Adventures on Route 22

“Henry, use Ember!”

“Nicky, use scratch”

Rhapsody’s Houndour spits out a small ball of fire that flies towards your Nidorina, but she quickly jump out of the way and dashes towards the Houndour. The Houndour tries to retreat but the Nidorina easily catches up and pounces on the Houndour and starts to claw and bite.

“Nicky that’s enough.” Nicky doesn’t stop attacking though “I said that’s enough!” This causes Nicky to look towards you and the Pokemon actually tries to stare you down. You pull out your Pokeball and point it at the Nidoran. Getting the threat Nicky backs off from the Houndour and sits down a few feet away, still on alert. Maybe you were just spoiled by Bell’s laziness and Minnie’s timidness, but Nicky still seemed hyper aggressive. It was almost like the Pokemon didn’t like you personally. At least she wasn’t stupid, and you could already tell that if you could train her up, she would become an absolute BEAST.

You walk over to Rhapsody who is sitting down and holding Henry in her lap “Is he ok? I am sorry about Nicky.”

Rhapsody continues to rub the Houndour’s belly “I think he will be fine. I think he is more scared than actually hurt.”

“Good. Still, want to call a break? We have been training for a while now?” You had already sent Bell and Minnie at the poor Houndour “The poor thing looks exhausted.”

“I guess we could. What should we do instead? Should we head back to the City? Wait until Henry is rested up?”

Memories of what you and Jake did to “wait” flood your mind, then imagine what waiting with Rhapsody could be like. NO, bad Amber! Get your mind out of the gutter! You realize that while your mind drifted away Rhapsody was looking at you and waiting for an answer. “Well, we could catch you another Pokemon?”

This idea seems to excite Rhapsody as she gives a shout of “YAY! Come on Henry lets go get you a new friend! Oh, do you have any recommendations, how are we going to look!” Rhapsody continues to run off questions at you and you find yourself in an awkward position.

You don’t want to let Rhapsody down, but you have no idea what could possibly be around here. You are not from Viridian City after all. So, you go with a safe answer, a similar answer that Jake gave you barely a week ago. “We will just have to see what we can find. Hopefully we will get lucky.”

This seems a good enough answer to Rhapsody, even though you were honestly just pulling an answer out of your ass.

Wait, if you were just pulling an answer out of your ass, and you just told Rhapsody what Jake told you, was Jake also pulling an answer out of his ass? You try to not think about that as you and Rhapsody head off and try to find a Pokemon more suited for being trained than for being food for Nicky.

After a few hours of searching, some encounters with wild Pokemon (note to self, Nicky REALLY likes fresh Ratatta meat), and your first Pokemon Battle Victory (YAY!) you and Rhapsody find yourself hiding in a large bush as you look upon a large tree that has a troop of Mankeys in it.

“So…?” Rhapsody quietly whispers to you “What now?”

Honestly, you aren’t sure. Rhapsody seems to believe you are some kind of expert, but you have only been doing this for about two weeks. But she is looking at you with those huge, adorable eyes. You can’t just tell her I don’t know! So, you fall back on the time-honored tradition of faking it until you make it. “Well, is there one that you like, stands out?” You honestly couldn’t tell any difference between any of them, but you felt like you had to say something.

To both your surprise and dismay Rhapsody actually has an answer “See that one hanging out by itself?” She points and sure enough you see a lone Mankey hanging out at the end of one of the larger branches. The Mankey might be a little bigger than the others, but other than that there doesn’t seem to be much else of difference.

Still, this has saved you some embarrassment, but now you must think of what to do next. Lacking any better idea, you hand Rhapsody a dried berry from your bag and tell her “Try to use that as bait to lure the Mankey closer to us.” You are really hoping this does not backfire on you.

Rhapsody looks at the dried berry you just handed her, looks at the Mankey she wants to catch, and throws the dried berry towards it. This does not turn out how anyone expected.

Yes, Rhapsody was able to get the attention of the Mankey she was aiming for. But she also got the attention of EVERY OTHER MANKEY IN THE TREE! At first the problem does not seem that bad. Sure, there is an entire Troop of Mankeys fighting in front of you, but they are fighting each other. But the agitated Mankey’s soon notice you and Rhapsody.

“RUN!!!” You don’t even wait for Rhapsody to ask you why, or wait for the Mankey’s to attack, you just know that you have to get out of there, and warn Rhapsody to get out of there, hoping she follows you as well.

Thankfully Rhapsody follows you. Unfortunately, a lot of Mankey are also following you. Not the entire troop, not even most of it, but enough to have you worried. As you and Rhapsody run you feel yourself starting to lose breath and notice that Rhapsody is slowing down.

This isn’t going to work; you will have to try and fight them. You grab your Pokeballs and throw out all three of your Pokemon at once. “Scaled, Vine Whip!” You don’t even have to give a command to Nicky who immediately leaps at the Mankeys while Minnie and Bell attack on your command. You see Rhapsody release her Houndour who starts helping with Ember. You see the Horde start to back off a little bit, but they haven’t completely surrendered yet.

“Catch one!” Rhapsody looks at you confused “Throw a Pokeball and catch one!” She pulls out a Pokeball and quickly throws her Pokeball at a random Mankey. The ball connects and the ball shacks, once, twice, three times, and locks, catching a Mankey. This seems to scare the Mankeys enough to take the fight out of them, causing the rest of them to retreat.

You collapse onto the ground and lay on your back, exhausted but glad that was finally over. To your side you hear laughter, and you see Rhapsody laughing and you can’t help yourself, but you start laughing as well. “Some Pokemon trainers we are, huh?”

Rhapsdody whips a tear from her eye “But we did it, I caught a Mankey. I couldn’t have done this by myself. Thank you.”

You sit up and stretch, trying to hide the blush you feel forming on your face “Oh I am sure you could have managed without me.” You stand up and wipe the dirt from your legs “Well, I think that is enough for one day. How about we had back to the Pokemon Center, get some food, take a shower.” You get a whiff of your sweat “scratch that, shower first, then food.”

“I think that sounds like a plan.”

Shortly after the two of you start walking You ask “Oh, have you thought of a name for it?”

Rhapsody looks at the Pokeball in her hand, a thoughtful expression on her face “I think I will call him, Michael.”