On the other hand, if you go by this one running past him like a maniac, there might be something going on.

(He woke up at sunrise for this he was so excited and Mum convinced him to wait until noon and he got distracted for what felt like five minutes and suddenly it was well past noon and if he doesn't get a Ralts because he got to the lab late he will light himself on fire, that is simply all there is to say on the matter.)

...heh.

Well, leisurely stroll boy will not speed up any, and walks into the building the both of them were headed to only a couple of minutes after him.

When he gets there, the running boy is panting, and between pants, apologizing profusely to Professor Birch, who is attempting to reassure him that he does not actually need to apologize.

Awwww that's cute. Tōkan will stand here and wait to be directed... somewhere... he confesses he's not actually sure how all of this works from the perspective of things he should be doing in the moment. Just, you know, the abstract, you go to the lab and get a starter and go on your journey~

The boy turns mid-apology and notices Tōkan standing there.

"- and now I'm holding you up - um. Are there. Any starters left."

(Because he can't just ask for a Ralts.)

"Yes," Professor Birch says. "We capture more than we need every year, you really don't need to worry about it at all. Mostly you just missed the social event." To Tōkan: "I imagine you're also here for a starter?"

"Yep! Give me an awful one."

Birch looks confused. The boy abruptly looks affronted.

"That's a terrible thing to say, how's he supposed to give you any now without making them feel bad?"

"They don't actually understand human language for the most part," Birch contributes. "Especially not when they're digitized."

"Well - but even so, you'll know."

"Okay, rephrasing—give me one all the other kids didn't want. One that might have trouble finding another trainer."

"Oh. Okay." The boy looks thoughtful.

Birch nods slowly. "...I think I have one for you." He goes over to a case of Pokéballs and removes one, then taps it on the table and releases a Charmander.

The Charmander turns to look at them and... Charmander do not have human facial expressions but somehow it seems to be exuding contempt.

"It's perfect! I'll call it—" Its face does not change at all and only moves minutely to the side. "Nothing at all for now!"

Birch turns to the other boy. "Now, what kind of starter did you want for yourself?"

"Um. A Ralts. If you have one."

"I have several," Birch nods. "Did you have any more specific requests? I can't guarantee anything, but..."

"...do you have one that's... gentle?" he asks. "Um. Just - one who really wants a trainer. And won't be too angry if I mess up."

"Easy," Birch says, moving back towards the case. He selects a ball, and releases a Ralts.

The Ralts shuffles over to him excitedly, and wraps its teeny little arms around his calf.

"Hi, little guy! I'm Edmund," says, apparently, Edmund. "You want to be friends, huh?"

"...aww! You're cute," he says to the Ralts as he walks over to the Charmander and gets down to one knee to look at it. "And you my friend, I feel you may be a weapon of mass destruction."

The Charmander does not roll its eyes—Charmander, like most lizard-like Pokémon, are capable of very little actual eye movement within their eye sockets—but it is giving Tōkan a look that Tōkan is pretty sure is meant to be something like that.

"I'm Tōkan, and it's fine if you don't want a name right now or ever, I can just call you Charmander instead."

It continues giving him a level look for a couple more seconds before breathing a pah and turning to watch Edmund and his Ralts.

Tōkan grins and gets back to his feet and likewise turns in that direction.

"I... had a name in mind, if you wanted to hear it?" he offers.

"Ra," says the Ralts agreeably.

"Do you like 'Cytherea'?"

"Tseh."

"Um. That's okay... what about 'Antiope'?"

"Tsehhhh."

"So much for that region... what about 'Dulcinea'?"

The 'mon shakes itself vigorously.

Edmund squints. "Are you a boy Ralts. Does that happen, I thought gender was just something humans projected onto Pokémon..."

"Ra!"

"Um. I admit I didn't really prepare for this. ...how d'you like 'Nigel'?"

The Ralts tilts its head, flopping its bangs in such a way that one eye is revealed.

"...is that a yes?"

Nigel hugs his leg.

Awwww they're very cute. Tōkan looks over his shoulder at the Charmander who's following him and asks, "May I pet you? ...no? Okay," before getting to where the other boy and his Pokémon are.

Edmund looks up from rubbing Nigel's head. "Oh! Hello, um... I didn't get your name... and hello Charmander as well!"

"Tōkan," he repeats. "Nice to meet you, Edmund." Despite the different language-of-origin Tōkan seems perfectly able to pronounce Edmund's name correctly.

Charmander looks up at Edmund and its tail moves very slightly—especially the tip—for a couple of seconds. Its face continues to not be very expressive, at least to human standards.

"You really don't like chatting, do you," says Tōkan to his Pokémon. The Charmander looks up over its shoulder at him, lowers its tail a little bit, then looks back up at Edmund.

"Sorry," Edmund says to Charmander, then turns back to Tōkan. "Nice to meet you as well, Tōkan!" (His accent puts just a touch too much pressure on the ō.) "Did you want to battle, or anything, or just say hi?"

"Just say hi, I guess. We're the two stragglers, it seems, and that's a good excuse to bond."

"Right... I woke up at sunrise, I couldn't even sleep I was so excited, and somehow I was still late."

"Did something happen? Um." He looks up at Professor Birch. "Should we see ourselves out?"

Birch shrugs, looking up from his computer briefly. "I don't have another appointment."

Edmund sighs. "I... started reading to pass the time... and apparently everyone thought someone else must have sent me off. And so no one did. And I thought someone would stop me reading when it was time to go, and so I didn't really notice the time passing."

Despite his tragic expression, he has one of Nigel's little handnubs between each thumb and forefinger, and he is using them to make Nigel perform the Caramelldansen. This is an important bonding activity.

"See that, Charmander? That's appropriate trainer and Pokémon bonding activity." Charmander breathes another pah that may or may not suggest he finds the suggestion amusing.

Nigel meeps happily.

"My suffering is nothing to you, I see," Edmund says with dignity.

Tōkan laughs. "Sorry, I'm sure it must've been awful, but look, you got Nigel now and everything worked out great."

"True enough! Do you know what Gym you're going for first? I'm kind of inclined to try for the Knuckle Badge - I know going for the easy type match-up won't keep me on my toes, but I've only got one 'mon yet, and I'd rather sweep my first big match than lose it..."

"I don't have specific plans yet." Or nonspecific ones. Any plans, really. Charmander throws him an odd look and he blocks its sight of his face with a hand.

"...do you have, you know, a general compass heading?"

"Not as such."

"Want to come along with me?"

Score!

"I'd love to!"

Charmander makes a snorting noise and Tōkan pushes its face away. It nips at his hand but he pulls it away fast enough to not actually be bitten.

Score!

"Let's head out, then. No time like the present."

"Yosh!"

He starts marching, placing a hand behind Charmander's head to pull him along (Charmander immediately swats that hand away before following somewhat sullenly).

Edmund carries Nigel on his shoulders. 

"So," he says, "um... do you have any siblings?"

"Yeah! I have an older sister, she started her journey last year. How 'bout you?"

"I've got three, two older one younger - Peter is a Gym Leader in Johto, Susan is off at university, and Lucy is waiting impatiently for her journey to start as must we all."

"—huh! Gym Leader in the family, fancy."

And that's when an Abra suddenly appears right in front of Charmander, causing the latter to jump two feet back and hiss, going on all fours with its legs held long and taut and its tail stretched up into the air, the flame at its tip twice as large as it was a moment before.

Nigel leaps down from Edmund's back and stands in front of him, horns glowing.

The Abra ignores Nigel entirely and keeps staring at Charmander, but Tōkan just laughs and bends down to grab it under the arms and place it on his head. It nests down on it—it's rather small, even for an Abra—and crosses its legs before turning to stare at Edmund and Nigel now.

"Edmund, Nigel, Charmander, this is Sako. Sako, these are Edmund, Nigel, and Charmander."

Charmander... relaxes, some, lowering its tail and pulling itself back up to its hindlegs, and watches Abra suspiciously.

"- oh. Hello, Sako."

Nigel's horns stop glowing, and he tilts his head curiously. "Raa?"

"I met her a year ago in the woods and then I was so charming she decided to start following me around."

Sako scratches one of her ears and yawns. Charmander is still watching her but the wariness is slowly draining from it.

"...huh. A head start!"

"Kind of! We didn't train much. Also she doesn't have a Pokéball because I did not want to have to hide it from my mother who would've absolutely disapproved. Speaking of which," and he grabs one of his empty balls and offers it to Sako.

She peers at it with an Abra's usual squint and doesn't do anything immediately. "You can still sit on my head even if you're assigned to a Pokéball, you know." Which does seem to be the worry she was feeling because after that she noses the button and accepts going into the ball.

Speaking of which: Nigel, back on shoulders.

"I wonder if I should catch a second 'mon to keep up... I'm leaning no, I should get to know Nigel better first."

"I definitely need to get to know Charmander and figure out how to win its heart."

It makes another little pah sound at that, sounding distinctly amused.

"Well, yes, but you've got an Abra already... I need to stop thinking like it's a contest. We'll all end up where we're supposed to."

Nigel rubs Edmund's head. Edmund sighs. "Thank you Nigel."

"So, why a Ralts?"

"...I'm... pretty sure I'm going to end up strongly Fairy-type. And a Gardevoir is a strong 'mon with a lot of type coverage."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. I am going to try to aim."

"For what?"

"Normal!"

"...you might have to unpack that for me."

He laughs. "It's the type with the fewest, ah, sources of animosity? I... really, really hate the idea of Pokémon disliking me because of my aura rather than because of the specifics of my personality, you know?"

"Huh. I've heard you can overcome it... and you'll still have trouble with Ghost-types. But I guess that's as good a reason as any to aim."

"Yeah, but you know, that's the fewest types that'll be trouble. If I could go for no type I would."

His Charmander looks up at him again in that inscrutable lizard way, although how much it understood of that is of course not at all clear.

"It makes sense. I guess Fairy will make it pretty close to impossible to get any Dragon-types on my team, but... I don't know, it feels inevitable. And I don't want to avoid it, not really, I like the idea of having a stronger connection with Nigel and I like the benefits of Fairy type."

"Why does your face seem to be telling a different story than your mouth?"

Edmund pinches his own cheek and wiggles it furiously. "You stop that."

He giggles. "I promise I'm not judging. Besides, it's cute."

"Well, thank you. I guess... I don't really like the idea of limiting myself any more than you do, but the tradeoffs seem worth it overall? And I'm confident that I can overcome animosity if I have to. But I still don't like it."

"But you're really very sure you'll end up Fairy regardless so might as well lean into it."

"Yeah. I'm - you know how Fairy affects you? The - love for people, feeling like you have to help everyone, not thinking of yourself... Mum says I'm already halfway there. And she's Fairy too, she'd know."

"Yeah. I did look all types up and all that and... there are some that I would like. But not as much as I don't want the down sides."

"Hmm. Fire and Flying?"

"Well someone is keeping track. Yes, and maybe electric, ground, fighting, or dragon. Those all are the ones that, ah, speak to me."

"Makes sense. I've thought about trying to pick up a secondary type, but - none of them speak to me strongly enough to overwhelm the others, I guess? I've thought about Psychic and Ghost and, um, Dark, but. It's hard to decide."

"'And um Dark'," Tōkan repeats with a mild grin.

"It's. Embarrassing?"

"Yes, so I've heard, but haven't found a good reason why."

"Well - it's kind of - I don't want it because I have secrets that I need to hide from psychics, that'd be a good reason, and I don't want it because I dearly love my pet Sableye, or something, it's just - I like it? Even though it's... bad? It feels right."

"Okay, keep going, why is it bad?"

"...Dark type is... sort of about being bad. Being mean. Doing the wrong thing. I mean, dark-types say if you're typed too strongly that way it's like - a little voice talking in your head telling you to do the things you know you shouldn't. And, I mean, I don't - judge people for it, there's only so much you can shift what type you are. But. I shouldn't aim for it."

"Have you ever been in a very tall building, maybe even to the roof, and looked down?"

"...yeah. L'appel du vide?"

"...probably? The way it feels like you want to jump, right—or, maybe when you're chopping vegetables it feels like you could chop your finger off on purpose if you wanted to—those things.

"I've read a bunch about what Dark types themselves say about it. And they say it feels like that. It's not what they want, any more than you want to jump or cut your finger off or anything like that. It's just—there was this one blog I read where the author said she gave those thoughts a name, she called it Natsu, and she thought of it as being followed around by this Natsu who kept saying those very very dumb things, like, sure Natsu I could totally trigger a Tauros stampede, you can keep talking to the hand.

"You know?"

"I don't know. I just feel like I don't need help thinking up nasty things."

Nigel rubs Edmund's hair placatingly.

"I'm—what I mean is—I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I just mean that sometimes stuff happens in your brain that's not you, you know? And other than the intrusive thoughts the way the Dark types themselves say it goes is just that they're kind of sarcastic? Which isn't evil."

"I know. It's - I don't know. Maybe I'm being silly. It's also... people look at some types different. You know?"

"That one is... yeah. Kind of another part of why I wanna be Normal. People can think I'm boring 'cause of it and then they'll figure out that I'm not but." Shrug.

"Yeah. You can prove you're not boring pretty easily."

"I think so!"

Suddenly, out of the underbrush comes a Bellsprout. It waves its vines threateningly.

"...not another of yours, right?"

"Very much not!" says Tōkan taking a step back so Charmander is between him and it.

"Go, Nigel! Confuse it!"

Nigel hops down to the ground, horns aglow. There's a flash of psychic energy, and the Bellsprout makes a whining sound before lashing out with its vines.

Tōkan opens his mouth to shout a command but before he can do that his Charmander is already throwing embers at it.

That... will be a problem

It's at least the right attack type for the enemy at hand! It's... not being as careful as it might be about not also scorching Nigel, though. Edmund twitches, struggling between A) the urge to scoop up his 'mon and keep him from getting hurt and B) the knowledge that this is a staggeringly bad idea.

The Bellsprout runs off quickly, not interested in a fight against two 'mon with type advantage. Nigel and Charmander are left in a tense standoff. Nigel growls, more intensely than might be expected from a tiny fairy-creature.

"Charmander." It ignores him, turning to face Nigel and growl. "Charmander," he repeats, more forcefully, and it ignores him again. "Fine, if you want to play it this way."

Tōkan drops on all fours, arches the top of his back up and lifts his butt, pushing his torso as far from the ground as it will go while still being on all fours, and hisses at Charmander.

...and Charmander turns to look at him and hiss back.

This is not an improvement!!!! Edmund tries to figure out if he should tackle Tōkan to make sure he doesn't get burned, and eventually decides to instead just scoop Nigel up to remove at least one chaotic factor from the situation.

("Raaa!" Nigel complains.)

It turns out to be unnecessary. Whatever Tōkan is doing seems to actually be working because after a few seconds of what looks like a stalemate with some hissing and growling from both parts Charmander reluctantly submits and stands down, landing on its butt and looking away.

Tōkan sighs and straightens back up. "Well, that could've gone better."

"From where I'm standing it looks like you managed to prevent our 'mon from fainting each other. By way of an Arcanine impression?"

"...oh, no. That was a Charmander impression. I was doing the Charmander body language for showing dominance so that it would know who's at the top of this particular pecking order."

("Pah," says Charmander.)

"Oh. I suppose that makes more sense. I just think of Charmander as bipedal usually, but of course their battle display is lower to the ground... Were you hoping not to have to assert dominance? Is that why it could've gone better?"

"Yeah. I mean, I thought I'd need to, because Charmander seemed the type, and that kind of thing is why I, um..." Memorised the dialects of every pokémon species he was likely to run into at the start of his career. "Learned how to do this."

"Well, it was more useful than I was prepared to be."

He pets Nigel, who has entirely forgotten the earlier drama and is humming through his horn.

"Anyway, shall we keep going?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

They keep going.

"What's Sako like?" Edmund asks as they walk. "Since you've known her longer."