David had left the city.

The small wooden booth in front of him, lonely against the trees, was a clear sign of that. A silver mountain decorated its side. The same mountain that had been on the front of the League office.

David approached the booth, steps speeding up when he noticed what was beside the silver mountain. The Route 7 map spread out on the building’s wall was a godsend. He still didn’t really know where he was, but this map was something. The first piece of the puzzle. 

The map was as tall as he was and very detailed. He needed to consult the key along the bottom to figure out what was what. The key itself was odd, but he didn’t have too much trouble making sense of it. It shared enough similarity to hiking trail maps that he could muddle through. The information was just displayed in different ways. The path to Celadon was shown in a yellowish color, woodland areas in green shading, a small river or stream was marked in blue and brown contour lines described elevation.

What was completely new to David were the yellowy-red lines drawing larger and larger circles around the path. At first he thought they were another kind of elevation - flood zones maybe. However according to the index, these lines encompassed zones that required a number of badges to be allowed to travel through. Route 7 had zones that required up to 4 badges.

Alongside the map was a small bulletin board. A small warning about the Meowth population caught his attention.

‘Huh, Meowth are the Pokemon version of magpies.’

There were several recommended precautions against the Meowth, but David wasn’t able to follow any of them. He didn’t have a Pokemon to guard his belongings or a repel to apply to his kit. Not that David was too worried. He didn’t have any of the berries or items listed as their usual targets. Thankfully there was no mention of Meowth clawing up gear like cats from back home.

The rest of the board had notes with people issuing challenges or asking for information about Pokemon seen on the route. It was nice to confirm that people bet money on battles. A few missing item requests were interesting. They didn’t mention rewards but there had to be something? Two were for zones with badge restrictions that he wasn’t allowed into.  But a request for a lost ring and another for a missing trainer license card caught his eye. Both could be handed into this Ranger’s office or the Police stations in Saffron or Celadon. When the Ranger office was manned that is. David poked his head around the building, but it was empty.

Moving back to the map, David tried to identify where he would be camping. There were a few small tent icons on the map but he focused on one near the river snaking through the map. This spot was to the north of the path and in a clearing which stretched up and around behind some trees. It was perfect for him. Separated from the path and with access to water.

David rolled his shoulders and set off. As he walked into the trees and onto the Route, more and more Pokemon called out through the woodlands. It was a stark contrast to any hiking he had done back home. Bird song was a pleasant treat there and he rarely heard any ground animals. But here, in this world, it was clear who dominated these lands.

Fortunately he was not bothered by anything before he arrived at a fork in the path. A small tent sign pointed out north and the splintering path was thin with grass patches dominating the track.

-.-

Five minutes later the path ended in an empty clearing surrounded by trees. A small stream snaked down a hill to the east and flowed westerly among the trees to the north of the clearing. With a large groan, David shrugged his bag off. He was so tempted to jump into the stream immediately and finally get the stink off of him, but he didn’t want to freeze to death as he dried off. With that in mind he turned back to the bag on the ground.

“And in this unboxing video I will be tackling a League Recovery kit. Let me tell you folks, given its weight there must be some good stuff in here. I nearly put my back out carrying it!” David announced to the empty clearing, smiling to himself. He wasn’t a youtuber or anything, but it felt good to talk about his home. And out here, in the wild, no one could hear. 

“Well let’s get started with the packaging. The kit comes packed in a standard issue backpack. Aside from some small League logos it is a plain brown color all over. The bag is a simple design with two padded shoulder straps, a drawstring opening at the top and two straps at the base holding our first treat.” He was starting to get into his role now. Unboxing videos weren’t even his usual source of entertainment.

Two quick clicks and he detached a cylindrical parcel from the bottom of the bag. It was wider than his shoulders and covered in a paper-like packaging.

“And here is what you’ve been waiting for.” David gripped the paper with both hands and tore it in half, ripping one side down to the base of the cylinder. This revealed a rolled up bundle of light orange fabric, held rolled by a length of rope around the middle. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for unboxing videos after all. It was too much fun to just rip things open.

“It’s a… Huh. What is it?”

David removed all the paper and released the rope around the fabric. It sprang open and he got a mouthful of waxy fabric and padding.

“Plth Ple phh.” David fell back and tried to spit the fabric out of his mouth. With David out of way, the fabric settled on the ground. It looked like a mix of a yoga mat and a sleeping bag. A few poles lay on the ground beside it, ejected from the center of the tightly wrapped package.

“Is this my tent?” A bit of despair entered David’s voice. It was tiny.

Grabbing the poles he felt around the fabric until he located the opening in the sleeping bag/tent. He slid one end of the pole and then he was searching again. Extra material pooled around this section of the tent and it took a minute before he found a slot and clip-in section for the pole.

Ten swearing full minutes later, David was looking at a yellowy orange tent shaped like a door stopper wedge. It was as bad as he suspected. Tiny. He’d barely fit inside.

More than a little frustrated at both the tent and process, he pulled open the drawstring on the bag. There must be something that could lift his mood in the bag.

Little of what was in the bag was wrapped and soon he had an inventory of what exactly he had. Along with the tent, he had received a foraging manual, trowel, headtorch, fire starting kit, cooking pot and cutlery set, water flask, spool of thin rope, microfibre towel, warm layers in the form of long johns and most importantly toilet paper. The toilet paper was marked with symbols that David guessed stood for biodegradable and flammable. The same symbols were on the tent wrapping paper.

But no food.

At least the head torch had batteries. There was nothing worse than buying something and being unable to use it. Not that he bought this but it still counted. With a towel now available to him there was only one option and after a glance around David stripped off his clothes and headed to the stream.

A short while later David was shivering in the long johns. After a cold but refreshing wash in the stream, he’d tackled his clothes. When he was clean himself, they had smelled twice as bad. The smell seemed to come from an oil on the back of the clothes and not from the various dirt marks. David figured that the oil was from the Grimer and the stains from general alley rubbish that the oil had bonded to the clothes. But what was the oil? It couldn’t be the Grimer’s body right? There wouldn’t be many Grimers left if they lost part of their body every time they touched something. Or was that how they multiplied?

With a shudder at the idea of baby Grimers appearing from his clothes, he left them drying off a length of the string between two trees. His bag had been stowed away in the tent as he cleaned up to avoid any Meowth, but he fished it out to look at the foraging manual. He had missed two meals today and was on his way to missing another.

The manual was small and in black and white. It did contain images of berries, roots and herbs that were edible but that didn’t surprise David. What did surprise him was the fried Caterpie recipe. The manual contained a step by step guide on removing its silk gland and a warning about not attempting to do the same to Weedle due to its poison. He skipped ahead to a section on fire pits when he saw the recipes for Pidgey and other flying types.

Childhood ruining sections aside, it was a comprehensive manual. 

There were plenty of branches around the edges of the clearing for the fire so David decided to focus on finding food. He tucked the manual into the band of his pants and hid the bag in his tent.

A quick jump across the stream and he could follow it further into the woods. The stream would be his guide for the trip. If he wanted to head back he could head towards the sound of water and follow it back upstream to the campsite. While he had some experience outdoors, getting lost while wearing pajamas was not something he wanted to risk.

-.-

As he walked all traces of humanity disappeared. 

Long grass now came up over David’s ankles and blocked his view of the ground. It made him glad that his shoes didn’t need to be washed, the stones and divots in the ground were hidden but he felt each one he stepped on through the soles of his shoes. The grass also made looking for herbs and roots difficult but he was glad it wasn’t tall enough to hide any Pokemon.

The loud Pokemon calls he had been hearing were starting to slacken off but small Meowth still darted back and forth amongst the trees and a few tried to climb them.

The first glimpse he had of Grass-type Pokemon was comical. A group of Oddish were sitting in the grass around a large tree and trying to hide in the ankle height grass. The fact they had round blue bodies, little blue legs and their head leaves were as tall as his knee made their attempts at hiding meaningless. Giggling a little at the little Pokemon, he took a wide berth around the group.

David eventually found a couple of red carrots at the base of a tree. The food section manual informed him these were called Touga and were both edible and nutritious. The Touga along with some leafy herbs that he found growing out of the side of a tree was the start of a good salad.

The real prize appeared when he avoided a colony of lurid yellow pitcher plant-like Pokemon. They swayed in place on stalks and were only slightly larger than the Oddish. The Pokemon surrounded a larger version of the carnivorous species which didn’t have a stalk or its yellow head had grown large enough to encompass it. David could feel its eyes on him as he walked past.

At first he thought the collection of blue was another group of Oddish, but while it was the same color, the berries were a lot smaller. According to his manual these were Oran berries and while he didn’t remember the shape he knew they restored 10hp. What that meant in the real Pokemon world he didn’t know.

Limited by what he could carry and not wanting to become a target for Pokemon, David picked a couple of the larger fist size berries off the bush. With full arms he retreated back towards the stream.

David had explored for about an hour but he estimated it would take just 30 minutes to travel back along the stream. He could move faster when he wasn’t searching the surroundings.

He made a small pile of rocks by the river to mark the berry spot before starting back.

The stream water was fresh and clear. While he had cleaned himself and his clothes in it earlier, all the muck was gone now. The water was quick moving and smell aside, there hadn’t been much dirt on him or his clothes. It wasn’t the crystal clear water he was looking at though. Teeny Magikarp bobbed aimlessly about as the water gurgled. They were much smaller than he remembered from the game. Here they ranged from the size of his fist to the size of his head. One head sized fish and no Gyarados in sight. He didn't think Gyarados would fit in the stream but the miniature size was telling. He couldn’t imagine this Pokemon trying to fight a Meowth.

The only other animal life he saw on the way back were tadpoles about the size of his finger but they were too small to distinguish much.

-.-

Back at the camp, David moved quickly to gather some wood and fill his pot with water. The carrot shaped Touga needed to be softened by boiling before he could eat it. The leafy herb and Oran berries only needed to be washed before eating. A small warning under the description of Oran berries had him concerned, but not enough to set the berries aside. The manual explained that the berries were so nutrient and mineral dense that eating too many of one kind could have dangerous effects. Pokemon were able to handle the increased nutrient content, but the manual was full of warnings about human overconsumption.

Starting the fire was slow but David got it going eventually with the tips in the manual. When it was all done he had to laugh at his meal. Lacking any plates, he put it all into the pot after draining the water. With the bright red of the Touga and blue from the sliced Oran, his salad looked more like dessert. He dug in only to regret it. The Touga was HOT. It may have looked and felt like a carrot, but its chili red color should have warned him. Thankfully a mix of the bland Oran and the slightly bitter herb helped manage the heat. The Oran berry’s ripe pear consistency was a balm.

Clean, and with a full belly, David blearily tidied up the pot and packed it away before staggering to the tent and quickly nodding off.