I was fairly underwhelmed by Pastoria City.

For a city impressive enough to warrant having its own gym leader, it was pretty lackluster. Then again, maybe living in Veilstone my entire life beforehand, a city filled with lights, action, and game rooms, had made my judgement biased. But seriously, this city was kinda lame.

There wasn't any real sidewalk or anything, or roads for that matter. The only thing like it was a sandy path that ran through the city. There were miniature forests so thick you couldn't go through them. It looked almost like a wasteland. 

Of course, that didn't affect the general attitude of the people. There was a sort of calm, neighborly feel in the air, and everybody was breathing it up. A large number of people gave us friendly greetings upon entering the town (even the route gatekeeper was pretty chill).

As we traveled across town, I noticed various signs for the Safari Zone. I had heard about it, a sort of Pokemon adventure reserve. It seemed like the most exciting thing about this city, so I suggested to Ed that we check it out.

And so we entered through the gates into the zone. The rules were pretty simple, each trainer was given 30 Pokeballs, and a certain amount of time to freely explore the zone. Upon finding a wild Pokemon they could try to catch it, but Pokemon battling was prohibited. Instead, trainers were given some mud and pokemon food to give to/throw at Pokemon to make them more likely to capture. That meant one thing.

I had to sit aside and watch Ed hopelessly try to catch a Pokemon using this method, and I could do basically nothing to help him.

"Pokeball go!" He yelled as he threw one of the balls at his current target, a Wooper.

The Pokemon stepped lightly to the side and the Pokeball missed completely.

"Here's a hint, man. Try not yelling out what you're planning on doing." I called over in his direction.

He grabbed a piece of mud and hurled it toward the Pokemon. It splashed against Wooper's face, and it seemed a little shocked.

That lasted for about one second before Wooper went berserk.

The Pokemon rushed him, trying to attack him with various moves ranging from Mud Slap to the very underwhelming Water Sport (hey, wild Pokemon can be pretty stupid).

I watched the carnage unfold whilst peacefully resting under a tree. Like I said, Pokemon battling was prohibited, so it's not like I could try to stop the thing.

But soon enough, he ran by my tree and a stray mud blob hit me in the face. I growled as I got up. I walked over to Ed's large bag, which he had dropped when he started running, and plucked one of the special Pokeballs from it. I watched the Wooper running around, and then, holding the ball in my mouth, propelled it with a short blast of water toward the Pokemon. It didn't even see it coming, and three rolls later, a click signified that the Pokemon had been captured.

I walked over and picked up the ball in my mouth again. I strolled calmly over to Ed. He held a hand out low, probably wanting a high five.

I placed the slobber coated Pokeball in his hand. "You're welcome."

---

We continued through the Safari Zone for some time. Several of the Pokemon we encountered were tame and peaceful. Unfortunately, that was only several.

A few more Pokemon we encountered acted similarly to Wooper. Among them were a Golduck, two Barboach, and a Marill (although admittedly, the Marill was more adorable than intimidating).

Ed didn't manage to catch anymore Pokemon, which he was fairly disappointed about. As we walked out of the zone, having exhausted our supply of 30 Safari Balls, he vocally recounted times when he messed up (hey, don't remind me, I was there).

When we walked into the entrance building again, he wondered aloud, "Gee, how long might we have been in there?"

One of the women working behind the desk looked up and checked her watch. "Almost a half an hour now."

"What?" I gasped, before quickly trying to silence the sound. Thankfully, Ed (how often have I been able to say those two words together?) covered it up with quickly starting a conversation.

"We, um, noticed something strange, while we were out there."

The woman seemed a little curious. "Well what do you mean?"

"Certain Pokemon we encountered had strange aggressive behavior. As if something was agitating them."

"Hmm." The woman remarked, before pulling out a clipboard. "Would you mind telling me what some of these Pokemon were?"

Ed recounted each of the different hostile Pokemon, but something about hearing the names together was bothering me. As if there was some connection staring me in the face.

After finishing with that, Ed joined me as we walked out of the building. I finally confronted him. "In less than a half an hour, you used ALL 30 of your Safari Balls? And you only caught ONE POKEMON!?"

"It's harder than it looks." He replied as we continued moving through the city.

I rolled my eyes at his response, and then laid my eyes on the beach. It occurred to me how little distance we had traveled away from the beach to get here. It was a city that liked its water.

Water.

"That's it."

"What?" Ed replied, stopping and looking at me.

"Water, that's-that's the connection between those Pokemon. They were all water types."

There was a moment of silence. "Well...that helps, I guess." Came Ed's reply.

"Yeah. It sure does." I began walking quickly to the shore.

"Hey, wait! Where are you going?" Ed called after me. I ignored him and quickly made it to the water and walked in a certain distance before stopping.

"Come on already! I know you're here! I know it was you, just come out!" I called into the waves. There remained a chilling silence, before a light finally glowed beneath the surface of the water. Wasting no time, I plunged into the sea and swam toward the source.

Once again, a small egg like bubble floated around a circle of rocks on the ocean floor. With a little flash, the egg had disappeared, and Phione was there again.

"Huh. Guess you're smarter than I thought. That was fun, huh?" He laughed.

I growled. "You're crazy. I can understand tormenting me, but going after people around me? That's too far. I don't care what I've done, no one else deserves to get hurt for it but me."

He shrugged. "No one got hurt. No biggie."

A burst of anger shot through me, and I propelled myself to Phione, grabbing the creature in my paws. "That's not the point!"

He only smiled. "Ah ah ah."  His eyes began to pulse with a strange light. As I looked in, I suddenly felt more dizzy and less coordinated. I dropped Phione and held my head in my hands.

"Supersonic. Doesn't seem like much, but it can make a guy pretty confused."

I swam about aimlessly, trying to keep my mind straight on what was happening. I could hardly process anything I saw, and the swirling of my vision was making me sick. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"All I wanna do is have fun. And you always being disrespectful, that's not very fun."

Another voice echoed through the water, sounding in a strange manner that was somewhat painful to my already present headache.

"Kiddo, where have you been? It's time you came home. I hope you weren't messing with trainers again."

Confused, (no pun intended) I looked over towards Phione, whose face had lost its mischievous smile, replaced with a startled and nervous look.

"N-no, I wasn't...Mom."

I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or terrified.