“I can’t deal with THIS!”
I looked towards the rising sun and bit into my sandwich.
We have been in Ilex Forest for five days and things were not looking good for Jess.
There was a fact that was important for trainers to know about routes, the more active parts of the routes are near cities or big towns. Kids, adults, and even the elderly who have casual battles as a hobby spend time there to challenge trainers who are leaving and entering the city or town. That fact resulted in Jess being 6-10 right now on the route.
It was not because she was a bad trainer or anything like that. It was because she only had two pokemon, combine that with the fact that she had a lot more challengers because… Well, she is a kid and it looks like she would be easier to fight than me. That meant that her pokemon had been exhausted the first day outside Azalea and she had, as a consequence, lost more than won. Now that we were away from the city she was on the way to recovery. She had won her last three battles.
I, on the other hand, was able to win most of my matches and held a record of 5-2.
The two losses that I had were from one thirteen and one fourteen years old who were trying out their newest and weakest pokemon, and by weakest I meant that one was a capture from the base of Mt. Silver, a Sneasel who toyed with Cape. So I guess I got him the defeat he needed for his ego. Two defeats and two victories for Cape, actually.
Another win came from Jungle and the last two came from Mesa.
“What is your problem!?” I turned my head to her just as I finished my sandwich and saw Jess shout once again at the mirror in her right hand. On her left hand, there was a hairbrush.
“Just let it stay like that. Looking like that is part of the life on the road.” I managed to say without smiling.
“You’re only saying that because you have short hair.” She said.
The hair on my eyebrow disagreed. It was not as short as I wanted and it had been an oversight to not have cut it before leaving Azalea.
Jess grumbled again and threw her hands in the air. I did say that she should forget about it but, to be honest, if I was her I too would not forget about that. Her dark hair of medium length had puffed up so much she almost looked like a wet Whimsicott and every day it became more and more puffed and as a result a shore to put it into a ponytail.
If I was younger I would probably have said out loud that she wasn’t helping Sinnoh’s image of a soft region right now. However, with the wisdom of someone who grew up with many kids in the orphanage, I kept my mouth shut.
A grunt came from the other side. Cape was practicing Counter again but this time with Quake, Jess’ Hippopotas. Cape had learned how to use Counter against Jungle but Quake packed a lot more punch and so the difficulty had been ramped up. Cape needed to pull a lot more fighting energy to use Counter against the Hippopota’s head Tackle, which in turn made the controlling part of the Counter a lot more difficult.
Jungle was a little farther away practicing Bullet Seed. I glanced as his mouth glowed green for some seconds and then released three glowing seeds towards a tree, the seeds punched deep into the bark and stuck there. Soon enough he will be able to control the rate of the fire and make more seeds. He will then be ready to train his aim against Velocity, who was…
“Where is Velocity?” I looked around the plain area of the route and at the trees and vegetation around.
She didn’t even turn from her mirror as she furiously tried to brush her hair. “She is probably around looking for seeds.”
My first thought was to go look for her but if she didn’t leave the route she would be fine. I glanced towards the forest one hundred meters away from where we were. The limit of the route, when the plain and dirty route gave way to an uneven and wild forest.
The official routes had between five hundred meters to five kilometers in length depending on the route. This route, plainly named Ilex Forest, was in the middle between the two, two kilometers, and we were just one hundred meters from the end of it. If we passed that imaginary line we would be officially on our own. The government or the League would have no responsibility whatsoever after that point.
I shook my head with a smile, laws were funny like that.
A piece of plastic floated on my left side and I turned to see Mesa doing a puzzle while floating up two pieces, one a circle and another a triangle, with psychic energy. The Baltoy glared at the puzzle and moved the circle piece to the circle slot. Ever since he stopped those rocks from hitting me, he had become a lot smarter which resulted in a big growth of his psychic energy.
The puzzle that before he had a fifty-fifty chance was almost at eighty percent accuracy right now. Soon enough I would have to change that one for another more difficult.
It was alright though, I had brought three on the Pokemart, one more difficult than the other so we were set for a long while.
What I didn’t expect were his battles. He was on the way to learn Confusion but the highlight right now was his telekinesis that had improved greatly. He had used it to great effect in his two victories.
My ear caught some noises of shifting foliage coming from the forest so I whistled. Cape and Quake stopped fighting and turned towards the forest. Jungle ran back to be near us. The pieces of the puzzle dropped from the air and Jess finally stopped brushing her hair.
From the wild forest emerged a kid with torn and dirt clothes and messed up hair. He appeared to be 14 years old. He stepped out from the thick foliage and brushed off the leaves from his clothes.
I noticed a determined Jess put her brush on the mini table. She got up, straightened her clothes, and called for Quake before advancing toward the obviously confused boy.
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I breathed a deep sigh and gestured for Jungle and Mesa to continue their training.
-
The moon really was beautiful when one was away from the city. It was not even the lights of Azalea since, as a pretty conservative city, it didn’t have many lights that blocked the sky at night. I would say that it was more the atmosphere of being near a campfire that made me appreciate the light from the moon.
I looked down at the pan full of soup and threw in the vegetables.
We finally stopped our walk two hours ago and set up camp. I had spent some time writing in my journals about the progress we made today while Jess drew a tree in her drawing notebook. Now I was finishing up a soup while Jess prepared the food for our pokemon.
Cape wanted to help her but Mesa, always eager to test his telekinesis, volunteered to help her. Cape and Jungle were watching me make food and Velocity was preening herself.
“Really, That shouldn’t count.” She said as a bowl floated near her and she put the food from the containers on the bowls.
I stayed in silence and just slowly stirred the soup. That bowl floated over to Velocity, who didn’t stop the preening and just acknowledged the bowl with a chirp.
“I mean, he just used a stronger pokemon… It didn’t even listen to him all the way.” Another bowl went towards Jungle.
I knew that right now would be the perfect time to comment on something. “Yeah, that’s tough.”
The last bowl floated to Cape.
She was wrong, of course. She had decided to challenge that obviously more experienced trainer, after he had warned her that he had gotten three badges last year, and even after he had shown her the Scyther that he caught in the forest and by the look on that Scyther’s face, he had seen and probably done things.
She stayed in silence and then a click from Cape’s camera filled the silence. I smiled at him and another click went off. A picture of me making soup while Jungle was eating near my leg would be a good one.
I finished the soup and poured a bowl for Jess.
I looked at the pokeball on Jess’ mini table where he was resting. The only one that wasn’t going to eat right now was Quake. That Scyther had gotten him good in some places and Jess had to use another potion on him so now he was resting in his pokeball.
After everyone had eaten it came time to clean. I put away the cooking equipment and the food from the pokemon and Jess was cleaning the pan. One thing I could be thankful for was that Jess at least did her agreed part… Even if her own side of the camp was a mess.
I put Jungle back in his pokeball as soon as he fell asleep and opened a book.
She was sitting on a rock with her drawing notebook when she suddenly spoke. “I want to go off route.”
I looked up from the book I was reading, my face involuntary frowned and Cape looked up from where he was looking at the photos that he had taken today. Even Velocity stopped preening herself and looked at her trainer with exasperation.
“Why?” I asked coldly.
“… I want to fight and catch stronger pokemon.”
I sighed. “First of all, we only have five potions left between the two of us. Second, I know that you are upset about losing to that guy.” She turned and glared at me. “Don’t give me that look. The guy was a second-year trainer. He was able to catch that Scyther and Quake was barely able to dodge that same Scyther.”
“We would not go too far,” She said, “and between our five pokemon we could catch a Scyther.”
“We can not catch a wild Scyther between our five pokemon and it is not worth the risk right now and you know it,” I said and sighed. “Look, we have a long way to go on our journey, why don’t you wait for when we are in Route Thirty-Seven or Thirty-Eight, our pokemon will be stronger and we will have more teammates to work with.”
She grumbled and went back to drawing. Cape and the other pokemon turned back to what they were doing and I turned back to my book.
I understood that she probably thought it would be a good idea. The League did their job very well with marketing, fiction books, movies, toys and, recently, games. The only thing worse than kids thinking that going off-route was a good idea was the fact that the League didn’t speak against it.
After some time I closed the book and decided to call it a night.
-
“Cross.”
“Hera.”
“Heracross!”
I jumped up from my sleeping sack to find Cape looking down on me inside the tent. I glared at him and he raised his arms.
“Hera.” He said nervously.
“What is it Cape?” I rubbed my eyes and yawned.
I turned to the side and picked up my watch from where it lay beside my bed sack. six a.m.
“Why are you waking me so early, Cape?”
“Cross.” Cape was at the entrance of the tent and was gesturing for me to come out.
I got up from the sleeping bag. Put on my boots and my pokeball belt and walked out of the tent. I looked around and not seeing anything strange I turned to Cape who, seeming me up, flew to Jess’ side of the camp and pointed to her tent.
I walked near there.
“Jess? Are you okay?” Nobody responded.
Cape crossed his arms and then pointed towards the thick forest where a passage had been opened in the thick foliage. My face fell and my drowsiness cleared immediately.
“Cape, are you sure she is not there?”
Cape nodded. I furiously rubbed my eyes one more time, walked up to her tent, and opened it. She really was not there. There was just a big mess of things and her sleeping bag. No pokeballs either.
I cursed and walked back to my camp, releasing Jungle and Mesa on the way.
“Jess went off route. We are going to find her.” I said as I put on my jacket, and picked up my knife and my bag that had my potions and other useful things like antidote and emergency kit. “Jungle you are going in the pokeball. You can’t run fast enough to keep up but be ready if we need you. Cape you are going in the front. Mesa, you follow me. Let’s go.”
I returned Jungle and we ran towards the opening of the thick forest.
Cape’s hand glowed with flying-type energy and he accelerated towards the thick foliage and began to cut us a way in. We slowed down just as we entered the Forest as the terrain made it difficult for me to walk, Cape, however, took to the forest like a fish on the water.
“Keep your eyes open for any sign of Jess,” I said, “or any wild pokemon.”
We walked through the forest and occasionally saw a Caterpie or a Rattata but they ran away as soon as they saw the Heracross. Cape was occasionally flying up to the top of trees to see if he could spot something. We walked for another minute until Cape saw some movement to our left and flew ahead to check it out.
“Heracross!” He said and continued on his path.
We followed him and after we passed some thick vegetation and trees we saw Jess. She was dashing through the foliage in roughly our direction. She was running away from a group of three Seviper. Two were smaller and slower than an average Seviper but the one on the front was bigger, at least three meters in length, and way more muscled than it should be normal.
Cape didn’t need a command. He just blurred forward with Aerial Ace and crashed his horn into the leading Seviper’s big body. He caught her unaware and was able to push her way off to the side and into a bush-filled slope and away from Jess and the other two Seviper. The other two slowed down and warily turned towards us. I released Jungle and Mesa caught up to us.
Jess turned and ran in our direction and I could see that she was carrying in her hands a baby Minccino, a little furry and gray pokemon who looked upset by his frown. She took one of her hands from him, grabbed a pokeball from her belt, and clicked it. Red light shot out from the ball and formed into Quake who growled at the two Seviper who had been slowly getting close.
“You have Velocity?”
She nodded while panting. “She’s around.”
I nodded. “Focus on the two. Jungle help her. Cape and Mesa will handle the bigger one.” She nodded and walked behind me to stand behind Quake and Jungle.
The Seviper suddenly pounced out of the grass and into Cape with dark glowing fangs. Cape used Harden and crossed his arms, he received the strong hit and was briefly pushed back but was able to push the Seviper back.
The big Seviper, bigger than some trees around us, began to coil itself and prepare for another strike.
“Cape, time to put your close combat training in action.” Cape punched his hand in an attempt to intimidate the Seviper. “Mesa, don’t get close. You are on Sand Attack duty.”