If Taylor had been aware of the various pokemon that had the potential to spawn in the Surge Steppes, she would have been grateful to encounter one that didn’t have a type advantage over her poor Piplup. Quite why she had chosen the area rife with electric types for this first outing was a mystery – it wasn’t as though the name shouldn’t have clued her in.

Still, it was a doduo that appeared, rather than anything more unfortunate, and she found herself beaming as the two-headed bird raced towards them.

“Hell yeah!” She whooped, and was about to order Mumble forwards when he made such a thing unnecessary and bounced towards the flying-type with an undignigied but very enthusiastic squawk. “Well alright then,” Taylor laughed. “Let’s start with a Pound!”

Mumble gave the move a damn good go, and the powerful jet of water definitely seemed to do some decent damage to the bird. It seemed Taylor considered celebrating the good luck too soon though, in the space between two blinks, the opposing pokemon seemed to vanish.

“What the-” She broke off as the Doduo slammed into Mumble’s unprotected side, and flinched along with the poor little guy as he staggered. Well, Quick Attack certainly was quick here! Things were beginning to look dicey now; Mumble was very much injured and a quick glance at the interface showed that both he and the Doduo were within KO range. If his next attack didn’t do quite enough damage, their first fight would end in a white out!

“Once more, buddy!” She called, trying to inject as much enthusiasm into her voice as she could. Could the AI recognise and consider such a thing in its calculations? Probably not. Was she going to try anyway? Hell yes. “Give one more Water Gun a go!”

So apparently, she’d misread something along the way. As the two-headed bird slammed into Mumble once again, Taylor cringed, waiting for the promised white-out to occur. After a moment or two though, it became clear that she’d misunderstood, and these sorts of encounters lacked such dire consequences.

“Ohhhhh,” she breathed, feeling silly and definitely not glancing around to check nobody had witnessed the misunderstanding. Recalling Mumble to his pokeball she eyed the wild pokemon, a little disconcerted by the way it simply stood waiting. “Uhh… Be right back, I guess?” She told it, blinking when it shifted and began pecking at the ground as though settling in for a wait. “Right. Okay!” Backing away, she resolved to head to the nearest shrine to get Mumble all patched up!

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Shrine visited and health restored, Taylor found herself back in the Steppes. Mumble was at her side, ready and eager to continue, and she barely knew what was happening before he charge the Doduo once again. It would seem he’d decided on his own move this time, and launched into a refreshed Pound!