Chad, flipping open the notebook, was showing Ginette a page on the Ambrette Town gym. “Rock types, huh? Seems a little too perfect to be coïncidence,” she commented, experimenting with a hunched stroll alongside the orange scalie. “Though why couldn’t you just melt them with your super powers?”
Closing the notebook, Chad groaned, “Rocks are resistant to fire moves. And the ‘super’ fire you saw in the video wasn’t even fire; it was Dragon Rage.” She eyed him, expectantly, until he elaborated, “Dragon moves are neutral to Rock, but Rock is really effective against plain Fire types like me.” He slid the notebook back into his new pack, returning his focus to the road ahead.
“Ah, so that’s why you were so insistante about those two Psychic moves,” Ginette commented, a satisfied grin punctuating her self-confidence.
“No? Those just make me faster and my special abilities hit harder; I literally can’t learn stuff like Confusion or Psybeam,” Chad lamented, hunching a little forward in displeasure. The two continued walking in an awkward silence. Coming up on their left, there appeared to be a hedge wall with a wooden sign arching over the entrance. At Ginette’s pointing, Chad guessed what she was going to say. “Those are the Route 7 Berry Fields. Humans stop by there and help tend to the grove in exchange for berries on their travels.”
“Oh, great! We should stop by and grab some,” she suggests, quickening her pace and forcing Chad to keep up. A few minutes later, the duo are walking under the archway to take in the sights. The enclosed area is quite large, with dozens of rows of berry trees and bushes, each row seeming to be a specific variety space equidistantly with plenty of room for people to travel between.
Chad slid his trusty device from his side, [NOT, WILD, CAN, HELP, FOR, BERRIES]. “I doubt he’ll believe us,” he whispers to Ginette, who is too distracted by the bounty to notice. Reaching into a convenient pocket on his bag, Chad presents his trainer ID to the man.
Satisfied with the arrangement, Chad begins walking towards the grove, as Ginette sprints past him using Quick Attack. Chad uses the time to practice using Agility, both for experience with the new move and to measure how it might affect his walking pace. The magenta energy circulated around his legs, but seemingly had no effect on how quickly he walked forward.
Ginette, already several trees deep, spotted a rustle just a few more ahead. Sprinting under it, she triggered her Double Team to leave a murky image of herself behind just under the tree. The distinct red shell of a Ledyba pounced on her image with a Tackle, exposing itself to the trap as Ginette blasted the bug with a Water Pulse from behind. The hit pushed her foe forward into a tumble before it quickly leapt from the ground and attempted to fly away in fear. Satisfied the pest wouldn’t return, Ginette sped off searching her next target.
Roughly a little over an hour later into their travels, the two can begin to see the tips of the bridge arches in the distance. The excitement of progress turns into slight worry when they see an equally tall black object appearing on the right of the bridge as they get closer. The worry quickens their pace, but melts into relief once they’re close enough to understand the situation.
“I guess we got lucky; had that Snorlax been asleep on the bridge I don’t think we’d have been able to cross,” Chad affirmed, as he decided not to dally and began crossing immediately. Ginette was only a minute behind him, captivated by the sheer size of the sleeping behemoth. The wooden bridge did not completely obscure the rushing water of the river below, and Chad stepped gingerly past the section which had a Snorlax-sized indent in the planks.
“Looks like it had been sleeping here,” Ginette pointed out, as Chad gave a quiet thanks to whomever had dealt with the problem before he arrived. Ginette used her foot to gently press down on one of the affected planks, hearing it groan as she pushed harder.
Chad looks to Ginette, who shrugs and hops over to join the gracious host by the campfire. Taking up seats across from the older, tan and bald man, Chad rummages around his bag before pulling out some food and passing a portion to Ginette.
<”The name’s Pierre, and if you don’t mind my asking; where’s your trainer?” the aging painter inquired, removing his and his partner’s own dinner from beside the fire. He searched off to his left, looking down the road the two had come from, “Don’t see a sight of them, and it’s getting awfully late.”>
Ginette, with the smirk of someone who just thought up a cruel joke, pointed at Chad accusingly. The older man seemed to look to the left again, in the direction she was pointing, still seeing only the empty darkness of the route. Chad, exhausted from this routine, reached back and withdrew his trainer case, presenting his ID and Bug Badge to their dinner companions.
<”Well I’ll be, guess if I can teach Degas here to paint as well as I can, no reason you couldn’t be a pokemon trainer,” he reasoned with a chuckle, as the Smeargle seemed to be frozen like a Stantler in a Flash.>
As Chad was stowing his ID, the dog broke his petrification and asked, “Can you really do that?”
The lizard took another bite of his dinner, nodding. “I mean, if your trainer can teach you to paint as well as he can, why couldn’t I become a trainer? It isn’t like I need to use special human-only moves or abilities,” he reasoned. Degas nodded, the metaphor clearing up any preconceived notions he had. “Though, you may have even bigger shoes to fill with a name like ‘Degas’,” Chad admitted, earning a light chuckle from the pokemon painter.
“Yes; before I was given my name, we took a tour of the art museum in the city. He asked me if I wanted to try and create paintings that were just as good, if not better,” he recounted, smiling back at his trainer. “I’ve got a long way to go, but with each day I make progress.”
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Chad, glancing towards the covered easels behind the human, “Would you be up for a friendly challenge?” he asks, raising both hands appeasingly when Degas leans away from him. “No, no. Not like that. I mean, would you want to set a competitive goal?” The Smeargle relaxed, motioning for him to continue. “Well, we’re doing the Kalos circuit. How about you try to get a painting on display in the museum by the time we earn our eighth gym badge?”
“Ooh, this sounds like fun!” Ginette commented, fully invested in the conversation as the lone human watched on in confusion. “Le pari! What does the winner get for finishing first?!” she pushed, getting uncomfortably close to Chad and his personal space.
“How about a free portrait of your team if you win?” Degas suggested, setting the tone.
Chad mused over it, and offered his own idea. “That sounds appropriate, and if you win-”
“If he wins, Chad has to pay for it!” Ginette blurted out. There was a moment, before the three broke into a shared laugh, and signaled their agreement to the deal.
<”I have to admit, it feels weird being on the outside of a conversation, but I’m glad Degas and I got to meet you two. Just goes to show these old bones can’t rest on their laurels; the next generation is hot on my heels,” Pierre remarked, standing with a creak in his knees. “We’ll be over there, but please don’t lift the covers. Art is best viewed when it’s complete,” he insisted, as the two artists retired to their nearby tent.>
“Ow,” Ginette remarks, rubbing her arms and legs. “The phantom battle experience feels weird.”
Chad, staring at the dark cave in concern, bites his lower lip. “Hey Narrator, this isn’t one of those super dark caves you need the move Flash to pass through, is it?”
“That’s good,” Chad exhaled in relief, stress vaporizing from his body. “I was worried I would need to give up one of my team slots for an HM user.”
“Eh, just means more opportunities faire une farce as we go,” Ginette added, unphased by the idea of having to travel on foot for the whole journey. Chad flinched at the idea, as he dug through the backpack before pulling out a book titled ‘Caves of Kalos’. After consulting the table of contents, he flipped to a later page in the book and laid it flat on the ground, holding his tail above as a source of light.
“Seems like the path through the cave is pretty simple. If we follow the right wall-” he explains, tracing the map with a claw, stopping at the north-west exit, “it will put us in Cyllage City, the location of the second badge.”
Ginette pointed towards the south-west exit, “And where does this go?” she asked.
“According to this, it should put us on Route 8, which heads south to Ambrette Town,” he responded, consulting the notes on the page.
“Is there a gym down there?”
“No, there’s nothing down that way, it’s just a dead-” he started, before his eyes opened wide in realization. “...Narrator, I wouldn’t suppose there happens to be a conveniently-placed reason why we won’t be able to take the exit for Cyllage City, is there?”
Chad waited a moment, inhaled, then exhaled before muttering a few choice curses. “Change in plans, we’ll try to take the northern exit, but plan to take the southern exit in case there’s some sort of obstacle we can’t get past,” he revised, closing the book and storing it back in his bag. Ginette bore into him with a raised eyebrow and questioning glare. “For plot reasons, we’ll be exploring every town and city in Kalos. The fact that Ambrette Town is so out of the way means it has some kind of importance that we can’t skip.”
Ginette, suspicious of the rapid change in plans, inquired “What could be so important that it would add days of travel to the trip?”
Chad, wishing he had a holocaster at that moment, pulled out the pokedex and searched species native to the area around Ambrette Town. With a grin, he shared it with Ginette. “My guess is our third team member; there’s tons of rock and ground types out past Route 9 to the east of town. We’ll need one of those to tackle the electric gym in Lumiose City, I just wonder who it’ll end up being.”
Chad came upon a crossroads, with two words etched into the rock as signposts. Headed straight was an arrow with the word ’CYLLAGE’, and an arrow pointing to the left with ‘AMBRETTE’. The fire lizard spat a small globe of fire to briefly illuminate the area, revealing a massive rock blocking the passage extending straight before him. With a small laugh of amusement, he quickly pivoted to take the passage on the left.
“I can take a hint; plus having a third team member would help change up the social dynamics a lot. Ginette is a great teammate, but if you have been intentionally ignoring her antics you may miss how abrasive our conversations can get.” Chad grinned as he felt her pokeball wiggle on his belt in agreement.
As Ginette reformed from the bright white light, Chad stowed her pokeball back on the magnetic belt hanging off his waist not unlike a pair of sagging pants on an impressionable teenager. Her face stretched into an expression of wonder and joy, likely never having seen the ocean before. “This is already worth it,” she affirmed, following a few steps behind Chad as the two traversed the cliff-side hiking trail downwards. “Quelle belle vue.”
As Chad entered town, both he and Ginette couldn’t help but notice the large amount of activity going on for what was supposedly a sleepy coastal town. Notably, there were a lot of police officers, and what appeared to be dozens of people in matching uniforms all tied up. Some appeared heavily injured and were receiving medical treatment. As the two closed in on the local Pokecenter, Chad spotted two familiar faces in the crowd, both speaking with one of the cops.
<“Oh, hey Chad!” Serena called out, having noticed him approaching from her left. She and Calem thanked the officer and moved to meet with their original travel buddy. “You just missed all the excitement, it was crazy,” she expressed, waving her hands to motion at everyone around them.>
<”Yea,” Calem continued, “someone came in and took down a huge Team Flare operation all on their own! I don’t think I’ve ever seen pokemon that strong before! Even my mom would’ve had a tough time,” he explained, clearly motivated by the heights he could reach.>
Chad, once again seeing the recurring value, whipped out his device from the storage bag, having packed it earlier for their rocky adventure. [WHAT, THEY, LOOK, LIKE] the device buzzed, as he took stock of just how many members of the criminal organization had been rounded up.
<”She had really beautiful long, blonde hair, and a cute fuzzy ninetales hat with those long mittens that dangle on the sides,” Serena responded, enthralled by her memory. “She also had a matching yellow and white sundress, which she looked really good in.”>
<”She also had these odd purple gloves, blue eyes, and the face of a supermodel,” Calem added, as Serena furiously nodded along in agreement. “It was amazing, we had been traveling towards Glittering Cave to see if we could find any fossils to revive in the lab, and she was just standing at the entrance to the cave, keeping anyone from escaping. Her team were inside creating absolute pandemonium, and she was just there waiting for the police to arrive. Though from the sounds of it, I’m glad we waited outside,” he retold, receiving more nods in agreement from Serena.>
“Huh, well doesn’t that sound like quite the tale,” Chad admitted.
Yea, and perfect timing for a flash-back chapter!