Jude slowly slid down the sand hill, Rate struggling to not fall over as he chased after his owner. Once he stopped moving and Rate stopped by his side, panting as hard as he could, Jude took a moment to observe exactly where he was and what he would do from there. The only note-worthy thing he could see were foot-prints, almost completely wiped away by the wind, crossed his path. Now, it COULD be someone he didn’t want to mess with. But it COULD be some of the new trainers that left the Stations. While he didn’t mind Rate as company, it would be nice to actually talk to a human after wandering through what was pretty much a wasteland for more than 24 hours.

Jude stopped in his tracks at the sight of a deceased Ekans after following the prints in the sand for a while. From the parts of the body that he could see, it was attacked in several places, probably killed by some kind of bite attack. He wasn’t confident in his analysis but any strong Pokemon would have taken it out with a single hit, wouldn’t they? The assailant HAD to be a new trainer, similar to him. Rate wondered over to the corpse and sniffed it in a very tempted way, but Jude called him back before he could do anything more.

Jude [i]was[/i] actually confident that Rate could take any common threat down. Although, the idea of getting ambushed by an Ekans bothered him a bit. “Sleeping” on the surface for his first time wasn’t too fun though and the idea of some feral Pokemon ripping him apart while he slept was too much for him to actually fall asleep.

After moving as quickly as he could without exhausting himself too much, the figures of two living things in the distance caught his attention. Now, he could just carelessly approach in the hopes that whoever they were, they weren’t hostile. But based on that Ekans he might get cut up simply because he surprised them. Calling from a distance would be best. He ran a bit closer so that he could make out more details (a human girl and some kind of humanoid-ish Pokemon) and started calling out to her, before continuing a run towards the pair. 

He finally stopped several meters away from them, enough room so that no-one in the situation felt awkward or threatened. The girl was blonde, and more importantly had a knife. Her partner was a Sableye, and was probably what took down the snake from earlier. Jude felt a bit uneasy meeting someone on the surface. He’s seen caravans and the like, but someone like him who left for their first time was a bit different from some experienced travelers. “Hey, you probably don’t know me but I’m Jude, from Station 5. Are you new too? New to being a trainer I mean?” He knelt down and pet Rate’s head, but in reality he was just making sure he didn’t rush over to them and do whatever a Pokemon did when meeting new people.