First Impression

Chapter Nine

   “There!” It's been two days since I first had the idea of making matching necklaces for Popplio, Zorua and I. All made specially for one another. “Hows that, Popplio?”

   The necklace I had created for Popplio had a shell design that was painted to have the sea waves swooshing at the bottom and the night sky stars at the top. Zorua’s was a circle with the right have night and the right eluted to look like the day. Mine was a circled jewel that had a moon surrounded by twinkling stars. It had two blue jewel orbs on each side to represent Popplio and Zorua.

   I’d been thinking about training up Zorua and Popplio for the island trials and decided that I would go along with it and catch up to Sun and Hau, who both had beaten Ilima’s trial not long before.

   “Zorua, Popplio. Now that we all have something to express who we are, what do you two think about doing the island trials like Sun and Hau are?” In the last couple days, Zorua became more familiar and friendly to both Hau and Sun.

   “Buawrk!!”

   “Ua!” Both of my girls agreed and I told my mom about the choice. She was proud of me and so, I grabbed the little bit of cash I had left and started out for Route 2 to train for Ilima’s trail.

   “Zorua! Use pursuit!” We were battling the second pokemon from Ilima’s trail that I needed to beat before finishing.

  “Rattata…” The Rattata was unable to fight and scurried back into it’s cave-hole.

   “Good job, Zorua. You too, Popplio. Here you two go, a little thing to make you girls feel fine and healthy again.” Healing both of them up with a potion, I hurried along to find the third and final pokemon.

   “I checked all the rest of the cave openings, but nothing. I started from the beginning again and then the same team skull grunts that I fought before where running up to me.

   “Yo, yo, yo! Team skull is back and were harder than bone.” One of the blue haired grunts yelled out in my face. I just stared at them, silently.

   “Bro, you even who who we are? We’re team skull and you better be afraid.” The other said, dancing the same way that they did before. “Now, you better give us your pokemon before be we beat ya down.”

   “Why should that scare me?” I questioned him. “I don’t see why you’re even here since this place is off limits to anyone who isn’t a trail-goer.”

   They started to come closer, trying to intimidate me. “You think you’re that big and bad. Well, B with show you that a kid doesn’t stand a chance against team skull!”

   The other Team skull grunt threw out his pokemon. Tossing out Zorua, I started to battle with the grunt’s Drowzee.

   In only about three hits, the Drowzee was down. “Yo! Bro, this kid is super strong. We gotta get outta here.” The grunt called out to his friend. “And I ain’t about to get into a fight with that one.”

   “No! We can’t go down like this. Team skull is harder than bone, remember.”

   “Yo, kid! There’s some mad strong pokemon here that’s scaring off all of the weaker ones. You better be careful of it. I’d get out of here if I was you.”

   They ran off and stood in front of two of the three caves that I had checked for the last pokemon.

   Running over to the last cave, a Raticate jumped out and pulled me into a battle. Tossing out Popplio’s pokéball, I started to battle.

   “Popplio! Disarming voice!” Her singing targeted Raticate. It deafened it and caused the pokemon to retreat back into the cave’s tunnel.

   Retrieving Popplio, I walked to the end of the cave and the man, who oversaw that the trail-goers all fought three pokemon. He moved out of my way, saying that once I exited the cave through the opening the trial would be done.

   I went through and saw a podium with a shining stone placed in the middle.

   Walking up to the jem, I felt like I was being watched. Outstretching my hand to take the stone, a Raticate’s voice boomed above me.

   It jumped down. The huge pokemon roaring down to me. “Popplio!!” Throwing out Popplio’s pokéball, I stood in front of the over sized pokemon. “Use Disarming voice!” Popplio called upon her fairy singing and hurt the pokemon. Little effect had been inflicted upon the Raticate.

   Raticate bit Popplio. She was seriously injured. The Raticate called out and a small, normal sized Rattata scurried out to help the large pokemon.

  “Disarming voice, again!” Popplio gave it all she had and sang out, hurting both rat pokemon.

  The rattata passed out and was helped away by a few other Rattata. Raticate, on the other hand, tackled Popplio. She had only a one more hit from Raticate and Popplio would go down.

   Quickly, I retrieved Popplio and threw out Zorua. She was hit with a quick attack by Raticate.

  “Zorua!! Use pursuit.” It was a chance I was willing to take. In a split second, Raticate went down. Zorua sprinted up to me. Laughing, I hugged her. “Great job, Zorua.” Taking back out Popplio, I pet her. “You too, Popplio. You both did amazing.”

   We walked up to the same podium. With no hesitation, I picked out the jem. “Well done. You have even beaten the totem pokemon that I had spent so much time training up.” Ilima came up to me and told me about the stone I had just picked up and how to use it, as well as about that large pokemon and how most trials have one that the captains had trained up.

   Walking out of the trial cave, I was greeted by Kukui, Sun and Hau. “Woo! Another new trainer flying through the trials, yeah!” Kukui yelled out, like usual.

   “Great job, Moon.” Sun came up to me and smiled. “So, how was Gumshoos?” Confused I made a strange face at him.

   “What, ‘Gumshoos’. I fought totem Raticate.” The night sky started to turn yellow. It was nearly four A.M.

   Ilima came up behind us and spoke to resolve the confusion between us. “The totem pokemon that I have trained are Gumshoos and Raticate. I used to only have a Gumshoos, but would have to turn down trainers when it turned dark, since Yoongus and Gumshoos always fell asleep right a the sky became dark. So that night-owl trainers could still participate in the trial at night I trained up a Raticate to become the night Totem pokemon.”

   The clarification the Ilima had given us let us continue on with the day. Lillie had, inevitably, gone missing, again, and Sun and I had to go finding her, again. “You need to stop getting lost and losing Nebby, Lillie.” Sun told her as I carried Nebby over to the blonde girl.

   “And make sure that you are with a trainer at least to Nebby doesn’t get hurt.” I spoke as I was helping get Nebby back into the Pokéball designed bag that Lillie carried around so no one would see the cosmic pokemon. “Maybe Sun could help you with protecting Nebs.” I whispered to her as to prevent Sun from hearing my joke.

   “M-Moon!!” Lillie yelled out as I pulled away, a gigantic grin spread across my face. “I can’t do that…. It wouldn’t be right.” Laughing, I nudged Sun in the direction of Lillie.

   “Maybe you can help her, bro.” Joking, now to Sun, I walked out of the Melemele meadow that we had just been in to help Nebby out of harm’s way.

   “Moon!! Battle me and Dartix!” Hau was waiting for me outside of the cave. I tossed out Zorua, who made herself appear to be Popplio. As I started to battle Hau, he quickly became confused by Zorua’s moves that she was using. He had, finally, hit a leafedge and Zorua revealed herself in the battle.

   “Looks like the game is over.” I said when he had understood what had happened earlier. “Zorua! Pursuit!” And, just like that, Dartix was down. His second pokemon was Pikachu. In about two moves I had taken that one down as well.

   “Wow! You really are a great trainer, Moon.” Tired of battling for the rest of the day, I waited for Hau to stop talking and then started to walked home and rest for the rest of the day.

   “Good luck Sun.” I said to myself as I walked back, running home, leaving Sun with Lillie at his side. “You’ll need it.”