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Pokémon Red-Blue: Joshua: Part Three
A few more trainers challenged me to a battle as I walked through the forest.
My Bulbasuar vs. Joey’s Ratata.
My Charmander vs. Britney’s Pidgey.
My Squirtle vs. Austin’s Growlithe.
I won them all. And alright… I might’ve got a little overconfident. I would actually purposefully make eye contact with anyone who looked like they wanted a battle. One girl was literally tossing a pokéball up and down, watching me. She waved at me. “Hey! Cute guy! Come battle!” My brain froze at ‘cute’ and then restarted at ‘battle’. I chose Caterpie. She chose a Jigglypuff. The puffball began singing, and my eyelids started drooping. The girl giggled. “Boys.” I glared at her and clapped the sides of my face to wake myself up. Jigglypuff did it for Caterpie. “Double Slap!” Jigglypuff slapped Caterpie once, twice, three times. I know. “Double” Slap.
Caterpie snapped awake. “String Shot, Caterpie!” Caterpie shot string at Jigglypuff, trying to entangle it’s feet. But he was still drowsy, and missed badly.
“Sing, Jiggly!” The girl giggled.
“Oh no, we are not falling for that again!” I yelled. The girl smiled sweetly. “Umm… yes you are.”
Sure enough, Caterpie had fallen asleep again. “Caterpie, wake up!”
“Jiggly, Pound!” Jiggly dropped like a stone onto Caterpie. Caterpie fainted and returned to his Pokéball in a flash of light. I grit my teeth and reached for Charmander-
“What are you doing?” She squinted at me, her brown hair falling forward as she leaned forward a little.
“I’m bringing out a second Pokémon.”
“And who said you could do THAT? I don’t have a second Pokémon!”
I blinked, realizing that I hadn’t bothered to ask how many Pokémon we could use, or even noticed the lack of Pokéballs on her belt. I sighed. “Fine. You win.”
“YES! Victory for Grace, the girl- um… yeah, I’ll keep workshopping that one. But YES!” She twirled and danced around, her hair bobbing around and her bag repeatedly whacking her hip. Her Jigglypuff celebrated with her, dancing in a little circle.
Victory dances really sting when it’s not you doing them.
The girl, Grace, stuck out her hand. It took me a second to shake it, because I didn’t like her much at all for beating me. Then I realized how happy she was to win. Maybe she rarely ever wins. Maybe she’s never won. I acted like that when I beat Drake, didn’t I? And now I’m acting like Drake, just a sore loser.
“Um… handshakes don’t last this long, guy. Let go of my hand now.”
I jerked my hand back, realizing I hadn’t when I’d gotten lost in thought. “Sorry!”
Grace took off, calling, “Fun battle, guy!” I smiled. That’s right, I should ENJOY battles. Pokémon are friends, battling a sport. Shouldn’t I have some fun, win or lose?