Chapter 3: Mark gets his second pokémon
The next day, Mark and his Charmander continued their pokémon journey.
“Charmander, do you want to evolve?” Mark suddenly asked.
“Charmander? Char mander Charmander?”
“Yes, I am asking you! I won’t make you evolve if you don’t want to. And you will learn attacks faster if you don’t. A Squirtle can know Hydro pump while a Blastoise at the same level only knows Water gun. There’s nothing really wrong about not evolving a pokémon. But, of course... you will be stronger as a Charizard...”
“Char... mander. Charmander. Char char mander charmander.”
“You want to evolve? Okay then. I was just thinking about my future team.”
They kept walking for a while. Then Mark saw a pokémon – a Rattata.
“Charmander, go! Scratch!”
Charmander raced at Rattata and scratched it three times. Rattata countered with a Tackle.
“Charmander, just keep scratching until you win!”
“Charmander! Charmander! Char man der!” Charmander said as it scratched Rattata all over. It fainted.
“That was easy!” said Mark and they went on. They were silent for a while.
“Charmander!” Charmander suddenly said.
“A pokémon? Where?”
Charmander used Ember on a bush, and out ran... an Eevee!
“Wow! Eevees are incredibly rare nowadays, I just HAVE to catch it! And you must be over level seven now, as you could use Ember... Oh, I forgot I have no pokéballs. What can I do now?”
But the Eevee didn’t run away. It just sat there, two or three meters away from them, shaking with fear. A quiet “Eeeveee” was the only sound it made.(Click here for a picture of it)
“Charmander?” Charmander said carefully.
“Eeeee!” the Eevee shrieked, taking a few steps backwards. Then Mark saw something on the ground – it was a pokéball, just when he needed it.
“Pokéball, go!” he shouted and threw the pokéball at the poor Eevee that didn’t dare to move.
“Charmander!”
Charmander suddenly jumped up and punched the pokéball back to Mark. “Charmander charmander!” it said angrily.
“Scared?” Mark looked at the Eevee. It most certainly was.
“Don’t be scared, I won’t hurt you,” Mark said as his hand reached for the Eevee and stroke the soft fur. Then he picked it up. A loud “eeeee!” came from the eevee at first, but then it became quiet.
“Better hurry to Cleanwater city,” said Mark to Charmander. They ran a little longer and, to their great relief, they saw some lights.
“That must be Cleanwater city!” said Mark. “We’re almost there!”
After a few minutes, they arrived at the Cleanwater city Pokémon center. Once inside, Mark went to nurse Joy and asked her: “Um, I think there’s something wrong with this Eevee, it wouldn’t fight, it just stood there and did nothing when I found it.”
“Oh, this Eevee is obivously very young, it just must have been scared, the poor thing.” Nurse Joy scratched the Eevee’s ears and it looked happy. “But it might need something to eat. Wait here.” And nurse Joy got a bowl of some pokémon food for Eevee and Charmander.
“There’s a pokémon gym here, right?” Mark asked.
“Yes, but the gym leader, Rick... you should watch out for him. He uses legendary pokémon and he is very strong. It is said that he caught legendary pokémon with Master balls and then cloned them and released the originals. The clones are stronger, but their powers make them care less about the trainer’s orders, and that makes their hits not as strong as the originals’. But that’s only a rumour after all and most likely it doesn’t make any sense at all... Well, there are more sick pokémon around, and your Eevee and Charmander have finished eating. We hope to see you again.” She went to some other trainers after this quick end of the conversation.
“Let’s go,” said Mark, and he went out of the pokémon center with his two pokémon.
Mark went to buy pokéballs while Eevee and Charmander searched for the pokémon gym. They found the gym easily, it was a huge building in the center of the city. There were also signs all over pointing the way and made the gym very easy to find. Then the met Mark just outside the pokémon market.
“Hi again. Did you find the gym?” Mark asked.
“Charmander.”
“Eevee!”
“Okay, good. But Eevee, are you... do you want to be... my pokémon? Do you want me to train you and travel with me?”
“Eeee!” Eevee nodded and licked Mark’s hand.
“All right then. You will need to go into that ball.” Mark held out a pokéball, and Eevee turned into a red beam of light that disappeared into the ball.
“And Charmander, here’s your pokéball,” said Mark and held out another ball.
“Charmander. Char charmander charmander.” Charmander shook its head.
“Don’t want to go into a ball? Well, I guess you can just walk beside me like you’ve done since we started. I can understand that pokéballs remind you of your former trainer. It’s okay. Hey, I also bought a pokédex.” He pointed his brand-new pokédex at Charmander. “Let’s see how much you grew when battling that Rattata.”
“Charmander, lizard pokémon. If the flame at the tip of its tail dies, so does this fire pokémon.”
“Yeah, I know, tell me the level,” said Mark, rather impatiently.
“A level 7 Charmander should know Scratch, Growl, and Ember,” said the voice of the pokédex.
“Level seven? That’s two levels against one Rattata. It must have been a pretty high level... anyway, we’ll need to train a lot to beat that legendary pokémon gym leader.” And then they went out of the city to train for the gym.
