Chapter 4: Catching Wild Pokémon

The next day Harper and Brandon decided to start their journey. Professor Bianca gave them 6 Pokémon balls each. She taught them the basics of how to catch a Pokémon, by using an already caught Pokémon to weaken the wild Pokémon before throwing their ball out to catch it. She said it was advisable to use something like sleep or paralyze to freeze the wild Pokémon. It was easy that way. She also took their balls to heal them. She also cleaned them for free. She said that putting their hands on their balls makes them grubby and she said that they should keep them clean, even if it meant paying extra.

They walked through the short grass. They waited a while for a wild Pokémon to turn up. Harper noticed a few Patrat roaming about but Harper wanted a much stronger Pokémon. She wanted a much more powerful Pokémon. She looked about but without any success. Suddenly Brandon jumped, pointing at something.

"There's a Pokémon over there," he said.

"I think it is an Audino," she started to get excited. "Let me catch it. I have never had an Audino before. The next time I see a pokemon I will give you the chance to catch it. I promise you that."

"Sure," Brandon said with a tint of sadness. Harper could tell that Brandon always wanted an Audino but she was determined to catch it. "Go give it your best!"

"Roggenrola, I choose you!" she yelled, throwing out her ball. Out of the ball came her Pokémon.

"Rogga," it said.

The first thing the Roggenrola did was harden. The Audino started to attack it with its double slap attack. The Pokémon then tried to use it attract power but the Roggenrola wasn't attracted to it at all. Rock Pokémon were difficult to impress. Roggenrola then head-butted the Audino, choking it back before performing a sand attack which stopped the Audino before performing the final attack, a rock blast attack at Audino, knocking it down to a slimmer of health. It was also paralyzed.

"Go throw the ball out now!" Brandon told Harper.

"Okay, here's my ball," she said. She waited a bit for the right moment before throwing the ball out. It hit the Pokémon and the Audino puffed in a pink colour of smoke, much like her other Pokémon do when they leave or return to their balls. It then went into Harper's ball. "Yay, I caught my first Pokémon!"

"Well done," said Brandon. "You are getting a good team of Pokémon now. I wished I had such good Pokémon."

"I'm sure you will get there one day," she complimented.

Suddenly a Herdier appeared out of nowhere. It stared at them angrily. It growled quite a lot and its brown tail was up on ends. The wind was blowing its brown fur about. It had an extra coat of fur which was the brownest red, unlike the usual Herdier would have which was a purple colour.

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"I will let you catch this Pokémon," Harper said politely.

"Sure will," he replied. "Sandshrew, I choose you." He threw out his Pokémon ball and out of the ball came his Sandshrew, all ready to fight.

The Sandshrew charged around the Herdier on all four feet before rolling into a ball position and started rolling around the other Pokémon. It kept circling the Herdier in a circle getting nearer to it. The Herdier stood there growling, keeping its ground even though the Sandshrew started to make it dizzy, and waiting for the Sandshrew to attack. The Sandshrew was abrupt with its attack, swiping at the Herdier. Unlike Harper's Tepig, the Pokémon wasn't able to dodge. This knocked the Pokémon down to a few health points. This allowed Brandon the chance to catch the Pokémon. He took out one of his balls and threw it at the Herdier. The Herdier was transported into the ball. The ball started to shake, but the Pokémon escaped.

"No way," Brandon complained.

"Just throw out another ball," Harper advised him.

Brandon got his Sandshrew to perform a sand attack, throwing sand into the Herdier's eyes, causing it to not be able to see. The Herdier was starting to weaken anyway, so Brandon took the chance to throw another ball – he now only had four balls left so he was going to have to buy more balls when going to the next town. You should always have a good supply of balls. The Hardier was absorbed into the Pokémon ball and the ball started to shack. The ball glowed twice very fast just to show that the Pokémon had been caught.

"Yay," he said. "I always wanted a Herdier."

"I challenge you," said an anxious trainer. He looked like some emo kid and was underweight. It was obvious that his parents did not feed him. "My name is Toby, and I am going to beat you. And if I don’t win, one of my fake sock-puppet accounts will!"

"Ok," said Brandon. "Sandshrew, go and get him!"

Toby brought out a Duskull. The Sandshrew used the same tactic as before by rolling around the Duskull in a ball position, with each rotation around the pokemon it was getting closer and closer. It soon leapt out of its ball position to strike the Duskull with its furry swipe attack. The Duskull managed to dodge it but the Sandshrew attacked it again, knocking the Pokémon out point black.

"That was only a warm-up," the trainer said naively, "try and defeat my Mewtwo!"

He threw out his other ball, and out of it came a Mewtwo. The first thing it did was to disable Sandshrew's ability to roll. It then started to throw out Psycho Cut attacks at the Sandshrew. Brandon's Pokémon was able to avoid these attacks by dodging them, but the Mewtwo got close to his Pokémon. The Mewtwo performed its killer blow with a Psystrike, knocking Sandshrew out.

"I will challenge you as well!" yelled Harper with much anger. "You are a bully and I will not allow you to get away with that!"

She threw out a ball and out of the ball came her Tepig. Mewtwo tried to use its disable move on Tepig but it didn't work. The Tepig managed to come across a mirror that was lying about, and when the Mewtwo performed the move confuse, it reflected off the mirror and back at it, causing it to become confused itself. This gave Tepig the chance to attack the Mewtwo with its amber attack. Although this didn't finish the Mewtwo off, the tackle attack did, knocking the Mewtwo cold dead.

“Looks like you going to need your socks after all,” Harper said victorious.

"How could you," Toby said bewildered. "I will get my revenge one day. Just you wait!" He ran off.

"Well done," said Brandon. "You were able to defeat that meanie!"

"Of course," said Harper, "I am pretty good now. Let's keep going. I want to get to the next town before nightfall."