Uncontained

Cerulean City was beautiful.

The air felt like ice water, clear and crisp. Indigo peonies bloomed along park benches and a river embraced the sides of the city, so the atmosphere was clean. White stucco houses sported hanging baskets of petunias, and when I looked up, mountains rose in the distance. It looked exactly like the postcards I'd seen of it: blue flowers and water fountains. People biked and walked everywhere.

I stopped by the Pokemon Center and rested. I looked for Spirit and asked the receptionist if they'd seen a girl with her description, but they hadn't. I tried to distract myself when I saw some trainers goofing around in the corner of the building. They had a TV they put discs into their Pokemon watched it idly.

"What's going on here?" I asked.

They were trainers about my age, some older, some younger. "We're teaching our Pokemon TM's," one said. "This is 'water gun'."

You could teach Pokemon attacks? "Mind if I join in?" I asked.

"Sure, no problem," the guy said. "Do you have a Pokemon that can learn it?"

Florence, Czeslaw, and Isaac meandered over and the trainers scrutinized them. "Looks like you don't have a water type," the guy said. "You can wait until we do another round, though."

I frowned. "Who said that they had to be a water type?"

That busted them up laughing. My face burned. "Are you new here?" a guy sneered. "Only a water type Pokemon can learn a water type move. I thought that was common sense, really!" They all laughed harder.

I felt like punching these fuckers in the face. Czeslaw peered at the TV with the other Pokemon. And before I could say anything to the jerk-trainers, he opened his mouth, took a huge breath, and water exploded from his jaws.

He sent the poliwag sitting by him flying. My jaw dropped like a snorlax tripping over a rock. The jerk-trainers cussed and shouted. "I was trying to teach my squirtle that for weeks!" one screeched. The other trainer scooped up his fallen poliwag.

Czeslaw turned and grinned toothily at me. I felt my look of astonishment twist into a wry grin back. I wasn't even sure if it were anatomically possible for Czeslaw to do that!

"Do you have any more TM's?" I asked.