Mart

The door chime announces your presence as you step inside of the store but the person you are curious about doesn't turn from what he's doing and thus is unaware of you walking up behind him. Unfortunatly for him, what he is doing is talking to the clerk and thus you are able to confirm his identity as he yells, "C'mon! I don't have all day!"

You clear your throat and Blue's back stiffens as you say with as much dripping sarcasm as possible, "Gee, has it been a week already? I'm disappointed in you."

Blue slowly turns around to face you, an annoyed look on his face as he growls, "Like I really need a Loser's approval for anything."

"I mean it, Blue," you say as you place your hands on your hips and stare at him intently, "I thought there was at least a little bit of honesty in you."

"I'm not here because I'm starting my journey, okay?!" Blue yells back at you, "I'm here 'cause Gramps said 'Well, if you've got a whole week to kill you can do this little errand for me. Veridian's big enough so the chances of you two running into each other should be low and if you do run into her you can just give her one of the packages right away instead of me having to waste even more time sending out an extra assistant to find her.'"

You try not to snicker at Blue's impression of Professor Oak, since you are still a little annoyed at him and emphasize this annoyance by looking pointedly at his belt... and more specifically the larger Pokeball resting on it, indicating the fact that there's a Pokemon inside. His hand goes to rest on top of the Pokeball and he mutters, "Look... on the way here this really aggressive Rattata kept coming at us. It was no match for Elerat but it just kept on trying and trying! I HAD to capture it or it was gonna wind up killing itself."

Elerat the Pikachu nods in support of this claim and gives out an affirmative sounding, "Pika!"

You sigh and let your hands fall to your side. It all sounds plausible enough and you can't really think of a reason why Blue would lie about something like that so you decide to let it go. Instead, you focus on something else as you say, "Okay then... three questions. One, how the hell did you get here so fast if you left way after me? Two, what package are you talking about? And three... 'Elerat'? Really?"

"One," Blue responds, "you're way too slow and it's none of your business. Three, he uses electricity, he's a rat and he likes it. Elerat."

Elerat nods again, crossing its tiny forelegs over its chest.

"And as for two..." Blue says as he snatches a pair of small packages wrapped in brown paper from the frazzled looking clerk and hands one of them to you, "Gramps wanted us to have these but forgot they'd arrive after we'd originally planned to leave."

You take the package and open it at Blue's insistence. Inside you see a small, red colored pocket-sized computer. Upon opening the device, it turns on and the screen reads "POKEDEX OS V1.0".

You look up at Blue in wide-eyed wonder. "He actually finished that Pokedex thing he was working on?" you ask.

Blue shrugs as he opens his package to reveal a blue colored version of the same device inside. "Kinda," he says, "the operating system and the basic programming is done, but apparently it needs field data on all the Pokemon types out there to really be finished."

You smirk a little at Blue. "And that's where we come in," you say.

He smirks right back and says, "Exactly. And Gramps also wanted me to let you know that he's planning to give a special prize to whichever of us records the most data. And that's gonna be me, even with this little handicap of yours thrown in, Loser."

"We'll see," you reply, putting your new Pokedex away in your inner jacket pocket, "but right now, you need to scoot back on home and I have a Gym Leader to check out."

"Oh... don't bother, Red," Blue says, his tone turning a little sheepish sounding, "I wasn't gonna go in or anything but I was passing by this city's Gym myself and there's a big sign on the door saying it's closed because the Leader's off on some sabbatical."

"Oh," you reply, unable to hide the disappointment in your voice, "Then I guess I'm off for Pewter."

"Yeah," Blue says, "that's probably for the best. Though... I won't stop ya if you just wanna get going but I kinda wanted to show you something else I found around here if ya got the time..."