Chapter 5: The Hunt During a Hunt

The celebrations were really underway when I met back up with Ash and Gary in the town square. Everywhere you looked, groups of people were laughing and dancing.

A band was performing. The group consisted of a Loudred, Jigglypuff, and a Chimecho—along with their trainer on a keyboard. It was an odd genre of music, something like a mix between dubstep and classical opera. On paper, that sounded horrible, but performed by these creatures who literally controlled aura through sound, your body wanted to move with or without your permission.

“How’s it been guys?” I asked as I found my friends in the middle of the crowd.

“There’s the Slowpoke,” Gary smirked at me.

“Sorry, we got a little distracted,” I shrugged, we were supposed to meet up an hour ago.

“How’s Johnny doing?” Ash always was the more caring of the two.

“Oh he’s fine,” I waved off his worry, “He never was the type to sweat the small stuff. That wasn’t what kept us. It’s just… it was probably the last family dinner we’ll have for a while… How about you Ash?” I gave the boy a careful once over. Tonight was a huge deal for him, after all. Much more important than any of us.

“I’m doing ok, I think… My mom started crying during dinner.” Ash sighed with one of the most melancholic faces I’d ever seen on him, and that was despite the magically uplifting music.

“Oh. Was she sad to see her baby boy growing up?” Gary teased. I couldn’t believe he was that emotionally incompetent, “Is she still labeling your underwear too?”

“Shut it butt-head. That stopped ages ago!” Ash was instantly pulled out of his funk, so maybe there was some logic to Gary’s assholery?

“Huh. I didn’t know you could use ages to describe a year ago.”

“Why you-”

“Thank you! We are Musical Evolution!” The crowd cheered as the song came to an end, thankfully interrupting my friend's argument, “If you liked our performance, we’ve got a table with merchandise in the back! We’ve got hats, t-shirts, pos-”

“So what do you guys want to do?” I started a new conversation. It was pretty late, but we still had several hours until the big show, which took place at midnight.

“The line for the Pidgeot ride may have gotten shorter,” Ash suggested.

“Ehh. I don’t get the appeal,” Gary denied.

“Most of us don’t have easy access to a pokemon that can break the speed of sound,” I gave him a pointed look.

“Dragonite won’t let me ride him anymore,” Gary denied with a sad shake of his head, “I’m too old now—no longer a nestling under his protection.”

“At least you’ve seen him,” Ash grumbled, which I silently agreed with. I’d always wanted to meet Professor Oak’s infamous starter, but the dragon was frustratingly antisocial.

“Regardless, I’m not waiting in line for an hour when the rides are only thirty seconds,” the genius put his foot down, “They don’t even allow flips or barrel rolls,” It was exacerbating that Gary didn’t even mean that as a brag. He was just stating it as a fact.

“We could check out the stalls? Maybe there’s a few diamonds hidden in the rough?” I tried. You never knew what odd things someone may find out in the wilds.

“I’ve been through all of them,” Gary sighed, “There wasn’t anything interesting. Besides, I’m pretty sure Ashy-boy is completely broke after this morning.”

“Grrr. How about the training grounds? Catch a battle or two?” the broke teenager valiantly tried to ignore Gary’s jab.

“We were watching battles for hours already, dumb-ass. There becomes a point when it’s just too much.”

“Arghhhh. Well then what do you recommend, asshole?” Ash threw his arms above his head. His will was broken predictably fast.

“Umm-” Gary paused. It was a hard question. We were at that difficult age; the childhood wonder of the festival had faded, but we were also too young for the adult stuff. For the love of Mew, I couldn’t wait to have a beer again… Just one more year.

“See!” Ash poked Gary in the chest, “Not so easy, is it?”

“Uh, no. I’ve got an idea.”

“Ok. What?” I pushed for an answer.

“Uh… We’ll-”

“Gather around, gather around ladies and gentlemen. It’s time for the most glorious Pallet Town scavenger hunt!” An excessively dramatic voice announced over the speakers.

“The scavenger hunt!” Gary finished with a confident nod of the head.

“Laaaaaame,” Ash shot it down immediately.

“We’ve got an extra special event scheduled this year. Silph CO has generously contributed a free TM voucher for a move at or below yellow density, to be the prize for the first team to complete our challenge,” we all froze, “So step up, any who dare. Are you smarter than an Alkazam? Faster than a Rapadash? Then prove your mettle in our most intricate hunt to date!” There was a rapid surge of the crowd moving towards the stage. TM’s, especially the rare ones, were ridiculously expensive.

“You got lucky,” I scowled at Gary, and began following the crowd.

“Whatever lets you sleep at night, Laiton-boy.” Gary smirked triumphantly.

//////////RtP\\\\\\\\\\

An hour later, I was jogging through the park. The scavenger hunt was a list of ten clues that would lead you to different locations throughout town. Gary had the smart idea to split up, where he started from the beginning while I worked from the end, and Ash—the stamina freak—ran the paper we needed to mark, back and forth between us once we found the right location.

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I was feeling fairly good about our odds. Gary had already solved the first four clues and I was on my third. The very last clue, the first one I had to solve, had been particularly tricky.

The place where the most important produce grows

It hadn’t meant any kind of garden or farm, it was talking about the trainer grounds. Since, of course, the most important thing produced by Pallet Town was pokemon trainers—but even if others figured that out, they still had to find the scavenger hunt volunteer who would stamp their paper.

There were hundreds of people at the grounds, milling about the multiple small arenas and open fields. Either practicing moves, cultivating their pokemon, or watching one of the many battles going on. Starting tomorrow, the vast majority of my time would be spent here with my starter. I could hardly wait.

At first, I had been stumped on what to do, then I noticed Marcus—the training fanatic—relaxing on a bench. He wasn’t even wearing workout clothes. That was out of character, so I’d approached him with Ash and our paper. I’d almost jumped with joy when he pulled the little plastic stamp from his pocket.

Now I was on, ‘gaze upon my face with grass between your toes.’ I thought it was referring to the clock at the top of the monument, in the middle of the Pallet Town park. This was going to be another hard one, with tons of families out on blankets and fold-out chairs, enjoying the festivities, while mobs of children and hoards of pokemon scampered about. The park was massive, with huge open fields, thick clumps of trees, and several large ponds.

In the center of it all was the memorial; a giant slab of white marble. All across its surface were names, delicately engraved and inlaid with gold, and at the top was a simple clock with a single line scrawled beneath it.

The time we now enjoy because of their sacrifice

Pallet Town was a small community, yet thousands of names covered its surface. The war had been at such a scale, I could hardly imagine. Even now, all these years later, there were a few mourners kneeling before it.

I always felt weird coming here. Two names drew my eye. Harmony with her Seadra, Kingler, Dewgong, Nidorina, and Wailmer. She’d been a water trainer with dreams of reaching mastery. Norris with his solitary Sunflora; a simple berry farmer. They were only a few years older than I was now. My parents.

It was strange thinking of them like that. If they had survived, would I have come to love them like my old mom and dad? I wasn’t sure, which made me feel like an imposter inhabiting the body of their actual son.

“What are you doing here, Laiton?” I was awoken from my musings, “I thought you and the boys would be off getting into trouble,” it was Joy, lounging on one of the benches.

“He better not be,”

“I was just kidding Jenny,” Joy swatted the teal haired woman who sat beside her, “You know Laiton’s better than that.”

“I know nothing,” The police officer gave me a hard look.

“Just doing the scavenger hunt, Ma’am,” I tried to smile reassuringly. It was always best to treat the Jennys with respect and honesty. They could always tell when you were lying, and were oath bound to uphold the letter of the law. I’d gotten a ticket for jaywalking once, when I was seven!

“Bah. Another one,” Jenny scoffed, “You really think they’d set the Hoenn war memorial as one of the locations?”

“Ah… I guess not?” Now that she mentioned it, that did seem disrespectful. At least I, apparently, wasn’t the only one to make that mistake.

“Where are Ash and Gary?” Joy asked.

“Getting another clue out at the beach. We decided to split up to cover more ground.”

Joy gave me a bewildered look. We weren’t really the sort to put this much effort in a scavenger hunt.

“The prize for first place is pretty awesome,” I felt compelled to clarify; Jenny was picking up on my pseudo-mother’s confusion.

“Hm, not a bad plan,” the stern officer gave a begrudging nod.

“Where’s Dot? Did Johnny take her?” I looked around for my rambunctious siblings.

“No. He’s probably back at the DD-”

“Blasted drunk teenagers,” Jenny muttered.

“-Dorthy’s somewhere out there with her friends,” Joy gave a general wave towards the open park.

“Oh, ok. Well I’ve got to try a different location, sooooo,” I began to back away.

“Have fun,” the nurse nodded, understandingly.

“Stay out of trouble!” Jenny was far less so.

With a smile, hopefully an innocent one, I began running away. I needed to hurry. Gary was going to be pissed about this screwup.

“I can already hear his voice,” I mumbled to myself, “You thought the clue led to the memorial?! How stupid are you, Laiton-boy?” I may have made my voice excessively high and whiny.

Taking the straight line back to town square—there was another clock there—I broke away from the path and began to cross the field. I’d have to pass through a thick patch of trees, but it’d be much faster than using one of the standard park entrances.

I almost got bowled over when a Manectric, Growlith, and Vulpix blitzed past me. A part of me wanted to shout at them. High-level Pokemon, like they clearly were, were supposed to restrain themselves in public places, but the joyful expressions they wore made me swallow it. They were just having fun, and my aura would have absorbed any damage even if they’d hit me.

Finally, I reached the tree line and began weaving my way through the dark undergrowth. It was the new moon, so it was nearly pitch black out here away from the street lamps. A little application of aura fixed that. It didn’t make my vision as good as if it was daytime, but at least I wouldn’t run headlong into a tree.

I was stopped dead though, as a scream split the night. It came from just ahead of me. After a brief moment, I sped on, my careful jog turned into a full sprint. That hadn’t sounded like a playful shriek and, even worse, it sounded familiar.

With a final push, I broke my way through a few thin branches, and out into a small glade. My sister was crouched in the middle, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Dot, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” I dashed the rest of the way to her.

“M-m-meanie b-b-buuurd,” she barely managed to get out.

“Mean bird? What mean bird? And what are you doing all the way ou-,” I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and barely had enough time to throw myself on top of Dot, who let out another shrill scream. A soft hiss and a gust of wind indicated something passing mere inches above my back.

I lifted my head and scanned the surroundings. My heart dropped as I saw the little bird hovering on the edge of the glade. It was a Spearow. A Spearow with glowing white wings. That was an actual Pokemon move, meaning this wasn’t some dull animal. That, plus the madness I could see in its eyes—even from this far away—meant only one thing. A rampage.

With a flood of aura, I powered the muscles in my legs. It caused me to lose my night vision, but it was speed I needed now. Quick as I could, I snatched Dot up and turned to make a run for the nearest trees. After only a single step, a great force knocked my legs out from under me, and I barely managed to avoid landing on my wailing sister.

In a groaning heap on the ground, despair swallowed me as I watched the murderous chicken circling around for another strike. It was simply too fast. I only had time to roll back onto Dot before it was upon us again.

I’d just have to grit my teeth and let my aura take the hit… but it never came.

Instead, there was a flash so bright it was blinding, even with my head pointed toward the ground. Then, a sonic boom shook my bones and caused my ears to ring. I continued to brace for a few moments after that, but it was quiet.

Hesitantly, I poked my head up. The Manectric I’d seen earlier stood before us. In its jaws, the Spearow spasmed. Thick streams of electricity were constantly being pumped into it from two long canines.

“Uh… Thanks,” I hesitantly said. I was still in a bit of shock.

The mighty electric wolf simply nodded its head, and disappeared. It was so fast, I had no clue which direction it had gone. Was that a mastery level Pokemon? It had enough control to dampen the noise from breaking the sound barrier this time.

I was brought back to the moment by another bout of sobs from the little girl I was still kneeling over.

“It’s ok Dot,” I picked her up and gave her a quick once over. When I found everything more or less in the right place, I pulled her into a tight hug. Only then did I feel my racing heart finally start to slow its frantic beat.

“Everything’s ok,” I reassured again, “The mean bird is gone now.”

“R-r-rweally?” She asked hesitantly.

“Really,” I smiled reassuringly. Trying to stop her tears. She was so, so lucky to be alive. If I'd been just a moment later…

“J-jowk-ker s-sawved me,” she began to sob again.

I could only sigh and pat her head reassuringly. Of course she’d give credit to the imaginary friend.