Chapter 1
#1 of Second Chances
"Come on, Kali! Up 'n at 'em, time for your daily training!" I tapped my foot waiting patiently at the door as Kali lethargically rolled into view. Stretching and clawing at the floor, the quilava did her best to enjoy every last bit of the sunbeam that glistened across her beige fur coat, and slowly groaned back.
"Do we have to? This early on the weekend is supposed to be for relaxing, not training..."
I didn't hear it word-for-word, of course. She spoke in her own tongue just like every other pokémon, but after spending a few years with her as our family's friend and companion, her intent usually came across loud and clear. And today, I for one was not fooled by her whining and complaining. "Get your lazy butt up now, or or you'll have to train in the afternoon after it's hot outside." That certainly got her going, and after a quick breakfast we were on the road.
I guess I should introduce myself. My name's Matt, of Ecruteak City in the Johto region. It's a nice place, born and lived here for 14 years. Kali's our family's pet quilava, although I've always thought of her as a partner and a close friend. We raised her the past four years from a little cyndaquil to a healthy and strong quilava. My parents didn't let me start my pokémon journey when I was 10, like lots of my childhood friends. And a couple months later I realised for good reason too, as most of them returned home broke and hungry. But they always supported my desire to be a trainer, hence Kali. When I defeated the local Gym, they reasoned, we could be trusted to leave town and embark on our very own journey.
And so here we were, training on the side of the road on route 37. Eventually we'll be strong enough to beat Morty and earn a badge, instead of getting trounced by his gastly like last time. The roadside trees provided some nice shade as we searched for opponents through the undergrowth, and the wide path gave us plenty of room for battles.
"Over there, Kali! A ledyba!" The red bug fluttered down from the canopy and landed softly on top of a nearby bush.
"On it," she called, and prepared her Flame Wheel we were practicing. A thin whoosh of crimson-red flames engulfed her as she charged forward.
"Hotter fire!" I directed, "You want those flames to hurt, not tickle!"
She curled up and spun along the ground towards her quarry, who thankfully hadn't noticed the impending attack. If it had been a keen-eyed Pidgey, she likely wouldn't have gotten within 50 feet without being noticed. I was about to give a cheer for her direct hit when suddenly the flames surrounding her sputtered and died with a soft hiss. Off balance, Kali tumbled face first into the dirt, kicking up a small cloud of dust and startling the ledyba away.
"But don't focus so much on the heat that you lose your footing, though," I added. I jogged over to help her up, but upon noticing she wasn't moving, broke into a run. Had she been hit by an invisible attack? I reached her side and breathed a sigh of relief when I felt breathing and a pulse. Although she seemed unhurt, I began to get more worried when she refused to come to like she normally would shortly after fainting. Quickly scooping her up into my arms, I rushed back to Ecruteak's pokémon center.
"Your quilava is awake and doing fine now. She's quite exhausted, so try to let her relax for the rest of the day." Nurse Joy handed me a copy of Kali's medical records and continued, "We're not sure why she collapsed like you described. She had a few trace anomalies on her neural scan when she arrived, but everything seems to have returned to normal now."
Chansey emerged from the back room wheeling Kali out on a stretcher. As soon as she saw me, Kali jumped up and practically tackled me to the floor. In between cries of joy, she vigorously licked at my face as if she hadn't seen me in weeks. "Woah girl, take it easy now!" I exclaimed as I carefully extracted myself from her death grip and directed her paws in a gentler hug. "Glad to see you're feeling better." With that, we set off for home. Kali begged to be carried around my shoulders as we walked, something I hadn't done for her since she was a cyndaquil. But what the hell I figured, if she wanted it today she got it.
As we walked, Kali remained unusually silent. Normally she was quite talkative, one of the reasons I was able to pick up on what she was saying with relative ease. Most trainers went several years before they developed a close enough bond with their starter pokémon to understand them completely. "Hey, how're you holding up? You're kinda quiet," I questioned, giving her a scratch in her favorite spot between the ears.
She gave a sigh of content before replying, "I'm great. I'm just happy to be with you." She gave a soft purr and nuzzled warmly against my ear and in that moment, my heart just melted. Still, in the corner of my mind it felt like there was something off, something I just couldn't place about her words.
As usual I spent the rest of the day lounging around the house, gave the old video game system a workout. There wasn't much to do after I'd finished trainer school, aside from Kali's daily training. Speaking of which, she lay curled up next to me and watched me play the whole time instead of seeking out what was left of the afternoon sunbeams, even giving me a couple of pointers when I got to one of the bosses. Where'd she even learn about that, anyways? Over the next couple of days, Kali kept complaining about still feeling winded, so we just hung out together around the house and around town. I wasn't about to force her into battling whenever she cuddled up to me and ever so sweetly suggested something else the two of us could do that day, even though I knew she was making up excuses.
A couple days later, I woke to the sound of hushed voices echoing through the quiet house. It was still dim outside my bedroom window, so it couldn't be past 6 AM or so. My parents never got up this early, even for work on on weekdays.
Carefully creeping out of my bedroom, I spied a thin beam of blueish-white light emanating from the study down the hallway. As I crept closer to the slightly ajar door, I identified one of the whispering voices as Kali, speaking in her normal pokémon language.
"I know...should tell...still hurts...can't do it" Her words were harder to interpret when she wasn't talking directly at me, so I could only make out small fragments of speech. Peering into the room, I saw her sitting on the chair behind my dad's large oak desk. Her face and the rest of the wall behind her was illuminated with the harsh white light of the computer's monitor.
From the speakers came another, higher-pitched voice. "Vee, eevee!"
Kali sighed at the screen and muttered, "Fine...few days...get there."
I didn't want to spook her into accidently burning anything, so I plodded somewhat noisily down the hallway and back. The white glow vanished by the time I returned, and I knocked gently on the wooden door. "Kali? Are you talking with someone?"
I heard Kali's voice stammer, "N-no, Just me in here, watching the sunrise." After a swift sound of cloth-on-metal, I opened the door to be greeted with the room filled with morning sunlight, and Kali sitting by the window and the gently-swaying drapes. The morning sun bathed the whole room in a brilliant orange glow, as if Kali had set everything on fire anyways. I sat on the floor next to her and gave a gentle hug. Together, we watched the sun rise above the neighboring rooftops and forests surrounding the city.
After a while, I spoke up. "You've been rather quiet lately, is something up?" Kali turned away from me, muttering, "Nothing. It's nothing."
"You know I can tell when you're lying," I gently teased, circling a finger around one of her sensitive ears. "Come on, what's on your mind?"
A few more moments passed as I scratched around her warm vents before she continued, "All right, there... there is one thing." She paused and took a deep breath and said, "I'd like to go to Goldenrod City."
I was rather taken aback at her strange request. Goldenrod was a few hours drive away, since the roads snaked past Violet City and under the Magnet rail to avoid passing through Johto's National park. We'd been there several times as a family, mostly to visit the big city and shop at the large department stores we didn't have in Ecruteak. It was certainly a day trip at least, but I could convince my parents to make it work. "Okay, I'll come up with some reason to run by Mom and Dad. I'm sure they can find some time to take us in a weekend or two."
"No, we need to go now," she pleaded.
"Well, we can't go by ourselves," I replied, "Mom won't let us travel that far alone until we beat Morty."
Kali jumped to her feet and exclaimed, "Well then, what are we waiting for? We can totally beat him. Third time's the charm, right?"
I shook my head as she pranced out of the room. "... This is only the second time. But if you're up for it, I am too! Let's go!"
We raced over to Morty's gym and scheduled our battle for later in the day, to give us enough time to eat breakfast and warm up properly. Something was still bothering me about Kali's behavior though. Her last training scare, her recent over-laziness and silent affection, and now her travel request and newfound enthusiasm. I'd have to coax some answers out of her later, but for now I didn't want to distract her. We had a badge to win, after all. Plus, she was stubborn as a tauros and didn't give up secrets easily.
"The battle between the challenger Matt and the Ecruteak City Gym Leader Morty will now begin!" The referee's voice blared over the megaphone as she announced the battle terms. "As the challenger has no badges, Morty will be using two pokémon with no substitutions. The challenger may use as many pokémon as he chooses, and substitute at will. The battle will be over when one side has no pokémon that can battle."
Kali ran out onto the indoor field and took her battle stance. It was going to be a hard facing Morty two on one, but Kali seemed even more confident than the last time we tried when she had just evolved. Across from us, Morty emerged from the shadows of the gym wearing his iconic purple headband and scarf. "As the Ecruteak City Gym Leader, it is my duty to test the bond between trainers and their pokémon," he monologued. "Be strong and give it your all, for my ghost pokémon won't hold back!" And with that he tossed out our first opponent.
The gastly that we'd lost to previously floated a foot above the ground opposite of Kali. Obviously Kali's normal-type attacks wouldn't work, and she still hadn't perfected her flame wheel yet. Which left only one obvious choice.
"Kali, use em..."
By the time the words formed in my mouth, Kali had already rushed forward towards her opponent, leaving a trail of white light in her wake. What is she thinking? Quick attack won't do a thing, I thought. Gradually, she zig-zagged in ever-smaller circles around Gastly, who was struggling to keep its eyes on its agile target. Whatever Kali's intent, it clearly wasn't to directly attack Gastly. I stood there wordlessly and watched as Kali executed whatever plan of her own she had. At this point, if I issued more orders it would just split her focus.
Without warning, she suddenly changed her trajectory and dashed directly at Gastly, whose gaze continued to shift around the circle. Tongues of flame licked around her form as Kali seamlessly rolled into a perfectly-formed flame wheel!
Morty shouted for Gastly to demateralize and dodge as only ghosts could do, but to no avail. Kali collided with the wispy ball of smoke before it could react, blowing it to smithereens. The referee called the round as Kali cockily trotted over to give me a triumphant nuzzle. "G-great job, Kali! That was, um, pretty good," I congratulated, stumbling over my loss for words. "But please, we should try to work together. You're not alone in this battle." She rolled her eyes slightly, just enough to let me know her reluctant agreement.
Morty recalled his slowly reforming gastly and called out across the battlefield, "I'll admit you're better than I expected for a new trainer. I might have to pull out all the stops here!" He threw out his second pokémon and Kali and I watched carefully to see what it would be. A blindingly bright light flared across the relatively dark gym, resolving into another purple floating ghost, this time with large, detached claws.
"All right Kali, use flame wheel!" I ordered.
With a deep breath, Kali began her fiery barrel towards Haunter. Smartly, the evolved ghost dodged up into the air, far above where Kali could easily reach. Before I could issue another command, the lights in the gymnasium dimmed to an inky blackness. A thin spindle of silvery light bolted down from the ceiling, directly through Haunter and stabbed Kali right between the eyes as both pokémon gave ear-piercing shrieks.
"Kali, no!" I yelled at her collapsed and shaking form as the lights surrounding the battlefield flickered back on. Haunter slowly drifted back down to the ground, a fatigued smirk across its face-for-a-body. That had to be curse, a move I remembered way back from studying ghost pokémon while in trainer school. If Kali didn't knock Haunter out quickly, she wouldn't last more than a few moves. Haunter cupped a shadowy ball of energy between its disembodied hands. "Quick, use ember to deflect it," I directed, just as Haunter launched its projectile at the quilava writhing on the floor in agony.
Suddenly, Kali's eyes snapped open and focused on the approaching sphere. With a fluid motion she whipped her head around and rolled to her feet, just as we'd practiced dozens of times against cocky wild pokémon. Jets of superheated flame burst from the many vents on her body and digging her feet into the ground she cried out a battle cry, "Laaaa!"
A huge stream of fire erupted from her maw, completely overpowering the incoming shadow ball. With a deafening whoosh, both attacks sailed back at the surprised haunter. A loud crash and a cloud of sooty smoke later, I found a translucent and knocked-out haunter and a Kali limping back to my side. "Piece of cake," she wheezed.
I could barely wipe my jaw off the floor as Morty congratulated us on the battle and awarded the Fog badge. "Most quilava can't produce flames of that intensity, you two must have trained a lot to pull that off," he even complimented.
My parents had a similar reaction when they got back home that afternoon, although I didn't feel like I deserved all the, "We knew you had it in you," or, "Your hard work really paid off." But they did agree, to Kali's relief, that we could finally be trusted to embark on our journey through Johto.
Once on the road, Kali seemed back to her normal old self, always chatting incessantly about all manner of things. The places she wanted to travel, the pokémon she wanted to battle, all the things she wanted to see. It was almost as if she had read through that set of encyclopedic atlases we had around the house, even though I'd never seen her open one. We made good time, hiking about 10 miles down route 37 before we stopped for the night. At this rate, we'd make it to Goldenrod in about four days. I'd only packed a small tent, thin sleeping bag and some food supplies, since we could resupply once we arrived in Goldenrod. The nights were a bit damp and chilly once the sun went down, but with Kali snuggling with me under the covers we were both plenty warm.
We stopped a couple of times to battle some wild pokémon and trainers. Like at the gym, Kali barely broke a sweat and always ended up victorious. I was itching to catch us some new friends, but none of the many common pidgeys and rattatas we encountered really interested me. That, and Kali kept knocking them out in one hit with her new flamethrower. I had no clue when and how she had learned it, and when I asked she merely replied, "Just some training I did on my own."
On the third evening, we made it to the gates of the Johto National Park. With all the trainers and park visitors traveling through, the nearby pokémon center had invested in some extensive accommodations. An entire log cabin lodge joined directly with the already sizable medical facility, so the shared lobby was bustling with evening activity. While I was waiting for Kali to finish her checkup with Nurse Joy, I spied a poster that piqued my interesting, advertising a contest being held in the park tomorrow. Catch the best Bug pokémon you can find! it read in a bright, bold font under pictures of all the bug-type pokémon that lived within the park's sprawling forest.
Kali strolled out of the back room, all her minor scrapes from the past few days mended. "Hey Kali, what do you think about entering this contest they're holding tomorrow?" I asked, pointing to the poster. "We can try and catch one of the bug-types that live in the park, and maybe even win a prize."
She took one look at the poster and immediately gave a curt, "No."
I ruffled her head, saying, "Aww, why not? It'll be fun to catch us a friend. Besides, we have to go through the park anyways." Kali ignored me and began walking back to the room we'd booked for the night. "I'll sign us up, you'll thank me later!" I called after her departing figure.
The next morning we set off bright and early, like most of the other trainers in the center. With more hours of daylight, we'd have a better chance of finding something notable in the woods. Kali still wanted nothing to do with the contest, although she did agree to battle any wild pokémon we found. Still, she refused to leave the paved paths, citing that we'd be "wasting time floundering about in the woods". Unfortunately without her, I couldn't safely wander too far into the brush.
By lunchtime we managed to make our way through most of the park, yet only encountered a few common species like caterpie and spinarak. Kali was always quick to dispatch her foe, and careful around the poisonous spines on some of the little buggers. Although it would have been nice to at least give me the option of catching them instead of again knocking all of them out in one super-effective attack. I was also getting a little impatient with her; if we didn't venture into the undergrowth and off the beaten path, we'd never find anything worth catching!
Just as I was about to give up hope, I heard a small rustle in the bushes off the side of the path. The sounds grew louder as whatever it was quickly approached us. "Be ready to battle Kali," I warned, fishing out one of the park-provided sport balls from my pack. Quick as a flash, a huge green bug flew out of the shrub and buzzed around in a zig-zag pattern towards Kali and me. Long, sweeping blades adorned its menacing arms, and it gave out a screeching territorial cry.
"Great, Kali, a scyther! If we catch that, we'll win for sure!" I exclaimed, practically leaping with glee at our luck. But before I could issue a single command, Kali engulfed the bug in a blazing-hot inferno.
"Wait, stop!" I shouted, but it was too late. As the flamethrower dissipated, the smoking body of the fainted scyther dropped to the ground with a thud. I was practically pulling my own hair out in frustration. As per the rules, fainted pokémon couldn't be captured with the modified contest balls, although that didn't stop me from trying to tap it against the motionless bug. I rubbed my temples and groaned, "You weren't supposed to knock it out, just weaken it."
"Oops," Kali stated matter-of-factly, obviously not regretting it one bit.
"Well, we'd better continue on." I sighed and glumly followed her lead down the path.
What an embarrassment it was, being the only trainer to make it to the park exit without catching a single specimen to be judged. We skipped the judging and awards ceremony, but seeing nothing better than one trainer's new venonat, I was certain we would have won if we'd nabbed that scyther.
We ended up making camp that evening a few miles from the outskirts of Goldenrod. With the last remnants of dusk fading away from the sky and the two of us sitting by the crackling campfire after a filling meal, I finally decided to get some answers out of Kali.
"So what's with you this whole week? First you scare me during our normal training, then you suddenly want to travel to Goldenrod City. You singlehandedly beat Morty's whole team without listening to me, and now you won't even help me catch us a new team member," I ranted. "This isn't the normal you."
Kali's ears drooped at my question as she averted my gaze, instead focusing intently at the glowing embers. Under her breath, she muttered, "None of them could be on our team." Her words seemed held back, as if she was trying to sift through her feelings and choose what to say very carefully.
I scooted over next to her and began rubbing across her belly, just where I knew she liked. "Does any of this have to do with that eevee you were talking to the other day?" I asked gently.
Kali bolted upright with a shocked look on her face. But seeing in my eyes that I knew the jig was up, she sighed and laid back down. "What did you overhear?"
"Just enough to know it's related to our trip to Goldenrod," I answered truthfully and continued when she remained silent. "Kali, we're family and you know you can trust me with anything. Would you mind telling me what's going on?"
"I know, I know, you're right." Kali took a deep breath and went on, "That eevee is... a friend of mine. I promised I'd meet up with him in Goldenrod City."
"Aww, does someone have a little crush?" I grinned and tickled her belly gently.
Her rosy cheeks told me the whole story as she tried to stammer out, "N-no, no no no, it's not like that at all."
"Nah, I'm just messing with you," I said as I ruffled her head and began smothering the remaining campfire. "Come on, let's get some sleep. We'll get there bright and early tomorrow morning."