I left the hotel and start scouring for a beach apparel shop, after going towards the beach and onto a short boardwalk I managed to find a place called “Shellfish-Shelmet” with a little silhouette of a Shelmet wearing sunglasses as their logo. The inside is how’d you’d expect any clothing store to look, with some racks with clothes and mannequins showing them off. Though there are now also Pokémon mannequins showing off some bandannas and little booties.
The air-conditioned inside feels especially nice after walking around in the sun for so long. I look around, ignoring the bell sound that rings when I enter, I browse the racks and decide to choose a blue pair of swim trunks with a gradient going up to a light blue. I pay for it, put it on in the changing room, and leave my team to go explore the store for a bit. I throw my outfit into my bag except for my hoodie which I still wear, ‘Don’t want Budew to be upset about losing her spot.’
I come out to find Min and Budew looking at various glasses, and checking some out, which eventually shifted to Budew eyeing up Minccino’s Silk Scarf. She waddled to the section of the shop with clothing for pokemon and said “Bud!” which then led to Min coming over and grabbing a bandanna for her. It was a red plaid one, they mosey over to the counter and place it down in front of the man working the cash register.
The man, visibly holds back some chuckles as he scans the item, I can barely make out him saying “Got any money for that?” and Minccino in reply, actually nodded. He pulls out a very familiar plastic card, ‘Wait a minute, that’s my trainer ID!’ I pat down my jacket pockets only to find it missing. ‘That little thief-’ Before I could finish the thought, my mind raced back to the time I told Minccino about his dark-type move options. ‘Wait, has he been doing this the whole time?!’
I silently regret telling him that he could learn Thief. While I gawk at the realization, Min finishes buying Budew’s new bandanna, helping her tie it around her…neck? No, it’s more like her body, the top just covering her mouth. Min lets out a few happy noises as I walk over to him, and a scolding starts.
=====
Finally on the beach, with a new towel and some bottled water. It’s around 2 pm, so we have a few hours of daylight left. I situate myself on a fairly empty spot on the beach, throwing down my towel and lying down then placing my backpack on the side of it to keep it from blowing away if the wind starts to kick up. I look around at the, fairly packed beach, some people are just chilling in the sun, while others are surfing on Mantine ‘Does that hurt them? Well, then again Pokemon are nothing if not durable.’ I look at Minccino and Budew as they begin to venture away from the towel and towards the sea.
I tap on my Arc-Phone while I look at them run around and splash each other in the shallow water ‘Budew, seems to be much friendlier with Minccino…Though she’s still pretty quiet.’ The latter part is thought as Budew watches indifferently as Minccino gets splashed by a passing Magikarp. Not saying a word, showing no signs of any reaction, a cold and desolate stare at the splashing of her comrade, I hold back a shiver and a laugh at Min’s expense. I turn my attention back to my phone and get ready to ask a question I probably should have asked a long time ago.
“What ability does Minccino have?”
Ding
[The Minccino owned by Elliot Walker has the ability ‘Technician’ additionally Budew’s ability is ‘Natural Cure’]
‘Technician, is an ability that powers up weak moves right? That’s good, especially at our level since Pound is now increased by that and the Silk Scarf. Natural Cure is also good since that means if Budew ever gets burned I can just swap her out and she’ll be fine.’ I decide to put away my phone and just watch my pokemon play with each other. Minccino is very energetic, picking up some shells to dust off then toss back into the sand only to forget that he cleaned them and then go back to clean them again.
Budew on the other hand just follows Min around, occasionally partaking in a splash contest, in which she gets a scary look in her eyes. ‘With her new bandanna covering her mouth, she looks like a little plant delinquent.’ I watch the two go about their very small journey, yelling out to come back whenever they got too far.
A few hours passed like this, with me joining them and helping Min swim deeper into the water, as Budew decides to just go into my hood. I helped Minccino go into the water which was waist-deep for me but body deep for him. When he figures out how to swim, instead of doggy paddling, I set him loose. Though always staying close behind him to make sure he didn’t tucker himself out too much and drown.
Finally, we all went back to the towel and just chilled for a bit, as the sun started to set. I was ready to just head back and chill at the hotel, but Minccino wasn’t having any of that, he was very vocal about this. “Cino!” He said while turning his head away from my hand when I offered him to hop onto my shoulder. I sigh, and decide to give in “Alright, how about this.” I look up and down the beach and continue “We can go for a walk down the shore, then we come back here. Does that sound good to you?”
He gives me a nod, I hear Budew rustle her way out of my hood and join Minccino as he runs down the sandy beach. I follow them, though at a walking pace. Min zooms by but then doubles back when he realizes that he left Budew behind. I follow along with them, enjoying the sun setting down across the sea, ‘What a sight.’ Making the ocean turn orange in color, as the sky begins to darken. It looks like the sun’s final stand against the night, its orange brilliance trying its best to hold off against the darkness for just a little longer.
I laugh a bit at my weird interpretation of this sunset. I turn my gaze back to my team, as we continue to walk, the night finally starts to settle in and I motion for the two to come back. We walk back to the main part of the beach, by the boardwalk. But I stop as I notice something new, a small opening in between two palm trees ‘That wasn’t here before…’
Against my better judgment, I decide to investigate, I call for Min and Budew to hop onto their spots, as I walk through the path. The path is made completely of sand, no gravel or even shells, as far as I can tell. I take slow steps, looking at the ferns lining the edge of the path, palm trees surround the path in its entirety. I finally reach the end of the path and am met with a clearing of sand. A circle about, 30 ft wide and littered with a bunch of shovels, the small red kind kids use to make sand castles.
“Weird…” I walk a bit more into the clearing, only to stub my toe on something “Mother-” I hold back a swear as I have impressionable pokemon around. I look down and realize that I didn’t stub my toe on something, but rather someone. Covered completely in the sand is a teenage girl, with only her head popping out. I lean a bit closer, and can make out breathing ‘So she’s alive…’
I take a closer look at the girl, she has a deep tan and chestnut brown hair that is tied in two short twin tails but looks a bit more like bunny ears as they rest above her head and on top of the sand. As I studied her, her eyes shot open, causing me to yelp and fall backward, luckily it didn’t hurt since I was surrounded by sand.
She stands up, and all the sand surrounding her falls to the ground. Revealing her overalls and brown shirt with holes where the shoulders are ‘I think those were called…cold shoulder tops? I think…’ She turns to face me, and her drowsy and neutral facial expression changes to a big grin “Why, hello there!” she says as she zooms towards me, pulling me up off the ground and then looking me in the eyes. Which required her to bend down, as I am now very short. “Hey…” is all I could muster at the moment, just filled with shock.
She reaches into her pockets and pulls out a light brown beanie, with a small pin on it, she then puts it on her head as she examines me. “Soooo.” She says longer than necessary “How’d you find your way here?”
I shift my feet a bit and move a bit away from her ‘Way too close.’ I then say my reply “Uh, I just walked here, it’s a pretty obvious path…” I say as I point down the path I came from. She lets out a curious hum as she continues to examine me.
“Interesting, interesting.” She stands up straight, standing about a foot taller than me ‘Or my old height I guess.’ She pats off some of the sand coating her, but I notice that she doesn’t really make contact with it. She more of, fans it away with a flick of her wrist.
“Well, to catch ya up to speed, you are currently trespassing” She continues with a cheery voice, it would be endearing if what she said didn’t imply that I just broke some laws. “What!” I blurt out “B-but I didn’t see any signs or anything?” I say, more so reason with myself, ‘This could just be a big prank, I mean she was sleeping in the sand…’
She nods “Yup, but that’s normally not an issue, seeing as how no one should be able to see the entrance in the first place.” She responds while holding up a finger. She points to one of the shovels on the ground.
This shovel, oddly enough, has its handle stuck into the ground rather than the spade itself. The sand begins to move, and form a big sand castle. Two big towers, a mouth shaped like a gateway. A ring of light blue triangle-shaped rocks wrapped around its roof and a half circle above the gateway. “Palossand!” Says the living sand castle.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It takes my hardest not to fall over again, I look towards the other shovels as the mounds of sand begin to shuffle with a “Sandyghast.” And a few more “Palossand.”
“Oh…How, uh does that change things?” I ask, trying my hardest to show how freaked out I am ‘Sandyghast and Palossand…those are ghost types, right? And didn’t Palossand have a Dex entry about how it drags creatures into the sand to kill them…and that they have a bunch of bones under them.’ I gulp a bit.
“Why my buddy Palossand here, has the move Hypnosis, and as he’s made of sand he can situate himself on the ground to act, basically like a treadmill or a conveyer belt.” She pats the Palossand’s head, which even though is just sand, looks more than happy at the short pats. “We use hypnosis to make ‘em avoid the spot in the first place, then if they get too close we just move ‘em!” She says this like it’s a really cool science fact or something.
I nod back ‘Is that how Hypnosis works? I thought it put you to sleep…or is that just one application?’ Food for thought, but later. “Well that’s…interesting, um, I guess…sorry for trespassing, I’ll just head out then.” And I was going to do just that but the girl stopped me, “Hold up! I want to know real quick, why did Palossand let you pass?”
I just shrug in response, and she lets out another curious hum. “Curious, and curiouser. Welp, I’ll leave it at that, say I haven’t introduced myself have I!” I shake my head, “Right, right, right! My bad, I’m Alira, I run the gym!”
‘Huh…what? Really? Wait…wasn’t there a whole line of people at the gym.’ I look at her, a bit befuddled before responding “Oh ok…I’m Elliot. Quick question, why were you here?” She seems to remember something after I brought that up “Oh crap the Gym! I totally forgot! Uh, I was just chilling with Palossand, and totally not skipping out on my duties…I swear.” She then quickly said some almost incomprehensible goodbyes before darting through the path and off elsewhere, presumably to her gym.
“Well, that was a thing…” I say to Min, who looks equal parts confused and even more confused. I just stand there for a few seconds before I remember that I am surrounded by haunted sandcastles. ‘…Yup time to go!’ And I dart out of there, almost as fast as Alira, but less so because of my shorter legs.
=====
After that, I found my way back to the hotel and back to my room. I took a quick shower to get sand, off of me then I laid down on the bed. ‘Okay, I’m probably going to just pass out…’ But despite thinking that, I actually stayed up until 3 AM. I got lost in tinkering with the “Edit” app, but to reward myself for staying up late, I managed to find out some things about the “Edit” app.
For starters, I managed to make my alarm clock ring if it senses hostiles nearby. I figured out that, if the item can do something, it will make things cost way less. Like if I made a ball detect hostiles, if I made it ring then that’s at least 2 weeks of being in a coma, but if I made it roll around when it sensed the hostiles, then it takes the cost way down to a few hours.
The alarm clock I changed is a standard digital alarm clock, with a few red numbers on the screen. I first tried to make it detect enemies, but that made it pretty expensive, as the system thought it meant any of my known enemies. Which seems to have cost more than just making it set off when anyone hostile is around me in a set radius of 40 ft. As usual with making items with effects, I soon passed out after that, and when I woke up it was time to train.
I had a granola bar for breakfast, and my team had their own feed. Well, Min ate and Budew just photosynthesized. I texted Fen to let her know that I’m heading to the clearing we went to yesterday to train. And I’m off to go train.
=====
Fen’s Rotom-Phone let out a ring, signifying that she has gotten a text message. She checks the message that reads “Hey, I’m heading back to the clearing we went to yesterday to train, feel free to join whenever!”
Fen gets a signal of excitement from Hatenna, her starter. Fen will never get used to hearing pokemon thoughts, they’re less word-like and more feeling based. Her telepathy made it easy for her and her Pokémon to fight without words, putting her opponent at a huge disadvantage.
But, no one has ever noticed that she used telepathy. No one except for Elliot, she was surprised when he casually mentioned her doing it, but her deadpan face stopped her from showing any of that shock. Though Hatenna was more than happy to display it for her, an annoying habit, all things considered. Hatenna, being an empath, always emotes for Fen, even when she doesn’t want her to.
Fen sends back some thoughts of agreement, after all, her fight against Elliot allowed Espurr to finally grasp ahold of her psychic strength. Espurr is currently staring blankly at a wall, or that’s how it appears to most. But with Fen’s psychic abilities she can feel Espurr trying to put a tighter hold on her immense power. She is working hard already and training has yet to begin.
Hatenna sends me some images of us leaving through the door, another quirk of Pokémon thoughts. Fen nods back to her and returns them back to their pokeballs, even still she can feel her connection to them. Faint streaks of aura connecting her to her Pokémon these, as far as she knows, are called Bonds. The bonds that you hold with your Pokémon and the bonds of friendship. Which leads her to a new bond forming, nothing more than a hair-thin string which will act as her guide today.
She leaves her hotel room, throwing her diagonal strapped bag across her back. She heads out of the hotel, which is nothing more than a slightly wider square when compared to the other houses in Shaleshallows. She had tried to get a room at the Pokecenter, but that would require her to room with a stranger and that could only go poorly. She walked through the streets of this town, passing the town square that was actually a circle. There’s a huge fountain in the middle of the circle the beautifully carved statue of a Milotic spews water from its mouth and tail in the fountain.
Fen remembers that there was a concert held here, some Unova woman by the name of Roxie had been performing rock music. Personally, Fen preferred calmer music, she walks past the town square and towards route 103, then once reaching the entrance she walks next to the forest. Walking to the right until she sees a small clearing and a young boy with a Minccino on his shoulder and Budew poking her head out of his hood.
Fen giggles inwardly each time she sees the Pokémon climbing over him. She wonders how they will claim their spots once they evolve, sure the Minccino could fit once he evolves into Cinccino. And the Budew would be fine up until her final evolution Roserade, which would surely be too big to fit into his hood, especially since she was larger than most of her kind.
Elliot noticed me walking toward him and lets out a small wave as he tells his Pokémon to hop down. They do so and she can see that the Budew has a new plaid bandana wrapped around her. She now matches Minccino, which Fen found pretty cute, though she looked at them indifferently.
She changes her gaze to Elliot, and he stares back at her but more so just waiting for her to say something. Elliot is a short boy, shorter than Fen, he has messy black hair with a new small braid behind his earlobe. ‘Seems different from the one last time.’ He wears a blue short-sleeved jacket with a black long-sleeved shirt acting as an undershirt. Fen doesn’t know what material they are made from, but it had to be pretty thin, wearing two layers in this heat would have had him sweating buckets if it wasn’t.
He is fairly average, minus his short stature and his steel wool-like hair, he was as normal as any other boy. Though his pokemon and bonds tell a different story, first off his Minccino was extremely quick and knew some strange moves, the small normal type's fighting style intrigued her as he spins in the air and hits people with his tail. The Budew is fairly normal, if not a bit quieter and a bit more malicious when compared to others of her kind. The thing that intrigued Fen most was Elliot’s bonds, first off he seems to have some vague control over aura. He’s managed to create an orb to store his aura, though he seems to have depleted it very recently as it’s almost empty.
That was unusual for aura users, most accumulated aura from the surroundings to help amplify their own aura. The ones Fen has met had never done anything like this. The orb looks a lot like golden stained glass, holding a navy blue aura, and the orb also connects to one of his bonds. Bonds, people tend to have an immense number of bonds, as just merely talking to someone can form a flickering bond. Bonds tend to come and go if not attended to. However, Elliot has fewer bonds than most, but also has weirder sorts of threads connecting him to others. To his two pokemon, Minccino and his bond look thicker and sturdier than most, but the bond to his Budew is more average. The bond’s string is at a similar width to that of her and Espurr.
Then there's a ribbon-like bond connecting him to someone else, by the size and opaqueness of it, their probably someone close to him like a relative. The next one is newly formed but seems to be mostly one-sided curiosity as the thread hasn’t attached itself to Elliot. Then the two weirdest ones, the weirdest bonds she’s ever seen. Leading to the sky a golden thread connects to Elliot, the thread splits off connecting to the boy’s aura orb and something inside of his pocket. Fen knows that it’s leading to his phone, which is odd enough, the bond is made by someone with immense power and strongly holds onto Elliot. ‘That thread’s not going away any time soon.’ Next is a black thread, it doesn’t latch onto Elliot, as it is merely curious, Fen can feel the disgust and rage tied in with the thread, but also threaded in is a faint feeling of hope. Though even that seems malicious…
The thread leads downwards into the ground. Fen is finally snapped out of her examination of Elliot’s aura, by Elliot himself “Um, Fen…Are we gonna train or…” He says while rubbing the back of his neck. Fen realizes that she’s probably been staring at him for a long time, ignoring Hatenna inside of her pokeball as she begins to express Fen’s own embarrassment, she nods back to Elliot.
Elliot nods back to her as well, and begins to instruct his team, Fen watches as the trainer and his team begin to sprint around the clearing. Elliot is slightly in front of Budew, while Minccino outdoes all of them, Fen lets out her own team seeing Hatenna let out a giggle while watching Elliot almost trip over his Budew. This goes on until Elliot starts to heave on the ground, Fen thinks about giving him some water, but Hatenna starts the action for her. But it takes a while for her to reach him as she has very stubby legs. Fen scoops her and the water bottle up into her arms and heads toward Elliot, who is slowly recovering from the run.
She places the water bottle next to him and soon leaves without saying a word, though Hatenna let out a few noises. Elliot seems grateful, as he drinks down a few gulps of the water. He stands up and begins to order his pokemon to train. Fen recalls that last time Elliot told her to start training as well, and so she does that. She begins to command her team psychically ‘Espurr, now that you have a firm grasp of your powers I want you to start training up your Confusion, once you feel you’ve mastered that, move onto a rapid-fire.’ Espurr stares blankly but sends back a feeling of affirmation. ‘Hatenna, you should start trying to learn Psybeam. From what I know you should try to gather the scattered energy of your confusion to try and make it more solid.’ The psychic type lets out a nod and they start on their respective training.