Jon Chapter 04

Chapter 4-Friendly encounters of the 3rd Kind

Looking over a hill Matt could see a large patch of forest that seemed to stretch to the north with no end in sight. It was a sea of trees, and possibly thousands of unknown things lurking about in its shadowy niches. The sun was up so high that it was starting to glare his vision, so he had to cover his eyes with his hands. Looking around he couldn’t find Jessie or any of his Pokémon near.

As he tried to walk down the hill he felt a gust of wind overhead, and then saw a large bird-like creature fly past him into the forest below. Even with all his research he couldn’t recognize the markings on its back or head, and hardly had a chance to even see its color before disappearing.

Matt woke up, feeling a little sore. It was still something he had to get used to; sleeping on the ground out in the field. Jessie was already packing up her sleeping bag, and was now brushing her teeth, as she looked down at Matt. “Nice P.J.s,” Matt felt a bit embarrassed. He was so used to wearing a separate set of pajamas for sleeping; it never occurred to him that most other trainers or travelers simply just slept in their clothes.

His meowth by now was up and around, chasing some caterpie from their camp site. Matt packed up his sleeping bag as well, and changed into his travel clothes, but at a decent distance from Jessie, still feeling a bit shy. By the time he got back Jessie had taken care of the fire pit and was feeding her vulpix and eevee snacks from her bag. Matt had one of his sandwiches for breakfast and shared part of it with his meowth, when it had finished chasing any other things around the campsite.

He was just about to finish his sandwich when he heard a ring from his bag. Dropping the last bite of his breakfast, he rushed to his bag to make sure he didn’t’ miss the call. “Hello, hello? This is Matt.” “Where have you been Matt?” It was Marc, but he sounded a little annoyed. “I sent you a text yesterday but you never answered. What happened?”

“It’s a long story actually. How have you been though?” Matt answered back. “Well…. I got lost on my way to Cascade city, and wound up on the road to Ann Arbor. I was half way there before I figured it out and had to back-track. On the way I met someone who was also on their way to Cascades so we decided to team-up for a little while.” “That sounds good. So do you think we could meet in Cascades tomorrow? We just finished up at the ruins and can tell you the whole story in detail when we meet.”

In the back ground Matt could hear a different voice asking questions about the conversation. “Is that the brother you’ve told me about? Is he cute?” Matt could already guess it was probably a girl, but she sounded fairly aggressive when compared to Jessie. “He’s my brother, so I don’t know if that’s saying much.” Marc said in the background as he started to talk to Matt again. “Tomorrow will be fine, we’ll call you when get to the city limits.” “Ok.” And Marc hung up the phone.

So they were going to meet again, it had only been 2 or 3 days, but with so much happening now maybe it was a good chance to catch-up on things. They had parted quickly last time and hadn’t really made any plans for staying in touch. “Who was that?” Jessie asked as she checked some final parts on her bike. “Oh, it’s Marc. He’s heading towards Cascades. He made a mistake and ended up on the route to Ann Arbor.”

“That’ll be nice. I envy you. I don’t have any siblings, so it’s kind of lonely being an only child.” Matt packed up his sleeping roll and added it to his backpack. It felt much lighter than a few days ago, but mostly because he had eaten most of his snacks, or he’d lost them while being chased through the mansion. He double checked his belt making sure he had his haunter, and made sure he hadn’t left anything behind.

Finally Matt’s meowth jumped on to his back hoping to catch a ride in the fresh air like Jessie’s vulpix, but Matt didn’t have the space. Maybe he could attach a basket when they got to town, or get an extension on his bike seat for his bag. He returned his meowth to its poke-ball attached that to his belt. Jessie gave him a frown, but decided maybe he was right this time; she barely had space in her basket for both her vulpix and eevee now.

With all their belongings packed, secured, and accounted for they started off the dirt path towards the main route north. The sun was high in the sky now, beating down on them with a constant glare, but the going was pretty good. The road was mostly flat as they made their way past Wheatland and on through the wooded route north.

They took a break around 2 p.m. that day, just as they passed the Wheatland city limits. There was a nice park with a few small bridges over a tiny stream, a place to park their bikes, and several picnic tables around the park for people passing by. As they parked their bikes, Venus jumped out of the bike basket and started walking around. The eevee was a little more hesitant to jump out and waited for Jessie to take it out of the basket.

Matt let his meowth out and it too started wandering around. He didn’t feel like letting his haunter out yet, since it may scare people and he didn’t know much about its behavior in public. They stared walking down a path to the park clearing and towards one of the closer picnic tables. There was a mild breeze kicking up as they sat down to rest for a bit, they had been biking for almost 3 hours and it was nice to have a break from the work. Looking around they saw a family or two with some children playing around the small stone bridges.

Following the children were their or their parents’ Pokémon. One was a corphish; scurrying to keep up with them, while the other was a starmie; levitating above the ground and making sure they weren’t in any danger. The corphish seemed to have a fairly hard time keeping up with the children as they continued to explore the park. From a distance it looked as though they were taunting the poor water Pokémon and just playing with it by running away. The starmie had no such trouble, as it could float around effortlessly, but they seemed to only enjoy pestering the corphish as it was bound by gravity and had to put in extra effort to maintain its pace.

Off a little way to their left Matt and Jessie could see a street vendor selling some snacks. “Jessie, are you hungry?” Matt asked, wondering just what it was that smelled so good over at the cart. “A little, but I don’t feel like lunch just yet.” Matt took that as a yes and headed over to the cart. Matt’s meowth saw him start walking and quickly joined alongside him towards the snack vendor’s cart.

“Sugar apples, sugar-cakes, and fluffed sugar. Only 100 poke-dollars.” The vendor was saying out loud as small groups of people continued to walk by or have a look see at his wares. “Well, well, well. Anything I can get you and your meowth. A fine one too if I may say.” His meowth sat back and looked up at the plump street vendor looked unperturbed by the comment. “Hmmm, I’ll guess I’ll take one of each. It all looks tasty.” With that Matt handed over 300 poke-dollars and the man handed him the colorful and delicious smelling snacks.

His meowth was looking ever more intent at Matt, now that he had some succulent smelling goodies, and was nearly jumping for a closer whiff of the food. “Oh, that sugar-fluff looks tempting.” Jessie said as Matt sat back down. Venus had now parked herself next to his meowth, and Jessie’s eevee was looking cutely up at Matt. Matt took out the sugar-cake and broke it into equal pieces for the three Pokémon now surrounding him.

His meowth quickly ran off with its piece a short distance and started eating greedily. Venus took her piece and walked back to Jessie, preferring her to feed her with smaller pieces at a time, while the eevee at its piece at a slow relaxed pace. Matt gave Jessie the sugar-fluff and he ate the sugar apple, which was fairly tricky to eat since it was so sticky. While they were all enjoying their snack Matt took a moment to count up all the Pokémon they seen along their bike ride up to now.

“Well, it looks like we managed to catch a glimpse of a poochyena, some zigzagoon, and wingull or two.” Matt said as he continued to carefully eat his snack. “Well, most Pokémon don’t cross or go near roads. Bit dangerous, and most wild ones are afraid of people.” Jessie stated as she took another piece of her sugar-fluff. “Guess we’ll have to take more of the back routes to get more data, or abandon the main routes altogether.” Matt didn’t like the prospect of hiking through rough wooded country in summer; it sounded uncomfortable no matter how he thought about it.

Looking on, Matt’s meowth had finished eating the cake and was wandering around the park lazily. It must have been nice not to have to go anywhere, or do anything. He himself was not much of an athlete or in particularly good condition. The bike rides were tough at the outset, but they seemed to pass easier as he got used to the distance. Jessie’s vulpix Venus and her eevee were chasing each other around near the picnic table.