Chapter Text
Davis and Rayedge messily scarfed down hard tacos as his mother watched on in horror. It had been about a year since Rayedge had evolved, and only a couple of days until Davis’s eighth birthday. For the past year they had trained together, constantly accepting challenges while at school, and never forgetting to find time to play. At this point, Rayedge had reached a training level of thirty-two, their dedication paying off – albeit to a fault.
Dandie was an entirely different story…
Davis had found it much harder to train the hoppip. With ‘Tackle’ as its only viable move, it was near impossible to defeat anything stronger than a caterpie without stalling for time (which in of itself was hard to find during the colder months). As a result, Rayedge had soaked up more experience than any pokémon Davis’s peers had due to them having two or three Pokémon at this point, which put him at an advantage against all except Ladis – who had gone missing from school for the majority of the second semester.
As Rayedge finished his last fries, Davis scooped up the cheese sauce from his fries supreme with a fork before chasing it down with a handful of plain fries drowned in the Pepsi still in his mouth.
“Do you have to do that?” his mother asked.
“Do what?” he asked with a mouth full of potato-y, cola, and cheesy goodness.
“Ugh… Never mind. Are you done?”
“Yep!”
“Okay, go ahead and walk around the mall. Meet at the EB Games, okay?”
“Can we buy Pokémon Cards today?”
“No, they’re such a waste of money. You have your real pokémon already.”
“Okay…”
“Just meet at the store, okay?”
“Sure thing! C’mon Rayedge!”
“Kya!”
The partners ran off into the mall, dancing through the crowds toward the video game store. On the way they stopped by the ice cream store to stare at the various flavors, as well as the Games Workshop where older kids were waging war with figurines – not that he understood the first thing about the games, but at least the figures were cool.
They also took a good ten minutes to stare at the hot air balloons at the fountain go up and down along a wire as the jets underneath blew hot air into them. Rayedge and Davis placed their bets on which one would go the highest, and then which one would land last – only to get it wrong every time.
Once bored they finally made their way to the EB Games, and there they stood outside the windowed exterior, watching the latest game releases on loop on the CRT televisions hanging from the ceiling. The latest game added to the loop was Pokémon Snap, a rail-shooter where instead of a gun the player would take photos of pokémon. The graphics were ‘so realistic’ that parents had complained it could traumatize children, but to a budding Trainer like Davis it was the ‘sickest’ thing ever.
“We’re going to explore places like that one day, Rayedge. Once I’m ten years old we’ll go on our own Pokémon adventures!”
Rayedge clasped its paws and nodded in agreement.
“That game looks so fake,” said a kid next to him. “The Dreamcast looks so much better! Look at the new Sonic game!”
Davis looked over, but was instantly terrified by the whale creature chasing Sonic across a boardwalk.
“Nah, too scary.”
“Pokémon are scarier than that,” the kid replied.
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah-huh! Orca whales aren’t even real.”
“My Gung says they used to be, back when pokémon weren’t as common.”
“Yeah, and elephants used to exist instead of copperajah!”
“They did! My Gung has a picture of one.”
The kid rolled his eyes and walked away.
“They did though!”
But the kid was gone.
“They were… Right, Rayedge?”
“Kyun?”
From the store came a taller boy, a teenager. He was dressed in a black t-shirt with white rings at the ends of the sleeves and collar, and black jeans. He looked down at the boy staring at the TV, and then at his bag.
“Hey kid, you like pokémon?”
Davis nodded, hesitantly.
“How about cards?”
He nodded again, eagerly this time.
The teenager handed him a massive plastic bag, the weight of it pulling his arms to the floor. Inside were hundreds of Pokémon Trading Cards from various sets ranging from the base set to the new Jungle expansion.
“I already took what I wanted for my collection. Hope you like them!”
Davis looked at the bag, awestruck. Inside was mostly common and uncommon cards, but one holographic card stood out in the bunch. He pulled it out and gazed upon its splendor, flashing it back and forth.
“That’s a nidoqueen,” he said. "When I was ten years old, I actually used one to surf from Masara Town to Guren Island during my league challenge.”
“You fought in the Kanto League Challenge?”
“Yeah! Almost made it through too, but I got stomped on Champion Road by that Red guy. He’s a tough trainer!”
Davis’s eyes became hollow for a moment at the mention of Red, and a falling sensation pulled at his heart. Thankfully, the holofoil of the nidoqueen card helped snap him back into reality.
“Hey, you like nidoqueen?”
Davis nodded.
The teenager thought for a moment, then reached into his backpack. From it, he pulled out a camo-patterned poké ball and presented it to Davis.
“Here,” he said as he placed the ball in Davis’s hand. “Her name is Flores. She’s not registered to anybody yet, and she’s a bit of a naughty one. She might give you a bit of trouble, but she’s a good girl when she wants to be.”
“A-are you sure?” he said.
“Sure, I’m sure!” the teenager replied. “Here, let me link to your Pokédex so we can transfer her ownership.”
Davis pulled out his Game Boy Color, and the boy pulled out his HANDY505. ‘Transfer Successful!’ appeared on both screens, and with that Davis looked upon the Safari Ball in awe.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course! I actually caught that one in the Kanto Safari Zone. She’s a bit strong. If you haven’t obtained any gym badges, she might be a bit… rowdy. But I think you’ll be fine!”
Davis let out a ‘squee’ in excitement as he raised the ball. “Come out, Flores!”
The ball opened with a greenish light, and from inside came a blueish rabbit-like creature. It looked up at its new Trainer with curiosity, and sniffed at his feet. Davis giggled as he watched it run around him. Rayedge joined in on the fun, chasing the nidoran around.
“Seems like she likes you!” the teenager smiled.
“Yeah!” smiled the boy.
“Looks like your pikachu likes her too!” the teen smirked. “Take good care of her! See ya, kid!”
“Thank you! Bye!”
Just as the teenager left, Davis’s mother arrived with his brother in a stroller. Instantly she knew what had happened, and a look of disappointment washed over her face.
“Davis!”
The boy shuddered.
“What are you doing?”
“A boy gave me these cards and a nidoran!”
“Did I say you could take them?”
“No…” he shrunk.
His mother let out a frustrated groan, then pressed her fingers into her eyes. “You already have Dandie at home with your Po-Po. Did you really have to go and get another pokémon when I wasn’t looking? I swear, I can’t take my eyes off you for one second. Why can’t you behave better like your brother?”
Davis looked at his brother who was currently shoving his rattle as deep into his throat as possible.
“You want me to do that?”
“You know what I mean!” she grumbled.
“He’s going to choke on that,” Davis noted.
“Leave him alone. You’re my problem right now.”
Davis shrunk.
“Whatever. You’re lucky your father is in Singapore right now. You know we’re moving there next month, right?”
“Wait, what?”
“You heard me.”
“But I like it here.”
“And you’ll like it there.”
“But…”
“Look, you don’t have a choice in this matter so just get over it. We’re leaving when school’s over.”
“Okay…”
In the end, Li relented about the nidoran. To some degree she was actually happy that he finally had a pokémon that would evolve into something she considered ‘useful’ when thinking back on his other partners thus far.
After a few more hours of wandering the mall, Davis rode home in his mother’s car in silence. He thought about all the things that had happened thus far in his ‘adventure.’ In just one year he had taken down the school bully, defeated his grandfather in a practice match, walked across the entire city in search of his mother, and even met Champion Red in the flesh. It was a lot for a seven-year-old, he thought. Nevertheless, it was fun, even if Red turned out to be a bit more intimidating than he had anticipated.
“Do you think they will have pokémon in Singapore too?” he asked Rayedge as he held the pokémon in his arms.
Rayedge tilted his head as if in disbelief of the question, then nodded.
“I mean, I guess they would… right?”
Davis thought about this conclusion for a moment, then looked up to his mother’s reflection in the rear-view mirror.
“Mom…?”
“What is it?”
“Do they have a Pokémon League in Singapore?”
Li rolled her eyes. “No, they don’t.”
“Oh…”
“When we get there, you’ll be attending a private school. Their emblem is an articuno. You like articuno, right?”
“I guess so,” he said, adjusting his cap.
“Well then, you’ll like it there. Besides, I heard they hold tournaments between the schools there. Maybe if you’re good I’ll actually let you compete.”
“But can I catch new pokémon?”
“No.”
Davis sulked, and brought his mouth down to Rayedge’s ear.
“We’ll catch them anyway…” he whispered.
With that decided, Davis determined that his next step would be to speak to his grandfather about making some more apricorn balls. Even if his parents disallowed it, he was hell bent on becoming a stronger trainer – stronger than Red. He just needed to get a team together first…