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Red wasn’t used to this whole being outside thing. In fact, until a week ago, he was content to sit in his room all day and play Pokemon on his 3DS.
But here he was, undoubtedly outside. The early afternoon sun was beating down on his face, and probably burning it if he had to guess. He had only been outside for fifteen minutes, but with his milky skin tone, even a bit of sun exposure did a number on him. Beads of sweat rolled down his neck as he walked down on the edge of a rather busy road in the center of town, phone in hand. His throat was already dry and of course he had forgotten to bring any sort of drink. In this state, Red doubted he’d be able to stay out here for any longer than an hour.
All of Red’s internal complaints disappeared into thin air when his cellphone almost buzzed out of his hand.
Displayed clearly next to his red-dressed character was a Pikachu painted neatly in bright yellow pixels. Red’s eyes lit up- this was the Pokémon he been searching for since the game’s release a week ago! He figured it would be in wooded area as it was usually located there in the main series games, but it looked like this Pikachu preferred a more urban setting.
Red quickly poked at his screen, ready to catch the Pikachu. But for some reason, the glass didn't detect any movement, and the little Pikachu character disappeared from the grassy terrain a few moments later. It must have been a server glitch- since the day of its release, these freak server issues hadn’t improved one bit.
Frantically, Red killed the app, reloaded it and logged back into Pokémon Go in the hope that the Pikachu hadn’t disappeared yet. He checked the section displaying all the Pokémon close to his current location once inside. Lo and behold, Pikachu was still only one paw print away. He wasn’t quite sure about the exact distance of one paw print, but he figured it must be close compared to two or three of them.
With a toothy smile, the aspiring Pokémon Master broke into a sprint down the road, all caution thrown to the wind. There was absolutely no way he was letting Pikachu getting away from him after all this time.
Like being outside in general, Red also wasn’t used to this whole exercise thing. Already out of breath after a two-minute-dash, he glanced down at the dimly-lit phone screen (to conserve energy) and there was still no Pikachu. However, there were no paw prints next to its little icon now, meaning that he was nearly on top of it.
In the exact moment that Red realized he hadn’t looked up from his phone in quite a while, he smacked into a decidedly solid object. After stumbling a bit but not toppling, he finally glanced up from the screen to see what he bumped into.
The solid object in question turned out to be not an object, but rather a girl about his age. And while Red was able to keep balance during their collision, the girl hadn’t been so lucky. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be injured. In fact, she seemed perfectly fine as she sat staring at the iPhone situated in her hand.
Wait a second.
“Are you… playing Pokémon Go?” Red muttered at his normal volume- that is, barely audible.
“Yes- yes I am!” The girl shouted excitedly in response, finally snapping her eyes up to meet Red’s. They held each other’s’ only for a moment before she broke it and looked back down. Just as Red was about to offer her some help getting up and apologize, she hopped up all on her own, an enthusiastic bounce in her step. “Hold on, I’ll talk to you in just one second. I’m trying to catch this Eevee.”
In his determined pursuit of Pikachu, Red had completely missed that there was also an Eevee in the area- that was rather uncommon, though it wasn’t quite as rare as a Pikachu. Red opened his mouth to voice his thoughts, but his phone buzzed just as he was about to do so.
It was Pikachu.
This time when Red tapped on the creature’s icon, he was launched into a grassy battlefield without any issue. Ready with over fifty Pokeballs gathered from various Poke Stops, Red was adamant to not let this little mouse slip through his fingres.
He began by spinning a Pokeball in order to throw a curveball, but released it a nanosecond too soon, causing the ball fly by Pikachu, barely grazing its fur. With a grumble, Red decided performing fancy tricks like curveballs put himself too much at risk of Pikachu running away if he missed again. On his second try, he simply flicked the Pokeball forward. It hit Pikachu and encompassed it in a stream of light.
It was in that untimely moment that the girl chose to introduce herself. “Okay, I got the Eevee, so I’m all good now. I should probably introduce myself, huh?”
Red didn’t even bother looking up from his phone as she spoke. The girl peaked over his shoulder curiously when Red remained silent.
“Oh, a Pikachu! Okay, I’ll just hold on then- go get ‘em, kid!”
A small smile overtook Red’s features at the stranger’s kind words. However, it slipped off his face just a second later when Pikachu burst out of its Pokeball. Red grit his teeth and tossed another one at it. How many damn Pokeballs was this going to take?
Shake, shake, shake.
Click.
Red’s bitter attitude evaporated at once, his eyes filling with mirth. It hit him then that he caught his very own Pikachu when its Pokedex entry popped up on the screen.
“Would you look at that? You did it!”
The girl had apparently been watching over his shoulder the whole time. She lightly patted Red on the back in congratulations, leaving unusually warm spots on his skin where her fingers came in contact with his shirt.
“Thank you,” Red responded simply.
The girl grinned and chirped, “You’re very welcome! My name is Leaf, by the way- and it seems like we already have something in common.”
Red nodded along but didn’t reply.
“And your name is?” Leaf asked when she noticed Red wasn’t going to introduce himself unless he was prompted.
“Red,” came the teenager’s simple response.
A smile grew on Leaf’s face as she beamed, “That’s a lovely color. My favorite is green, but red is nice too.” Once again, Red only nodded. Leaf took this as her cue to continue, “How about we get out of this awful summer heat? We’re both lucky to have hats at least, but there’s a McDonald’s right down the road that has wi-fi, cold drinks, and it’s a Pokemon Gym!”
That truly peaked Red’s interest. In the past week, Red had been too busy stocking up on items and catching Pokémon to actually go to a gym. But now he had quite the collection, and he wouldn’t mind trying his hand at a battle or two.
“Okay.”
“Fantastic!” Leaf cheered, grabbing ahold of Red’s wrist, “Let’s go! I’m absolutely parched- I’ve been out here since six in the morning and I’ve only stopped once.” It was nearing one in the afternoon, Red noted when he glanced down at phone, so she really had been running around for a while.
Leaf continued to babble on about her adventures inspired by Pokémon Go as they walked. On the game’s release day, apparently she was chased out of a police station when she didn’t realize that you could reap the benefits of a Poke Stop without actually entering the building. Apparently there was also a Sandshrew inside- a Pokemon that wasn’t in her possession at the time. The police swore that she could find one somewhere else, and shooed her away with a warning not to return. Red enjoyed the mental image of Leaf bolting out of the place, an officer threatening to confiscate her phone is she returned. He was only just able to prevent a giggle from escaping him.
Like Red, Leaf also seemed to have quite the collection. She had caught over sixty different species at that point and formed half of her main team. Her starter and main Pokémon was Blastoise, with her Nidoqueen and Clefable not too far behind in the power department.
Red also noted that while he was a member of the red team, Valor, Leaf was part of Team Mystic, the blue team. According to the Internet, that made them natural enemies. But Red didn't typically follow such petty rivalries and chose to ignore the usual Valor reaction.
True to her word, the McDonald’s was only a few blocks from where they ran into each other, and now they were currently at the door of the building.
“Go on ahead,” Leaf said as she held out the door for Red.
“Thank you, Leaf.” The girl looked elated when Red actually responded verbally. Leaf entered after Red, and once inside, the two bought water bottles and situated themselves at table in the corner of the restaurant.
“So,” Leaf began, batting a sweat-soaked band to the side of her forehead, “I’ve been ranting for a while now about my team. Would you mind if I saw yours?”
Red nodded without looking up from his phone. After tapping the Pokeball on his screen that brought him to his inventory, he slid his phone across the table so Leaf could look at it.
“Ah, thank you. Oh, wow- this is quite the collection you’ve got here!” Leaf’s mouth formed into a surprised o-shape as she scrolled through all the Pokémon in Red’s possession.
“Where the hell did you find a Chansey? And a Dratini? Wait- is that a Ditto?”
A smirk adorned Red’s face. In the time since Pokemon Go was released, he had gathered sixty of the available one hundred fifty-one- a feat he was quite proud of.
“My main Pokémon are Charizard, Poliwrath, and as of a few minutes ago, Pikachu.”
Leaf seemed shocked that Red finally responded with over three words, especially since she hadn’t even asked him to reply this time.
“That’s a great team,” Leaf admitted, a grin growing on her features, “But I think mine’s better. And I’m willing to put that statement to the test.”
Red replied softly, “You can only battle gyms right now, not just any trainer- I figured you would know that.”
Leaf’s grin became even larger. “I know.”
First, Red’s face contorted in confusion. Then, realization dawned on him, and he snatched his phone from Leaf’s grasp.
His suspicions were confirmed when he tapped the blue gym icon on his map to reveal the building’s gym leader: the player’s name was Leaf.
“You ready to test out that new Pikachu?” Leaf smirked, eyeballing Red with a devilish glimmer in her eyes.
Red had never been so ready for anything in his life
***
“I’ve had this gym since the day the game released- how dare you steal it from me now!”
Before their battle, Leaf had been very kind to Red. After it… not so much.
"I beat your gym fair and square, Leaf.” Red claimed, unable to keep a slight smile from invading his face.
He was a gym leader now. All of his Pokemon hunting, all of his actually going outside for once in the beating summer sun had actually paid off.
“But your Pikachu was severely under-leveled! I know it had a type advantage over Blastoise, but come on!” Leaf huffed. She crossed her arms and staunchly refused to look Red’s way.
“If you want the gym back, all you have to do is beat me.”
It wasn’t an impossible feat. The battle had been close up to the last moment- Red’s final Pokemon, Pikachu, just barely came through with its last Thunderbolt. Its health had been in the red zone when it knocked out Blastoise, Leaf’s trump card.
Leaf snapped her head back to glare at Red.
“I’ll take you up on that offer.”
Red reached out to grab his phone so he could gauge how easily she could beat him, but Leaf slapped his hand harshly down on the table.
“Let me finish,” Leaf snapped, drawing her hand back from Red’s. His own hand throbbed a bit, and the girl opposite him actually looked a bit regretful. Even if she was feeling the sentiment, though, she didn’t share a word of it. “I’ll re-battle you later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a week. I don’t know.”
She gazed out of the window beside her table, a distant look gracing her features. Not too far away, Leaf saw a group of kids running in all different directions, their phones held an arm’s length away from their faces.
“Okay,” was Red’s simple response. It drew Leaf out of her reverie.
“Let me see your phone real quick.”
Before Red had a chance to hand it over, the device had already been snatched from his hand, and Leaf began typing rapidly.
“Here.” When Leaf finished her task, she deposited the phone back in Red’s waiting hand, “I added my number. I’ll give you a call when I’m ready for a rematch.”
Red nodded along as he always did, eyes skimming the glowing numbers of Leaf’s number on his cell phone’s screen.
“We could also, ah,” Leaf paused to scratch the back of her neck, “You know, go catch Pokemon together. Or just hang out. If you want to, that is.”
“Sure.” She brightened at Red’s one-word answer, realizing that the few words Red did speak were like little promises- always true and always kept.
“Okay, I think I’ll take my leave, then.” The clunky metal chair made a horrible screeching noise as Leaf pushed it back and stood up.
“Goodbye, Leaf. It was nice to meet you.” Red truly meant it. Leaf was sure of it.
“You too, Red. I’ll talk to you soon.” With a wave in his direction and a slightly brighter attitude than a few seconds prior, Leaf made her way to the front of the restaurant. With the chime of the doorbell, she was gone.
Red still wasn’t used to this whole being outside thing. But if venturing out in the summer heat led to wild encounters with rare Pokémon and the occasional nice human, maybe he wasn’t so opposed to leaving his bedroom every once in a while.