"again! Ember! hit the Ratata!"

"Grimer! Power-up punch on the standard one!"

"defend!"

"Koffing! Tackle the Charmeleon!"

"Ratata Quick Attack! Dodge it!"

All trainers called out their commands nigh simultaneously and the pokemon moved, started by the much faster Charmeleon striking the Ratata on the side as his body lit up in white, the now stricken rat then followed it, it moving into a blue blur that instead of running away, struck my own Grimer who in response, threw the Power-up punch his way instead, hitting the Ratata followed by his body glowing red and growing.

Both Koffing and the regular Grimer moved last, the two of them attacking, including the Grimer, the old man's Charmeleon who promptly defended himself by throwing smoke screen around itself, not needing a command from the old man to execute such move.

The Ratata flew from the hit, the Koffing and Grimer missed, Charmeleon looked unscathed when the smoke cleared, and Grimer was now 1x larger than he was moments ago.

The battle came to a halt, I moved to another spot, and a Rocket Grunt, the Ratata's trainer, yelled something at me, "who are you?!" he yelled and when he got no response, he did so again, "why are you even here?!"

As an answer, I gave my Grimer a command, "Shadow Sneak on Koffing then Bite again!" I moved to another location after that as Grimer did the same, going from his initial spot to Koffing's shadow, striking it down and-

"Tackle him! Defend yourself!" and the Koffing followed as all the other Pokemon started moving as well, with both Grimer and Ratata attacking Charmeleon and the fire-lizard defending itself with Iron Claws per its trainer's command.

Koffing and Grimer met, one glowing white in its entirety and the other with its mouth Glowing black, both attacks met and Grimer took a deep bite against Koffing's side, damaging him to the point of releasing more gas, "NOW! POWER-UP PUNCH THEN POUND!" I called out first and he followed, doing both commands with practiced ease and sending the enemy Koffing flying.

It fell, and never got up. Its trainer called it back in a flash of red light, he didn't send another one. He clicked his tongue before whispering something to the other grunt right next to him, said grunt nodded and he ran away from the forest, not one of us was able to follow him with me just being a kid barely ten years old, the old man being too far, not to mention the remaining grunts glaring at him, speaking well of their intention of wanting to block him if he moves.

Both pokemon, as powerful as they are, were being glared at by their enemies, Grimer on Charmeleon, and Ratata on my Grimer.

"I'll let him run," the old man spoke, "Charmeleon! Ember on Ratata!"

Calling out its name, the red reptile pushed fire out of its throat, scorching the Rat before it could execute a quick attack to dodge.

"Dig, aim for the other Grimer on the field," and my Grimer followed, using his newly learned move to go down to the ground before striking the other poison type who could do nothing but use harden with a super-effective move. As all things, Grimer instinctually uppercutted his enemy the moment that he had the opportunity to attack from the bottom, and with two power-up punches under his belt, the regular Grimer could only fly and fall before fainting in a similar manner to the Koffing before him.

"finish it Charmeleon! Iron Claws on Ratata!" / "Power-up Punch!" both I and the old man said simultaneously and our pokemon similarly executed their moves, striking together against the Ratata and making it faint.

It fell down, but so did the Charmeleon, his fall made me finally notice the purple coloration of his throat, and only now did I know why the old man made him use Ember over and over again.

Now pokemon-less, both Rocket Grunts could only glare at me as I got out of my hiding spot, "a kid?!" Grunt one, who was on the right of Grunt two, yelled at his fellow grunt. The standard Grimer's trainer glared at me but flinched when Grunt one yelled at him again, "YOU WERE BEATEN BY A KID!"

He shoved Grunt one, "what do you know?!" and the two escalated into fighting from there, I kept Grimer on standby as the two humans started bashing each other with their fists, from one hit to the next, up until they got tired and could no longer fight.

"huh, first time I saw something like this ever since I got here," the old man looked at me oddly as I murmured that. I looked away, flushed, before scratching my head and introducing myself, "I'm Lionel by the way," I raised a hand and he took it,

"Kurt," he said with a single nod. Pulling out his Pokeball, he recalled Charmeleon and gave the guy a brief, barely audible - "thank you," - before turning to me, "good thing you were here kid," he says, glaring at the two grunts panting on the ground, bruises on their bodies, "I didn't know what I would've done without ya," he laughed heartily before going over to the two Rocket members and pulling something out from his traditional Kimono; a dark-blue ball with large and small dots emerging out of its metallic surface.

The heavy ball hissed and popped, releasing a menacing, 8-foot-tall Ursaring that had a permanent scowl on its face, "whoa," I couldn't help but say, staring at something that was undoubtedly on Kangaskhan's level.

Kurt laughed, "like her?" he says, looking at me. I nodded, "then this lass has had her most recent batch of cubs hatch lately, he grinned, "best you get one from that daycare before they get picked up by them professors!"

"huh," I said without reason, "y-you just let them get given out?"

Kurt laughed again, "of course!" he says, eyes now smiling as the massive ursine Pokemon picked up the two rocket grunts and hauled them on its lonesome shoulder without any burden despite both grunts' protests. "she's fine with it and so am I!"

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I nodded in understanding, then recalled Grimer, "I'm not planning on getting anything else other than poison type sadly," I gave him a polite bow, "sorry,"

"ah, that's fine!" he waved me off and started walking, following after his Pokemon as she started leaving with both Rocket members. He met my eyes and nudged me to follow but I felt conflicted and just stared at him, gripping unto my Pokeball tightly. He looked somewhere behind me and when I followed where it was, I saw him staring at the shrine, I turned around to see him smile, "I see," he said, nodding, "good luck with your journey kiddo!" he waved, "make sure to stop by my place sometime, I'll make ya a Pokeball that's unique to poison types! even nurtures em!" he turned around, "like dem luxury balls! except toxic!" he laughed heartily.

I stared at the man's back, huh, so that's what the guy's name was? "never knew that his name was Kurt," I murmured before turning around.

"so, he looked at this thing right?" I felt Grimer's Pokeball shake in fear, "there's nothing special with it so why..?" I walked over to the shrine, it was, in my honest opinion, nothing much; just what seems to be a small house standing on four legs with a set of double doors at the front.

Even with my opinions though, I gave it a small bow, "hope you keep the forest safe," after saying that, I turned around and started walking away.

Before I left the clearing, I gave it one last look and another bow.

...

Compared to what most people would associate with the term, "town" Azalea was anything but; with large, spiraling towers that acted as rented rooms for trainers, rather high-tech devices such as interactive widgets attached to walls, vending machines that offered up a wide range of quick and easy food, and so much more.

And what's even better, to me, personally, is that the "traditional feel" of the place isn't removed by adding any of these in any way whatsoever, instead, the designs of everything tech related was mixed in an aesthetically pleasing manner to the town's standard look.

Even from the edge of Ilex Forest, everything was already visible to me. And with how seemingly regular humans interact with creatures that are should just be outright considered magical, with animals- creatures such as a ball of gas floating about right next to a trainer, a menacing-looking elephant with literal rocks on its body acting as plated armor, and a gigantic rhinoceros beetle taller than a human adult leaning against a lamp as a girl with red hair made a call inside of a phone booth made the scene outright fantastical.

I stopped in the middle of the road and appreciated it all, then, I continued, seemingly feeling like I was magnetically attracted to the phone booth.

My feet seemingly being forcefully dragged, I stopped just outside of the glass-mixed-metal case and waited for the person occupying it to finish. She, by all means, looked like a well-off trainer with what I recognized as a mid-end Silph Co. trainer backpack as well as clothing that would fit well in any environment despite their design.

Why? Because the clothes that she wore had temperature regulators inside of them. Made to fit inside of their thin fibers thanks to Silph Co's spacial technology.

Even with everything that I currently have, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to buy all the things that the girl in front of me has unless I at least reached the league and that was under the best assumption with a few generosities - such as, for example, me meeting a whole lot of the "rich boy" trainer types in the games and winning all of the assumed battles, - added to it. Yet, despite that, the girl looked like she was only 9 years older than me at most.

Noticing my gaze, she met my eyes whilst continuing to speak on phone in her hands, I averted my eyes and she followed, her conversation not even coming to a halt.

Eventually, she did come out and the Heracross that was leaning against the nearby lamp post got up from his pose and followed after the girl, trailing her from behind with indifference towards anything other than his trainer. I noticed Grimer looking at the bug type with a complicated expression and gave him a rub on the head, "he's pretty strong huh?"

All my pokemon could do in reply was nod, his eyes never leaving the back of the departing Heracross.

I slipped a coin into the booth's machine and started rolling the dial. Except for seeing a landline a few times back in my old life, I never really got to experience the whole "rolling" dial thing that old phones used to have and the booth I was on was the first time that I managed to even use something like it.

Even without the instructions plastered on the wall, I wouldn't have a hard time making a call but it still felt pretty weird to use something like this.

The phone rang, and someone eventually picked up, "Lionel?" My mother's voice came from the other end of the line, "so you're now in Azalea town?" her tone of voice wasn't all that different from her normal one and she sounded like she expected that I would reach the town without encountering any problems.

'well, if your husband has access to the trainer map database, then you probably wouldn't worry as well,' - were words that I left unsaid, instead, I answered her with the best voice I could muster, "yep!" I said with a bit of a chirp, the phone would probably distort it but that was fine, "I went over and used Ilex Forest as a way to get to Azalea town faster though," knowing that I couldn't hide anything, I decided to be blunt.

"what happened?" was all she asked,

I held back a sigh, "a flock of spearrow happened," I answered, "they chased after me but I managed to hide under the trees just in time," unless I wanted to get teleported back home by an Alakazam (who I hope is smart enough to not tell on me,) and a really pissed off mother, I held back the information of me receiving an attack with my back.

My mother stayed silent for a while, clearly contemplating things but eventually, he spoke again, "I see," I gulped, "then I hope your stay there is nice," I sighed in relief, "how was the journey?"

"it was nice," I replied honestly, "it felt pretty liberating being out in the wild like that,"

I heard laughter from the end of the line, not soft, nor warm, but antagonistic, "ah, you'll start saying the opposite once you're out there, in Mt. Silver, hungry with no supplies on your back, and forced to eat wild Pokemon raw alongside your own." I heard her making uncharacteristic kissing noises from the other end and I furrowed my eyebrows, "but that will be way too long before something like that happens so till then, goodbye!"

"goodbye?" the line hung up after I said that.

After placing the phone back in its original place, I walked out of the booth and was greeted by a calm Grimer sitting to the side. He looked at me and I gave him a wave, he called out his name, "eh, so so, I think Alakazam didn't tell on us," the half-poison, half-dark snickered when I said that and I chuckled in retort.

Then he went calm, "Grime?"

I nodded, "yeah, probably sees something that we don't," I said, hoisting up my backpack and tightening its straps. It never fails to amaze me that even with all the things that I threw inside of it, the thing felt like it didn't even weigh at all.

I looked around, "we should probably find a place to stay in though," I said, gazing up at the now-darkened sky, "it's starting to get dark so I'm pretty sure all the standard trainer suites are all gone so that means we're gonna have to stay in a hotel," my Pokemon frowned at that, "yeah, I know, pretty expensive but I'd like you to find me a motel that'll fit in with our needs for the night,"

And so, he did, disappearing from his spot and out into the next.

I chased after him, feeling his oddly unique presence that nagged on the back of my head, him using Shadow Sneak over and over again dampened my ability to do that somewhat but not by much.