Archive of Our Own

The wind that blows in from the Viridian Forest always feels different somehow. It dances around him, pushing away the summer heat and carrying with it the smell of soil and damp vegetation. It feels like the forest itself is calling to him.

But as much as Giovanni wants to, he can't run off to the forest today. He'd promised to help with the yardwork, and it's already late afternoon. By the time he's finished, it'll be too dark to go exploring alone.

If I had my own pokemon, it'd be different. I could go wherever I want, whenever I want, he thinks.

With a sigh, he turns his attention back to their small garden. "I'll just have to go tomorrow," he says, and leans down to check the plants for bugs. They've had a pest problem recently, and he's hoping to find the culprit before it eats everything. 

Something catches his eye. In between the leaves and flowers, a tiny green strawberry is poking out. He leans down to take a closer look at it. He's never tried one before. A neighbor gave his mom the seeds last fall. A thought strikes him. Surely, one tiny berry going missing won't be noticed, not when there's a whole field of them. And since he's taking care of the plants, it's only fair that he gets to taste one. 

While the coast is still clear, he pulls it off the stem and eats it. His face scrunches up at the taste. It's sour, dry, and tastes like dirt. Maybe he should have waited for them to ripen before eating one.

In the corner of his vision, there's sudden movement and a loud rustle. He scrambles back in surprise and grabs the garden hose, holding it up like a shield. Again, the patch of vines shake, but he can't see what causes it. He circles around the edge of the patch, knees shaking, until he reaches the spot that moved. The leaves here have bites taken out of them, likely caused by whatever is hiding. 

Newly determined, he inches closer to the plants and gently shakes them with an outstretched foot, ready to jump back if an ekans or weedle pops out. He works his way inward, covering more and more ground until—there! Whatever was hiding darts out into the open, and he can finally see it clearly.

Giovanni drops the hose on the ground, relieved to see it's only a diglett. "Sorry if I scared you." He slowly approaches it, being careful to not spook it again. "Are you the one who's been eating our plants?" If his mom sees it, she'll assume it's the one to blame. Giovanni has a way to know for sure, though.

The diglett chirps at him. It's close enough to reach out and touch. But first, he glances around. His mom is still inside. The neighbors are nowhere to be seen. The only witnesses are a few wild pidgey. 

He places his palm on the diglett's head and pushes his way into its thoughts, the way he's been able to since before he could remember. The world goes dark.

As always, he's met with surface feelings—soft, cool dirt under its claws, warm sun on its head, and a mild interest in the strange creature in front of it. There's also a feeling of fullness in its stomach. It must have eaten recently, but that alone isn't proof. He focuses on that feeling, tracing it back to its source.

The longer he stays immersed in the diglett's mind, the more the lines between them start to blur. He can feel his own teeth tearing into warm, writhing flesh. It tastes delicious and repulsive at once, and he pushes further back in the diglett's memories. Light floods his vision, and the scene comes into full clarity. He pushes his head above ground and sees his target: a large caterpie happily munching on leaves. It's facing away from him and doesn't notice as he strikes—

Giovanni severs the connection and stumbles back into the grass. A wave of fatigue hits him and he leans back, the metallic taste still lingering in his mouth.

The diglett nudges his arm, and he opens his eyes. "So you weren't eating the plants after all. It was that caterpie, and you took care of it for us. Thanks, Diglett!" He hops to his feet. "I gotta tell Mom."

He runs up to the house and throws open the door. "Mom! I know what's been eating the plants!" he yells. "There was this huge caterpie, but then a diglett came up from behind and ate it!"

"There's a diglett in the yard?" Her voice echoes from the second floor. "Thanks for telling me. I better go deal with it before it makes a mess. Stay inside until I'm done." She walks down the stairs, a ruffled pidgeotto following her. "Sorry for interrupting your nap, Sandy, but we need to take care of something."

"Huh? You mean you're going to fight it?" Giovanni asks.

"Yes. Why, did you want to?" She bends down to ruffle his hair. "You know Sandy is too headstrong to listen to you."

"I know that," he says, looking at the floor, "but I thought maybe we could catch it?" He doesn't mean for it to sound like a question. "It's a ground type. I bet we could get it to help with the garden."

"Giovanni," she says in her Serious voice, "you know it's not that simple. Catching a new pokemon is a big commitment. We can't just leave it in its ball until we need something from it. Think about Sandy. I have to make sure she has time to exercise every day. If I don't, she could hurt herself while flying. Also, I have to feed and brush her, and lots of other things. With my job, I wouldn't have time to take care of another one."

"I could take care of it! I'll feed it, and train it, and you won't have to do anything! I promise!"

A second passes, and his mom smiles. "This is about more than the yard work, isn't it? All the older kids in town already got their first pokemon."

"Yeah," he mumbles. "I know they're all older than me, but..."

"Maybe it's a bit early, but to be honest, I've been considering this for a while," she says. He looks up in shock. "Is it really so surprising? You've always been responsible for your age." She looks him in the eyes. "I trust you'll take care of it?"

Heart soaring, he nods. "Yeah!"

"In that case, I have one condition. You have to catch it yourself."

"Huh? But didn't the other kids get their starters from their parents?" he asks.

"Well, yeah. And I could catch it myself and hand it to you too, but do you know what will happen then?"

"What?"

"It won't respect you. It'll be hard to train, and in battle it won't trust your commands. A lot of new trainers have problems with that. You want to be a battler someday, right?" He nods. "If you want a pokemon to listen to you, you have to show it you're worth following. That starts by catching it yourself."

"Oh! Is that why I can't fight with Sandy? 'Cause I didn't catch her?"

She laughs. "Partially. But she's also just stubborn."

He's excited to finally get his own pokemon, but now he's confused. "How am I supposed to catch a pokemon without my own to weaken it?"

"You'll just have to catch it the way people used to. Get creative. Find something outside that you can use to weaken it. I won't give you any more hints than that, but I'll be watching the whole time, and if things get dangerous, I'll step in. Here." She digs in the closet and produces a small bag. Giovanni takes it and looks inside to see pokeballs. "I got these a couple weeks ago for you. There's only three, so make them count."

"Thank you!" He stares down at the bag in awe, then ties it to his belt and runs outside.

The backyard is empty, but a trail of upturned dirt leads around to the front of the house. Giovanni follows it, and finds the Diglett with its back to him. Then he glances around, looking for inspiration. 

His mom follows him from the backyard, and he whispers, "Is it okay if I use those?" while pointing to the large rocks that line the flower boxes.

"As long as you put them back when you're done," she replies.

He nods and picks one up. It's lighter than he expected, but he hopes it'll be enough. Creeping toward the diglett, he raises it above his head. He only makes it a few steps before hearing a sudden crack and looking down. Under his foot is a broken branch. He looks back up, hoping it hadn't noticed, but it's too late. The diglett has already turned around. He panics and throws the rock, but it misses. The diglett burrows toward him with alarming speed.

Giovanni is still close enough to the flowers to grab another rock. This time, he takes the time to aim, and hits it between the eyes. While the diglett is stunned, he grabs an empty pokeball, squeezes his eyes shut, and throws it. When he opens his eyes, the ball is rolling away into the grass, empty.

"Don't throw it with your eyes closed!" his mom scolds.

He scrambles to grab another pokeball. While he's distracted, the diglett flings mud into his face. He scrubs it out of his eyes and throws the second pokeball.

This time, it hits. The diglett disappears in a flash of red light. "Yes!" The ball shakes once, but bursts open freeing the diglett. "Huh?!"

It's mad now, growling at him as it prepares to charge. It doesn't look hurt at all. The rock had barely done anything!

He takes a few steps back, thinking fast. There are more rocks behind him, but the last one hadn't hurt it much. Throwing another won't work. He'll have to find something else to attack with. The problem is, he's outside. There's not a lot out here to attack with, and even less to defend himself with.

He thinks back to how he held the garden hose like a shield earlier. If the diglett had really been an angry ekans back then, it wouldn't have protected him at all. The thought sparks an idea, but just then the diglett rushes forward and scratches his leg. "Ow!" He looks down and sees blood. 

His mom yells, "Sandy! Wing at—"

"Wait! I have an idea!" He still has one chance left. If he fails now, with the bag on his belt still filled, he won't forgive himself. He stares at his mom with pleading eyes.

She looks conflicted, then her face hardens. "Fine, but if this doesn't work, I'm ending the fight." Her tone allows no arguments.

"Ok!" He shifts his weight. It'll hurt, but he can still run.

Taking a deep breath, he sprints left. He's taking the long way to the backyard, but this route crosses over the sidewalk. Tunneling underneath it should slow the diglett down. 

He rounds the corner, finding the water valve and turning it as much as he can, then runs to where he left the hose earlier. He picks it up and spins around. The diglett is only a few feet away. He stands his ground and points his weapon straight ahead.

Water bursts out, knocking the diglett into the air. It lands on the grass and doesn't move. Shaking with excitement, Giovanni throws his last pokeball.

Again, the diglett disappears inside.

It shakes once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then, it stills.

"Yeah!" Giovanni runs up to it and scoops it up, holding it close to his chest. He really did it. Finally, he has his own pokemon, and he did it all on his own.

His mom, who'd followed him behind the house, smiles. "I'm proud of you, squirt. Now, we should go inside and get those scratches looked at."

He looks down and realizes his leg is still bleeding.  "Oh, I forgot about that."

"That's just the adrenaline. You'll feel it soon enough."

They walk inside, and Giovanni keeps a hand on his leg to keep any blood from getting on the floor. When he gets to the bathroom, he props his leg up on the counter above the sink.

She takes a close look at it and says, "It shouldn't need stitches. Let's just wash it really good and keep it covered. Would you grab the medkit?"

His mom starts talking while she works. "In the future, you'll need to learn how to avoid a pokemon's attacks. Since that was a wild diglett, it wasn't too bad, but if it had belonged to a trainer, it could've been a lot worse."

"What do you mean? I have my own pokemon now. Why would I need to worry about getting hurt?"

"Well," she says, turning off the water and patting his leg dry with a cloth, "during a battle, sometimes people will target you instead of your pokemon."

"But isn't that against the rules?"

She nods. "Sure, if you're fighting a League match. And even outside of that, most people still wouldn't do it. But if someone has decided they need to win under any circumstances, they might not care about the rules. Someone like that, who is willing to do anything to win, is the most dangerous opponent you could face."

She sees his horrified face and backpedals. "I don't mean to scare you, Giovanni. I just want you to be prepared. Besides, it'll help in normal battles too. A trainer's physical abilities have more of an effect than you might think."

"Ok," he says, still a little unsettled.

She smears a big glob of vaseline on the cuts and covers it all with a big square bandage.

"Now, how about we get Diglett healed? How does it look?"

He pulls out the pokeball with his diglett inside. "It's really hurt. That water did a lot of damage."

"That's because it's a ground type. I'll need to teach you about type effectiveness too." She stands up. "If you're feeling up to it, we can go to the pokemon center now."

"Can't we heal it here?"

"Well, we could, but pokemon's injuries are different from ours. You can't heal them with bandages. We'd either need a potion or berries for that, but those aren't cheap. Since the pokemon center is free, we should go there instead whenever we can."

Giovanni was confused. They didn't need anything to heal Diglett right now. He'd done it himself before, when that pidgey had flown into the window a few months ago, and again when he'd found a wild mankey with a twisted ankle.

Unless, he thought, it was the same as when he sensed a pokemon's thoughts. He knew that was something normal people couldn't do. When he'd first started doing it, he bragged about it at school, and no one believed him. The teacher even told him to stop telling lies. But since he'd only learned to heal recently, he hasn't had a chance to tell anyone yet.

Just to be sure, he asks, "There really isn't anything we can do here?"

"You've only had it for a few minutes and you're already this worried about it?" she asks, bemused. "Don't worry, we can head right to the center once you've changed out of those muddy clothes. You'd better hurry though. It'll close in an hour."

"Thanks!" Giovanni yells and runs to his room, ignoring his mom's chuckles. He slams his door, then closes his curtains and pulls out Diglett's pokeball. He wants to heal it, but he's starting to think that he should keep that ability secret too. If there's really people out there who will attack other trainers, then he needs every advantage he can get.

But his mom's words echo in his ears. Now that he's caught Diglett, it's his responsibility. He's in charge of keeping it safe, so if there's something he can do to help it, he should.

Maybe if he only heals a little, it'll go unnoticed.

He concentrates and, for the third time in his life, reaches for the strange energy that lets him heal pokemon. For some reason, it's harder than before. The energy keeps slipping through his fingers right when he's about to grasp it. "What's wrong?" he whispers. Has he forgotten how to do it?

Then, a strong gust of wing blows in from the open window, blowing open the curtains and carrying with it the familiar scent of the forest. The power flows through him again like it was never gone at all. Relieved, he heals as much as he dares.

It feels wrong to cut off the connection before Diglett is fully healed, but he needs to leave enough damage to not raise any suspicion. Still, he can sense that it's feeling much better. For now, that's enough.

"Let's keep this a secret between us, okay?" he asks, and even though the emotion is muffled through the ball, he feels Diglett agree.

"Then, it's a promise."