As Chad embarked on his early-evening stroll, he took in the signs around him, careful not to bump into or jostle anyone else out for the night. The streets were diverse, with a variety of humans and pokemon walking amongst each other, all with their own unique story to tell. Dozens of storefronts offering a variety of craft goods, unique services, and a cavalcade of different foods. It was almost overwhelming to be forced to select a single location to grab dinner.
“When in Paris, I guess,” Chad muttered, stepping into the line that led towards a counter where a white puffball pokemon was taking orders and directing the customers. As he progressed through the line, Chad noticed the menu was merely a combination of iconography and colors. Each line had a different number of circles, and each line had one or two colors, but there was no text of any sort. Between red, blue, green, yellow, and pink, it was some sort of code.
Trying not to stand out too much, Chad shifted nervously and nodded. “Yea, first time. How do I, uh..?”
“Could I order one of the blue and greens, and one of the pink and yellows?” Chad asked, counting out the coins in his claws before handing over 7 of the appropriate discs. He noted that the menu seemed to use the 10 Poke coins, which was pretty affordable given the location.
Chad stepped to the side, and lucked into finding a seat towards the far corner from the stage, placing his pack down beneath the table and gazing across the crowd. “Whatever I ordered has to be better than that bagged mass-produced garbage,” he grunted, watching as a younger pokemon stole a small red berry from their parents’ plate and immediately began crying. “I wonder how my spice tolerance has changed coming here,” he questioned, as the crowd began to quiet down.
Chad noticed the line was much shorter now, likely due to almost all of the seating being claimed or occupied. The first poet to step onto the stage was a small yellow and green monkey, who shared a short sonnet about the trees changing with the seasons. Chad participated in the soft appreciative clap with the audience as the monkey finished and walked off-stage.
The blue frog was equally small as some of the previous artists, but unlike the others she deigned not to introduce herself or explain the piece, immediately jumping right into the performance.
“Je ne comprends pas.”
“Pourquoi tu m'as laissé ici.”
“Qu'ai-je fait de mal?”
The food practically fell from Chad’s mouth during her performance, as he froze like a statue. Everyone else gave her the standard soft applause, as she delicately bowed and stepped off the stage. Broken from his daze, Chad continued to eat as the host returned to the stage. “Thank you everyone, both for participating and for providing our artists an audience. As a reminder, tomorrow night will be a performance by our local songstress Loudred, followed by Roselia’s dance lessons the night after,” she listed off before the spotlights shut off, and the general lighting returned to normal.
“I’m not staring-”
“Bonsoir monsieur; I haven’t had anyone give me eyes like that in a long time,” she trilled with confidence, plucking a piece of food from the blue-green plate Chad hadn’t touched yet. The way she slowly consumed the morsel would’ve been textbook seduction, had she been in her final evolution stage. “I’ve certainly not seen you around before, and this-” she nudges the bag beneath the table with a foot, “is certainly an odd thing for one of us to be ferrying around.”
Chad, unimpressed, finished his mouthful before responding. “Yea, traveling the continent and challenging the gyms; kinda need something to carry my supplies with.”
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“Sounds like there’s a story there,” she leads on, taking another mouthful.
“Yea. After my trainer died, I took up his stead and set out to complete my journey in his memory,” he rattled off, less emotional and more rote repetition at this point. The frog stiffened at the admission, leading to an inquisitive eyebrow from Chad. “Something wrong?”
“Most of us have never had an entraîneur, even fewer would seek one out despite living amongst a literal city of them. Why would you, now free of their chaînes, attempt to continue on this way?” Her voice had sunk to a near-whisper, hushed as to be inaudible to the nearby tables.
“With or without him, I was set on this path. I merely traded one set of– uh, chains, for another.” Chad’s plate was nearly empty at this point, as he noticed his new conversation partner was halfway through the other plate. “I’m Chad by the way,” he said, trying to relax the conversation.
“A Named too,” she scoffed, shoving a fist-ful of food into her mouth, her manners beginning to degrade as the conversation continued. “I pity des imbéciles who choose to travel with you. Vous voilà en train de jouer à faire semblant, comme une insulte à tout ce que nous essayons de prouver ici-”
“Stop!” Chad whisper-shouts, trying not to notice the gaze from the adjacent table, but certainly not improving the mood of his conversation partner. “Ugh, look I get it, can you stop being so obvious about it? I can’t understand a word she says when speaking French.” The Froakie stares at him, confused and offended.
We weren’t sure how else to make it more obvious, but fine.
“Thank you,” Chad responds, as his conversation partner begins to delicately slide away from the table.
Chad groans, as the frog stops, her head spinning around in confusion. “Who said that?” she asked, her eyes returning to Chad in panic.
“I said I had chains; he’s the one who holds them. Mysterious poet, meet The Narrator,” he introduces, reaching across the table for one of the blue-green plate scraps.
“Rather entitled to assume I’ll be going with you-”
She pauses, still visibly upset but slightly less as the list continues. “Still doesn’t sound like-”
Chad laughed with a mouthful of food before swallowing, “Pretty certain some readers would prefer you kept those in.”
Stunned, the blue frog sat back in the chair, her gaze firmly fixed on Chad as he finished the last of the plate. “So I don’t get a choice, juste un autre pion, eh?” Her voice wavered, eyes conflicted, mouth taking another piece of food as she chewed both metaphorically and physically.
Chad shook his head as a firm ‘no’, “You get a choice, but I would wager the options are either joining me on this journey, or repeating this conversation until you agree to come.” The prospective teammate mulled over the answer, her face a petit scowl in anger and frustration. “Just as a personal anecdote, I tried door number two back when I first started. You’d be better off asking for door number three,” he explained, prompting a confused look from the frog.
“So, what should her name be? I was thinking ____… or how about ____? Wait, why-” Chad began, as his mouth moved but no words escaped.
Chad groaned, likely upset at being out-voted, but just as likely for remembering the names he had used back in his old life. “I like it,” Ginette said with a wide smile. “The name feels like the kind of girl who stirs up trouble and leaves it all for the men to clean up.”
Ginette, dizzy and unsteady on her feet, leaned on Chad for support. “Don’t worry, it gets easier over time,” he comforted, as the five of them walked through the lobby. There were several ongoing experiments they passed by, all dubious in goals and nature, before the familiar face walked out to greet them.
Chad began to squirm in place, the mood only downbeat for a split-second before Shauna spoke up. “Wait, do you have a copy? We didn’t get to see his battle,” she pleaded, the other two catching on and begging.
With them distracted, Sycamore motioned for Chad to follow him deeper into the lab, as the two stepped into an office with the professor’s name emblazoned on the door. “While I am upset at the lengths you went to, I can’t fault your determination. You really put it all on the line to win, even though the odds were technically in your favor.” Chad tilted his head to the right, signaling a lack of understanding. “You’ve been training for two years, where a first gym battle is typically for trainers who have been with their pokemon for less than a month.”
“And yet a single attack was enough to take me down, hardly seems fair,” Chad grumbled, crossing his arms.
Chad leaned down, opened the top buckles, and stuck his whole arm inside, wiggling it about. Satisfied, he closed the top of the bag, then smacked it, “Oh yea, this baby can fit so much camping gear!”
As he was in the middle of transferring over his supplies, the other four rejoined the excited lizard and generous professor. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fight like that below four badges,” Trevor remarked, as he took notes on his holo caster.
“No way, I don’t think anyone has ever had a first badge battle like that in history!” Shauna exclaimed, somehow hyped up from the shaky hand-held hyper-cam2 recording.
“I see what that trainer, Roland, meant; that battle was way above what we had to deal with,” Tierno followed up, so shocked from the match he was walking normally.
Ginette strode closer to Chad, standing before him with a focused look. “I want to be able to fight like that, to dominate my enemies so thoroughly they can only chier dans son froc.”
Chad, transferring the last item into his new space-folding bag, put a hand on her shoulder. “Stick with me, and you’ll get so good you won’t have to try half as hard as I did on that video.”
Shauna glanced between the two pokemon, observing their expressions and body language, before opening her mouth to ask: “So Chad, how did you convince her to be your girlfriend?” Chad’s face was redder than a Cheri berry as he quickly removed his hand from Ginette. Ginette gave Shauna a glare promising such a painful death that, where she a Ghost type, might’ve caused the young girl’s spirit to vacate her body immediately.
Now things should be more lively. Shame Chad didn’t earn a pokedex though, that would’ve been helpful.