Adriano heard them before he saw them. Dredging up unpleasant memories, he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the cheerful cries of the kids lying in wait ahead, spotting their next mark.

“Another Pokemon trainer! I challenge you to a Pokemon battle!”

Looking down at the short kid, his gaze was drawn to the garishly orange baseball cap worn fashionably backwards. ‘Was I once like this?’ Adriano’s musings were interrupted by the young boy’s shouts.

“Come on mister! Let’s have a battle! I’ll give you my lunch money if you can beat me!”

“Alright, calm down kid. I don’t want to battle you. Besides, you can’t defeat me anyways.”

The orange hat kid pouted and waved his fists around.

“Don’t call me a kid! I’m a powerful Pokemon trainer now! Alright, I’m gonna start attacking now!”

Ignoring Adriano’s refusal, the kid jumped back and pulled out a pokeball.

“Lillipup, get em’!”

With an adorable bark, a tiny white dog-like Pokemon appeared and dashed at Adriano.

“Fine, you asked for it. Ella, let’s go!”

The petite green Pokemon appeared and gave Adriano a dirty glare.

“I was in a meeting! Whatever, use Teeter Dance!”

Turning back to the Lillipup, Ella spun around the white dog in a random pattern, complete with elaborate twirls and pirouettes. Before long, the poor Lillipup was confused and stumbling around, launching random Bite attacks and occasionally headbutting the ground.

“Lillipup! Snap out of it! Use quick attack!”

Hearing its trainer’s order, Lillipup blearily tracked Ella before charging towards the dancing Pokemon. Ella watched the Pokemon coming towards her with contempt, spinning away to dodge the attack when it got close. Sprinting face-first into the tree hiding behind its opponent, Lillipup gave a final cry before collapsing.

“Lillipup! Don’t hurt him, you bully!”

Running up and crouching behind his downed Pokemon, the orange hat kid threw a few coins at Adriano before returning Lillipup to a pokeball. Turning back to a resigned Adriano and happily dancing Ella, he glared at both briefly before disappearing behind the tree line.

“This isn’t over!”

Adriano just shrugged before turning his attention to his own Pokemon, who was currently in the process of scouring the ground for the coins the kid had left behind. Picking up the final one, she quickly split them into two piles, placing one in a small grass coin purse before handing the other to Adriano.

“Only ¥100 huh? Well, you took your share like usual. Saving up for something big this time?”

Ella dug through the grass purse before handing him a brightly colored adveritsement, folded neatly into quarters. Flipping it open, Adriano saw an ad for several different types of potions and ointments.

“Really?”

He asked skeptically. Ella nodded, before showing off her current stash. A small collection of several small coins shining brightly.

“You never let yourself get hit anyways, why do you need stuff to keep your health up?”

Ella shook her head violently before gesturing to imaginary figures in front of her.

“So it’s for your clients?”

Ella nodded and Adriano sighed.

“I’ve told you before, that emergency healing business back on the island was a scam. Besides, here on the mainland there are free healing centers all over the place.”

Ella deflated, before firming her resolve once more with clenched hands.

“Alright then, it’s your spoils. It’ll just take a lot more battles to earn enough for any of these.”

Ella nodded once more with determination, and Adriano decided to drop it.

“Well, lets get going then. Accumula town isn’t too far away, we’ll make it before dark.”

Falling in line with a happy hum, the duo continued down route 1, making a point to ignore any of the other kids clamoring for their attention along the way.