The sister was staring at her brother.
Elen’s face shifted from disbelief to anger, to confusion, and to anger again. Her body was shaking and her arm shivered slightly upwards. From my time at the orphanage, I knew that if we weren’t around she would’ve smacked her brother.
“I see,” the blonde steel type trainer said. Looking around, she asked, “Are you all together?”
“No,” Anderson said, taking the lead. He gestured towards our group, his twin, Aiden, Jess, and I. “We’re travelling as a group, and we just bumped into those three inside that cave—”
“And I,” Alex said, “found those two just before we were attacked by the Charizard, and there’s no way the kid got the Charmander after we met.” He was holding his hands up as if he were about to be arrested.
Well, she could arrest him. Elite trainers could assume command of a serious situation if there wasn’t formal authority around. It would be a little excessive for the situation, but she could do it.
She didn’t though, she just asked a few more questions to the boy—George I remembered—who explained that he caught the sleeping Charmander somewhere outside the mountains before meeting any of us.
When it was clear that we weren’t involved, she pulled the siblings aside for a talk.
Meanwhile, the paralysed Charizard finally began to move. He awkwardly flew above us to follow the previous Charizard inside the cave without so much as a look at anyone. Magnezone was still watching after all.
The Elite Trainer’s pokemon began to approach. Mawile was the first, strolling down past us to cheerfully collect Ferroseed into her arms as if it was a baby, ignoring the glare that the grass and steel type was throwing her way. Skarmory hopped over to look at his companions while sometimes sharping its steel feathers with its beak. Finally, Magnezone lazily floated down, gliding in the air with a merry eye as it expressed something to Ferroseed, probably complimenting its Shock Wave.
“What a mess,” Jess commented.
“Yeah, but nobody got really hurt at least,” I said while I finished checking our pokemon. Thankfully, the worst injuries were just some bruises.
“And the worst is that he will probably leave with a slap on the wrist.”
My head snapped towards her, ready to remind her the mess she made in Ilex Forest. Her cheeky smile stopped me. I just rolled my eyes instead.
After a few minutes of conversation between the siblings and the trainer, she walked back to us while the kids stayed behind. Her blue and white garbs were more battered than when she was in Azalea, and there were dirt spots of black and brown. It seems she’s been going to the caves herself.
“Ok, you are all free to go. The siblings will have to fly with me to Goldenrod to make a report, anyone else wants to travel there for free?”
“We appreciate the offer, but we’re all going to Violet, thank you.” I said on behalf of the group.
“I also would like to continue my glorious adventure on foot, thank you,” Alex said.
She nodded, and that was enough for Alex. He turned around and left, walking away from the mountain and towards the treeline, in a direction that was neither Goldenrod nor Violet. Now that I think about it, he might be one of those secretive solo trainers who keeps his team and training progress hidden until the Conference, seeing as even under the threat of a Charizard he didn’t release any pokemon.
“Hum, are they in trouble?” Rebecca asked softly.
“No,” she responded. “It’s not like little George robbed the Charizard’s nest. That Charmander was outside the mountain. Something must’ve happened to make him run away… but that is a question for a ranger,” she sighed. “It’s too bad actually, if he’d asked the Charmander to be his pokemon instead of just catching it while it was sleeping, he could’ve stayed with the Charmander.”
I nodded. Pokemon have deals with the Region they inhabited, and most recently, the League. The most well-known arrangement was that if a human can convince a pokemon to follow them, their family or group cannot deny the partnership. After all, they too are benefiting from strong teams defending the Region. It’s actually surprising how common situations like these are.
Excluding the part about the Charizard attacking us, but there’s a reason the Charicific Valley exists. Almost every other pokemon line wouldn’t have just jumped straight to a dangerous attack like that.
The blonde’s eyes passed over us and then stopped at me. She gave me a squinted look, and then glanced down at Mesa. She gave a soft smile, clearly recognised him.
“I watched your battle with Whitney,” she said to me. “My family is from Goldenrod and my little sister wouldn’t stop texting until I did. You did well in the match, especially against the pink little monster.”
My jaw slacked at that. That might have been bigger than I thought if even a trainer like her watched.
“Thank you, we did our best.” I squeaked. “I-I don’t remember if I thanked you for your help in Azalea, but thank you.”
She tilted her head in thought, and then nodded. “You’re the guy on the pokemon park I was fixing. I didn’t recognise you with the new clothes and hair.”
The Pokemart mandated that male workers maintain short hair, so yes, my hair had grown, and needed a cut as soon as they reached Violet.
“My name is Mari.” She offered her hand, and I shook it.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Scott.”
“Well, we’re leaving now. Good luck on your journeys.”
She recalled Ferroseed and Mawile, walked back towards the siblings and helped them get into Skarmory’s back. Magnezone fully landed, looking very uncomfortable touching the ground, and she got on top of them. The two steel types rose into the air, Magnezone a little more smother, and then soared out from the mountainous region and disappeared over the treeline of the forest in the direction we had come from.
Well, this problem was handled faster than I thought it would.
“Nice,” Aiden commented with a blank face, and Anderson nodded in what was probably the first time he agreed with the dragon trainer.
I groaned as Rebecca scoffed, “Boys… Let’s go. We still have a lot of daytime and I want to see if we can at least find a fire pokemon for you guys”
---
In the end, the very, very end, this mountain trip wasn’t a total bust.
“Oh my, you’re so gorgeous and so warm,” Jess said as she hugged the shell of the smug fire turtle to starve off the cold of the night.
In our walk across the mountainous region, we spotted some more fire type pokemon. A couple of Rapidash guiding some Ponyta and a skittish family of six Vulpix.
Jess and I didn’t want to catch those lines for different reasons. Jess wanted something less focused on speed since she already had a Starly and a Zangoose, while I wanted something more unfamiliar. And while those are obviously great lines, they were also very popular, which made it easy to scheme against.
We’d already given up on finding something, and were already leaving when Jess spotted a single Torkoal. She was laying down in a rock and taking in sunlight just outside the forest, when Jess startled the poor fire type by running full sprint at her.
Almost like she’s still bitter about losing Tentacool to Joshua and Lickitung.
A short conversation later and she had a Torkoal.
Now, hours later, we’d finished set up camp in the middle of a clearing, and she was now bonding with her new pokemon.
I was sitting down with my pokemon and preparing Cape’s food when Aiden came.
“We’re ready, Scott.”
“Perfect, I will be there in a minute,” I said as I was finishing Cape’s food.
He nodded and walked back to the other side of the camp where his Gyarados, Swablu and Horsea were waiting for us.
Cape and Valley were glancing at the Gyarados on the other side of the camp. The Minccino wanted to fight it, and I wouldn’t let her, for now. The Heracross also wanted to fight him, and I wouldn’t let him because of his injuries, and also because it wouldn’t be a fight at all.
I handed to Cape the finished bowl, who thanked me with a nod before digging in. The others had already eaten but Cape needed a special meal with lots of nutrients and natural medicine for him to be fully healed by the time we reached Violet.
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Getting up from the ground, I turned to my Bulbasaur, Baltoy and Cryogonal, who were talking between them, “Let’s go, guys, let’s end the day with a light training.”
We walked, or floated, to the place where Aiden and his pokemon were waiting for us. As we approached, the Gyarados rose from where it laid on the ground, and his lower jaw opened, showing teeth the size of Jess’ arms in an attempt to scare us.
A rasping noise came from under me and I looked down to see Jungle scowling. The Bulbasaur’s face was crouched up and he was hissing. Gyarados, by the squinting of his eyes, takes that as a challenge, but before it can fully rise from the ground, Aiden holds up a hand in front of his eyes.
“Enough,” the pokemon shifted his gaze from Jungle to Aiden, and the glare melts away.
The water type grumbles before laying down again. This interaction fills me with enough confidence to walk up near Aiden and Gyarados. The pokemon was still alert, but I was now confident that he wouldn’t do anything.
I nodded to Aiden and then turned to his pokemon, “Hello, my name is Scott and these are Jungle, Mesa, and Mountain.”
The giant snake’s face not so much as twitched, while the other two gave their own greetings.
“We’re here because Aiden asked us to train with you guys, and with you more specifically, big guy,” Gyarados raised an eyebrow towards Aiden, and then it breathed out a huge lung of air at us.
“He’s just tired,” Aiden lied.
I nodded and turned to my pokemon, “Mesa, you’re with Swablu, light sparring for now, no moves. Jungle, you’ll work with Horsea, teach her the dexterity drill, she’s fast in a straight line but has problem turning or switching directions. Later on, we’ll circle around to see how you guys are doing.”
The four pokemon nodded and wandered out to find somewhere to train away from us. My pokemon already knew to do that since I asked them beforehand to give us space to work with Gyarados.
“Right, so what moves does Gyarados knows?”
“Splash, Tackle, Bite, Ice Fang and Crunch.”
I raised an eyebrow as Gyarados looked over at Cryogonal, measuring him up and down.
“He uses Ice Fang a lot?”
“Not a lot, he uses Bite and Tackle the most, sometimes Ice Fang, and I only know that he knows Crunch because I saw him use it one time.”
“Hey Gyarados,” The pokemon turned one eye to me. “Can you show me Ice Fang?”
The pokemon opened its mouth and blue energy seemed to condense around his fangs, but it was weak and seemed to flicker out.
I hummed. “Okay, now show me Bite.”
Same thing, the energy just wasn’t flowing uniformly.
“Has he gone through a medical evaluation?”
“Yes, like half a dozen. The doctors say that there’s nothing physically wrong with him,” He patted the pokemon head, and the pokemon looked back at him.
I winced, “Does he eat enough?”
“Of course,” Aiden replied with a glare.
I nodded, and made a show of looking around the water type, “Aiden, can you go see how the training of the others are going, and can you go with him Mountain?”
Aiden already knew that was going to happen. He was reluctant to let me spend some time alone with Gyarados, but after I sent him a message taking all the responsibility if something were to happen, he agreed.
He glanced between me and Gyarados one last time before finally nodding and leaving with Cryogonal behind him. His pokemon following him with his eyes.
“Aiden seems like a good person.”
The Gyarados’s head turned to me and gave a small grunt.
“Now then…” I looked around a bit and sat down at a big rock. “Do you have anything that you want to learn? I can teach you some moves, give some tips.”
His expression became blank and he slumped on the ground, not interested in anything anymore.
Interesting.
Enjoying the silence and the opportunity, I examined him more closely. The first thing that caught my eyes when I first saw him was his figure. Yes, it was almost half the size of a normal Gyarados, but it had a lot of muscles. The water type’s teeth were longer than a wild Gyarados. His scales had a light blue tone to it, unlike the usual dark blue, which might indicate the parentage of two powerful water type pokemon.
Gyarados noticed me walking around him and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, don’t mind me, it’s just that not everyday you can see a clan pokemon up close like this,” I waved at his body. “There’s a big difference, you know. Wild Gyarados don’t look nothing like you, I would bet that as soon as you grow to your full height you’re going to win a lot of fights.”
His blank face was soon giving way to a familiar emotion for his line, rage. The pokemon then slithered away, turning his stormy expression away from me.
“I see the problem now,” I said, happy that my theory was right. “Do you even want to battle?”
The giant’s body twitched from where it laid on the ground.
“If I had to guess, I would say that everyone that looks at you expects an specimen as strong as you are to battle. You were probably the biggest and smartest Margikarp around, and then you evolved into this... no wonder you left Blackthorn so soon. Of course, who am I to question the ways of the great Dragon Masters of Blackthorn, but you, on the other hand, might feel like you’ve evolved and left a little too soon, am I right?”
A grumble.
“I think you’re missing your school,” I said bluntly, looking towards the bright night sky. “This sucks, right?”
The Atrocious Pokemon stayed still, pretending to be asleep.
I almost sighed out loud. Self-sabotage is tough.
---
I’ve always wanted to see the oldest city this side of Mt. Silver, Violet. It was the second most architecturally fascinating city in Johto, just after Ecruteak.
The group was walking across the stone bridge over the Poliwag River, and I could see the city’s houses growing on the horizon, house made in the traditional style, built the same time as when people wore traditional clothes like kimono, and the renowned samurai walked around with their katana and pokemon openly.
“Look, Valley,” I said to the small pokemon on my shoulder, gesturing to the ground. “These cobblestone streets are a remarkable feat of engineering, they were built with the assumption that even heavy pokemon like Golem and Hariyama were going to walk over them, before pokeballs were even theorised.”
Nowadays, you couldn’t release heavy pokemon on a cement street in many other cities anymore, or you’ll be fined for cracking the ground.
The Minccino glared at the ground for a few seconds before looking up and shrugging.
“Not even Valley cares about that, teach,” Jess said while walking in front of the group. “Hurry up, the faster we get to the Pokemon Center, the sooner we can take a shower.”
“Harsh,” Anderson said.
Cape looked down with a hand on his non-existent jaw, pretending to be fascinated by the cobblestones.
“Forget it, Cape,” I smiled as the bug type grumbled and flew off. I’m glad seeing him moving like this again.
This last week we found a lot of trainers around our level near Violet, since the beginner’s tournament was coming up, many young trainers were converging here. Mesa, Valley and Mountain were getting a lot of matches, but the one that really wanted to fight was Jungle, who fought more than Mountain and Valley together.
His performance against Whitney might have just lit a fire under the Bulbasaur. Figuratively, of course.
This last day, however, Cape stole the show, sometimes fighting three pokemon simultaneously.
The growth he had after defeating Whitney’s Jigglypuff was insane.
Ten minutes of walking around the city, and we were reaching the Pokemon Center we’d planned to stay when someone from a group of people dressed in purple clothing broke off from them and approached Jess, who was way in front of the group. She stopped and barely looked at him, enthralled as she was by the promise of a proper bed and shower.
“Hi miss,” The young guy who looked to be eighteen said. “Do you happen to be a trainer?”
We reached them as Jess looked down at her torn and stained clothes, her belt with her pokeballs, and her mud-caked shoes. She opened her mouth with a glare, but Rebecca held her by the shoulders and answered for her, “Yes, yes, she is. We all are.”
“Perfect.” The guy in purple uniform then grabbed a bunch of flyers and began passing to us. “These pamphlets are about Violet City’s beginner tournament, you can register with the city representative at the Pokemon Center.”
When he reached me, he hesitated to let go of the paper, “This tournament is for beginners with three or fewer badges, sir.”
“I know, I began my journey this year and only have two badges.”
“Ah, okay then.” He released with a smile and then gave a wave. “We hope to see you guys on the tournament.”
We continued our walk towards the Center. Aiden buried his head in the paper while Jess was glaring at the back of the guy. Rebecca and Anderson sighed.
“Pretty rude of the guy to assume.” Jess said.
“It was nothing,” I commented as I passed my eyes through the pamphlet. I already knew the information from the site but it was a good habit to confirm everything. “People will probably always assume that I’m a experienced trainer, seeing as I’m way older than when people usually begin.”
“Sadly, Scott’s right. It’s not something to get caught upon,” Rebecca said. “Are you guys going to enter the tournament?”
“I will,” Jess said.
“I will too,” Aiden said while reading the paper.
“That’s the plan, and you two?”
“No, we’re here only to get badges. We don’t want to put anymore effort than necessary,” Anderson explained.
I nodded, and looked at Jess, “Do you want me to tell them that we’re here already?”
“I just want a shower and a bed.” Jess said as we entered the Pokemon Center to see a long line of people curving around the whole lobby like a snake.
We took a step back and, sure enough, Jess screamed something that made a passing Clefairy come over and scold her.
---
The repeated sound of someone banging on my door woke me up.
It took a lot of effort to open my eyes and look around. Valley was still on the small bed next to mine, now with a second mini-pillow on top of her head. I threw off the covers, stood up, and stretched out my body as far as my pyjama would go.
Throwing a look at Valley as, I said, “You have big ears, there’s no way that is helping you.”
Tossing the pillow at the wall, the little grey pokemon sat down on her bed. Heavy and droopy eyes glaring at the door and beyond, at whoever had woken her up at... Six in the morning.
I crept to the door, opened it, and saw Dendra Navarra, who I hadn’t seen since Azalea, standing on the Pokemon Center hallway with a grin and a pokeball on her outstretched arm, “Osu! Scott Wood, prepare yourself to battle with Dendra Navarra, the fighting type genius.”
Valley’s weight was suddenly on my shoulder, almost knocking me over. No hint of drowsiness on the Minccino’s eyes, just a fierce glare directed at the fighting type trainer and the Krokorok at her side, who just raised an eyebrow at the little pokemon.
The girl shuddered at the glare, and I sighed.