[08:33] [02/01/1277] [Viridian Woodland south edge, Kanto]

“This place is way too big when you walk through it by foot.” Said Bruno while looking around the place.

Trees encompassed his view as a whole, both he and Leaf could only see at most 30 meters in each direction because of the density of the local flora.

“Yeah, it feels way too different when you’re not passing through the avenue, should we take our pokemons out?” She said while already picking up her pokeball.

“Sure.” Said Bruno while picking up Ember’s cherish ball.

Both of them called their pokemon at the same time, “Kyaaaaaa!! Why is this charmander so beautiful!” Said Leaf while running towards the shiny pokemon direction.

Ember immediately got scared from the approaching strange human and quickly hid herself behind Bruno.

“Calm down, Leaf. Ember is not that good at meeting new people.” Bruno said while caressing Ember’s head, she currently had an even brighter golden sheen to her skin and had grown a few centimeters taller, reaching around 1.1 meters tall.

“I’m sorry cutie, i just think you’re really beautiful.” Leaf said while getting on her knees to be on eye level to Ember, she didn’t notice that her bulbasaur was looking at her with a strange expression.

“Char…” Ember nodded while still hiding behind Bruno.

He sighed before saying, “Let’s start travelling for now, i’m sure you’ll be able to talk more with her later on.” Leaf nodded and the pair of trainers started going further in the first hurdle of their journey.

They started going deeper into the forest while being close to each other in case anything jumped at them out of tall grass, there were a lot of signs set up by rangers they saw along the way, those contained information of the pokemon in the area and also showed them if they walked too far away from the known route. Some pidgeys passed by, a few ratatta and sentret also saw them and quickly went the other way, bruno even saw some spearows in a tree at the front of them and they rapidly made a detour so they didn’t anger any of the birds, in the middle of the bushes they also spotted some oddish and hoppip could be seen floating around being pushed by the wind.

Bruno saw some berry trees, wild mushrooms and vegetables but the space they were growing in was defended by strong pokemon like pidgeotto and raticate, so they just avoided those places.

Both of them kept going at a good pace until midday, “I’m so hungry, can we stop to eat something?” Said Leaf while she was almost dragging herself through the forest.

Bruno didn’t respond since he didn’t even hear her voice, he was scanning the area for a good spot for them which he found almost in the next second she talked. He had been following the sound of water for a while and finally found a small river that passed through the forest, he had a lot of water bottles but it was better to be safe than sorry when being in the wilds, the river could also function as a guide for the direction they’re walking, “I found water, let’s stop over there and then we can go north while being close to the river itself.” He said getting nods from Leaf and both pokemon.

Ember quickly went in the direction of an area close by the river and used scratch to cut the grass in a nice circle, that way they could be more comfortable in the area.

While walking closer to the open area Ember made for them, he saw some movement in the water and a white reflection from the water reached his eyes but quickly went away.

He quickly dismissed it since it was already gone and turned towards Ember, “Thank you, Ember. Leaf, can you pick some firewood so i can make some food for us?” He asked her and fastly received a nod before she went in her search.

He started separating what he needed to cook after she went out, ‘I just need to mix these sour berries and a little bit of iron and zinc powder for Thorn in the ground where the sun reaches so he can make a little photosynthesis, for Ember is some tauros meat, pechas, a little touch of calcium and carbos powder, some spices and that’s all i need. For me and Leaf i’ll make a simple tauros steak with herb butter, i’ll let them mingle together in the pan while i prepare some vegetables with spices wrapped in leaves, i’ll then let them close to the burning wood so they get crispy, i’ll also make rice, can’t go wrong with this combo.’

Leaf quickly came back with firewood which was fastly lit up by Ember, Bruno then started preparing everything he needed for his pokemon before noticing that Leaf and bulbasaur were drooling at the food he was making for them.

“I can make some food for you too bulbasaur, let me do a test to see which berry you like.” He said while chuckling at their reaction to the pots of food.

“Daisy and Gary were really not lying about your food, just smeling it is making me hungry. I can’t believe i’ve never tried your food in pallet before, i’m such a fool.” Said Leaf after gulping her saliva.

He did a fast test and discovered that bulbasaur also liked sweet berries, so he quickly picked some cheese, leaves and a mix of vegetables he had and put it together into a salad topped off with some bread crumbles, cut pechas and combee sweet honey.

He finished every preparation and everyone started eating almost at the same time, Leaf and her bulbasaur almost didn’t speak while munching down on their food making Bruno think, ‘I found a really nice hobby, it’s a pretty good sensation to see people wolfing down on the food you made for them.’

Leaf and bulbasaur finished their food first and were currently lying down in the grass with their bellies up, Bruno finished his food next and laughed at the scene he was seeing.

“It seems like you liked the food, eh?” He said while still laughing a bit.

“It was heavenly, i wish i had space for more.” Said Leaf.

“Bulba…” Confirmed bulbasaur.

Bruno laughed a little more at their words, “You guys are fun-”

“Char! Char!” He felt Ember saying danger was close by, Bruno immediately turned around and tried to find what she was seeing.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He quickly saw movement in some bushes to their north, he got low to the ground and touched Thorn while putting his finger in his mouth motioning silence from all of them, he then pointed in the direction he saw the movement and all of them waited.

Bulbasaur had quickly standed up from it’s food coma and was also on guard, Leaf was still a little out of it and didn’t understand what was happening.

After a few seconds passed while being quiet, all of them could now see the movements, one big raticate and two ratattas where getting closer to where they were camping, all of them clicking their teeth in anger from being discovered before they were able to attack.

“Char, charmander.” Said Ember while motioning for the three of them that the food was not made for them.

“Rati ti ti” Raticate visibly puffed up in a way to demonstrate that they would take whatever they wanted from here.

Bruno then looked towards Ember and Thorn who nodded back to him before shouting, “Ember and Gravity!”

The raticate and ratattas felt the heavyness growing around them immediately, limiting their movements and a stream of fire quickly reached closer to them, the flame had the size of a human torso and was aimed directly at raticate.

Raticate rapidly picked up one of the ratattas and chucked him towards the flames while also building up an attack with his teeth.

The other ratatta saw it’s brother being chucked towards the fire and being sent back in a ball of flames in the distance, it then choose to quick attack in the direction of charmander who was maintaining her distance from them so it would not also be thrown like that.

Bruno quickly reacted from the approching ratatta by backing off from the battle region while also picking Leaf up, he then rapidly said, “Keep ember and counter if up close, maintain gravity and distance disturbance.” Both of his pokemon were accustomed to his commands, even if he didn’t call their names directly, and quickly went into the action.

Leaf was able to get up after the sudden attack and Bruno’s help, she fastly got her bearings back and shouted her orders, “Bulbasaur, vine whip on the ratatta getting closer!” Which bulbasaur promptly nodded and attacked in unison with Ember.

The incoming ratatta was heavily intercepted by gravity slowing him down and both of the attacks incoming his way, in the end he was unable to even reach closer to them since he couldn’t dodge from both attacks and was thrown in the trees from the heavy impact of them just like his brother.

The ratatta that was chucked in the attack before was still nowhere to be seen and raticate had just received a series of pin missiles from Thorn who dissipated the gravity after the attack connected with the second ratatta, he screeched angrily at them and quick attacked in the direction of Thorn while maintaing the attack in his teeth active, he runned at double the speed of the ratattas.

Bruno saw this and smiled, “Harden it, support dragon breath from back.”

The raticate quickly came closer and his shining teeth reached the also shining ferroseed, which the encounter caused a resounding clap towards their surroundings.

“RATIIIII!!!” raticate’s teeth broke upon contact with Thorn’s hardened exterior and also got hurt from his sharp barbs, before he could attack him with a scratch, fast approaching purple flames came from his back, scorching him with dragon energy from the attack that made him pass out on the floor.

Bruno waited a few seconds while looking around in search of any movement, he saw nothing was moving again and Ember also visiby relaxed.

He grinned and said, “Good job everyone, that was a nice battle, just like we practiced.”

“Char!” Ember nodded while puffing her chest up in pride.

“Ferro ferro.” Quietly cried Thorn while saying his armor got cracked.

Bruno kneeled beside him and analysed the crack in his armor while Leaf still had her mouth wide open from behind him.

She regained her senses after a second and said, “You’re so good at this Bruno! How did you train both of them to follow your commands so easily?” Asked Leaf while reaching closer to the hurt ferroseed.

He looked at her for a second before saying, “Lots of training and also studying together, you should know that the battle is a partnership between trainer and their pokemon, so we should learn from each other.” He said while picking up a potion from his bag and started applying on Thorn, “In the future we won’t even be able to see our pokemon movements in the arena and the wilderness, so we can only make them know certain tatics and let them act on their own while we change them when needed.”

“That’s neat, i’ll also make a lot of tatics together with Bulbasaur.” She said while pumping her fists in the air while stars were seen in her eyes when she focused on her pokemon.

“Bulbasaur…“ Sighed the pokemon, already accepting his fate.

Bruno chuckled while finishing the check-up on Thorn and expertly bandaged his wound. He wasn’t extremely hurt, but that raticate’s teeth was so sharp it almost passed through his hardened armor and punctured his body.

‘We need to be more careful in the wilderness, we’re still pretty weak overall and even a wild raticate from a explored route with no training can hurt us so badly, it’s power only existing due to it’s evolution and even without training it’s abilities that much.’ Thought Bruno while standing up.

Bruno picked up both ratattas and the raticate with the help of Leaf and put them side by side, they were now all under the shade of a tree with 5 oran berries by their side that Bruno had just put there.

“Let’s keep going, we ate and had a good battle. We can surely get a few hours of distance before camping close to this river at night.” Said Bruno while picking up all his stuff, also cleaning the pots they used in the river.

Leaf pouted while saying, “Can’t we stay a little longer? I’m still tired.”

Bruno responded without even looking in her direction, “It’s better if we go now, we don’t know what these little rats will do when waking up and the more we walk, the closer we will be to Viridian. Remember that this route is pretty short, if you’re tired from this, the future will be pretty harsh on you.” He said while chuckling a little at the end.

The pots were cleaned, the rats were left alone and the two trainers were back on their path with both pokemon by their side.

After 2 hours of walking, Leaf noted some marks in the bottom of the tree and showed them to Bruno.

“Look at these, my father told me they’re made by buneary when training their kicks. There’s a small group of them in this route and they must be close by, i really want one.” She said while looking at Bruno hopefully.

He then remembered what Oak told him and what he studied about the regions of this world. All 9 regions already had access to each other, with plenty of trainers making their way between them and competing between themselves, some prefered to capture and study different pokemon to build up their team before attempting a regional tournament win.

The pokemon were slowly being mixed in the regions and pokemon not originally from the one you were in could be seen more commonly, even if more rarily depending on their species. Before this mix of pokemon species was made, some organisations used to ilegally bring them from other regions to buyers or in a form to begin a new population of pokemon close by them, so they could breed and sell them more easily which always caused chaos in the fauna and flora.

The pokemon league then installed some rules about pokemon being sent to other regions and also got help from Aether organisation that made new spots for certain species to live in other places more naturally, that is why a group of bunearys can be seen in Kanto.

“Hey! Are you even listening to me?” Said Leaf while waving her hand in front of Bruno with a pout.

He got out of his thoughts and said, “I’m sorry, i was just thinking about some stuff. We can try to find this buneary you want.” He said before looking towards Ember, “Can you feel if what made that mark is close by?”

Ember nodded and went closer to the mark in the tree, it was located close to the ground and seemed like something had kicked the tree by the it’s side, like it was training it’s low kick in it.

She sniffed the place around the bark and nodded towards Bruno.

He smiled and said to Leaf, “I think she got it, let’s follow her.” She said while Leaf started jumping happily by his side.

They followed Ember for 20 minutes before reaching a clearing which had a lot of stumps fixed in the ground with the same marks as the one they saw in the tree before, at the end of the clearing was a giant tree with three Loppunys in front of it, all of them looking in their direction warily, no buneary could be seen around them.

Bruno smiled and looked at the scared Leaf at his side, “I think you’ll need to talk to them before you even see a buneary, i won’t help you with this, it might be your new partner after all.”