"I saw you fight," he announced.
"Yeah? Are you a trainer?" I asked.
"Yeah. Are you?" he asked. His words had a bit of venom in them.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"You aren't serious at all, man. I can tell. You wouldn't stand a chance against a real trainer like me." He was cocky, not unlike Wolf.
"Is that a challenge?" I asked.
He laughed at me. "Oh, no. I'm being sincere. You need to get serious before you can take on someone like me." I rolled my eyes and began walking away from him. I had swallowed enough attitude already that day. He quickly followed after me. "Hey, I'm not trying to offend you," he assured me, though his tone wasn't as convincing. "I just can't stand to see casual jokers like you walking around calling themselves Pokémon trainers. Sure, there are bug catching kids who are out having some fun, but then there's real training. Your friend back there on Route 22 said he was going to challenge the Indigo League. What about you? What are you doing?"
"I've been training," I said. "Real training. What do you know about it?"
"Are you going to take the Gym Leader Challenge? Are you going to face the League? What? I'm serious. Why are you here?" He was persistent.
"I am going to start a Pokémon Sanctuary," I reluctantly said, hoping it would be enough for him to leave me alone.
"Oh, like a Pokémon Safari?" he asked. He seemed genuinely interested which was a departure from my encounter with Wolf.
"Similar, I guess. I want to create a natural habitat for as many Pokémon I can and provide a safe place for them to live and interact with humans in a natural environment. You wouldn't catch them. You'd go there to understand them better. Maybe to study them in a safe environment, or just to understand yourself and your relationship with Pokémon better. You know?"
"My grandfather would love a place like that," he said with a snicker. "So you're what? Playing at training?"
"No. Not at all. It's important to me to understand Pokémon, so it's important for me to be a trainer. I'm traveling Kanto to catch, record and study as much as I am here to train and battle. Why do you care?" I suddenly stopped to ask him.
"I told you. I can't stand seeing trainers like you. You looked so pathetic out there against that other guy. Yeah, you won, but you looked like a chump. You gotta get serious," he announced. "If you want respect in Kanto, you gotta take your training seriously." He flashed a couple of badges he had pinned to his backpack. "You earn these and people will know you're serious. Maybe some day I'll see you up on the Indigo Plateau." He laughed as if that thought amused him, but I sensed he wasn't mocking me this time. He was genuinely enjoying a thought of us battling it out in the big league matches on the plateau.
"What do you think I should do?" I asked rhetorically.
"You need to figure out what Pokémon training means to you. Stop thinking about your Sanctuary, or whatever, for a minute. Maybe that will happen, or maybe it won't, but right now you need to figure out what kind of trainer you are and what your Pokémon mean to you." He ran his fingers through his messy, brown hair and nodded to the building across from us. "Look at that place. What a disgrace." We'd stopped just near the Viridian Pokémon Gym. "If I ran that place, it would be open all day every day, so trainers could come and train or challenge the gym. That's what it means to me. I'm ready to train, to fight, to win all day and every day. The guy who runs this place is a coward. The League should kick him out and give this gym to someone who actually cares." I could only nod in reluctant agreement. "Look, I just wanted to pull you aside and tell you if youI are gonna face guys like that or guys like me, you better get serious about it. You're only going to get yourself or your Pokémon hurt if you don't and that really pisses me off."
"I'll think about what you said," I offered. He seemed to take that answer as the best he could get and nodded a gruff approval.
"Good. Maybe someday when you're ready we'll have a real battle. Smell ya later." He laughed at me and walked off.
I rolled my eyes behind his back. What did this kid know about me? Even still, his words stuck with me for a long time.
Rain drizzled down the leaves of Viridian Forest, methodically finding their way down to the ground where I was making my way. The dense forest was dark and gloomy even on the best of days. As a result it was full of bug Pokémon, including the newest addition to my small team. I was lucky to run into a Caterpie with my last remaining Pokéball. I was told by the Pokédex that they were quite rare that time of year. As a result, I named him Lucky. I ran into a handful of bug-catching kids who wanted to battle and throughout these few fights I could only think about what that kid in Viridian City had said to me.
Was I any different from these kids who were mostly playing at Pokémon training? Did I have what it takes to stand face to face against real dangers in the wild? Could I some day challenge the very best trainers in Kanto with confidence? In the wake of my battle with Wolf earlier that morning, and the unsettling conversation with a pushy little trainer outside Viridian Gym, it's fair to say that my trek through Viridian Forest changed me. It was where I decided exactly what kind of Pokémon trainer I was going to be, and how I would achieve my goals as a trainer and future preservationist of Pokémon.I decided as I made my way onward to Pewter City that if I expected my Pokémon not to fail me, then I could not fail them. I decided that if I were going to build a safe place for Pokémon to live and interact with each other and with humans, I needed to build a safe space for them on my team. I needed to understand their strengths and their weaknesses. Unlike Wolf who was content to just laugh as his Pokémon fainted, laugh as he traded away a tiny fraction of his disposable credits to me, I would not accept fainting as a part of training. I made the decision that my Pokémon would never be pushed to the point of breaking. If I ever failed them, even once, I would let them go. I would find them a better home, or release them back into their habitats to live out their days naturally. As I passed through Viridian Forest, I emerged from my own cocoon with a newfound purpose and seriousness. I had decided exactly what it meant to me to be a trainer and hopefully someday the owner of the world's first successful Pokémon Sanctuary.
Current Team:
