He never thought watching a long tutorial demonstration would be boring and a bit reductant. Sure, it has been a while since he played a Pokemon game, but was this catching tutorial supposed to be this long?! At least his endurance from his history classes let him stay awake long enough for the tutorial to finish.

However, he wasn't alone for long as he noticed a young man with blonde hair named Caspian approaching him and ended up facing another strange Pokemon NPC giving him the same tutorial. On one hand, he groaned that he fell for the tutorial's trigger activation by stepping on the tall grass. But on the other, at least they would finish the tutorial together. His status wasn't helping his first impression of him and he was concerned about how he was able to play this game carefully. But again, it was better than dealing with this tutorial alone.

"It depends on what kind of Pokemon we'll encounter," Morpheus said as he was given a golden Poke Ball from the NPC after the demonstration. "I wouldn't have my hopes up, though. We're new to this game and whatever common Pokemon we get might either help or hinder us."

Speaking of which, something came up behind them from the tall grass and that was...

Caspian was quick to nod in agreement, assuming that the common Pokemon one could catch for this tutorial wasn't exactly all that. The developers wouldn't want to send everybody into this with the ability of coming out with a Bagon or Lucario after all. You had to keep rarities intact after all, and the more desirable a Pokemon, the more rare they tended to be. So he was expecting to wind up with the "opportunity" to capture a Rattata, or maybe a Shinx if they were lucky. Diamond and Pearl had them as fairly common early on after all...

"The wild Pokemon has challenged you in battle! It is time for you to learn the basics of capturing a wild Pokemon. In order to successfully capture..."

Wow, this was for real, wasn't it? The Porygon AI guide began to drone on about the basics of catching a Pokemon, and Caspian turned to see what it was. Sadly it was no Shinx. It wasn't a Rattata, either. Instead, the game is offering up... Patrat.

In a flash, Caspian called out Hibiscus, his one and only Pokemon that he had on him. The Bulbasaur saw the other Pokemon coming up and grinned. <Oh yeah, you're totally toast...>

"You should now select an attack that would best benefit you. Super effective attacks are always suggested, as they give you a bonus..."

"Yeah, yeah... alright Hibiscus, since this is just a tutorial and I don't have stuff to make any of your attacks more powerful, I guess you should just go for a Tackle."

<Dude, that's like super lame. But alright, if that's what you want, then that's what this crazy rodent's gonna get!>

"Then you go, so we'll both get credit and can finish this out," he said to Morpheus.

Watching the exchange between Morpheus and his Pokemon brought about a slight grimace from Caspian. It appeared that for whatever reason, the Snivy wasn't too thrilled with this. Maybe because the opposing Pokemon seemed to be... sub par? He had to admit, he was feeling the same way himself, but he also just wanted to finish up this tutorial so he could move on to the next thing. And that was what Morpheus seemed to want as well.

"And now is when you can catch the Pokemon." A prompt came up asking Caspian if he would like to capture this Pokemon to add to his team. That was the fastest no that he would probably make in this game. Unless he was ever asked if he would like to take a Bidoof. "If you had wanted to, it would have been an immediate success. You have now completed the Pokemon Catching Tutorial. You have been given... the Golden Pokeball. This is the only catching item in the game and is limitless. You can catch any Pokemon with it, so long as you have 25 Bytes to do so."

The Porygon AI then dematerialized, leaving Caspian to... do whatever he wanted to do next. He supposed. "Well... at least we have that checked off, right? So uh... what's up with you and Snivy anyway? You guys don't seem to be all that happy with each other."

It was different from his relationship with Hibiscus, which so far had been pretty easy going. Granted, he hadn't done much with him yet. But... well he already was looking to do a couple other things.

There was no hiding the 'big yikes' expression on Caspian's face as he watched the interaction between the other player and his Snivy. "Man, that's really weird." He looked over at Hibiscus, who had also been watching what was going on between Pokemon and trainer. But he didn't seem to be entirely phased by the situation. Maybe that was just how some relationships started between a trainer and their starter? Caspian wasn't sure, but he was just really glad that he didn't have a moody acting Bulbasaur on his hands.

<So what's next, Cas? Come on, surely you must have something planned for us to do!>

"Er... I don't, actually. Not yet, but give me a minute, okay? Come on, just get back inside your Pokeball for now." He recalled Hibiscus before turning his attention back to Morpheus. "Well I wouldn't worry about it too much anyway. Over time it should warm up to you. Maybe the game sort of bugged when you got it, and you got a lower friendship level with it than you should have? That's the only thing I can really think of..."

He would assume that those kind of bugs and glitches would still come up every now and again. But it was kind of odd all the same. Something like that seemed to be one of those things that would have been figured out early on.