Phanpy had enjoyed the banter between Harper and Quinn, but his personality didn’t allow him to sit on the sidelines for long. In one motion, Phanpy leaped off Quinn’s leg and into the empty seat to the left of Harper. He trumpeted out a hello, wagged his tail, and looked at Harper expectantly.
“Phanpy, get back here. You should know that not everyone thinks you're cute,” Quinn admonished.
Harper leaned forward and turned to face the begging Phanpy. She then took off Phanpy’s hard hat, slightly pinched both of Phanpys ears, and raised them like they were a t-shirt she was debating buying in a store. “Oh, I think you're cute, and I think Quinn is crazy for thinking anyone out there doesn’t think you are,” Harper dropped Phanpy’s ears and started to pet his head. “I was ignoring you because I thought you were another adorable Pokemon that guys use to hit on chicks.” After hearing Harper's insinuation, Phanpy looked back and forth between the two, ultimately rolling his eyes at Harper.
“And what if Phanpy is my wingman?” Quinn raised his eyebrows.
Without looking back at Quinn, Harper responded, “Then you'd need 10 more Phanpys to distract from the masterclass of awkwardness you just put on.”
Quinn winced at the memory. “Yeah, I'm going to cringe about that for years to come.”
Harper looked back to Quinn while her left hand continued to pet Phanpy. “So why was a bag connoisseur like yourself staring at my fanny pack and not my, umm… chest?” mocking Quinn’s earlier phrasing.
“Oh, your fanny pack is great, but I was staring at your Pokeballs,” Quinn said, caught off guard by the chance to explain himself. “Phanpy pointed them out to me, and I was trying to guess whether or not you're a trainer.”
“Why so curious? Is Phanpy your wingman and your ace?”
“No, not at all. I'm not a trainer, just a fan of battling. I spend a lot of time on the League sites reading news about trainers and watching battles. But I'm not super familiar with the local scene outside of Ashford, so I wasn’t sure if you were running the gym circuit,” Quinn answered.
“So, detective. What's your deduction?” Harper said not giving anything away with her blank face and raised eyebrows.
“Well, your Pokeballs are the biggest clue. I don’t know any non-trainer that carries four at once. They are also easily accessible which leads me to believe that you keep them there in case you see any strong wild Pokemon,” Quinn put his hand to his chin as he continued. “The one thing that's throwing me off is that you're traveling extremely light. If you were going around challenging gyms, I'd expect you to have more luggage.
Quinn paused, hoping that Harper would give any indication on whether or not he was barking up the wrong tree. But he couldn’t read her and noted not to challenge her to a game of poker. After 15 seconds of silence, he finished his deduction. “My guess is that you're local to Silverfall and are going to Havenwood to challenge one of the gyms for your third badge.”
Finally breaking her poker face, Harper unzipped her bag and pulled out a lanyard that had three badges on it. “Wow, that was pretty impressive. Except you got two things wrong. One — I'm from Havenwood and I was in Silverfall to challenge the Silverwing Gym. Two — I was challenging for my fourth badge,” Harper said as she put away her lanyard before Quinn could identify which gyms she'd beat. She looked out the window. “I thought it would be easy because the Silverwing Gym just got upgraded to a 4-Badge gym, but the leader’s Skarmory was too fast for any of my team to hit. I'd introduce them to you and Phanpy, but they are all worn out from the battle, and this train isn’t exactly a day spa.”
Before Quinn could ask any follow-up questions about the battle or Harper’s Pokemon, she shot up in her seat and Quinn heard the door on the other side of the train car open. Quinn turned around to see a teenage boy with a yellow Squawkabilly on his shoulder making his way down the aisle to an open seat.
“You know, I can help pay for a ticket so you don’t have to keep dodging the ticket inspector,” Quinn offered as he looked back at Harper.
Harper scoffed and rolled her eyes “Oh great, my knight in shining armor.” She then reached behind her and pulled a train ticket out of her pocket.
Quinn looked intently at the ticket and was more confused than embarrassed.
“You better find a different damsel in distress. I just wanted to see how long I could avoid getting caught,” Harper winked.
Quinn responded with a laugh that got more than a few people to look his way. “And here I thought I was doing you a favor by not ratting you out. Five bucks says that you get caught in the next eight stops,” Quinn challenged, stretching out his hand.
“Easy money,” Harper accepted as she shook his hand.
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Quinn stepped off the train five bucks lighter with Harper stepping off right behind him. Quinn would have been more salty, but it was amusing to see the confused look on the ticket inspector's face when Harper finally let him scan her ticket, and it showed Silverfall as the departure city.
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The pair had gotten off at the West Havenwood station, which was one of three train stations in Havenwood. Quinn noted the large holes in the chain link fence around the station and the graffiti littered across most surfaces. Harper noticed Quinn’s perplexity. “You haven’t been to West Havenwood?”
“No, first and most likely only time here.”
“Well, then keep your purse in front of you, nothing in your back pockets, and act like you always know where you're going,” Harper instructed. “You're a big guy, but a lost and confused country boy with a cute little Phanpy makes for an easy mark.”
Quinn, taking the advice to heart, moved some cash from his back pocket to his front pocket and put his head through the purse strap so it crossed his body with the purse squarely in front. “Thanks for the advice. I'm going to take a minute to memorize my route before leaving the platform,” Quinn said as he quietly hoped Harper would stay to talk some more.
“Good,” Harper walked backward toward the train station exit. “It was nice to meet you and Phanpy. I'm glad you weren't a thief and only a little bit pervy,” she said with a wink as she turned her back to Quinn.
Quinn’s shoulders slumped at not exchanging numbers, but he knew better than to push her for it with her making a quick getaway. He tried to hide his disappointment by calling out enthusiastically, “Good luck with the gym circuit this year. I'll keep an eye out for any of your matches that get posted online.”
Giving a thumbs up while not turning around, Harper called back, “And I'll keep an eye out for any of your purse infomercials on my grandma’s TV.”
“Wow,” Quinn sighed with a smile, as he continued to watch her walk down the platform.
Phanpy, rolling his eyes at the enchanted Quinn, shot a squirt of water in his face.
“Hey, it's not like I was looking at her butt. She was just… memorable. That's all,” Quinn justified as he used his shirt to wipe his face.
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Harper turned the corner on the uneven sidewalk that led to the underpass connecting both sides of the tracks. Harper listened to her own advice and took on a non-leisurely pace with her hands in her pockets. The bright sun at Harper’s back created darker shadows than normal and the light in the middle of the underpass was out. She didn’t see anyone but didn’t want to chance it.
“Hey, is anyone under there?” Harper asked in a quiet tone.
A cold breeze passed Harper’s right ankle and she waited for a response, not breaking her stride. She focused her eyes on the shadows, trying to see any movement. After a few seconds, Harper’s shadow shifted, grew darker, and then bubbled up in the center. The bubble expanded into a blob, eventually shifting into a night-blue ethereal head with yellow and red eyes that poked out of the ground.
“Wow Misdreavus, I couldn’t see your [Shadow Sneak] that time.”
Upon hearing her praises, the Ghost-type Pokemon flew out of the sidewalk with a smile on her face, taking time to do a couple of laps around Harper’s head — all the while whispering excitedly in a foreign language to Harper. The language was one of her own with words that sounded familiar but were indecipherable to humans. It was a language that most Ghost Pokemon shared, and like most Ghost Pokemon, Misdreavus only spoke in whispers, moans, shrieks, wails, and other tones designed to scare. However, when Misdreavus’ emotions betrayed her foreboding presence, they often came out in cute combinations like her excited whispers.
“I assume by all the noise you're making that you didn’t find anyone nearby,” Harper half-stated, half-asked.
Misdreavus then stopped directly in front of Harper’s face, dropped the smile, and shook her head, confirming Harper’s assumption.
“Good. You're the only one on the team who doesn’t seem to run out of energy, and I don’t want to get into anything with everyone else still zonked out.” Harper tried to put the disappointing morning behind her, but her Pokeballs weighed heavy with the memory. Misdreavus was Harper’s opener in the match that morning, and she'd done well taking down two Pokemon before a strong [Icy Wind] from the opponent’s Delibird caught her by surprise. After warming up in the Silverwing Gym’s sauna post-match, Misdreavus bounced back to her normal self.
Misdreavus matched Harper’s speed and continued to float in front of her, not breaking eye contact. Misdreavus then slowly brought a knowing grin on her face and got even closer to Harper.
“What? Are you trying to get me to fall or something?”
Misdreavus shook her head again and floated out away and slightly to the right of Harper. She whispered in a high pitch for a couple of seconds, then floated to the other side and whispered in a low tone for a couple of seconds. She repeated this pattern while throwing in some giggles on each side.
“Oh please, the dork? I only talked to him because I didn’t want him to mess up a chance for you to train [Shadow Sneak],” Harper waved her hand like she was shooing away a bug.
Misdreavus gave an annoyed look and floated back to the side she started on and proceeded to giggle in high pitch without stopping. Harper ignored her for a couple of seconds, but it was actually getting creepier and creepier to hear the giggling.
“Okay fine, he was a little funny and his Phanpy was cute. But I had nothing else to do, and he practically gave us five bucks,” Harper paused. “Although, if he knew you were there guiding me, he probably wouldn’t have taken the bet. It doesn’t matter though, there's a reason I didn’t give him my number. The last thing we need right now is a distraction. We have one more badge than we got last year, but today was the fifth attempt to get number four,” Harper reminded Misdreavus, who dropped her earlier grin.
“Our family has sacrificed a lot of money for us to train and battle, and we need four badges to enter the televised tournaments. We have to train harder or we will never be able to help the family, let alone pay them back.” Harper thought about the rundown two-bedroom apartment that her family of five was sharing.
Misdreavus didn’t bother going back into a [Shadow Sneak] as the weight of their goals hung in the air.
Harper noticed she'd brought a sour mood to Misdreavus and tried to break the tension. “Besides, there isn’t a guy on earth who could keep up with us. You'd have a field day scaring him whenever you wanted. And did you see how red he got with a couple of words?” Harper remembered. “Quinn also said his trip here was a one-time thing, and I think the Ashfire Gym is only a 2-Badge gym,” she rationalized. “Let's just go spend his five bucks on ice cream and forget about him and his purse.”
At the sound of ice cream, Misdreavus floated high in the sky with a shriek of glee while Harper tried to remind herself of what was genuinely important.