We were sitting down in a pink café, waiting for our food.
I didn’t expect that the criteria by which Wigglytuff would choose where we would eat would be by which place had the most pink.
The first thing I did after having been teleported to the outskirts of Goldenrod was to release my team to let them know that we were safe and now, by teleport, very far away from Grey Lake. I briefly explained to them what had happened after they were returned by the Zoroark, the fight between both masters’ teams, and the appearance of the powerful Nidoqueen.
Cape and Valley were, naturally, quite mad that they hadn’t seen the battle, Jungle was just glad that we were safe, the cute little guy, and while Mesa and Cryogonal hadn't shown much emotion, they used their body language to express their feelings of relief.
After everyone calmed down I returned Jungle, Mesa, and Cryogonal, leaving me with Cape, to carry the tired Wigglytuff’s bag, and Valley, who didn’t like to stay inside her pokeball.
I had, for a few seconds, wondered how I would find somewhere to eat in the huge city of three million inhabitants when I had never been here before, but it seemed like Wigglytuff had been here before, many times in fact if the way she navigated through the streets were any indication.
Goldenrod was big so we still had to walk for thirty minutes to where she wanted to go and I now understood why people
A completely pink café named The Fairy Spot.
We entered the big pink saloon, sat at a table, and made our order to the waitress.
The vibrant Wigglytuff didn't need to check the menu, she just pointed at something in there to the waitress who nodded and noted down her order before taking ours.
Thankfully the café had internet, so I didn't need to waste money calling Jess on the phone.
I contacted her by chat in the pokenet and asked her where we could meet up. I was waiting for a response when Cape and Valley began to interrogate me, in depth, about Brian’s battle, and surprisingly enough Wigglytuff sometimes interjected to add her own commentary, which meant that she was watching the battle.
Soon enough, the two crazed-for-battle pokemon stopped with the questions and began to talk between themselves, by the vigorous energy on their side of the table they were still talking about the battle.
Since I was just waiting for Jess’ response and our food I decided to try and talk to Wigglytuff too.
“It looks like you came here before.” The pink pokemon who was looking around the place and admiring the waitress's uniform, no doubt admiring the pink in them, turned to me and nodded quickly. “Did you ever come here with Brian?”
The pokemon covered her mouth with her pink arms and giggled while nodding. I couldn’t fault her, imagining Brian, who dressed like he was a serial killer from a Unovan movie, sitting here in this pink place and eating pink food put a smile on my face.
The Wigglytuff and I began to talk but it was difficult to communicate since she didn’t know how to use body language as well as Cape. I was able to learn some things though, for example, that she was not a League or government-assigned pokemon but was, in fact, Brian's actual pokemon and that she had been his pokemon for about three years.
I was surprised since most masters don’t like having pokemon that are not in their type specialization and are assigned pokemon to help transport, navigate, and sometimes battle.
Our conversation was cut when the food arrived.
I saw that Wigglytuff had ordered a completely pink strawberry pie, which she cut and then ate very slowly as if to taste every single piece of the pie. Cape, Valley, and I had just ordered a few sweets since we were not that hungry.
Sometime after she had finished the pie, she was just resting on her seat with a blissful expression when her ears, which were laid down, suddenly stood up.
“Wiggly,” she said as she looked up. “Wigglytuff!” She stood up and gracefully bowed to us, then she grabbed her bag from where it was laid near Cape and waved goodbye before leaving the café in a hurry.
The last thing I saw from where I was sitting was a pink glow and then she was gone.
I looked over the chat and saw that Jess had given me the location of the Gym of Goldenrod
She said in the message that it was near where I was and that we could already schedule our matches. I had no problem with that so I put the location on the city map on my laptop, paid for the food, and left with Cape and Valley to our destination.
-
After Jess and I met outside Whitney’s Gym, the biggest in Johto with space for thirty thousand people, we entered by one of the eight entrances, and like the other entrances, this one had five booths dedicated exclusively to scheduling matches, so while everyone in Johto wanted to schedule a match the process to do so was quicker than Azalea, which left me very surprised.
Jess's match would happen on October the second and mine would be on October the third, today being September twenty-nine, thinking about the fact that I had traveled more than twenty days as a pokemon trainer left me energized despite my mental tiredness.
The time we spent on the Sea Route hurt though, we lost four days of travel since going the normal route would be faster, just to not find an Ice type.
I looked down at the Cryogonal’s pokeball—Well, it did work out in the end.
We had to walk more than ten minutes to get to the Pokemon Center where Jess was staying. There was one right by the Gym but it was always so full you had to wait hours before a room got free.
We reached the Pokemon Center and after getting a room for me and the team, Jess and I sat together at a table in the Pokemon Center lobby with Cape, Valley, and Velocity. After I told the whole story of what had happened to Jess and Velocity, including the absolutely crazy battle, the first question she had for me was:
“So he just gave you a Cryogonal, just like that?”
Cape and I looked at each other and began to laugh.
Jess looked at the both of us and huffed. “What are you guys laughing about?”
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“A friend of mine in Azalea said the same thing when I told him that Professor Oak gave me a Bulbasaur after I passed his interview.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, seeing that battle would be nice.” she sighed. “But you really didn’t see almost anything?”
“Well, I saw almost all the fight between Hariyama and Slaking, the brief grappling match between Machamp and Crawdaunt and Nidoqueen against Brian’s team.”
“Why does he have a Slaking again, and a Corviknight?”
“Well, Slaking and Corviknight are lines that have some dark type energy inside them, that's why they can learn many dark type moves,” I said while checking on my laptop where we could train. “Masters don’t limit themselves to what the Pokedex or the professors, remember that.”
“Yes, sir, is this going to be on the test also?”
I rolled my eyes. “When did you get here by the way?”
“Yesterday,” she said, “since I didn't know when your “trip” was going to end I just decided to walk straight to Goldenrod. Well, I did spend one day in a small city to participate in a mini-tournament.”
“Really? How did you do?”
“Seventh place, it was for trainers between year one and three.”
“Well, I hope you weren't disappointed.”
“Please, I just entered because there was no entrance fee, the town was trying to attract attention to a big festival or something like that.”
After we talked some more about what had happened in our separate travels, I decided to retire to my room. I was exhausted but I wanted to at least look at one or two three-level badge battles of Whitney.
“Bul.” The cute sound caught my attention and I turned around on the chair to look at Jungle, who had Mesa by his side.
They were looking at me with Cape behind them, the bug type had a smug grin on his face
“Something wrong?” I said to the two pokemon.
“Bulba.” Jungle said with determination in his eyes.
He then began to make some cute questioning sounds while the Baltoy was just moving his arms up and down, I got the feeling that they were curious about something.
“Cape,” the pokemon stopped smiling, “explain, please.”
Cape rolled his eyes, and then came around and pointed at the screen of my laptop, at the battle that was playing. Whitney against a three-badge trainer.
“Oh, I see, you guys want to know who is going to participate in the battle?”
They nodded and I laughed with Cape. He already knew that we would be fighting a three-level badge match instead of a two-level badge because of the Mark that Bugsy put on us when Cape swept his match.
“When I told you guys you were competing for the second spot in the match what I didn’t say to you was that this next match was going to be three against three, so both of you are going to battle.”
The normal course that people took to get badges said that one and two badge matches were two on two, three and four badges were three on three, four and five badges were four on four, six and seven badges were five on five, and the last badge, the eight, was a six on six.
It would be my second badge match but because of the Mark, I would be considered as challenging for the third badge, so a three on three.
And I wanted to use Cape, Jungle, and Mesa in that match.
Both pokemon spent some seconds in silence and then I saw their posture change as they began to understand that they were tricked, then Jungle began to run around while screaming, while Mesa began to move his arms in outrage.
“Calm down, guys, it was just a little prank to get you both to work a little harder.”
“Min.” Valley was sitting on top of a drawer and glaring at Jungle who was making a mess of the Pokemon Center’s room. However, she decided to ignore them in favor of crossing her arms and glare at me. “Minccino.”
“I know you want to battle, Valley, but they entered the team first and trained more—although not as hard,” I said, appeasing her a little. “Next time will be your and Cryogonal’s turn.”
The Cryogonal who was watching both pokemon’s frustration turned to me when I spoke his name.
He floated to me and his ice plates shifted, a lot.
I didn’t understand what he wanted. “Cape, can you help?”
The bug pokemon reached out to my bag and took out my pokemon’s journals, where I had all the information and plans for them, if it was anyone other than Cape or my pokemon I would have been nervous right now. Cape then put them on the bed and instead of opening them he just pointed at the tag on them, their names.
“You want a name?” The Cryogonal eyes smiled. “I have some ideas, want to hear them?”
The whole body of the Cryogonal shifted, approval. Jungle and Mesa quieted down, and then together with Cape and Valley they settled down to watch what name the ice type would get.
“Well, the candidates are, Glacier, Iceberg, Fjord, these are more commonly associated with Ice and Snow, then you also have some water ones if you like, Ocean and Sea.”
I spent some minutes explaining what each of them meant and how they could apply to him, like how Jungle would be as dangerous as a wild jungle or how Valley wanted to gloat as the best Cinccino in the world.
He spends the same time refusing them.
Glacier and Iceberg he didn’t like how it sounded, Fjord he liked the sound but didn’t like the description of what a Fjord is. He denied anything that was water. In the end, nothing appealed to him and then we decided to sleep and resume this talk for another day.
-
The busy streets of Goldenrod showed why this city was the economic heart of Johto.
Most people moving along the big roads of asphalt and concrete were dressed in suits and carrying briefcases, entering and leaving skyscrapers, they were the ones that made the bureaucracy and trade sectors work. The second group were, of course, trainers.
Goldenrod had the most Pokemon Centers, the most Battle Halls, the most Pokemart, the most trainer-focused stores, and the most tournaments of all the cities in Indigo because there were so many trainers here.
“I would think that after traveling so much you would rest a day or two before going to the Battle Hall?” I said to Jess.
“There is something I want to buy in Goldenrod but I don’t want to take it out of my funds, you know,” Jess said and gave a small laugh.
“All right?” I shrugged. “By the way, you remember when Brian told us that he didn't want to talk to your uncle?”
She slowed down a bit and nodded.
“What was that about?”
“Huh, you know my uncle is a Gym Trainer right?” I nodded. “He is the right-hand man of the Gym leader of Solaceon Town, and the next in line to take the Gym if Sinnoh doesn't make another fire-type master like Flint.”
“Wow, that is nice for your family I imagine.”
“Well, it's complicated,” Jess said as she looked over at the store we passed. “My uncle is not considered a master so if he takes over the Gym the League will probably not accept his nomination.”
“I know they have more power there, but what happens in Sinnoh if the Pokemon League doesn't accept the nomination?” I said.
The Pokemon League is an international and private organization founded in Sinnoh almost one hundred years ago by a group of rich people, they made a contract with the Sinnoh government to take over the maintenance of the routes and take care of the main tournaments.
Five years later it burned into the ground, hard.
Amongst its problems were corruption, failed marketing strategies, and extorsion practices like charging for pokemon healthcare, something that was free when the government was funding the operation.
It seemed that the normal rich people weren't able to understand the needs and wants of trainers it seems.
Sinnoh was left with a failed and bankrupt company and for the first time in its two hundred years history would be unable to fund and maintain its routes, tournaments, and even its Championship, it had to create a big emergency debt to cover the costs for the next three years and when it seemed like the whole structure behind the economy of pokemon training would go back to the hands of the Sinnoh government, the richest trainers of Sinnoh got together and bought the, at the time called, Pokemon Federation and changed her into the Pokemon League.
Since then, the League has been made up of a board of the most powerful and influential trainers in Sinnoh, and later on, with the expansion, in the entire Eastern Continent. The League now runs the trainer-related operations of Sinnoh, Hoenn, Kanto, and Johto, including the Conferences that they created.
But because of concessions they simply don’t have the same massive political power in Hoenn, Kanto, and Johto as they have in Sinnoh, where it's known that they can influence a lot of things.
“Well, at the worst, they close the Gym, and at best they simply pick someone from outside like they did with Fantina.” She said,” The thing is that my Uncle will be out of work, but I guess he could do another thing, he is no master but he is also not weak…”
We stopped talking as we got closer to the Battle Hall. It seemed like a crowd was forming outside the large building.
We reached closer to the crowd and tapped a teenager on the shoulder. “Do you know what is happening in the Battle Hall?”
“Two famous people are going to battle I think?”
“You think, so why are you mobbing the place?” Jess said.
“I just want to see who it was.” The defensive guy said. “I just know that one of them is a famous trainer from Blackthorn.”