Hitchhiking
Cass eventually reached a dirt road that quite possibly lead into the next city, but Cass wanted to be sure as she bent down and let me hop off her shoulder for a moment. She then removed the backpack from her shoulders and extracted a pair of binoculars from the pack. She stood back up again and looked through the binoculars and sighed. "I don't see a city anywhere near here even with the binoculars." Cass said disappointingly. "I hope Amber is alright in her poke'ball." Cass said to herself as I looked up into her pocket and hoped so as well. "Well we better get going." Cass soon added as she returned the binoculars to her backpack and placed it back over her shoulders. "Let's go Chase." Cass said, but I did not hop onto one of her shoulders that time because I was beginning to get tired of sitting around. "Alright, I guess you can walk then." Cass said with a friendly tone and began walking forward as I followed close beside her.
Cass and I walked for an additional hour without a city coming into view, I did not mind staying out in the forest for an additional night, but I was worried about Amber. I had hurt her and it was my fault that she was in so much pain and I wanted to see how she was doing. I did not want her coming out of her poke'ball until I knew for sure that she was feeling better though. I began hearing a low rumble in the distance coming from behind as it steadily increased in noise. My ears pricked up to take in the sounds much better, but Cass did not seem to hear anything at all. However, she noticed that I had stopped walking as I turned around to face what was coming toward us. I realized that the noise was an engine and that a car was fast approaching. Cass turned around and waited for a few seconds before speaking. "Chase, what is it?" She asked, but I did not answer until I noticed a red speck in the distance approaching our position quickly. This reassured my suspicions as I began tugging at Cass's pant leg with my mouth.
The red speck became the full image of a car as Cass just began to notice what I had seen seconds earlier. Cass then stepped off the dirt trail as I quickly followed her. Cass waited there and decided to hold out her right hand while sticking out her thumb. I realized that she was attempting to hitchhike and knew that it was probably a good idea. It took less than a minute for the car to come into full view for Cass and took even less time to reach our position. I noticed a boy about sixteen years old in the driver seat while some lovely young ladies occupied all but one of the other seats. The driver had red spiky hair and a set of matching red eyes. Even his shirt was red, but I could not make out the color of his pants or shoes because the hood of the car impeded my view. The car began decelerating until it came to a full stop with the driver staring directly at Cass. "Well, what do we have here?" The driver asked in a rather annoying tone.
I did not feel comfortable with the way the driver talked to or looked at Cass and the engine noise from the red convertible began irritating my hearing as I lowered my ears. However, I decided to make my presence known to the driver by leaping up onto Cass's left shoulder. The driver immediately took interest in me as he smiled and looked back over to Cass. "That is a nice eevee you have there, it's my favorite basic poke'mon you know." The driver said and I realized that he was flirting with her. However, I would not allow him to take advantage of Cass even if I was a simple eevee. "My name is Louis by the way." Louis introduced before he unlocked the passenger door. "Since you wanted a lift, go ahead and hop on in with your eevee. I will take you to the next town." Louis said before he smiled, but I looked at him angrily and growled. "Is there something wrong with your eevee?" Louis asked with a rather shaky tone the moment I began growling.
"Chase, are you okay? Is there something wrong?" Cass asked while I growled toward Louis, but the moment she spoke, I stopped and looked at her. "Sorry, he won't hurt you, he is my very first poke'mon, and my name is Cassandra, but you can call me Cass for short." Cass said, but I remembered that only her friends called her Cass and did not feel comfortable with Louis calling her anything other than Cassandra. "Thank you for your generous offer, Chase and I caught a vulpix, but now both the vulpix and Chase need to get to a poke'mon center before they do anymore battle. Chase's injuries are only minor, but he seems incapable of battle until the burns he received are properly treated." Cass explained and I realized that she was too talkative for her own good, but she was like that when I first met her. Even still, it bothered me that she was willing to reveal so much information about her and me to a complete stranger. "Thanks again for the lift." Cass said appreciatively as she walked around the other side of the car and sat down in the passenger seat.
When Cass sat down, I hopped down into her lap and sat there comfortably because I was afraid of falling over the side of the car once Louis started driving. Louis looked at me worriedly though, but he did not seem frightened by me at all. Instead, he simply seemed worried about my safety. "You might want to put him back in his poke'ball for safekeeping during the drive." Louis said as he reassured me of my suspicions, but he sounded like he actually cared about my safety. "I don't want to see a poke'mon getting badly injured and I honestly don't think that it will be safe for your eevee or Chase as you call him." Louis added as I began suspecting that he only wanted to flirt with Cass, which made me rather angry.
Cass reached into her right hand pants pocket, pulled out my poke'ball, and aimed it toward me, preparing me to send me back into the metal container. However, I did not like the feel of a poke'ball at all, I did not enjoy remaining unconscious in a mechanical device, perfectly preserved. It may have been convenient to prevent poke'mon from starving as well as reducing the cost of travel, but I was not a poke'mon by nature. "Chase, I know you don't like in your poke'ball, but Louis is right." Cass said. "If we were involved in an accident, I don't know if I could hold you tight enough to prevent you from falling out." Cass quickly added and I could see that she was sincerely worried about my health. "Chase ret-"
I quickly lowered my ears and jumped up as I bumped directly into Cass's hand in which she kept the poke'ball. She had no chance to complete her command as I knocked the poke'ball free from her hand and caused it to fall out of the vehicle on the driver side. I then jumped out of the passenger side of the car and ran around the front of the car and to the other side where the poke'ball lay on the ground upside down. "Chase what are you doing?" Cass asked, but before she could get out to catch me, I charged forward and tackled the poke'ball. The poke'ball soared into the air and traveled several feet into the forest. "Chase, stop!" Cass shouted after me, but it was already too late.
When the deed was done, I walked back over to the passenger side of the car, but Cass had already stepped out of the car and walked toward me. She had a slight look of sadness growing across her face similar to the one I saw when I refused to follow her orders during my battle against Amber. I felt sympathetic toward her, but I did not want to be treated as a poke'mon anymore than I had to. This meant I did not want to be carried around inside a poke'ball even if it was for the best. "I understand now, you really don't want to be kept inside your poke'ball." Cass said as she slowly turned her frown into a smile. "I am sorry for trying to force you into doing things you don't want to do Chase." Cass apologized. "I am such a lousy trainer, but I am just a beginner and I am doing my best. I will try to understand and respect your decisions more often from now on, okay Chase." Cass offered and I immediately jumped up onto her left shoulder and nuzzled the right side of my soft face into her left cheek to let her know I liked that decision a lot.
Cass walked back toward the passenger side of the car where Louis had been waiting a few minutes ever since I acted against Cass's orders. Cass stepped inside the red convertible and sat down as I jumped down into her lap. Louis looked at me with a small degree of disrespect before he looked back up to Cass. "You know, you should not be so lenient on your poke'mon. If you ever want to become a true master, you need to let them understand that you are the boss and that you captured them for a reason." Louis said as he began driving forward. I did not like the way he spoke or the words he chose, especially considering that I was not a natural poke'mon. "If you don't, then they will act like wild poke'mon and constantly act on their own." Louis added.
I looked up to Cass after silently disagreeing with what Louis said and I noticed that she was paying attention to the driver's words more than I was. I truly hoped that she was not considering taking the teenager's advice. "I do not find that true even though I have just started my journey as a trainer." Cass said as I smiled and rubbed my face into Cass's undershirt. "I think that poke'mon should be treated like people and that you should earn their respect and trust. If you can earn that, then they will have no problem when it comes to respecting, understanding, and following the decisions and instructions of their trainer." Cass said, contradicting Louis's comments, but the teenager did not seem too angered by Cass's opposing statement, as I would have suspected.
"You know what?" Louis began. "I never thought about implementing that philosophy in my daily training with my poke'mon." He stated as he continued watching the dirt road ahead while maintaining a speed of thirty miles per hour. "I always believed that poke'mon should be forced into obeying, but I never imagined that I could earn their friendship and sincere respect by treated them as equals." He said, but I knew that he was simply trying to avoid arguing with Cass so that he could possibly earn her friendship and more. "Maybe you and I can become a team and work together while devising strategies with one another, because you seem very intelligent and interesting." He added as he quickly confirmed my suspicions about him.
"That sounds nice, but I wanted to take this journey by myself to prove to myself that I am capable of becoming a poke'mon master without anyone else's help." Cass began. "I know that by accepting this ride from you contradicts that decision, but I realize that there might be times during my journey where I must accept someone else's assistance. However, I want to avoid such situations as much as possible and I cannot do that if I am constantly relying on anyone else's help except for my poke'mon." Cass stated and I highly respected her answer, but Louis did not seem to as he immediately stopped the car and turned it off.
"I am sorry to hear that, I am sure we could have been excellent travel buddies, but if that is your decision, then I am afraid that I can't waste passenger space for narrow minded ladies." Louis said insultingly toward Cass as he began showing his true intentions. "This is your only chance to accept my offer to journey with me and support me during my battles while getting to know each other. Otherwise, you can just get out of my car right now with your ill-disciplined eevee." Louis stated.
Cass looked at Louis with an expression of disgust as she immediately opened the passenger door to the red convertible. I knew that she was ready to get out and walk the rest of the way to the next city as I hopped onto her left shoulder and stared at Louis angrily as well. "Well you have made you intentions clear, you sick pervert." Cass said as she almost slammed the door shut on the passenger side of the red convertible. "You only wanted me as another one of your schoolgirl cheerleaders." She said as she pointed to the three lovely young teenage girls in the back of Louis's car. "I'm not your roadie and I did not become a trainer just to become one." Cass said angrily before she began walking away.
Louis simply ignored Cass's words as the cheerleaders in the backseat made insulting faces toward Cass as if she was inferior to them. Louis drove off, leaving Cass and me behind to choke on the fumes of his car. I truly hoped that I would never have to meet with Louis again as long as I lived. Cass began walking forward again until she noticed that we were only a few hundred feet away from the next city and it was only the middle of the afternoon. Therefore, she began picking up the pace by jogging forward. She maintained a certain speed and reached the outskirts of the city breathless and within minutes. "We made it to Pewter City." Cass said excitedly while reading the welcome sign posted along a large rock wall. Cass bent forward to catch her breath and I jumped off her shoulder so that I would not fall off before I looked up at her until she straightened herself up and looked at me. "They even have a gym so we can earn our first badge for the regional tournament." Cass said with a smile. "We should first get you and Amber to the poke'mon center first." She added, as I knew she considered the health of her poke'mon far more important than her success as a trainer.
Cass and I walked for an additional hour without a city coming into view, I did not mind staying out in the forest for an additional night, but I was worried about Amber. I had hurt her and it was my fault that she was in so much pain and I wanted to see how she was doing. I did not want her coming out of her poke'ball until I knew for sure that she was feeling better though. I began hearing a low rumble in the distance coming from behind as it steadily increased in noise. My ears pricked up to take in the sounds much better, but Cass did not seem to hear anything at all. However, she noticed that I had stopped walking as I turned around to face what was coming toward us. I realized that the noise was an engine and that a car was fast approaching. Cass turned around and waited for a few seconds before speaking. "Chase, what is it?" She asked, but I did not answer until I noticed a red speck in the distance approaching our position quickly. This reassured my suspicions as I began tugging at Cass's pant leg with my mouth.
The red speck became the full image of a car as Cass just began to notice what I had seen seconds earlier. Cass then stepped off the dirt trail as I quickly followed her. Cass waited there and decided to hold out her right hand while sticking out her thumb. I realized that she was attempting to hitchhike and knew that it was probably a good idea. It took less than a minute for the car to come into full view for Cass and took even less time to reach our position. I noticed a boy about sixteen years old in the driver seat while some lovely young ladies occupied all but one of the other seats. The driver had red spiky hair and a set of matching red eyes. Even his shirt was red, but I could not make out the color of his pants or shoes because the hood of the car impeded my view. The car began decelerating until it came to a full stop with the driver staring directly at Cass. "Well, what do we have here?" The driver asked in a rather annoying tone.
I did not feel comfortable with the way the driver talked to or looked at Cass and the engine noise from the red convertible began irritating my hearing as I lowered my ears. However, I decided to make my presence known to the driver by leaping up onto Cass's left shoulder. The driver immediately took interest in me as he smiled and looked back over to Cass. "That is a nice eevee you have there, it's my favorite basic poke'mon you know." The driver said and I realized that he was flirting with her. However, I would not allow him to take advantage of Cass even if I was a simple eevee. "My name is Louis by the way." Louis introduced before he unlocked the passenger door. "Since you wanted a lift, go ahead and hop on in with your eevee. I will take you to the next town." Louis said before he smiled, but I looked at him angrily and growled. "Is there something wrong with your eevee?" Louis asked with a rather shaky tone the moment I began growling.
"Chase, are you okay? Is there something wrong?" Cass asked while I growled toward Louis, but the moment she spoke, I stopped and looked at her. "Sorry, he won't hurt you, he is my very first poke'mon, and my name is Cassandra, but you can call me Cass for short." Cass said, but I remembered that only her friends called her Cass and did not feel comfortable with Louis calling her anything other than Cassandra. "Thank you for your generous offer, Chase and I caught a vulpix, but now both the vulpix and Chase need to get to a poke'mon center before they do anymore battle. Chase's injuries are only minor, but he seems incapable of battle until the burns he received are properly treated." Cass explained and I realized that she was too talkative for her own good, but she was like that when I first met her. Even still, it bothered me that she was willing to reveal so much information about her and me to a complete stranger. "Thanks again for the lift." Cass said appreciatively as she walked around the other side of the car and sat down in the passenger seat.
When Cass sat down, I hopped down into her lap and sat there comfortably because I was afraid of falling over the side of the car once Louis started driving. Louis looked at me worriedly though, but he did not seem frightened by me at all. Instead, he simply seemed worried about my safety. "You might want to put him back in his poke'ball for safekeeping during the drive." Louis said as he reassured me of my suspicions, but he sounded like he actually cared about my safety. "I don't want to see a poke'mon getting badly injured and I honestly don't think that it will be safe for your eevee or Chase as you call him." Louis added as I began suspecting that he only wanted to flirt with Cass, which made me rather angry.
Cass reached into her right hand pants pocket, pulled out my poke'ball, and aimed it toward me, preparing me to send me back into the metal container. However, I did not like the feel of a poke'ball at all, I did not enjoy remaining unconscious in a mechanical device, perfectly preserved. It may have been convenient to prevent poke'mon from starving as well as reducing the cost of travel, but I was not a poke'mon by nature. "Chase, I know you don't like in your poke'ball, but Louis is right." Cass said. "If we were involved in an accident, I don't know if I could hold you tight enough to prevent you from falling out." Cass quickly added and I could see that she was sincerely worried about my health. "Chase ret-"
I quickly lowered my ears and jumped up as I bumped directly into Cass's hand in which she kept the poke'ball. She had no chance to complete her command as I knocked the poke'ball free from her hand and caused it to fall out of the vehicle on the driver side. I then jumped out of the passenger side of the car and ran around the front of the car and to the other side where the poke'ball lay on the ground upside down. "Chase what are you doing?" Cass asked, but before she could get out to catch me, I charged forward and tackled the poke'ball. The poke'ball soared into the air and traveled several feet into the forest. "Chase, stop!" Cass shouted after me, but it was already too late.
When the deed was done, I walked back over to the passenger side of the car, but Cass had already stepped out of the car and walked toward me. She had a slight look of sadness growing across her face similar to the one I saw when I refused to follow her orders during my battle against Amber. I felt sympathetic toward her, but I did not want to be treated as a poke'mon anymore than I had to. This meant I did not want to be carried around inside a poke'ball even if it was for the best. "I understand now, you really don't want to be kept inside your poke'ball." Cass said as she slowly turned her frown into a smile. "I am sorry for trying to force you into doing things you don't want to do Chase." Cass apologized. "I am such a lousy trainer, but I am just a beginner and I am doing my best. I will try to understand and respect your decisions more often from now on, okay Chase." Cass offered and I immediately jumped up onto her left shoulder and nuzzled the right side of my soft face into her left cheek to let her know I liked that decision a lot.
Cass walked back toward the passenger side of the car where Louis had been waiting a few minutes ever since I acted against Cass's orders. Cass stepped inside the red convertible and sat down as I jumped down into her lap. Louis looked at me with a small degree of disrespect before he looked back up to Cass. "You know, you should not be so lenient on your poke'mon. If you ever want to become a true master, you need to let them understand that you are the boss and that you captured them for a reason." Louis said as he began driving forward. I did not like the way he spoke or the words he chose, especially considering that I was not a natural poke'mon. "If you don't, then they will act like wild poke'mon and constantly act on their own." Louis added.
I looked up to Cass after silently disagreeing with what Louis said and I noticed that she was paying attention to the driver's words more than I was. I truly hoped that she was not considering taking the teenager's advice. "I do not find that true even though I have just started my journey as a trainer." Cass said as I smiled and rubbed my face into Cass's undershirt. "I think that poke'mon should be treated like people and that you should earn their respect and trust. If you can earn that, then they will have no problem when it comes to respecting, understanding, and following the decisions and instructions of their trainer." Cass said, contradicting Louis's comments, but the teenager did not seem too angered by Cass's opposing statement, as I would have suspected.
"You know what?" Louis began. "I never thought about implementing that philosophy in my daily training with my poke'mon." He stated as he continued watching the dirt road ahead while maintaining a speed of thirty miles per hour. "I always believed that poke'mon should be forced into obeying, but I never imagined that I could earn their friendship and sincere respect by treated them as equals." He said, but I knew that he was simply trying to avoid arguing with Cass so that he could possibly earn her friendship and more. "Maybe you and I can become a team and work together while devising strategies with one another, because you seem very intelligent and interesting." He added as he quickly confirmed my suspicions about him.
"That sounds nice, but I wanted to take this journey by myself to prove to myself that I am capable of becoming a poke'mon master without anyone else's help." Cass began. "I know that by accepting this ride from you contradicts that decision, but I realize that there might be times during my journey where I must accept someone else's assistance. However, I want to avoid such situations as much as possible and I cannot do that if I am constantly relying on anyone else's help except for my poke'mon." Cass stated and I highly respected her answer, but Louis did not seem to as he immediately stopped the car and turned it off.
"I am sorry to hear that, I am sure we could have been excellent travel buddies, but if that is your decision, then I am afraid that I can't waste passenger space for narrow minded ladies." Louis said insultingly toward Cass as he began showing his true intentions. "This is your only chance to accept my offer to journey with me and support me during my battles while getting to know each other. Otherwise, you can just get out of my car right now with your ill-disciplined eevee." Louis stated.
Cass looked at Louis with an expression of disgust as she immediately opened the passenger door to the red convertible. I knew that she was ready to get out and walk the rest of the way to the next city as I hopped onto her left shoulder and stared at Louis angrily as well. "Well you have made you intentions clear, you sick pervert." Cass said as she almost slammed the door shut on the passenger side of the red convertible. "You only wanted me as another one of your schoolgirl cheerleaders." She said as she pointed to the three lovely young teenage girls in the back of Louis's car. "I'm not your roadie and I did not become a trainer just to become one." Cass said angrily before she began walking away.
Louis simply ignored Cass's words as the cheerleaders in the backseat made insulting faces toward Cass as if she was inferior to them. Louis drove off, leaving Cass and me behind to choke on the fumes of his car. I truly hoped that I would never have to meet with Louis again as long as I lived. Cass began walking forward again until she noticed that we were only a few hundred feet away from the next city and it was only the middle of the afternoon. Therefore, she began picking up the pace by jogging forward. She maintained a certain speed and reached the outskirts of the city breathless and within minutes. "We made it to Pewter City." Cass said excitedly while reading the welcome sign posted along a large rock wall. Cass bent forward to catch her breath and I jumped off her shoulder so that I would not fall off before I looked up at her until she straightened herself up and looked at me. "They even have a gym so we can earn our first badge for the regional tournament." Cass said with a smile. "We should first get you and Amber to the poke'mon center first." She added, as I knew she considered the health of her poke'mon far more important than her success as a trainer.