Another thing they don't tell you about your Pokemon journey is that fifty percent of it will be just plain boring.
Drowzee and I walked for quite a while, and it wasn't like we could really talk; maybe he understood what I was saying, but he couldn't reply in a way I would understand. We couldn't find any other Pokemon or people, and the landscape got really boring since it was nothing but grass and occasional trees. Also, it was hot, which was confusing; it had been nighttime when I'd 'left home', but the sun was now in the middle of the sky. I had never eaten dinner so I was getting progressively hungrier as time went on, and on top of everything else we were still lost with no clear plan to get us back home.
So I tried thinking about the crazy people who had invaded my home and the useless silver and gold poke ball they'd been after. I tried to deduce who they were and where they might have come from, but each theory I came up with sounded crazier than the last. I barely knew anything about them, so I couldn't come to any conclusions. The same thing was true of the green Pokemon who wanted to be freed, who had (maybe) put me in this weird and boring place.
The only thing that all that thinking managed to do was put me in a bad mood.
"I'm taking a break," I finally declared as I reached a stray tree that looked like it had nothing left to live for. Drowzee, who had been lagging further and further behind as we walked, kept ambling forward slowly. I sat down on the ground with a drawn-out sigh and grabbed my notebook out of my jacket’s pocket. What I really wanted to do was make my dad's laptop magically appear and find some kind of wireless connection so I could figure out where I was and look up relevant information like ‘what kind of Pokemon looks like a green bug fairy’ and ‘tips for how to understand your expressionless starter’. That would have to wait until we found civilization. Though now that I thought about it, this area seemed pretty rural – what if they only had dial-up?
I shuddered at that thought.
Drowzee eventually reached the tree, but he decided to stay standing as he sniffed the air delicately, so I ignored him and kept myself busy with my notebook. I was trying to sketch a design for a telescope that would use just my glasses, leaves, and a few twigs. It wasn't a particularly realistic idea, but I played with it anyway because I really did want to see if the glimmer out there on the horizon was water. Needless to say, I couldn’t get it to work.
We stayed there for some twenty minutes as I gave up on the telescope and started sketching randomly instead. I'm not good at creative art, but I love taking things that I see in real life and trying to put them on paper. My friends from school always said that I wasn't half bad at it. I actually managed to forget the situation for a while as I let my pen wander, lost in the pattern of careful outlining and shading.
That was when I heard someone scream.
Okay, it was more of a yell then a scream, and it sounded more angry than upset, but it was a sound that hadn't come from me or Drowzee all the same. I scrambled to my feet and looked off to the left where the sound had echoed from beyond a tall hill. Human or Pokemon? I couldn't even tell.
"C'mon, Drowzee," I muttered, jogging off towards the hill. It was quite likely that I was getting myself into huge trouble, but trouble would be better than mind-numbing boredom by far. Besides, I was desperate to find other people, and this was a better lead than anything else I’d seen so far.
Drowzee refused to run – he just shuffled along at a slightly-faster pace instead – but we found the source of the yell as soon as we reached the top of the hill, so it didn't matter. It must have come from the girl who was standing down there at the bottom of the other side. She was surrounded by a crowd of small pink and slightly-larger purple Pokemon, and all of them were growling at her. I recognized them right away; Snubbull are pretty common in Johor, and though I’d only met a Granbull once before, the similarity between the two species was clear.
I couldn't see the girl very clearly because she kept moving around, but I could tell that her straight hair was a chestnut brown and that she wore a plain cotton shirt tucked into a long skirt. She was making faces at the Pokemon, and they were all making faces right back, but she looked a little scared, I decided. Scared enough to need help.
Okay, now I was on more familiar ground! I had my starter Pokemon, and there was a person in danger; that meant it was time for a battle. All I had to do now was quickly look up the moves that Drowzee could use online, and –
Right. No internet.
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Well, that just meant it was time to improvise. I pushed Drowzee out in front of me, took a deep breath, and flew right into my first battle as a trainer. "Drowzee, use Psychic!" I shouted, like all of the cool trainers always did on the radio. The attack strategy I'd chosen was a strong one, sure to succeed as an opening move.
He just turned his head around and looked at me flatly. Down the hill, a bunch of the Snubbull had shuffled around to growl at us instead, and the girl had whirled around to stare at me.
"Uh, don't you know Psychic?" I whispered, frowning at my Pokemon. He wiggled his trunk left and right quickly, so I wracked my brain for backup ideas. "Um, uh, let's see, another psychic move… maybe Confusion?” Another trunk shake. “Oh, come on, practically every psychic Pokemon knows Confusion!"
By that point all the wild Pokemon had noticed us, and two of the Granbull had started to charge at us while still growling. It was slow going since they had to go uphill, but they were still intimidating. Could we stop whatever they were doing? Wait – that made me think of another option. "Disable?" I suggested, my voice squeaking a bit.
Drowzee finally turned his head back around, and he jerked upright when he saw the pair of Granbull. Then he blinked rapidly before opening his eyes wide. A series of blue rings shot out from in front of him, growing as they moved forward, and they passed through the cluster of wild Pokemon. The two Granbull skidded to a halt, looking confused, and all of the Pokemon abruptly stopped growling. Finally, a move he actually knew.
At that point, I got a brilliant idea. "Now, Hypnosis!" I said more loudly, standing up straight again.
In front of me, Drowzee paused for a moment before slowly moving his hands back and forth. A thin blue wash of light soared out from him, one that inched its way down the hill and across the field to cover the Pokemon. Snubbull and Granbull fell left and right, each one of them snoring loudly as they hit the ground. I would've been ecstatic, but I was worried about how slowly the light seemed to move; some of the Pokemon had figured out what was going on, and they were waddling off to the side so they could escape the attack.
As for the girl – wait, where was the girl? I looked around frantically, then nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized that she was standing right next to me. How had she gotten up the hill so quickly?
"Come," she hissed, wrinkling her nose and glaring at me. She was really freckled and her tan skin was a bit blotchy, but her eyes were the kind of brilliant green that catch your attention right away. She was also at least three inches taller than me, which I found annoying since she didn’t look that much older than me. But she had escaped from the Snubbull somehow, so I decided to trust her for a minute or so.
She darted a few meters away, then turned and glared when she realized that I wasn't following. I grabbed Drowzee's arm and started to pull him towards her, hoping that he would keep up the attack, but the blue waves stopped as soon as I touched him. As the air started to clear, I saw that the Snubbull and Granbull who were still awake were all coming up the hill towards us, and they looked plenty mad.
"Run!" I screamed, my voice going up about two octaves. That time, Drowzee paid attention. We both ran frantically after the girl who was already dashing into the distance. I got winded pretty quickly since I wasn’t used to sprinting at all, but I didn't stop or look back until the girl finally came to a halt. I then put my hands on my knees and wheezed, head spinning, while she stomped towards me and stared me down. Next to me, Drowzee flopped down onto the ground, panting.
"… I do not believe it. You are even younger than I am!" She sighed and ran her fingers through her chin-length hair, pushing it out of her face. "Well, so be it. What is your name, trainer?"
"Monroe," I managed to choke out between greedy gasps for air. I was busy wondering whether training always involved that much running around. I'd already decided that if it did, I wouldn't spend much time away from home after all.
"Mon-roe? A strange name." She sniffed haughtily. "I am called Florence. Do you have a camp nearby, Trainer Monroe, or do you require shelter for the night?"
Her odd way of speaking was starting to get to me, and I thought that she had no right to make fun of my name when hers was so old-fashioned, but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity. "Oh, a place to stay would be great. And, do you have food? I'm starving."
Her eyes slowly narrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest with a little 'huff!' sound. "I will ask my community to provide for you. They will say you have –" she made a face – "saved my life, after all."
With that, she turned around and stalked off into the distance (again) with her head held high. Drowzee and I were left to run after her with half-uttered protests, while I still had to quietly wonder: if I had just saved her life, why was she so upset?
Then I realized that she could probably answer one of my most important questions, so I stopped running, caught my breath, and yelled "Hey, wait! Can you tell us where we are?"
She paused for a very short moment, then turned and raised her eyebrows. When she spoke, her voice was condescending and sarcastic, like she couldn't believe that I could be such an idiot. Her words, however, were level, factual, not to be disputed – and entirely impossible.
"The plains of Goldenrod, of course."