Pokémon Lightblue

Early challenges

Route 1 was peaceful, as always. The path towards the next town was surrounded by a long patch of green grass, verdant and brimming with life. Even though she had already occasionally crossed over to Accumula Town while running errands for her mother, the air seemed new – it smelled of adventure, discoveries and... lavender?

She looked over to see Miria crouching a few metres ahead, apparently cleaning her Purrloin after a fight. "You did great, sweetie! You're going to be a great Pokémon" she cooed to her feline companion, which meowed in response.
The dark type Pokémon then locked eyes with Alma, staring at her unblinkingly with her intense green eyes. "Mrrow." "Who's there?"

Miria turned to see the young trainer standing next to her. "Oh, it's you." she didn't seem particularly interested in her, and went back to grooming her cat. Alma found the gesture to be a bit off-putting, but she decided to ignore her and go on with her life. She walked away with a shrug. After all, if she didn't care about her, she saw no reason to care either.

That is, until she heard her shriek like a banshee. She rushed back in, just to see a small Lillipup joyfully waggling its tail and attempting to shower Miria with affection. She seemed absolutely horrified by the little Pokémon. The young girl looked at Alma with anger-filled eyes.

"Well? Don't just stand there doing nothing! Get that THING off me!" Sensing her trainer's terror, Star hissed at the dog, and Lillipup reacted by cowering in fear. "Hey, calm down! You're scaring the poor thing!" Alma exclaimed, jumping in the small dog's defense. "I'm the one scaring it? It rushed in like a moving train!" "Well, you shouldn't be so aggressive! He's just a puppy!" "I don't care! I just want it to go away!"

Alma scoffed. "Well, if you don't want it, I'm going to catch it. I think it's really cute." "Suit yourself!" However, as soon as she turned to face the puppy, she saw it had escaped. She groaned in frustration. "You scared it away with your snarky remarks!" "Maybe it shouldn't have gotten so close to me in the first place, then!" Miria replied, still fuming.

Alma shook her head. "Can you stop being so unpleasant for one second?" "Unpleasant? You've got some nerve! First, you refuse to help, then you act like you're better than everyone and lecturing me on "scaring away" wild dogs. You know what? I'll knock you off your high horse. I challenge you to a battle!"
The other girl frowned. "If that's the way you want to settle things..." Alma sent out Arin.

Star descended on the battlefield with an elegant spin, and Alma suspected the other girl had taught her the move just to make a dramatic entrance. Her suspicions were confirmed when the trainer gave her cat a thumbs up. "Are you ready to be dazzled?" Miria asked her opponent. "I mean, it's just our first battle, I doubt there'll be any dazzling going on here."

Miria groaned in frustration. "You're such a killjoy! Fine, I'll show you. Star, use Scratch!" The cat dashed towards the monkey with impressive speed, but Alma did not want to concede the first hit. "Avoid it and use Leer!" Arin barely managed to sidestep the hit, and used the split second of his opponent's confusion to use the move, lowering the cat's defense.

"Hey! No fair!" Miria complained. "Uh, it's a battle. What were you expecting me to do?" "Use Scratch again! And this time, hit it!" Star went for the attack again, and recognizing there was not enough time to avoid it this time around, Alma told her Pokémon to counterattack with his own Scratch.

Star hit the move, wounding the monkey, but was hit as well and took increased damage due to the lowered defense. "You're going to pay for that! Scratch!" Star hit another Scratch, and again Arin countered the hit. The cat was clearly tired by now, her fragile defenses slowing her down under the onslaught of hits.