A poison arrow. Not an arrow coated with poison, but an arrow literally made of poison. Despite really being a shot of sludge fired at me by a dangerous animal, it gave off that odd sculpted impression.

  I obviously couldn't let it touch me. A poison arrow would deal fatal damage to anything that it hit. Or would it?

  Logically, it might just give me a bad rash, like poison ivy. Then again, this is about to hit my eye, so it would still be really bad in this scenario. BUT THEN AGAIN, I can’t take that risk in the first place.

  I wished I could say it was like time suddenly stood still. Or that my body suddenly moved on its own. Or that I quickly analyzed the acid and deduced its trajectory to position accordingly. And I definitely wished for some sort of unknown power to come forth and block the attack.

  Unfortunately, no such talents manifested themselves. I flailed around in a complete panic. Totally lame, I know. It only ended up being pure dumb luck that the hand I had used to stifle my laughter was the same one that had been holding the Park ball. And it was even bigger dumb luck that the sludge connected with the metal of the ball rather than my organic arm. And that it bounced off the orb rather than eat through.

  Some might say “plot armor”, I say “bite me”. Which unfortunately, this Venipede might actually do.

  *Ting*

  “Gahk-!”

  The impact from the blow hitting the Park ball wasn’t very heavy, but I had been caught off guard and it was enough to momentarily stun me and knock me over. The red carnivorous insect in front of me wasted no time in pressing its advantage.

  “Veni!” It cried, lunging at me with even more vigor than before.

  Can’t dodge in time-!

  Instinctively, I wanted to kick or shove the Venipede away from me, but I did my best to hold back on those impulses. My opponent was a venomous centipede that could defy modern world physics with ease. I wouldn’t last long against any Pokémon in a bare knuckle brawl, but I also couldn’t risk a Poison Point activation.

  Poison Point - one of the three possible abilities for a Venipede to possess, Poison Point enables the chance for any Attacker that makes contact with the User to become poisoned.

  And as I had gravely noted earlier, I wasn’t exactly stocked up on Antidotes.

  Can’t dodge in time and can’t touch my opponent either!? What’s with this hellish first trial, Pokémon world?!

  My free hand scrambled around on the ground searching for something- anything, to use. As soon as I felt my fingers wrap around an object other than dirt or stone, I swung like my life depended on it(...).

  “PEEED-!”

  With my newly acquired tree branch, I had bonked the Venipede on the top of its head mid-pounce, interrupting its momentum and sending it crashing back down to the ground. Taking advantage of the mild daze my opponent found itself in, I carefully positioned the tip of my branch to pin the centipede pokemon down without pressing on its mushy bits, and used it as a makeshift cane to quickly stand back on my feet.

  “Haah… haaah…. guh…!”

  I like to think I’m about average in terms of athletics. I don’t really train much, but it's not like I’m just sitting around all day either. I don’t mean to brag, but back in the day I was even part of a basketball team and had regular swimming sessions at the local pool. However….

  My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I was practically gasping from exhaustion. I’ve been in life threatening situations before: tripping down stairs as a toddler, ending up in deep water when I couldn’t swim, almost stepping on a rattlesnake, etc. Each and every time, those moments had drained me down to my last drop of stamina, despite only lasting a few fleeting moments at a time.

  This encounter with the Venipede had started and continued for well over a minute now. I was spent. Running away was my only option, but I wasn’t sure how far I’d make it before collapsing from lack of oxygen.

  The Venipede shook itself, probably to shrug off the aftereffects of the earlier blow, and tried to stand up, only to find my wooden stick still firmly pressing down on it. Its arthropodal eyes, which had been encumbered by fatigue only moments ago, were filled with a rancorous rage as the centipede Pokémon glared at me from below.

  This murderous insect had no intention of letting me catch my breath.

  “Look… I’m sorry for… laughing at you back there… I was just… caught off guard,” I said between pants, trying to reason with the Bug-Poison type. I didn’t actually know if my snicker had been what caused its sudden behavior switch, but unless it had been trying to get me to lower my guard from the beginning, I didn’t have any other clue what its problem was. “I get that you’re angry and stuff, but it's not gonna do either of us good if we- WAAH!?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Negotiations broke down real fast, almost as fast as my poor tree branch. A blue hue had suddenly coated itself over the Venipede’s body, which upon making contact with my stick, caused it to reflect back towards me, snapping it in half.

  What was that?! A Pokémon move? But which one-? Actually, that doesn’t matter right now. Right now… right now, I just need to-

  “RUN LIKE HELL!”

  “VENI!”

  I took off as fast as I could. Direction didn’t matter; as long as I put as much distance between myself and the Venipede. Trees, rocks, grass, everywhere looked the exact same, offering no place to hide.

  Adrenaline had kicked in by now, so despite my physical self diagnosis earlier, I was hoofing it in near peak condition. I wasn’t about to thank anyone yet though; even if I got away, the feedback would hit like a truck. I’d be too pooped to move or think, in worse circumstances than when I had arrived in this world. If I was gonna survive, I had to ditch my pursuer as fast as humanely possible.

  That blue glow from before… I’m 99% sure that it was some sort of guarding move. Defense Curl? Harden? Either way, using that probably gave me a head start, so I should at least be about 15-20 metres away from it by now-

  Without stopping my legs, I turned around to see how much ground I’d gained on the “small” Pokémon.

  It was practically on top of me.

  You kinda forget how much size can make a difference in terms of speed. Centipedes are already known as incredibly quick predators that can zoom across kitchen floors at record time. Now imagine enlarging one to be 10 times its usual size.

  Damn it, I didn’t think it’d be this fast! At this rate, forget running out of breath, it’s gonna catch up in 5 seconds!

  Maybe it was because it only had 8 legs as opposed to 100. Maybe it was because it was still a first stage evolution. Maybe it was because I still had the image of those tired eyes stuck in my head.

  Either way-

  I had grossly underestimated this creature.

  And I was going to pay for it.

  “Grng-!”

  Gritting my teeth to suppress the shiver that crawled up my spine, I took a sharp right, hiding myself behind a redwood tree. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew it clearly saw me. However, with my last option officially burnt out, I needed more time. Time to think. Time to breathe.

  My plan was to stall by playing an intense game of “Ring-Around-The-Rosie”. It was a dangerous gamble that put me at more risk than I could gain, but I had no other choice.

  “Ve-Venipede!”

  I had expected the Bug type to come skittering around the base of the tree with its usual aura of vengeance, but instead I heard an odd pause in its movements and- did it just stumble?

  My brain went blank for a moment processing this odd new info, but I didn’t get much of a chance to fully digest it. Whatever had caused the Venipede to lose its composure didn’t leave as much of an effect as I’d hoped. Barely a second later, it came into view from around the stump, ready to make mincemeat out of me.

  Luckily, my crummy plan of kiting worked better than I’d expected. Thanks to the low branches and uneven bark of the tree, the Venipede wasn’t able to just climb on and take the inner line to get at me, so to speak. As such, it was forced to continue pursuing me at ground level, letting me take advantage of momentary blindspots to double back and vault over the Bug Pokémon when it wasn’t expecting it.

  Okay, I bought myself a slightly longer time limit. I’ll still run out of stamina quickly though, so I gotta think while I still can! C’mon No-Name, what made the Venipede stagger? There weren’t any special flowers or rocks around as far I can tell. Was it something I did? Maybe it hadn’t expected me to suddenly try and hide? Nah, that wouldn’t cause it to stop all of a sudden… damn it!

  Time ran up quicker than expected. The Venipede, sick of chasing after me in a circle, decided to simply plow through the problem. A torrent of glowing sludge assaulted the tree, turning the bright red wood into a sickly purple. The putrid smell from the attack filled the air as the poor flora slowly rotted and dissolved away, revealing an open tunnel. The redwood tree had been gutted, my plan along with it.

  “Tch-!”

  “Pede!”

  The red menace responsible slowly crawled through the hole, eyeing me with sneering eyes, as if to say, “What you gonna do now, human?”

  “...”

  “Ven-”

  “-Ahhhh, no good, no good, huh?” I sighed. “You know, I really hoped we could’ve settled this peacefully, but you just had to be so damn persistent, you know?”

  “-?”

  The Venipede approached, assuming I had given up.

  “Honestly… I get being cranky over your nap being disturbed, but normal people would go back to sleep right after, no? Who just goes from ‘I’m so tired’ to ‘Let’s go on a manhunt!’ in the span of two seconds?”

  Bristling its antennas, Venipede prepared to lunge.

  “But since it's come to this, I guess I’ve got no choice.”

  The Venipede paused, eyeing me suspiciously. How strange, it normally didn't bother humoring my other speeches.

  “I really didn’t want to waste it on a Route 1 Bug-type so to speak… but after the amount of B.S I’ve already gone through today, I guess I just have to accept that this is fate.”

  The Venipede’s heavy-lidded eyes slightly contracted, staring intently at my face. Oh man, am I making a weird expression again? I can sorta tell that I’m smiling, but other than that, my facial muscles didn’t feel all that different, as per usual.

  “Jeez,” I sighed, speaking mostly to myself now. “Talk about a crappy tutorial. Giving me a Park ball and a surprise Venipede battle right off the bat, no explanation? Well whatever, I’m getting it now.”

  Raising my arm, I aimed the inescapable Pokéball variant straight at the Poison-type that had given me so much unnecessary hardship upon my entry into this world.

  “Veni…!”

  “You already proved yourself to be pretty scrappy, so I guess I can’t complain too much about making you my first Pokémon. Try not to feel too grumpy about me beating you as my first battle though, okay?”

  And so, my first encounter in this Pokémon world officially started with a wild Venipede appearing!