~~~ Chapter 78 - Back In The City ~~~
The salt in the air had hit him the moment he stepped out of the subway station and onto the street. He was still a few blocks away from the gym, and as late as it was, he decided to bike back.
Being back in Unova's Capital city was interesting. It had only been about a month or so since they'd teleported in for the first time, and honestly, he'd lost track. While setting up his bike outside of the train stop, his phone buzzed.
What the heck?!? It was Kate Dean, and while they hadn't really talked a whole lot since they split up, they still texted each other every couple of days just to see what the other was up to. Her Skorupi was supposed to evolve soon, and he was excited to see where it would end up taking her team.
Ya ik, the gym leaders all went ez on us, he sent back.
No, the looker!
Ya it's pretty weird. But Leah's just weird even for a bug.
Wasn't Lyra raggin on u about Leah a lot?
Yah.
He sighed. Lyra was right tho, and he did need to give Fidget and the Silcoon some time to train, but he hadn't exactly settled on what he was gonna do just yet. She was strong yes, and did a good job of disturbing her opponents. Elesa's Emolga didn't know what to do when she started rolling around on the ground.
The carvings that Leah's struggling would leave on the floor when she did meant that whatever she was doing went beyond whatever she was actually hitting. And it reached a lot further than you'd expect.
He put his phone away and ignored the buzz. He'd answer her later, for now, he was ready to get back to the gym. He looked forward to really spending time to really learn it and the city's ins-and-outs, and meeting new people and friends.
Well, first he had a Volcarona to make sure made its way back to Relic castle… And to avoid letting the secret back to Alder.
As he biked through the city, the statistics of Castelia re-entered his mind. The city was host to a couple million people in about thirty square miles? That many people in such a small radius was mind-boggling.
It certainly didn't feel like there actually were that many as he biked down the roads!
Back on the surface, the city was clean, there were cars, buses, trucks, and all sorts of boats visible off in the distance with the few glances at the ocean he'd managed to get through the lines of skyscrapers and bustling cars. That, or he was imagining things and they were just lights. It was pretty dark that night.
As he pedaled the half-mile or so from the subway to the gym, he was caught up in thought. Whispers on the wind that had started to settle over him. Various people he'd met and passed. Little phrases here or there. New bloggers or television personalities playing up the pokemons' rights angles.
That said, there was, even for him, a kind of frustration building up. He didn't think it was quite like a pokemon's need for a fight… Not unless the Cathexis or bond thing was feeding back into him more than he was ready for.
Ugh.
Humans didn't just eat enough calories, and then need to spend it in some kind of fight with another human. They weren't pokemon. But still, as he biked, the exercise helped to tug at the frustration that had been mounting.
It had been the radio. The bloggers. The idiots who made passive comments about how terrible it was in Unova. Little statements that the region was a forest of dead trees, all that wood and brush ready to ignite.
A radio host would say that dramatic change would be something fresh and new. Something even better, they claimed, would arise from the clash. Like it was in the past, so many hundreds of years ago, like when the desert wasn't a desert, but a lush forest able to support a kingdom and humanity was somehow more in tune with natural order.
Or something.
Talk of how Unova was going to dramatically change bothered him. If things were overturned, what would happen to him? To Leah? To his team? Jacob was planning on getting out of the region, the money on offer from the company. He'd refused to help the fleeing gym member on his contract.
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Being a member of Castelia Gym, well, right now the only "proper" member of the gym, it was actually within his rights to help "manage" the wildlife of Unova. Jacob had proposed a paid job for helping to remove a bunch of Noibat. Of course, Art hadn't felt comfortable with it, and it had turned into a whole argument about ethics.
During the argument with Jacob, he'd been barely cordial about the endeavor. When Jacob had said how much money the company asking for the job allocated for the multi-trainer team? It made Art take a step back. It made how much gym leaders made per year pale.
Most usually were independently wealthy, had side gigs, or received jobs for commercial ventures like Jacob had. He'd have been able to opt out of the regional stipends and pay his own way for at least a few years.
And even with all of that, something about the whole arrangement was off. A bioagricultural company sponsoring the entire endeavor? The ones responsible for so much of his pokemon's food? While he couldn't put his finger on exactly what the problem was, the entire setup smelled from a mile away.
But as he biked and proceeded his way through the city, the last leg of the trip to the gym, the real reason why it bothered him so much bubbled up. On top of not wanting to put Leah through a mass culling of Noibat— on top of whether or not she'd listen to that kind of decision— he wasn't ready for that kind of weight, and he knew it.
Art didn't want his name attached to a mass culling as the first thing people associated with him. He much preferred the cute dancing leavanny. He'd take the Nickname "Burgh" over that kind of association any day.
He paused on his bike, stopping at a red light, looking around and breathing in the not-quite salty air. It was night and Leah was in her pokeball. She and Fidget would have been in torpor, though that usually only lasted for a few hours at a time at most.
As much as he loved his bugs, knowing that they couldn't get into trouble was a big relief. The light changed, and he turned onto the street the gym was on. A smile crept up his face. He waved at a passerby, walking around, with a growlithe leading the way.
They waved back. There was something refreshing in the air, and as short as the stint out of the gym was, being back in the city, passing by people walking alongside their pokemon, waving at another person who smiled at him in greeting, Castelia already felt more like home than any place he'd lived before.
Unfortunately, there were still things he'd need to make sure happened before he could really call the place home. A trip out to the Relic Castle of the old kingdom of the region, and a tour for at least a few more gym badges.
~~~
Being in the city again was good, if only because the screams of the horns and the engines on the road drowned out any regret and worry I had about trying to be more honest with Lanky and everyone else. I never did actually lie about who I was, I shouldn't ever have been as anxious about it as I was.
But still, when the stupid Looker had given me a few pictures to look over, when Lanky started getting close to who I was, when I tried to start talking to Lyra by spelling things out? The frustration and annoyance was still bubbling.
The writing was already on the wall on what was going to happen to our team, and for me. Even if we’d spent only a few weeks together as Pokémon and human/trainer, I knew what was going to happen, and given how easy we'd had our gym battles...
Yeah, we were partners, I guess? Lanky took care of the logistics, and I followed him around! But our agreement wouldn’t last as long as it could so long as I was still panicking.
Released from the pokeball as Lanky packed up his backpack, I surveyed the street our stomping-ground-to-be was on. There wasn’t much to see. A few streetlights, a car or two. A few buildings, a few pedestrians. My eyesight wasn't good enough to tell if the stars were out or not.
A houndoom on a leash staring us down. I raised my arms at it, challenging it with a hiss.
It looked away.
Good.
Lanky let out a few quick gasps of air—chuckles, probably—I had to remind myself, before unlocking the door to the gym and letting us in.
Then he let Fidget out, and it was just us two and Lanky walking, the Silcoon not really evolved yet, so he held it in his arms as we went to the main arena. He had his hand on its pokeball, but still didn't let the Volcarona out, which was nice.
That we still had it was a bit of a worry. Lanky had said it was temporary, but had something changed? Maybe he was going to give it back to Alder?
Lanky was going to be gym leader one day, and I was probably going to be the star pokemon. He had already named his signature move… Struggle Bug, inspired by me, and I'd learned how to access the magic, and do it reliably.
We walked through the hall, Fidget somehow intuiting that I was not in the mood for our play-fighting.
In that tiled hall, I was struggling to get a grip on the floor when Lanky’s phone buzzed. Ready for some real sleep, I ignored it, and him, pushing open the metal doors that lead into the gym area where we had all hung out.
The place was much the same- the silk swing that I’d built was still up, though all the messes we’d made had been cleaned.
Fidget came to me, and offered me a leaf he'd pulled off a tree. The tree leaves were already regrown. After accepting the leaf, I glued it to a hole in my headdress that hadn't been repaired since taking a few unfortunate zaps from an Emolga.
~~~