So we’ve been lying here on the grass, for the past hour or so, just outside the Verdancy city limits, out in the wilderness, and without a care in the world.  We as in my Pokémon and I, just lying down, staring blankly out into the blue sky, letting our minds clear of all the pressures of life.  Life is the question on my mind right now, what is the purpose of my life, is it to succeed at being the greatest Pokémon trainer of all time.  To try and achieve a seemingly insurmountable dream, that many before have tried, and failed!  To face the hardships of wandering aimlessly through the world, fighting battles after battles, winning badges after badges, and capturing more pokémon after pokémon?

Or shall I go down a different path, to give up pokémon training and go back home, go back to school, earn good grades, attend that prestigious university, then afterwards, after I’ve had climbed that proverbial corporate ladder, do I settle down and start my own family?

Life is the question that always creeps into my mind, whenever I manage to find myself looking out into the sky, staring at the sun, with nowhere to go, nothing new to see…  Or is there?  Looking towards Pyro, Joule, Rainer, Caterpie, Pidgey, and Bushy, makes me realize that this is something that I want to do.  Something that I feel like I need to succeed in.  I never believed in fate myself, maybe because I’ve never liked the idea that I’m not in control of my own life, that what I do now will not matter, because my future has already been written in stone.  I do believe though, that this is my destiny now.  Pokémon training is my destiny, and my ultimate goal is to become, the Pokémon Master!

“Chu…”

“Man…”

“Suar…”

“Piee…”

“Gey…”

“Squir…”

“Huh…  Oh hey guys, thanks for waking me up there, guess I kind of dozed off in another daydream again”, I yawned, standing up giving myself a little stretch too, “I guess we’ve better get going, I know all of you must be dying to get some of that delicious Pokémon center food, rather then all the can food we’ve been living on for the past couple of days”, they all agreed, and once again we set off.

After we’ve entered Verdancy, I went to the Pokémon Center and dropped off all of my Pokémon for a little R&R.  While I headed out by myself to see the sites this City has to offer.  Much to my disappointment, it’s just another city, with the same old surroundings, sky high buildings, people rushing about on the streets trying to get to their destination, and shops eager to make the destination of the people, their store.

I went into a small diner, sat myself down on the stools, and ordered the house special, why not it may be a little expensive, but I can’t live on rations all of my life.  After awhile of playing with the eggs, a girl sat down beside me and ordered the same thing.  We didn’t talk or exchange gestures, until a guy in a car from the outside streets suddenly honked because the driver in front of him stopped to suddenly.  Instinctively most of the diners, including her, and me turned our heads to see what’s with the commotion. 

After a quick glance I turned around to start messing around with my food again, but caught myself starring into her eyes, we both had a little chuckle with it, she looked down to avoid eye contact, and that’s when she noticed the empty pokéballs, I had on my belt.

“Oh so you’re a Pokémon trainer too”, she mentioned.

“Too?  So are you a Pokémon trainer yourself”, I asked.

“Yeah, actually I run a small pokémon gym on the other side of town”

“Don’t tell me I’m sitting next to the gym leader I’ve come all this way to battle with”, I said.

“If it makes you happy, then I won’t”, she teased, “but if it’s a battle you’re looking for, then I think I can squeeze you in through my busy schedule and all, for a Pokémon match”

“A schedule so busy that it allows you too come all the way across town to this diner and order the house special, while having a conversation with me, hmm”

“Hey, a girl has to eat… oh I’m sorry it’s rude to have a conversation with someone without first introducing yourself, hi my name is Tiffany”

“And I’m Peter”

We talked some more on the way to the Pokémon center to pick up both of are pokémon, as it turns out, her pokémon was injured from her last battle.  Just the usual ice breakers like, where you’re from, how long have you’ve been training, and details on your Pokémon. 

While in the Pokécenter, waiting at the front desk to receive are Pokémon, “So you traveled for about a year before deciding to go back to Verdancy and start your own gym”, I asked.

“Yeah, it’s just that sometimes it can get too lonely traveling from City to City.  My Pokémon usually kept me company during my journey, but there was times when I really needed someone to talk too, and got real homesick and eventually returned to Verdancy”, Tiffany replied.

“You didn’t have a traveling partner with you, during your journey”, I asked her again.

“Well, I did for a little while, it was with this one other girl, I had met up with in Glebe town, and we only traveled together for about a month or so…”

“Why what happened”?

“There was just to much competition between the both of us, for instance if we spotted a wild Pokémon at the same time, who gets to be first to attempt to capture it?  Or when facing Gym leaders, who gets to go first, since most gym leaders will only battle about two times a day, then you’d have to wait and stuff, it was just the little things like that made us go are separate ways”, Tiffany answered.

“Ok, here you go, both of your Pokémons’ have been healed”, the Nurse said and handed me my Pokémon, all returned to their Pokéballs, and Joule came and jumped on to my shoulders.  Tiffany received three Pokéballs; one of them was this large, strange looking Pokéball, with six buttons on it.

“What kind of Pokéball is that”, I curiously asked.

“Oh, this… you’ve never heard of it, it’s called an Exeggcute ball”, Tiffany said.

“You mean those group of seed pokémon, why would they need their own specialized Pokéball”?

“Because Exeggcutes, usually travel in five to six groups, and since they’re all psychically linked to each other, you can’t break their psychic links to each other by putting them in separate Pokéballs, or they will die”

“And that Pokéball allows them to keep up their psychic links to each other”, I commented.

“Yep, before this Pokéball was invented, hardly anyone trained Exeggcutes, since you can’t contain them in a Pokéball, it was hard traveling with them, since they’re pretty slow pokémon, considering their in the shape of an egg and have no legs or feet.  The only option was to evolve it into an Exeggutor with a leaf stone, where they’re able to be contained in a single pokéball, but there are major draw backs in doing so”

“Like what”, I said.

“Since an Exeggcute is a stone evolved pokémon, if you evolve it too fast it will never learn any new attacks, or it will take a real difficult time in training them to learn an attack they would have known naturally if they’ve stayed in their pre-evolved forms long enough”, she informed me, “Come on, if you want to see my Eggies in action, lets hurry up and get to my Gym”.

When we got there, it looked more like a green house, rather then a Pokémon Gym, “So I’m guessing you specialize in Grass type Pokémon”, I hinted.

“Gee, what gave you the impression”, She said sarcastically.  She unlocked the doors to the gym and we walked in, it was indeed a green house, with different plants and flowers growing everywhere, and in the middle was a grass battlefield.  Tiffany walked to the other side to begin the match immediately.

“For some reason, there hasn’t been many challengers that have come by this gym, before my last match, I was beginning to get bored until you came along”

“I haven’t had a battle myself in a long time either before I finally arrived to your gym, so I hope I’m ready.  How much Pokémon should we use”, I asked.

“We will use three Pokémon each, I’ll start with my Exeggcute”, Tiffany threw the ball into the middle of the field, when it touched the ground, the ball opened up in the middle, and six Exeggcutes materialized from it.

“Caterpie, I choose you”, I called, and the bug came out ready to fight.  “Caterpie, start things off with String shot”!  Caterpie’s string shot only caught two of the Exeggcutes, and one of the Exeggcute caught Caterpie off guard by striking her down like a bowling ball.  While the other Exeggcutes bit off the string shot that was covering the two Exeggcutes, working together, Caterpie was just overwhelmed with Exeggcutes pelting it left and right, until I return Caterpie to her Pokéball. 

“I don’t think it’s fair that you can use more then one Exeggcute in battles”, I defended.

“Look in the official rule book of the Pokémon League, it says that you can, besides Exeggcutes are supposed to be thought of as a single Pokémon, since they are incapable of doing one thing without the other, and that’s including battles”

“Fine then, I choose Bushy, let’s see if your Exeggcute can defeat my best Grass Pokémon”, actually my only Grass pokémon.

“Exeggcute tackle attack”

“Bushy vine whip now”, Bushy’s vine whips lashed out on all the Exeggcutes, “Good work Bushy now plow em down with your tackle attack”

“Bulbaaa”, Bushy ran up and down the field bashing all the Exeggcutes in his way.

“Exeggcute, ban together it’s time to put that Bulbasuar to sleep”, Tiffany yelled.  Their eyes started to glow; I immediately knew what attack they we’re attempting.

“Bushy close your eyes now, from the hypnosis.  Now tackle full speed ahead”

“Bulba bulbasuar”, Bushy yelled, the Exeggcutes all scattered like bowling pins, when Bushy smashed into them.  One of the Exeggcute got hit the hardest and fainted, resulting in the rest of the Exeggcutes to get knocked out too”

“Hey they all fainted when Bushy knocked out that one Exeggcute”, I said, surprised.

“Yes, that is another downside to training Exeggcutes, it may seem like they’ve got an advantage in battles, but all it takes is to defeat one of them to bring them all down”, Tiffany said, “Exeggcute return”, and then returned them to their pokéball.  “I must say that is one tough Bulbasuar”

“Thanks”

“Suarba”

“Hmm… lets try this, Kakuna go”, Tiffany said.

“I thought you were a Grass type trainer”, I asked.

“I’m allowed to use whatever I want, besides, when this Kakuna was a Weedle it helped me keep this Greenhouse bug free, by eating all the regular insects”

“How is that thing supposed to battle anyways, I heard they can’t even move an inch”?

“Stop stalling and get on with the battle already”, Tiffany said, impatiently.

“Ok Bushy, tackle it into submission”

“Kakuna harden now”, Kakuna managed to harden itself before Bushy could strike it.

“No, Bushy watch out”, I yelled, but too late, Bushy smacked head long into Kakuna’s, now hard as a rock, shell. 

“Buulba”, Bushy said, dizzy from the pain.

“Ok Bushy, try Vine whipping that Kakuna”

“That won’t do you any good, Kakuna harden some more”, Tiffany ordered, now Kakuna’s shell is even harder, as Bushy cracks his whips, squeezes, and slams the Kakuna around till it got to tired to lift up a vine anymore, “Like the old saying goes, Defense wins battle”, Tiffany getting in a little laugh when saying that.

“Well here’s what I say to that, Bushy Leech seed attack now”, a seed popped out from it’s bulb and from that seed vines grew from it, wrapped around, and drained the helpless Kakuna’s energy.  Bushy latched his vines onto the seed and the energy the seed drained, flowed through Bushy’s vines to replenish his own energy.

“No one ever said you could actually win a battle without attacking the opponent, *sigh*, oh well Kakuna return.  Let’s see if you can defeat my Oddish”

“An Oddish is no match for my Bulbasuar, Bushy Vine whip now”, Surprisingly quick, the Oddish danced around the field, evading Bushy’s attacks and with the order from Tiffany, the Oddish immobilized Bushy with Stun spore.

“Ha, shows you how much you know, Bulbasuars aren’t true Grass types, therefore they’re more vulnerable to Stun spores, while my Oddish is virtually immune to all types of paralysis attacks”, Tiffany bragging about her Oddish.

“Oh yeah, what I do know is that Grass types are weak against fire, Pyro go”, I called out.  Tiffany being a grass pokémon trainer, she must have a lot of experience with battling fire types, because she acted quickly.

“Sleep powder now”, she ordered.

I retaliated by ordering Pyro to burn the powders with a flame attack, and then Tiffany countered, with telling her Oddish to sand attack, with it’s little feet, it kicked up dirt right into to Pyro’s eyes.  Then ran up and started to absorb Pyro’s energy with absorption attacks, instinctively the Charmander scratched like mad to drive the Oddish away, then rubbed the dirt away from it’s eyes.

“Now’s your chance, ember attack”, I told Pyro, it hacked out embers from its mouth, like a Meowth would cough up fur balls.  The burning embers landed on top of the Oddish’s head, sending the grass Pokémon running around like crazy, until Tiffany returned the Oddish to its pokéball.

“Guess you’ve won, dang I knew I shouldn’t have used that Kakuna in the first place, anyways here’s a Green badge Peter, looks like I better head back to the Pokécenter, again”

“Thanks, I probably better get going as well…”

“Look, what’s the hurry, do you mind if you just hang out for awhile, that’s the thing I hate about Pokémon training, you hardly get to know other fellow trainers, because you’re always to busy planning out a strategy to defeat them in battle”

“What you have in mind”, I asked.

“I dunno, what do want to do”

“What do you want to do…”?

“Ok how about a movie”, Tiffany said.

“That sounds nice”

The rest of the day was spent, just hanging around, I met some of her friends, and we chatted and got to know each other.  Tiffany was right about one thing, due to Pokémon training, a trainer is always to busy traveling, competing with rivals, and training, to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. 

At the end of the day, I had to go, and did offer her to come along with me (as I have with other trainers), but she declined.  I really didn’t expect her to come, seeing how all her friends and family we’re at Verdancy, and the gym she ran.  So I said goodbye to a new friend, and headed on my way again, as Peter, the perpetual loner.