It was surprisingly easy to convince Miriam to go out to the routes to train. Hayley had expected her to push to stay in the city, but it turned out she didn't want anyone "spying" on her and the new moves she was practicing—or so she said. Hayley suspected it had more to do with the fact that in the city, people would inevitably see her and figure out she didn't know what she was doing.
Either way, they were both on a bus back to Route 104 the next morning. It was a later start than Hayley had wanted—Miriam had refused to roll out of bed before nine o'clock, and even that had been a struggle—but the important thing was that they were going. Hayley spent the bus ride double-checking the recent sightings list for the area, determining which species she'd have the best shot at encountering and catching. Miriam was on her phone too, switching back and forth between search engines and forums, and every so often Hayley caught a glimpse of the searches she was typing in.
"what moves can elekid learn"
"elekid tms cheap"
"how to beat roxanne when you only have a stupid elekid"
"make ground pokemon not be immune to electricity"
Judging by the ever-deepening furrows of her brow, Miriam was not getting the results she wanted. Hayley wasn't thrilled with what her own research turned up, either. The fact that there had been Phantump and Trevenant in the Petalburg Woods had led her to hope that there might be some other rare migratory or invasive Pokémon for her to find, but it seemed like the opposite was the case. Their high-profile near-death experience had spurred the rangers to do a full sweep of the area and remove anything that wasn't supposed to be there. At the outskirts of the forest, at least, the sightings were disappointingly common.
Hayley needed a water-type or grass-type to take down Roxanne. Grass would be better, since her Nosepass had electric attacks, but either would be better than nothing. Realistically, her options without going deep into the route were Wingull, Shroomish, and Seedot—maybe Marill, Psyduck, Oddish, or Budew, if she got lucky. Of course, there were also the ever-present Lotad, but… no. From those choices, Shroomish would be her first pick. Shroomish themselves were just okay, but Breloom were strong and quick and had a huge variety of moves at their disposal. Wingull was the worst choice, because it was both vulnerable to rock attacks and critically weak to electricity.
There might be better, rarer, and more interesting Pokémon deeper in the woods, but Hayley wasn't going off-route. She'd promised her mother that she wouldn't go anywhere dangerous, and that promise might not have stopped her if she was on her own, but she knew that Miriam would snitch in a heartbeat if anything remotely scary happened. So they were hiking southwest to the edge of the lake, and no further. The area was so heavily patrolled and carefully maintained that it barely even counted as wilderness.
None of this was ideal, but Hayley would take what she could get. If Miriam soured on training again, this might be her only chance to go out on this route for the next two and a half months. Besides, if she put everything on hold until a perfect Pokémon just happened to cross her path, she'd never get anywhere.
…Then again, Barrett had been the result of taking the first option available to her.
When the bus finally rattled to a stop at the trailhead, Hayley and Miriam disembarked, along with a number of other trainers. Hayley waited until they'd walked for a while and everyone else was out of sight before releasing Barrett—she didn't want him to hold them up by challenging everyone he saw to a battle. She'd tried to explain to him at breakfast what she planned to do today, but he'd tuned her out as usual, and now he stared in open bafflement at his new surroundings.
"Barrett." He glanced at her for a moment before growling and turning away again, caught between his determination to continue the silent treatment and his desire to demand an answer. "I'm out here to catch a second Pokémon. Remember? I told you we were going to do that." He slitted his eyes and fixed her with a sideways glare, still not turning his head.
All the training guidebooks had told her that adding a new team member could be tricky, especially when it was the first one after your starter. Barrett already had a history of abandonment, and if he thought she was trying to replace him… She had to be careful. She crouched down to his level, and he crossed his arms, huffed, and looked away. Fine. "Barrett, we need another partner. You're great at fighting, and I'm sure you'll be stronger than whatever we catch here, but you can't do everything by yourself. If you could, then we'd have beaten Roxanne already."
Barrett said nothing, but she saw his shoulders twitch. Hayley pushed on. "I'd like you to help me pick our new teammate, okay? Since we're all going to be working together, it'll be better if we all like each other. So while we're out here, you can battle all the wild Pokémon you want, and if there are any you want to join our team, call me over and I'll catch them. I'm looking for grass Pokémon and water Pokémon especially. But they have to be strong, okay?"
Barrett scoffed and rolled his eyes, but he didn't seem angry, at least. Maybe the promise of roasting more Zigzagoon was enough to keep him happy for now. Still, she didn't anticipate him giving her much help. Nothing was impossible, and there was a chance he'd find and fight a Pokémon he wanted her to catch, but it was far more likely she'd have to befriend one on her own. She'd at least wanted to extend him to the option, though, and not go completely behind his back.
They trekked out to where the edge of the forest met the edge of the lake. The shoreline was all craggy rocks and mud, with no sand to speak of. It wasn't the most pleasant spot, but it was a good habitat for Pokémon, and they weren't likely to run into anyone going out on a date or a picnic. Miriam had spent the whole walk over complaining—it was too hot, the sun was too bright, the mud was gross, she'd stepped in a puddle and now her feet were wet—and Hayley was happy to leave her by the lakeside while she began her search in the forest. Miriam watched her go with a suspicious glare, and as soon as she was out of sight, the sounds of her indistinct shouts and curses and Xena's enthusiastic responses began carrying over on the wind. Well, between Miriam and Barrett, all the wild Pokémon in the area were definitely going to know they were here. But whatever. Hayley was looking for a Pokémon that wouldn't run away from humans anyway.
When it came to wild Pokémon, there were wilds, and then there were wilds. That was, there were wild Pokémon who were curious about humans and might even be interested in living alongside them, and then there were wild Pokémon who wanted to live out their lives on their own terms without ever having to see a human. It was easy enough to tell the difference: the latter would run from humans or attack them on sight. The Vigoroth and the Trevenant in Petalburg Woods had been wild. But the former, those Pokémon who were technically wild but potentially already on their way to being tame, would either show themselves without fighting or challenge the trainer's Pokémon while leaving the trainer unharmed. There were any number of reasons a wild Pokémon might want to become a captive one. Some were struggling to find food and territory and figured that capture represented their best chance at survival. Some had seen the strength and skill of trained Pokémon and wanted that power for themselves. Some were just lonely.
The endless Zigzagoon that had approached Hayley south of the forest had probably been looking for a friendly trainer to join up with, but Barrett's viciousness had scared them right off.
There was constant debate in the training community about whether willing versus non-willing captures were stronger in the end. The argument generally went that tamer Pokémon were the weaklings and rejects of their packs, since if they'd had the strength to thrive in the wild, they wouldn't have wanted to leave it. But that same weakness could also make them loyal, and meant it was easier to mold them into whatever kind of fighter a trainer wanted. Meanwhile, while there was no doubt that unwilling captures were usually more powerful at the start, their power tended to make them stubborn and difficult, even dangerous, to train. They had their own ideas for how to fight and frequently resented their trainer for removing them from their territory. It took a skilled hand and a lot of patience to bring them around.
Hayley wanted strength, but she was also realistic. She'd been having enough trouble raising one experienced, headstrong Pokémon. Her new partner should be one that was at least open to the idea of listening to her.
With all that in mind, she began her search at the forest's edge. Budew, if they were around, wouldn't be here, since they preferred open, grassy fields, but Oddish, Shroomish, and Seedot all called the forest their home. Seedot would be in the branches of the trees, and Oddish and Shroomish would be roosting in the soil and leaf litter on the ground. All three would be using their best camouflage to avoid being picked off by bugs and birds; Oddish, being nocturnal, would literally be asleep under the ground. She'd have to flush them out.
Alternatively, Barrett would flush them out. His distaste for weak opponents apparently didn't extend to wild Pokémon, because he flung himself at every Pokémon he saw like a starving man attacking a buffet. Taillow scattered from branches and Zizgagoon raced for the safety of the underbrush, Poochyena turned tail and Wurmple curled up to hide. The smell of singed fur and feathers quickly filled the air. Hayley kept one eye on him, making sure he didn't set the forest on fire or try to burn anything to a crisp. With the rest of her attention, she scanned the branches for Seedot and poked the leaf litter with a sturdy branch, hoping to uncover a scowling Shroomish or a telltale cluster of Oddish leaves. She still wasn't expecting much from Barrett—but to her surprise, he did occasionally call her over.
The first time was to point at an undersized Wurmple, burned and fainted on the ground. She shook her head. "No, Barrett. I said we needed a strong Pokémon."
Next was a Cascoon, minding its own business on the trunk of a tree. She rejected that one too. "It can't move. We don't want a Pokémon that can't fight."
Then there was a Taillow fledgling, which hopped away from them as fast as its legs could carry it. Hayley buried her head in her hands. "Barrett, it can't even fly yet! We should leave it with its parents."
She wasn't stupid, and quickly caught on to what he was doing. He was driving all the actually useful Pokémon away before she could see them and presenting her with the leftover weaklings. He probably wanted to prove that he was the strongest thing here, and that nothing else was worth her time. Maybe he wanted her to think there were no options at all but him. She kept a closer eye on him for a while, and saw that he did uncover a couple of grass types—a Seedot that she only saw the back of as it darted deeper into the trees, and a Shroomish that spored and disappeared into a bush. He didn't call her over for those. In fact, after the Shroomish, she caught him glancing over his shoulder at her, as though checking to make sure she hadn't seen the Pokémon herself.
So, as she'd thought, she was on her own. If she recalled Barrett now, he'd never forgive her—another sin on her list of sins—so that meant she had to find something and nab it before Barrett could notice and chase it off. He'd be angry about that too, of course, but maybe she could make up some excuse. Say that it had attacked her and she'd needed to catch it for her own safety—something like that. Then Barrett and the new Pokémon could bond over how much they hated her.
She put as much space as she dared between herself and Barrett, which unfortunately wasn't much space at all, and redoubled her efforts to search the area. There were no Oddish to be found, but after an hour of sweeping back and forth in a grid pattern, she'd managed to uncover a total of two Shroomish and one Seedot.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The first Shroomish, she accidentally whacked with her stick, sending it rolling across the forest floor. She immediately dropped the stick and crouched down, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible as it righted itself and scowled. "Hi," she said, in the same calm voice that Maira had demonstrated at the trainer's school. It probably couldn't understand most of what she was saying, but she hoped to get the gist of it across. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you. My name's Hayley, and I'm wondering if you'd like to be friends—" But then there was a burst of fire further back on the path that demanded her attention. She only glanced away for a moment, but when she looked back, the Shroomish was gone.
The Seedot, she spied sleeping on a tree branch. It was high enough up that she couldn't call out to it without Barrett noticing, so after some deliberation, she decided to climb the trunk to get closer. She made it up to the branch without issue, but when she tried to shimmy out onto it, the wood creaked and shook and jostled the Seedot awake. It spotted her and yelped, and her hasty placations weren't enough to stop it from leaping to the forest floor and disappearing into the green.
The second Shroomish, she managed to uncover without hitting. It still glared at her suspiciously and didn't respond when she spoke to it, so she decided to try a bribe. She withdrew an oran berry from her pack and placed it on the ground between them. The Shroomish frowned at the berry, frowned at her, frowned at Barrett chasing a Poochyena down the trail, and then shot a puff of spores and ran away.
So… She'd tried making friends with a Pokémon before she captured it. Really, really tried. But the forest saw her and Barrett as a threat now, and no amount of words would convince the Pokémon here that she wasn't planning to hurt them, especially since there was a language barrier at work. And so, reluctantly, she switched tactics. Capture first, apologize later. She'd catch a Pokémon in a ball, then make her pitch after the fact, and if it didn't want to join her team, she could release it. It wasn't the best method, especially because she didn't have Barrett to weaken the Pokémon first, and because she only had her seven Pokéballs and no money to buy more. But she had to do something.
After another half-hour of poking, she unearthed another Shroomish, and chucked a ball at it before it could run. The ball shook, then burst open. She tried a second ball, but that one broke too. Fine—this Shroomish definitely didn't want to come with her. She let it vanish off into the bushes. Five Pokéballs left.
Next, she found another Seedot hanging from a tree and tried a long-distance throw, but her aim was off by just a little bit, and the ball sailed past the Pokémon and into the trees behind it. The Seedot cried out and scampered higher into the canopy, removing itself from sight. Hayley searched the area where she'd thought the ball had landed for twenty minutes afterwards, but couldn't find it. Ugh. Four Pokéballs left.
Her next Pokéball was also lost to a Seedot. More accurately, it was lost to the Wurmple that dropped down in front of the Seedot just before the ball could hit it. The worm disappeared into red light, then broke free just before the ball hit the ground. It fell the rest of the way, twisted back to its feet, and scurried away. Three Pokéballs left.
Seriously, was she cursed?
She knew that at this point, she should cut her losses and stop. But she was so close—she could feel it. And, just a short while later, her faith was rewarded. Two more balls went to the next Shroomish she found. The first broke open, but the second, after shaking violently for almost a full minute, finally fell still with a soft chime.
Hayley pumped her fist in the air and whooped. She'd done it! She'd caught a Pokémon! The curse was broken!
She darted forward and scooped the ball up, scanning it with her dex as Barrett jogged up to see what the fuss was about. The Shroomish was a male, and level seven. Not bad—he would need training before he could face Roxanne, but he should grow quickly enough. She showed Barrett the ball. "I caught another Pokémon!" she half-shouted, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to make up an excuse for why she'd caught it without his approval. "Do you want to see?" Barrett cocked his head and huffed. Ignoring his disdain, Hayley lobbed the ball to the ground. The Shroomish appeared, and—
He shrieked. It was a horrible, ear-splitting shriek that pierced through her head as badly as the Gallade's telepathy had done. She clapped her hands over her ears, and Barrett charged forward, claws raised. "Barrett! Don't attack him!" she yelled, but the Magby didn't listen to her. She uncovered one ear to fumble with the Pokéball and managed to recall the Shroomish just before Barrett made contact. The forest went abruptly quiet. Barrett spun around towards Hayley and growled.
"I—I think he's scared," she said. Her words sounded strange among the ringing in her ears; for some reason, she was lightheaded. "We need to be nice to him so that he understands we're friendly. Okay? Don't attack." Barrett scoffed and plopped himself down on the ground, arms folded. Hayley threw the ball again, a little further this time, and once again, the Shroomish materialized. The screaming picked up right where it had left off. Hayley covered her ears again.
"Shroomish!" she shouted, trying desperately to be heard over the awful noise. "I want to be your trainer, okay? I'm looking for strong Pokémon, and…" He was still screaming. How was that even possible? Hayley stepped closer, and the shrieking rose in pitch, and then the Shroomish spored—not into the air, not as a threat display, but directly at her. Shimmering golden powder missed her by inches as she stumbled back. Paralysis spores. She wasn't as strong as a Pokémon—if she breathed them in, they could kill her.
"Shroomish," she tried again. She'd gotten clear of the powder, but her throat still felt closed up. "Please… I just want to… Please listen to me! Give me a chance? Please?" The Shroomish paused, took a deep breath, and resumed screaming. He dipped his head towards her, and more powder gathered, ready for another shot.
He didn't want to be captured. He was ready to fight and possibly kill to not have her as a trainer. This was beyond Barrett, even—this was something primal and visceral.
She couldn't raise a Pokémon like that. Even if she could, it wouldn't have felt right.
"Okay," she choked out. "Okay." She held up her hands and dropped the ball to the ground, taking several steps back. "You can go. I'm sorry."
The Shroomish stopped screaming and lifted his head, staring at her coldly for a long moment. Then he turned and darted away, vanishing before Hayley could change her mind.
Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Hayley picked up the fallen Pokéball. She pressed her thumb against the release button and counted for ten seconds. The override was triggered, and the ball popped open, revealing its empty, mechanical insides. She took one half in each hand and twisted until the hinge gave way with a crunch and the sides pulled apart.
That's bad luck.
"Barrett," she said, and hoped the Magby didn't hear the way her voice cracked. "Let's go. We're not catching a Pokémon today."
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On the bus ride back, to distract her from her failure, Hayley pulled up the Mauville City Gym webpage. Information about Jin and videos of his matches had been flooding the internet over the past two weeks, and she was trying to take in as much as she could. After all, she was going to have to face him at some point if she ever beat Roxanne.
If.
The number of trainers streaming in to face Jin was insane. A new gym leader was a huge event, sure, but there hadn't been anywhere near this many challengers when Arabella took over the Fortree gym two years ago. But then, Arabella's appointment had been announced to the public months in advance, and Fortree was up in the rough, isolated northern half of Hoenn. There weren't bus routes there like there were to Mauville, and trainers were supposed to have three gym badges at a minimum before even trying to reach Fortree on foot.
Jin specialized in the steel type, and his personal team was Magnezone, Klinklang, Metagross, Aggron, Steelix, and Porygon-Z. He made heavy use of the Magnemite and Beldum lines in particular for gym battles. And while Wattson had favored long, drawn-out fights, frequently forcing his challengers' Pokémon to slog through paralysis and electrified terrain for minutes at a time, Jin seemed to be the polar opposite. His battles were composed of swift, decisive motions, generally a buff or a disabling strike at the start followed by a barrage of pinpoint attacks. The longer a match lasted against Jin, the less likely his opponent was to win. Some of his low-tier fights were over in seconds.
His battle style felt… strange. It wouldn't have been out of place in a high-level tournament, but gym leaders almost never went directly for the kill—their job was to evaluate a trainer's strength and offer them the chance to prove themselves. With the way Jin fought, his challengers barely had the chance to find their footing before their Pokémon were knocked out. It was less like he was administering a test and more like he was trying to get each match over with as quickly as possible. The internet had all sorts of theories and opinions about it, but right now, Hayley couldn't get her head in the game enough to read more trainer blogs and forum posts. She barely paid attention to the battles as they played out on her phone. She kept seeing that Shroomish, and remembering the thrill that had gone through her when the ball had clicked shut, and then hearing that horrible scream.
The bus finally pulled up to the central Rustboro stop, and Hayley shook Miriam awake. Miriam grumbled and cursed, but finally dragged herself to her feet after Hayley prodded her again. Hayley was sweaty, grungy, and probably had leaves in her hair, but Miriam had fared worse. Her sneakers were so soaked with mud that they were barely recognizable as the ones she'd set out in this morning, her arms and legs were streaked with dirt, and both her knees and one elbow were plastered with oversized bandages. Hayley had tried asking her what had happened, and Miriam had responded with a glare that could bore through concrete. She'd actually stayed mostly quiet the whole way back, not even opening her mouth to complain. Hayley hadn't pushed—she wasn't much in the mood for conversation, either.
They disembarked and began the short slog back to the Pokémon Center. They'd barely gone one block when Hayley heard a pointed "hey." She looked up, half-expecting to see a stranger addressing someone else nearby—but it wasn't a stranger. It was Melinda, standing with her arms crossed and her Bagon proudly at her side. And she was looking right at her.
Hayley's mouth opened and shut as she tried to figure out a response to the person she'd been actively avoiding for the past two weeks. Miriam, though, was quicker.
"What do you want?" Her voice was dripping with venom, and Hayley cringed. Didn't she know who she was talking to? That Melinda was terrifying, a prodigy, completely out of their league? To Hayley's mortification, Melinda took Miriam's barb as an invitation to walk up and stand right in front of her—and by association, right in front of Hayley.
"I haven't seen you around," Melinda said, voice still cool, as though Miriam wasn't obviously trying to start a fight. "Where've you been?"
"Uh, none of your business?" Miriam crossed her own arms and scoffed. "What do you care?"
Melinda smirked. "I'm just wondering where you're doing your training. That Elekid of yours took down a Vigoroth a few weeks back, right? It was all over the news. A lot of us want to see it."
That caught both Hayley and Miriam off-guard, and Miriam's eyes widened for a moment before she stammered out an answer. "Uh. I'm—I'm training in secret, obviously. I don't want leeches like you spying on me." Arceus. Hayley desperately wanted to bury her face in her hands and escape.
But Melinda either bought Miriam's excuse, or she was content to play along. "I respect that. You're never going to get your name out there that way, though."
"Maybe I don't want to get my name out there," Miriam shot back.
"You'll have to at some point. Otherwise you'll never amount to anything." Melinda sighed. "Look, I'll cut to the chase. Me and a bunch of the other good trainers in Rustboro, we've got a little battling club that meets in private. No cameras, no referees, just two trainers fighting to see who's strongest. And we'd like to invite you along to our next meetup, so we can see just how strong your Elekid is."
"That's…" Miriam visibly grasped for an answer. She was caught in the same trap Hayley had cornered her in yesterday. Finally, she said, "I don't do trainer battling. Not in front of other people. I already said that I don't want you creeps spying on me, right?"
Melinda shrugged. "At least come by and see what we're about. You can come too," she added, nodding to Hayley like she was an afterthought. "You don't have to fight. Just observe. See what a real trainer looks like."
Hayley finally found her voice. "Are you saying we're not real trainers?" Melinda was making fun of them. She knew it.
"I'm just saying that neither of you have the Stone Badge yet. It's just you, Kei, and Wesley that are left, and any group that involves Kei and Wesley is not a group I'd want to be part of." At her knee, her Bagon snickered.
"You think I'm as bad as Kei?" Miriam's face was red, and Hayley briefly wondered whether she'd been keeping tabs on Kei's training career for some reason, before she continued, "That airhead swim team prep?"
Right. Miriam looked down on everyone for Miriam reasons, regardless of whether they were any good at training. At least she'd used an insult besides "jock" this time.
Melinda's smirk widened into a full-on sneer. "I mean, Kei's at least gotten to Roxanne's Nosepass by now. And you haven't even fought Roxanne once. So, you might actually be worse than her." Miriam clenched her fists. Hayley knew she was about to do something stupid, but didn't know how to stop her. "But hey, maybe I'm wrong. And I'm giving you the chance to prove it. If you don't come, though, I'll have to assume that I was right, and that you're just a couple of scared weaklings."
"I'm not scared," Miriam said through gritted teeth. "And I'm not weak. I'll come to your stupid club and I'll beat every last one of you."
Melinda humphed. "Great. Come to Ninth and Maple at eight o'clock. It's a cash-only deal, so leave your Pokédex at the Center. I'll see you there." With that, she gave a small wave and swaggered away.
When she was gone, Hayley turned to Miriam in disbelief. "Miriam. You're not… You're not actually going, are you?"
Miriam's fists were clenched so hard that veins popped out on her scratched arms. She stared at the empty space where Melinda had been. "I'm not worse than Kei," she muttered. "I'm not. And I'm going to prove it."