Pokemon: Fate's Path

Chapter 4

Freya Stark

I watched as the wild ralts disappeared into Jay's pokéball, why was she allowed to catch it? I found it after all, sure I had scared the pokémon right into Jay's area of the forest we were all training in but that didn't mean the ralts wasn't mine. I shrugged it off, I couldn't let that stop me, besides, it meant I still had my pokéballs to catch better pokémon.

"Ah!" I ran the other way as I heard Esme cry out and found her running away from a poochyena as it nipped at her heels.

"Esme, use your pokémon to attack it!" I told her, though I was ready to step in and fight if I had to.

She looked over at me before scrambling up a tree and throwing out Caterpie. "Use string shot."

The little bug type shot out a sticky string, tying up the poochyena's legs and making it crash to the ground. I grinned at the progress she was making, though it wasn't too great just yet, it was at least something. "Alright, now catch it!"

"I don't want that thing! It tried biting me!" Esme gave me a look as if asking if I was insane.

"Come on, you probably just scared it." I replied and crossed my arms. "Hurry up, it's going to break free!"

"F-fine..." Esme pulled out a spare pokéball and tossed it down at the struggling poochyena.

I watched the ball shake a few times before going still and giving Esme a thumbs up. "You got it! You can climb down now."

She got down slowly, obviously not too good at climbing considering she almost fell, and returned her caterpie to its ball before picking up the one with her new pokémon. "I don't want it..."

"Why not? It shouldn't attack you anymore. Just let it out and I'll prove it." I took a step forward but Esme shook her head and put the pokéball away.

"N-no. I'll just send it to Professor Oak when we get to the Pokémon Center in Plolis."

Well if she wanted to be that way then that was fine with me. "Suit yourself but a dark type like that would be great against the gym in Plolis. Though, I'm not sure if you'll be able to send it to Oak, we're on a different region, you might just have to send it to the professor here."

"I'll figure it out later. I just don't want that thing on my team... I'd rather have a lillipup like that kid we met from Unova."

"Ivan? Oh yeah, his Lillipup was cute but I liked battling his Skiddo." I responded, thinking back to the battle, his grass type was strong for its low level, we had ended the battle in a tie due to our arrival here and the fact he had to go meet a friend at the port on Klesp Path... We were supposed to end up there too but Esme hadn't been paying attention and we got stuck near Spectral Woods instead. "I hope we see him again."

"He was nice I guess." Esme responded simply, she was so nervous around strangers and guys.

From the corner of my eye I spotted Soren and Jay talking to each other before waving us over. I looked over my shoulder to make sure Esme was coming before jogging over. "What's up?"

"We'll someone decided they're ready for lunch so we should start heading to Plolis, it shouldn't be too far ahead, only a few more minutes. You can stay here if you'd like though to keep looking for more pokémon." Jay informed us, not looking up from the digital map.

"I'm not passing up a meal." I responded, starting to follow her. "And after we eat we can have our battle."

"Sure." Jay agreed, still not looking up as she led us towards Plolis. "One pokémon each so it's fair, sound good?"

"Yeah."

We reached the Pokémon Center and dropped off our pokémon with the nurse there before leaving again and heading to a diner next door where we could get some pizza. We got two large pizza's much to the waiter's surprise, but hey I was hungry and Soren looked like he was starving! Jay and Esme... well... I could probably leave a piece or two for them. I leaned back as we waited for it to arrive and turned to Esme, who was currently playing around with the bottles left on the table in boredom.

"So, have you changed your mind about that poochyena?" I asked.

"No, it attacked me, I'm not keeping it around with me!" Esme glanced up from the bottle.

"Come on, it isn't a bad pokémon. Don't just send it off to sit around with the professor."

"You caught a poochyena?" Jay stopped slouching a bit and leaned forward. "Mind if I borrow it for my battle with Salem? Ralts will do a nice bit of damage with its fairy moves but I don't think he can last through the entire battle at his level."

I agreed fully with that, gym leaders were no cake walk, and all of our pokémon are pretty weak at the moment. "Yeah, well that's what training is for!"

Esme looked a bit uncomfortable as she spoke up. "But then why go up against something you can't fight if you're too weak? Even with training you'll still see your pokémon get hurt... I guess you could borrow my poochyena though..."

"Great." Jay turned to Soren. "You've been quiet for once."

He glanced away from the window. "Yeah, I'm thinking about my own strategy for the gym... Finn doesn't really have any advantages in type but Slash could have a chance if I trained him a bit."

"Want to join our battle?"

I shook my head. "He can't be in the battle! Trainers go two against two or one against one. Besides, without that rule trainers would gang up on each other and that wouldn't be fair."

Jay smirked. "Maybe in the region you come from but here trainers can battle however they please. One time I saw a single trainer take on four others at once and defeated three of them before losing, not to mention you'll need that kind of help when you take on the champion I've heard."

"Why?" Soren questioned, apparently he'd never heard of this rumor. "Each trainer has seven pokémon, in an official battle like that no one can help."

"That's not what my cousin told me." Jay glanced at the table. "Before he died in an accident he wrote a letter to his parents who showed it to mine, it was about the league here, he claimed it was corrupted by the champion so no one could take him down. I don't believe that myself but it is common knowledge that the champion of the region and the elites can have different rules to make challengers forced to grow stronger to even stand a chance at winner. Not to mention the thieves here, gangs who aline themselves with one of the three sides: air, water, and earth. Heh, I think they believe there's still a war going on at times but I've never seen any activity from them."

"I've heard of people stealing pokémon while claiming stuff like that." Soren added. "I saw one get arrested but there wasn't much proof that they weren't just some common robber."

"Pokémon thieves really annoy me." I huffed, those scumbags were everywhere in the world. "If I see any I'm going to show them not to mess with people ever again."

"Guys... can we please talk about something else? I don't-" Esme was cut off as the pizza was sat down at our table.

I took several slices at once before turning to her. "I get it, no more 'scary' conversations, let's just eat so we can go battle!"

Most of the conversation stopped as we ate, though some words of challenge were still shot at each other regarding the battle. I wasn't sure I liked Jay at first but now I knew we would be the best of friends and rivals, Soren didn't seem too bad either, he was friendly and pretty funny from what I've experienced so far. I grinned and stood up as I finished eating before dragging Jay to her feet.

"Come on, time to battle!"

She regained her footing and started following me. "Hope you're ready to lose."

"Hey guys!" Soren ran after us. "You can't start the battle without me!"

"Then keep up." I ran faster and laughed a bit, sure it was childish but it was still pretty fun.