whitney's words, "what she said."

"but we've already spent the entire morning looking for them though," she rubbed the empty Pokeball she was holding with her other hand, "don't you guys think we wasted a lot of time already?"

Whitney snorted, "we're literally on a break!" the green-haired girl raised a hand to reply, only for her to stop when Whitney loudly huffed, "if anything, this is us being productive!"

"we're supposed to spend this day recovering though," Vhira muttered,

"and we are!" the brunette argued, raising both of her hands in exasperation, "I mean, think about it! we're helping you get pokemon so that when we do get attacked again, you can help us!" she pulled her hands down and poked Vhira on the chest, "that's helping you recover so that you can help us fight next time!"

'next time?' were words that I purposefully left unsaid.

"and what about you guys?" she asked, tears welling up in her eyes, something that Whitney also noticed as she was starting to walk towards her.

"we're exercising!" she says before hugging Vhira, then she glared at me, "right, Lionel?"

"of course," I nodded, "and when you also get your pokemon, you can also join us whenever we exercise as well."

her eyebrows scrunched up, "you two exercise together?" she asked, looking between me and Whitney. Both of us nodded, "since when?"

"well... we haven't really exercised together per se but we did start a day or two ago," was it two days ago? I looked at Whitney, "right?"

"yep, we started just this tuesday." she nodded, "so I guess a day ago? maybe two?" she looked unsure, "either way we exercised."

"but weren't we in the hospital?"

"oh, we started after we got released!" Whitney answered, "just right after the doctor told us to do physical therapy on our own after we got home," she supplied.

I nodded, "yep,"

said physical therapy was taken by Whitney to the extreme and we both were essentially panting on the ground by the time we were done. I could understand why though, after getting beaten down hard and spending two days in the hospital, knowing her, she probably blamed what happened to everyone else before ultimately, when her "tantrum" calmed down, she started to blame herself.

I looked at her, 'thankfully, her self-destructive actions involve her exercising and taking out her frustration on herself that way.'

she did take it out on me from time to time and the ones who got it worse were the wild pokemon on route 34 but honestly? Most of it was strangely directed at herself.

Whitney clapped loudly, causing Vhira to flinch and Kangaskhan to appear from behind the tree. The pokemon's eyes moved back and forth between all of us before she scoffed and went back to the part of the shade she was resting in when she realized that there wasn't any imminent danger. I noted the baby on her pouch was missing, probably playing in the fields.

"right! how about we continue on?!" Whitney walked away from the shade of the tree and looked up, "the sun is still in the middle of the sky so it's still noon and I think Nidoran can still be found running around here?"

"yep," I followed after her, "they should still be active during this time." I looked back towards the unsure Vhira and nudged her to follow us, "come on, we don't wanna burn daylight."

both me and Whitney waited for her to follow and the girl simply refused to move. She had an expression that I couldn't make up and after a few seconds where the three of us just stood there, staring at each other, the girl eventually moved away from where she stood and started walking. "you guys know that this is just a waste of time right?" I hummed, not agreeing. "you all know I can just catch a tentacool and be done with it?"

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"tentacools can't fight on land though?" I mused, "unless you want to stay near bodies of water, I think it would be best if we just catch you a Nidoran."

"well no, Tentacools can float when they're outside of the water," Vhira mentioned.

I looked at Whitney and she shrugged, mouthing 'I don't know,' before looking forward. "how?" I asked Vhira,

she scratched her cheek, "I don't know? I mean, there was a trainer at one point that managed to make a Tentacruel fight on land but that guy is a master trainer so I don't know?.."

"right, who's he?" Whitney asked before me,

"Koga," she replied, "the poison specialist of Kanto."

"ah, that guy huh?" Whitney tried to hide a frown, "I remember Dad saying something about him I think?" she said, "he's a Gym leader too right?"

Vhira nodded, "yep! In... Fuchsia city I think?"

and the two of them went on and on about Gyms after that, staying far from the initial topic of how to make a Tentacool and for that matter, Tentacruel fight on land. I didn't want to put much thought into it but I did have a Goodrod and a Pokeball back home so I shelved the fact that I could have a Tentacruel in the near future as a possibility.

I'd have to see what the "professor" back in the hospital wanted for me first though and if my guess on who he was is correct then the guy should know someone who has a pokemon egg and in turn, I think, that person knows the people that he got that egg from. Hopefully, those people had a Venosaur because if I had a choice, I wanted a Bulbasaur as a second pokemon but that remains to be seen.

'guess I should hope that it's professor Elm then.' I crossed my fingers.

our search for Nidoran continued and the next few hours passed by in a flash as we walked through most of Route 34's west side area. It was deep into the afternoon before we finally took time to give ourselves a moment of rest. Looking back, it was odd that no Nidoran came our way and as I sat on a nearby rock, I began to think.

Why weren't we able to find any Nidoran? - was probably the question in everyone's mind in that moment.

I looked over the grassland in front of me, for how dangerous this route supposedly is, the area certainly looked beautiful enough that I wouldn't mind going over here by myself without pokemon. The grass, already dyed in orange thanks to the glow of the afternoon sun, just barely reached my knees. They were tall enough that their pointed tips scraped against my calves but they weren't ticklish.

'of course not.' I thought logically to myself because the grass here, instead, was soft no matter how tall they got. They didn't give you an itch nor did they have parasites, because, in the Pokemon world, they didn't even exist.

Well, except for Pokerus but eh? That guy is pretty much rare to the point that he might as well not exist.

I continued to stare at the field for a while until eventually, my eyes moved over to Kangaskhan, and then everything clicked.

"Oh,"

""oh" what?" Whitney walked up to me, unlike before we started the search, her white clothes were now stained with dirt, and bottom of her shorts managed to take the worse of it. Her hair, where it was straight and clean earlier this morning, had become frazzled, and small, stray strands started to pop out of her ponytail.

her eyes turned hostile when she noticed I was staring for long and I treated her as if she was some rabid animal and I quickly averted my eyes, "I think I know why we haven't found any Nidoran yet." my eyes never left the field of grass and I only stared at Whitney's confused expression in my peripheral,

"you mean, there's an actual reason why we can't find any Nidoran?" she started walking towards me and I quickly stood up, my feet were already moving before I even realized it. "why are you walking away?" her face distorted, going from confusion to frustration, "huh? why are you running away?"

her pace quickened,

I stopped escaping, instead, I tried to placate her. "look-" I raised my hands, "I-"

she was upon me and for all my efforts, I still got pinched. Twice. "you're supposed to be the- the- to be the one leading us here!" she pulled back her arm and punched and worse, I accidentally caught it. "let me go!" she yelled, pulling her arm back and sending another punch once she was freed, I let her hit me this time.

"calm down!" I again, tried to calm her down. Fortunately, she did and stayed silent, simply looking at me as her foot impatiently tapped the ground, "so, I think that Kagaskhan-"

"GODDAMNIT!" she yelled before I could even finish, "of course!" she slapped my cheeks with both my hands, - which she grabbed by the wrist, - they didn't leave and instead held on firmly. She squeezed, tight - "yo- you genius!"

then she immediately ran off, presumably in Vhira's direction and good thing too because the last time I checked, she was still running around the place searching for the pokemon even after Whitney and I called for a break.

...

"n-no. I'm fine," Vhira wiped her eyes, even after we found out what the problem was and painstakingly sent the stubborn Kangaskhan elsewhere so that the Nidoran wouldn't be afraid, we still couldn't find any of them.

I looked up, it was starting to turn dark, "it's fine, we'll search here again tomorrow after school and maybe we'll find some of them yeah?"

I saw her nod lightly in the corner of my eye. Bending down, I took off my backpack to prepare Grimer's food. I released the little sludge ball and took out his bowl, upon seeing it, his eyes lit up. I patted him on the head, "time for your meal bud,"

"by the way, I heard some people say that the people that go for you are always different whenever your class calls for a meeting." I almost dropped the pokechow I was holding when I heard what Whitney said. Apparently, the girl thought that this was the perfect time to ask that sort of question and maybe it was terrible of me but I let my curiosity take over and didn't intervene.

because why did Vhira's guardians vary?

the girl in question looked down, her lost confidence going down even further as she gave the brunette a look of betrayal. She didn't look at me thankfully.

it was silent for a while but eventually, she gave out an answer, "well... all of my grandparents died in the war," she started, meeting Whitney's eyes, "and everything was fine at first,-" she huffed, "for both of my parents, I mean,

"but eventually, I was born and I think Dad couldn't handle taking care of me while also dealing with grief so he took his own life," she hurriedly said,

"whoa there," Whitney raised a hand to gesture for Vhira to stop, "I didn't know that and you don't need to talk if you aren't okay with it."

I smiled, for all she was, Whitney was oddly mature for someone her age. Hell, almost every kid in this world was mature.

regardless, Vhira shook her head and continued, "it's fine," she grabbed Whitney's hand, "well uh, continuing now... Mom took her own life shortly after Dad and-" Vhira found herself staring at the hand that was on top of her mouth,

I laughed lightly, trying to disperse the tension as I handed Grimer his food, "that was pretty heavy," Whitney nodded, "but if you want to talk, we're here."

"yeah... that." Whitney removed her hand from Vhira's mouth, "you probably shouldn't just casually throw that sort of thing out you know?"

a small smile found itself on Vhira's face, "well I thought that you guys should know," her smile widened. "it was probably better for me to tell you after all of this so thank-"

before she could finish, a pokemon called out their name, one, that we had been searching for the entire day- "NIDORAN!"

and we all turned to face a purple-rabbit-thing in front of a growling Grimer, with Nidoran staring at Grimer's food and grimer not looking like he was going to share, both pokemon were ready to use the moves at their disposal and even Kangaskhan going near the purple rabbit only caused it to hiss even louder.

"huh, he sure is feisty," I commented at the now puffed-up Nidoran, trying to look as big as possible in front of Kangaskhan, "wanna catch him?" I looked at Vhira and a single nod was all I needed to see before I turned back, "Grimer! use-"

"wait! wait! wait!" Vhira ran up in front of me, her green hair looked like it was glowing under the light of the setting sun, "I- maybe I should ask him if he wants to willingly join me?"

my eyes went over to Whitney, she nodded and I took that as a cue to step away, "okay, sure,"

and so, she stepped forward and after bending down to whisper something at the Nidoran, who was replying in growls and hisses that I couldn't hear, she managed to convince the purple rabbit to enter the Pokeball in her hand without any resistance.

the smile on her face was beaming when she was making her way towards me, "I caught him!"

"good job!" Whitney was already upon her with a hug the moment that I heard her congratulations, "what did you say to convince him?"

"well, for one, food." she chuckled, "and the other is to-" she looked at Kangaskhan, "-help him."