The trees danced in the suddenly heavy wind of Ilex Forest. I looked up and saw the sky darkening, warning of an incoming storm. I’d have to make this battle quick, as any serious rain would only empower my opponent. I looked out across the field and saw her.
Mazie’s dirt stained skirt and bowlike hair flitted in the wind, but her eyes remained focused straight at my own like a laser. I had never seen her like this before, the determined expression was nothing new, she had worn it in all of her battles. Having it pointed at me was a wholly different experience. I wouldn’t admit it to her, but she was kind of scary.
“I hope you won’t take offence when I crush you like a bug.” She said with a smirk, holding up Sunday’s pokeball at the ready.
“I take offence to the saying, but the action will not be happening today.” I countered confidently, I didn’t think either of my pokemon could beat Sunday 1 on 1 but in a 2v1 scenario?
We could do this.
“Dahlia, you have less experience so I’m gonna have you go first.” The blue armored Pineco looked up at me like I had just said something insane, but nodded. I scooped her up with my net and threw her up into a nearby tree yelling “Go Dahlia!”
Dahlia landed onto the branch with a *Thunk* and was instantly glued there as she had been prepared for the toss. I only had a few minutes to go over the barest of plans with my team but this was the start of it. Unlike her usual methods, Dahlia was clinging to the top of the branch, nestled between it and the tree itself.
Maizie tossed her pokeball a few feet in front of her, releasing Sunday in a burst of red light. “Sunday, they are playing hide and seek.” Her eyes narrowed as she pointed at the branch. “Circle around and find an angle you can hit it. You’re fighting the Pineco from earlier. It tried to hurt me, remember?”
Sunday adopted a serious expression and began trudging around the space, keen on correcting my pokemon’s previous behavior. He kept his eyes locked on the branch as he circled around. A moment later Dahlia apparently came into view because he began charging a Water Gun with his head pointed upwards.
“He vocalizes right before he fires! Protect when you hear it and then drop it immediately!” I shouted up to the tree.
“Damn.” Maizie scowled and then looked to her ally. “Any way you can fire silently?” Sunday merely shook his head, this particular habit being one that no trainer had yet known to exploit. I could see from Maizie’s expression that this would not be something I could exploit in our next battle.
“Poke.” A large blast of water soared through the air and blasted into a perfectly timed barrier, leaving Dahlia completely unscathed.
“She probably can’t use it much, rapid fire!” Maizie declared and her order was quickly followed by Sunday as he shot a quick barrage towards Dahlia.
“Fall with the first shot! Towards the base!” I heard the telltale *click* of a Pineco’s hardened sap breaking and the armored bug flew off the tree with the first weakened blast. Dahlia fell to the ground with a wince, once again behind the tree from Sunday’s angle.
“Get it quick!” Maizie shouted.
“Try to circle the tree!” I begged Dahlia, knowing that she had little choice but to run in this scenario, Sunday simply had too much range. Sunday ‘ran’ around the tree but kept a little bit of distance, firing another burst of water as Dahlia came into view, but she just barely inched herself out of the way.
Sunday, in his frustration didn’t wait for the order and simply ran in closer to prevent the Pineco from getting away. This was an error on his part. As soon as he was close Dahlia’s body began to glow, as she followed the only real order I had given her before the fight:
If he gets in range, blow him up.
Sunday and Maizie’s eyes both went wide. “Get out of there, now!” The Slowpoke attempted to make an escape but was nowhere near fast enough to fully get out of the blast range.
*BOOOM*
I felt heat at my face for just a moment before a massive cloud of dust obscured both pokemon. The forest around us echoed Dahlia’s final blast back a few times. When it finally cleared, a bruised and battered, but still standing, Sunday was towering over my unconscious Pineco. His eyes daring her to wake up and move again.
“I withdraw Dahlia.” I held up my net. “Stovetop, get in there buddy!” My flat red friend readied himself to be launched by my net as Sunday returned to his starting position. I sent him hurtling into the arena, and he fell into a nice roll. We had discovered just a little while ago that this was easier for him than initiating the roll himself. “Start things off with a Flame Wheel!”
“Take it, and then hit him with water, he really doesn’t like it!” Her eyes glimmered as she remembered the incoming rain, looking to the sky to confirm that yes, rain would break out any second.
Stovetop crashed into the Slowpoke with his flaming body, and, though it was a solid hit, Sunday was easily able to shrug it off. “Poke.” He sent Stovetop flying back with another Water Gun.
“Smoke Screen!” I shouted, not liking my Fire type exposed at range to the pink menace. The Sizzlipede immediately acquiesced and began obscuring the area around him with smoke that billowed out of his coils.
“Trick Room, you have some time.” She was right, the smoke was only slowly trickling out as raindrops began to fall from the sky.
‘Fire will be weaker now.’ I recognized.
At nearly the same time a cloud of smoke finally obscured the two pokemon, a purple box shone over the area. “Get around him and Wrap.” I commanded. Hopeful that being obscured would make up for the suddenly reversed gap in speed.
“Curse until you feel him, then break out of it!” I could just barely see a dull purple glow through the smoke, as Sunday followed the order. This only made it easier for my teammate to find him, Maizie was betting on having more power.
“Cooking Coils as soon as you have him, don't give him the chance!”
Within the smoke and rain I could only make out a red glow from the body of my Sizzlipede. I witnessed the glow shaking around erratically before holding still. Stovetop had finally found his moment, the heat flared.
“POOOOKE!” A pained scream from Sunday, flesh being burnt even within the rain, followed up by a *WHOOSH* as a blast of Psychic energy emanates from the Slowpoke.
The red glow fades. The smoke clears.
Stovetop had been pushed a few feet away, heavily bruised from the blast despite his innate resistance to the type. He curls his body to go into another roll but the action comes out sluggish within the Trick Room. Sunday covered the distance in the blink of an eye and crashed into the battered bug, ending the Flame Wheel before it could begin. He didn’t even need an order.
Sunday stands triumphantly over my unconscious fiery friend, his peachy body was burned and bruised all over, but he basked in the victory.
“Hell yeah! You did it!” Maizie ran over to her Slowpoke and began petting him and heaping praise. Sunday, however, wanted something else.
“Pooooke.” He whined and hit his head against the bag on her side.
“Okay, okay, poffins incoming.” She pulled out a few of the fluffy baked goods and tossed them Sunday’s way. He instantly got a dull grin on his face and went to town on the snacks, basking in the only reward for victory that he actually cared about.
“Good battle!” I shouted her way as I went to work nursing my pokemon back to health. They both did well, I simply underestimated just how much of a monster Sunday truly was.
“Told you we’d crush you like a bug!” she stuck out her tongue at me again.
“This time, maybe, but definitely not next time. Just you wait until Dahlia has a little bit of range on her and this’ll be a whole different story!”
“Maybe after that you’ll be comfortable with a fair fight.” She retorted.
“Get to catching! Not my fault you have to take over a decade between catches.” I teased back, knowing that she was very picky about which pokemon she wanted for her team. Maizie had told me before that she wanted no crossover in typing on her team at all, a far cry from my own methods.
“Maybe if there was anything cool in Ilex I would have.” She replied flatly. Both Stovetop and Dahlia gave her looks, his of sorrow, hers of disdain. “Anything cool that Terry doesn’t already have!” She amended and both pokemon went back to getting fawned over by me, paying her no mind.
After they were both done getting healed, Stovetop was relaxing on the fire (the rain had subsided quickly) while Dahlia was having me buff out every little scratch incurred on her shell. It sucked to lose a fight for the first time, but I knew next time would be better. The loss provided us with a pretty clear path on what we would need to train on in the days between now and my first gym challenge.
Another day in Ilex and we would finally be through. A few days on Route 34 would be all that was standing between us and Goldenrod City. There I would face Whitney, the Fairy and Normal type specialist. Most Gym Leaders had only one specialization, but Whitney was a special case.
During the era of Champion Gold’s journey Whitney had been a Normal type Gym Leader, but, in the years since, Fairy type had been discovered. This was a problem because many, though not all, of her pokemon were reclassified into the Fairy type. The League eventually decided, rather than ban her from using teammates that she had trained with for years, to allow her to become Johto’s sole dual-typed Gym Leader.
Challenging her first would be quite a hurdle, but the options available to her at high Badge Levels would only make her more difficult as time went on.
Not soon after it was time for bed. Stovetop wrapped himself around my arm once again, while Dahlia huddled in close next to me. I had enjoyed having Stovetop’s warmth by my side the past week but as another pokemon joined in a different feeling welled within me. This was my team, my friends that I would face the world with. Love, joy, pride, and comfort all swirled in my heart as I fell into a restful sleep.
x-x
The final day of travel through Ilex was relatively uneventful. Stovetop and I continued evasion and Flame Wheel training. I also tried to get Dahlia started on Rapid Spin, but the constant rotations left her dizzy after a short time. Maybe we needed to change gears?
“Dahlia, I’ve noticed that you don’t have your ability yet, do you know why that is?” I asked her directly, not having much experience with the concept myself. Stovetop had come with his ability pre-learned, and, according to Maizie, so had Sunday.
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“Coooh.” Dahlia shook her body side to side in a clear negative.
“Well, normally Pineco have the Sturdy ability, which lets you survive a move that should take you out in one hit, once.” I informed her, she nodded along but got a suspicious look in her eyes as I continued. “So maybe we can train it by having Sunday shoot massive Water Guns at you?”
She rolled her eyes, seemingly having expected that train of thought, and began to emit a familiar glow.
“STOP! You can just say no, ya know?!” I scolded the Pineco as her glow faded. She gave me a wicked grin, showing she had no intention of vocalizing a strong no any other way for the foreseeable future.
Dahlia returned to spinning, with newfound vigor.
After a few hours of training we were back on the road, and by mid-afternoon a familiar large building came into view. Its grey industrial look clashed with the dense foliage surrounding it, the Checkpoint building. Checkpoints were placed at each entrance of Ilex Forest, and most other Routes, and served as a base of operations for the Rangers that patrolled the area nearby.
“We’re finally done with this forest!” Maizie shouted as she saw it too. “Thank Ho-oh, we’re almost back in civilization.”
“Aww, I’ve been having fun, you don’t think Ilex is cool?” I wondered, shocked that the place I had spent so much time in as a child seemed to leave so little impact.
“Of course it’s cool, but me and Grandpa have been here a bunch of times to harvest Apricorns. I didn’t live in it like you but Ilex isn’t new.” She emphasised.
“Well I’m pretty sure we’ve both been to Goldenrod before but from then on it's all new right?” I offered, Maizie nodded as I kept going. “I wanna enjoy the familiar while I still can, once we leave it behind we won’t feel it again for a long time.”
“Ugh, you’re such an old man sometimes.” Maizie deadpanned before grinning at me. “But I guess you’re right, even Route 34 and Goldenrod have a lot that I haven’t seen. This is as boring as it’s gonna get, and it’s still been pretty fun.”
We stopped in the checkpoint building for a while grabbing some food and drink from a nice little built-in restaurant. Having a meal cooked by someone else for the first time after coming out of a days long stint in the forest was always a treat. We chatted with a few other trainers but most were too worn out from the forest to want a battle, especially with another couple days on route to Goldenrod.
But Maizie and I each got one battle. Sunday tore through a young boy’s Sentret and Stovetop had an even skirmish with another’s Pichu. He came out on top in the end, with the battle effectively being over once the yellow mouse was caught in Cooking Coils.
By the time we set out onto Route 34 the sun was low in the sky, but the wonder of hitting a new area, in addition to the openness of the route in comparison to Ilex, made us want to push forward.
Route 34 was a large, coastal piece of land that was once a part of Ilex Forest; before humans and pokemon carved it away to provide a path between the settlements of Azalea and Goldenrod. Now it was a long road with the ocean on one side and the forest on the other.
Finally being able to see the full night sky again was a treat of its own, as we traversed the paved road with the moon shining down on us.
“It’s sooo pretty.” Maizie cooed, staring out at the water.
“Give it about a month and we’ll be sailing on it.” I replied with anticipation, taking a moment to stop and stare out at the ocean with her. The waves looked punishing, and it was a relatively calm night with low wind.
“I’ve heard it's dangerous, the whirlpools out there can tear boats apart.” She looked to me for consolation, as Maizie was not usually interested in entering a body of water much larger than a swimming pool.
“Well it’s a journey, it’s all dangerous. But that particular danger can be lightened by making sure we don’t cheap out on our choice of transport” I argued, Dad had told me stories about ship captains that had been on hundreds of voyage’s through the Whirl Islands. They knew how to weave between the dreaded whirlpools with near superhuman accuracy.
Maizie’s expression suddenly changed to one more predatory. “That means we need money, right?” She awaited my answer with the gleaming eyes of a Meowth that spotted a Rattata.
“Uhhh…Well, I guess we do…”
She jumped on it immediately and pretended to have just remembered something. “Oh! And Goldenrod’s famous Department Store has lots of TMs that would be quite helpful to both of us, right? So we need even more money for that?” With each question she got a little closer to me, her enthusiasm growing as she laid her trap.
“TMs would be helpful.” I admitted with a huff, already having a feeling for where this was going.
“Let’s make camp soon.” She motioned to the area around us with her arms wide.
“Already? I thought we were exploring?” I whined.
“We need rest,” She turned to me with a devish grin. “Tomorrow we find a hole in the market and fill it.”
x-x
“We can definitely make money here.” Maizie declared as we entered the largest building we had come across since entering the route: a Pokemon Daycare. Trainers were flying directly here and walking from Goldenrod in droves. While the parts of the route closer to Ilex had been sparsely populated, this area was packed. Trainers of every skill level were here, trading, buying, or selling newly bred pokemon, looking to leave theirs here for boarding for a while, and taking classes on pokemon breeding.
“How?” I asked, genuinely curious about her scheme.
“I don’t know yet, but money is moving around here, that means we just need to figure out how to get a piece of it.” She didn’t look at me, her eyes glued to the crowd of trainers.
“Did Kurt teach you this?” I wondered.
“Ha! Grandpa would never, he hates when I get like this, calls it ‘dishonorable’. The old coot is lucky I’ve helped keep us in business.” She laughed and then adopted a more levelheaded expression. “Let’s go scope things out.”
We wandered the area for a while, listening to the goings-on around us. A few newly bred pokemon that were up for sale caught our attention but between an 80,000 pokedollar Snom and a 70,000 pokedollar Riolu (you know which wanted which) neither of us were even near the ballpark of affording one. It was when we got to the Boarding area that we found our path.
“Yes, your pokemon created an egg during your time here, young lady. Now, do you have a pokeball?” The old man behind the counter asked a girl who was attempting to pick up her pokemon.
“No, sorry, I wasn’t expecting this, do I need one?” The young woman seemed confused. “It’s just an egg, can’t I carry it?”
“Ahh, unfortunately pokemon eggs count as pokemon and League rules stipulate that all claimed pokemon must be registered via a capture device.” The old man made a welcoming motion with his hand. “Luckily, we have pokeballs for sale here that you can use, it will just be an additional 500 pokedollar fee on top of their stay here.”
“500 for one pokeball? That’s more than double! What kind of scam are you running here?!” She was angry now, forced into a position where she would have to spend an outrageous amount of money on one pokeball. I could practically hear the *Cha-Ching* that had to be playing in Maizie’s head at the moment.
“I assure you that we are a reputable business, you can feel free to seek a pokeball elsewhere and come back to claim your egg later, if you so desire?” The old man replied to her outburst through gritted teeth. The young girl stomped away to try to go find another source of pokeballs but the old man just smiled as she walked away, seeming confident that she would soon return and just pay the fee.
“Let’s go.” Maizie decided and swiftly turned around to leave.
“But, that girl, aren’t you gonna sell her a pokeball?”
“Maybe, but I'll definitely be selling to many people like her. There hasn’t been a single pokeball seller in the whole joint. This is gonna get us our TMs and ship tickets!” She carried a confidence that she usually reserved for battle as we walked out of the Daycare.
Once we were a safe distance away, Maizie crouched down and upturned her bag, leaving dozens of Apricorns to fall out. Her bag, like my own, had an Apricorn lining that allowed for much more storage space than appearances would suggest. She crouched down with a carving knife and got to work, skinning an Apricorn while maintaining it’s ball like shape. She then packed the sliver-thin orb of Apricorn flesh with a layer of sand, both inside and out, acquired from the nearby shoreline.
“Stovetop, can you cook this for me?” Maizie asked, placing the orb delicately on the ground. The bug quickly slid down my body and over to the orb, carefully wrapping himself around it and began to heat it with his coils. After a moment he backed away and the red hot glass orb was revealed. A few minutes of cooling, carving, the placement of a couple strange computer chips within, and a hinge and clasp without later, Maizie held up her prize.
“The Tempball!” She shouted holding it up for me to see. The brown Apricorn skin was visible within the glass orb, but it otherwise looked similar to normal pokeball.
“Doesn’t having a glass pokeball kinda suck? What if you break it?” I wondered, not sure this was the valuable business opportunity she believed it to be.
“I know, I came up with it a couple years ago but could never figure out a use for it, but here is perfect.” She spoke as if her victory was assured.
“What’s so perfect about it?” I scratched the back of my head in confusion. I still wasn't seeing it.
“I made these when I was trying different methods to make the most pokeballs possible out of a single Apricorn.” She held the pokeball closer to me. “I can make 10 of these out of a single Apricorn.” I looked at the pile of Apricorns, counting them in my head. 40? 50? We could make hundreds of pokeballs with these.
“The best part? We get to look like heroes, selling these temporary balls for half the price of a normal pokebal! We’re gonna undercut the Daycare so drastically that it’ll be a no-brainer!” She let out a satisfied giggle. “So, if you learn how to carve these up for me you can have 40 percent of the profits, interested?”
I nodded eagerly, TMs calling my name from afar. So I sat down next to her and got to work. The first set took an average of 10 minutes per ball. With teamwork and an efficient process that we would develop over the course of the next few hours we got it down to 8. The problem? Maizie had 46 Apricorns.
x-x
A week later we were back in the Daycare once again, freshly showered from a nearby Inn, and ready to sell some Tempballs. Maizie’s plan was this: I was to hang out near the Boarding Area, listening for similar occurrences to what happened last time we were there. Then I would approach the person after they left the counter and tell them that I had heard of a pokeball seller nearby, providing them with directions to where Maizie had set up shop.
The Tempballs were selling for 100 pokedollars each, and we had made 430 of them, as I had mangled three Apricorns beyond repair during the learning process. After 8000 pokedollars for parts I would be left with 14,000 at the end of it all, a huge windfall for a beginner trainer like me.
My hands still ached from a week of skinning the rough fruit, they seemed to want to stay in a slightly curved placement, any deviation from that position would cause pain to shoot through them. Luckily the time was useful as during downtime Stovetop finally learned to reliably launch a Flame Wheel on his own, though the Net Launch method was still more effective. Dahlia spent her time learning Rapid Spin, and was now in the beginning stages of learning Spikes but it was slow going.
Things were going smoothly and we sold through a third of our stock in the first 2 days. But on day 3 the guy at the counter yelled at me for loitering so Maizie and I had to switch spots. I was now the one in charge of sales, while she was recruiting customers. Sales ended up being the easier job, as customers were usually desperate by the time they got to me, having realized that there were no other options around. Maizie had specifically placed our sales table as far as possible from the Boarding Area, so trainers had to walk through the entire facility before they got to us.
I saw many trainers come and go, most of them with only a few pokemon, but then a girl a few years older than me walked over. She had long dirty-blonde braids that hung past her shoulders, which complemented her honeyed skin tone. Her well worn clothes (a black t-shirt and khaki colored cargo pants, with hiking boots) told my eyes that she was a fellow traveler on the road, but the six pokeballs at her waist said that she was one beyond the likes of me.
“Hey kid, I hear you have some pokeballs.” She approached me at the small lunch table that I had been set up at for the last few hours, her tone was jovial but it felt like there was a threat laced under every word. As she got closer the air began to feel heavy, my lungs feeling like they were being pressed on with stones.
“Y-Yes miss, did you need one? These Tempballs are breakable and not useful in live catching, b-but I can assure you they work just fine for the transport of freshly hatched babies, only 100 pokedollars each.” I choked out my words, the pressure only getting worse.
She frowned and leaned in closer to me as she took a seat. “Isn’t that a bit much for a useless pokeball?” She eyed me like a Sharpedo, appearing very aware of the effect her presence had on me.
“I…I’m sorry miss, but I'm afraid the price is non-negotiable.” I stammered, eager for this interaction to be over.
“Fine, even if your wares are trash, paying that old man who’s price gouging everyone is something I’m not willing to do.” She snatched a Tempball out of my hand with a daring look in her eyes and began to walk away.
‘Is she really gonna steal from me? I should’t let her do that. But what if she can make the pressure even worse?’ I was frozen in fear, my brain firing danger signals, every step she took away was easing the awful presence. Allowing her to walk away would be so easy.
In a moment of lucidity, I remembered: a Maizie that knew I had cost her money was ever scarier than this girl, weird presence be damned.
“Miss that’ll be 100 pokedollars please.” I somehow delivered with a straight face.
She stopped walking for just a moment and a spooky grin crossed her face as she turned back to face me. “Ahh, I almost forgot, Misdreavus, pay the kid.” A small impish ghost with a necklace flew out of her shadow and placed a bill on the counter. The Misdreavus stared into my eyes for a moment before making a kissy face at me and *Poof*. The pokemon had disappeared. “Always a little flirt, that one. I’m glad you had the balls not to let me walk all over you, little Bug, good job.” She winked at me and walked off. As her steps got more distant the pressure she exuded faded completely.
‘What did she just do? Whatever it was, she’s dangerous., and she knows me now. I’ll have to keep an eye out and try to avoid her.’
A few minutes later, after finishing another sale, I looked at the bag I had placed below the table while I was working, with my net and pokemon inside. Both were completely out of view.
‘Wait, if she couldn’t see my gear or pokemon, why did she call me “Bug”?’
Answers would not come today, as the remainder of my sales went relatively smoothly. Just a few more days and we would work through our entire stock.