Starting life as a coordinator.

"Okay...'RuRu'...uh...could you, like, let go of my collar?" said Zach.

"Only if you keep following me. If you don't, I'll have joltik paralyze you. Replied RuRu, glaring at Zach. She also sent out Teddiursa, saying " Go and do that 'playing' thing that baby pokemon do, while I still let you."

"Geez, and I thought Mock was cruely insane." Zach thought to himself. Then he nodded to RuRu. "Uh sure. I promise." he said.

"Good. Now I'm assuming that you want to train your pokemon too. Are you a trainer or a coordinator? She asked, while continuing to look for a pokemon. She looked up at the boy, actually interested in hearing the answer. She was starting to warm to him, but wasn't going to let it show.

Zach was still kinda fearful of the girl. "Uh, I'm a Trainer. I've come from the Region from Sinnoh." he said, with Pichu jumping on his Shoulder.

RuRu's eyes grew wide as she heard that the boy was from Sinnoh, but quickly turned her face. " I was born in Sinnoh, but I came here to become a coordinator. I hated it there, I'm never going back" She said, figuring the best way to lie was to tell part of the truth. "Well I guess that means you want to beat the gym, and you can't beat it with a pichu. Not likely anyway. So you may as well start looking for a pokemon as well. " She said. As much as she disliked people in general, she decided that this boy was her only chance to find out what Sinnoh was like now.

"Oh really?" said Zach. Something about her story seemed both sad and curious.

"Well I do have this." Zach said, pulling out a Blue Egg from his Bag. "It's a Piplup Egg. But I doubt even when it hatches in a million years, it'll win against Roxanne." he said.

"Interesting. I've never seen an egg before. Well it will be a baby when it hatches. so you're probably right. How about we have a battle, it'll be good training for both of our pokemon. She said, calling for teddiursa to come stand by her.

Things were looking normal. Zach also noticed that he may have opened up something in this girl's heart. But he ignored the thoughts, and went to battling.

"Alright. Go Pichu!" said Zach. Pichu got in position. "Go ahead, make the first move. Ladies first." said Zach.

"Don't just assume that because I'm a girl I'm frail. Joltik, go! Use spider web, then thunder wave! Slow it down as much as possible." RuRu hoped that Zach hadn't seen the small pokemon on RuRu's shoulder, and would be surprised.

Pichu got trapped by the web, and paralyzed by Thunder. "Pichu, use Thundershock!" commanded Zach.

Pichu complied, with a Shock attack to Joltick.

"Hey wait, why are using two moves at once?" said Zach to RuRu.

" I don't always, but it's efficient, and most don't expect it." she replied, as Joltik dodged the thundershock attack, greatly helped by the speed disadvantage that the pichu had. Realising that RuRu was already talking, it used leech life without needing a command.

The Leech life drained Pichu's health, and restored some of Joltik's health. "Pichu, use Thunder!" said Zach. Pichu let off an even bigger electric attack onto Joltik.

While being small could sometimes help with dodging, it also meant that getting out of an attacks way was harder, and Joltik took the hit. It was struck to the ground by the thunder, but quickly got back up and used fury cutter on the pichu, on RuRu's command.

Pichu was able to dodge some of the attack, but due to the Web, it got hit twice. He wasn't looking too good. "Thunder, again!" said Zach. Pichu let out the same attack as before on the Joltik.

Getting used to this attack pattern, Joltik used protect to stop the thunder from getting through. It then used leech life,on RuRu's command.

The Pichu was drained of the rest of it's health, and fainted. Zach went over and picked it up.

"You okay, bud?" he said. "Chuu..." said the Pichu, weakly. "You did well. Even when the odds were against you. Rest easy." said Zach. He put his Pichu back in the Pokeball. Then he went over to RuRu, and held out his hand. "Good battle, RuRu." he said.

[Joltik gets 4 EXP]

RuRu looked at Zach's hand hesitantly, then shook it. "You can go heal Pichu now, if you want. I'm still going to look for pokemon here. If you do stay here, I'll let you borrow Teddiursa when you run into a pokemon that you want to catch. With that, she continued to search for pokemon in the grass.

"Thank you." said Zach, with a Bow. He gladly took Teddiursa and walked back to into Rustboro city.

Where RuRu was, there was a Pokemon wallowing in the grass...an Ekans.

[Ekans, Lvl 8, Male]

RuRu watched as an ekans crawled out of the grass. She liked the look of this pokemon, and normally would've caught it, but she needed to train Joltik for the next days contest. Sending Joltik out, she had her use thunder wave, then spider web.

Ekans became Paralyzed by Thunder Wave, but dodged the Web. It then used Wrap on Joltik, trapping it in with it's coiled tail.

Joltik was close to ekans and was wrapped up in its tail. Upon realizing this, RuRu yelled out to Joltik "Joltik, you're small, so try to wriggle out, and all the while use fury cutter!

Ekans only squeezed tighter with Wrap. But it got hit with fury cutter 5 times, and took all of it's hits.

Watching Joltik get squeezed, RuRu had an idea. She didn't know if it would work, but it was worth a try. "Joltik, try to use protect to repulse the ekans away from you! Follow up with fury cutter, whether you succeed or not!" She yelled at the top of her voice.

The Protect freed Joltik from Ekans' wrap. Fury cutter only hit Ekans three times, but it made it weaker than ever. Ekans then used a weak Glare attack on Joltik.