Lunar Dance: Part 3

A brief stop at the PokeCentre and the local mart later, Yugi left town fifteen pokéballs, one premier ball, one potion and two antidotes heavier and Y3500 poorer.  He wasn’t actually sure he needed all of that, but Yami had reminded him that they had started the game with that much money for a reason. It was better to be prepared than not when they didn’t know what they were getting into.

Hikari was waiting for them on the outskirts of town and shoved them back towards the houses, the game’s plot forcing them to detour back to their arrival point to talk to their ‘mom.’

Once there they got a journal to write in and a parcel from Jun’s mother to deliver to him when they saw him. Then it was back to town again. By the time they got back, Issui had learned Bubble and they had left a trail of knocked out Starly behind them.

When they got back to where Hikari was still waiting, she was a lot more helpful. In fact she gave them a demonstration of how to catch a Pokémon, her Chimchar allowing her to catch the wild Bidoof they encountered easily. She also gave them another five pokéballs, making Yugi wish he hadn’t spent so much money on them.

Once she was gone, Yugi managed to catch the first Pokémon they ran into. His Pokedex informed him that it was a female Starly and that it was currently level 4. He wasn’t sure what the levels meant in game terms, but since Issui had been gaining levels through battle experience he assumed that his Starly, who he decided to call Kaze, would need training in order to get stronger.

Something weird happened when he tried to catch the next Pokémon to come along though. The pokéballs refused to work. He wasted three, which he picked up after the Bidoof had been defeated, before he finally had to give up. Hikari was watching from the ledge above him and started giggling at him as he searched through the grass for the missing balls.

“You can’t catch any more Pokémon here.” She called down to him, causing him to turn to her, confusion obvious, “It’s a rule the Boss put down. You can only catch the first Pokémon you catch on each route.”

‘That means we can’t go back to the route between here and ‘home’ either.’ Yami huffed.

“No but the forest is still open, we never ran into any Pokémon there.” Yugi reminded him, before looking at Hikari, “Thanks for telling me.”

“No problem.” Hikari replied with a smile, “It’s not a fair game if you don’t know the rules after all. Oh, by the way, don’t forget you have to keep your Pokedex ahead of mine.”

“What?” Yugi asked, confused again.

“You agreed to it, remember?” She asked, “We’re racing to fill the Pokedex. Don’t worry, you don’t have to catch every Pokémon, just seeing them counts, but if I get ahead of you, the Shadows might not like it.” Yugi gulped, having not realised he had been adding to the rules when he had agreed to race her. “Good luck.” She waved and carried on down the route merrily.

‘So we can’t catch more than one Pokémon per route and we have to somehow keep our Pokedex ahead of Hikari’s?’ Yami asked with a growl, taking spirit form to pace through the long grass.

“And we can’t lose a single battle.” Yugi replied, nerves settling in a little as he realised the scope of their task. “We have to get to the Champion and beat him without losing a match.”

‘We’ll do it.’ Yami reassured Yugi, who headed back to the forest they had met the man from Galactic in. ‘It’s just another game. And we never lose, remember?’

“True.” Yugi allowed, the thought cheering him up as he caught their third team member. Another Starly, another female one, this one nicknamed Hane. “And Bakura will sulk for ages when we get out of here.”

Yami grumbled something Yugi didn’t quite catch, but he suspected was along the lines of ‘murder the bloody tomb robber.’ For once the hikari didn’t call his darker half on it. Yami was allowed to be ticked off about this and as long as he was just grumbling, he probably wouldn’t do anything that would get him in trouble.

They got into a little trouble with a Kricketot, the bug Pokémon had absorbed their attacks for a couple of turns before landing a blow that had nearly knocked Issui out. Yugi had had to rush back to the PokeCentre, where Yami skimmed through the Pokedex while they were waiting for Issui to be treated. ‘Bide,’ the move he finally figured out the Kricketot had used against them, absorbed the power of the attacks that they had launched at it and countered with that power.

It was something they were going to have to watch out for in the future if they wanted to get through the game safely.