The last stretch up to Snowpoint City was one of the hardest. Not so much because of the terrain but because it felt as if the road was stretching endlessly, countless serpentines winding up the steep hill, turning maybe a kilometre of incredibly steep hill into a slow climb of almost five kilometres. We could easily see the city wall from the start, towering above us, but each time we got to a turn, thinking it would be the last, we were disappointed and had to keep going.

Finally, after almost two hours of constant walking, we reached the city gate and could enter without problems. The guard had watched our approach with what I could only assume was sadistic glee, not that her face showed any of it. Instead, she seemed to be quite enthusiastic, almost weirdly so, to welcome us into their town but I wasn’t sure I trusted the place. There was nothing but sadism that would prompt a culture to make the approach to their gate such a massive pain in the behind and thighs, it certainly couldn’t be practicality.

My first impression of Snowpoint-proper was weird. Looking from below, we had been able to see the wall form a wide semi-circle and now on the level of the wall, we could see that the streets within were mostly arranged in a similar fashion. There was one along the wall, like the rim of a wheel, while the others seemed to all lead towards a centre point, near the mountain, like the spokes of a wheel. From our position, we could see the centre point, a large structure built from white stone, almost glowing in the light of the afternoon sun. Remembering that Cynthia and her Grandmother had told us about the Snowpoint Temple, it was relatively easy to guess that the shimmering building, looking almost as if it was made out of glass, or ice, was that temple. And from where I was standing, it certainly deserved it’s reputation as an awesome sight.

But as awesome as the distant temple looked, the houses were just odd. All of them were built next to the road, that much was normal, but their dimensions were near identical, rectangular, the long side following the road, with a short side perpendicular to it. That uniformity made things look weird. Adding to that, their roofs were all incredibly steep and tiled with the same, uniformly bright, red slates, in stark contrast to the wooden walls. There were few differences between houses, some had different coloured shutters, others had a layer of white plaster and some had signs hanging out front, indicating some special function.

“The place looks like it’s a collection of toys,” Claire muttered, looking around. For a moment, I had no idea what she meant, feeling completely left out when the others began to nod with somewhat wistful smiles on their faces. As if they were remembering something from their childhood, something that I had lost. The determination to regain my memories was flaring up once more, I needed to know who I was and where I was coming from. Only by knowing that, I could begin to move forward, or even find out what forward meant for me.

As the others started to cheerfully chatter, comparing the different buildings and guessing what some of the signs might mean. Shops, maybe a restaurant or something like that, were my guess but without investigating, we wouldn’t know.

But investigating would have to wait, at least for me. The climb up their mountain had been quite exhausting and I was looking forward to getting my room, putting down my pack, having a hot shower and some tasty food, everything else was secondary.

Prodding the others into motion was quite simple, they only needed to hear the magic words, “Hot Shower”, to start towards the Pokécentre. Our two travelling mates were following along, they would stay in the Centre, too, while completing their errands. Afterwards, they would likely find another group to travel back to their remote home, maybe even travel with us again, depending on how long our tasks at the Gym would take.

With the directions given, and the wonderfully uniform townscape, we could easily find our way to the Pokécentre, nicely located in the middle of town. It was, just like all the other buildings, a long building, with a steep roof, a white facade and the ubiquitous red roof, the only indication that it was what we were looking for was the Pokéball sign hanging next to the door.

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Entering, a small bell signalled our arrival and while we were walking to the counter, an attendant came out of a side room. The lobby was a lot smaller than usual, with long hallways going in both directions, likely leading to the rooms.

The reception was incredibly warm, to the point that it almost felt weird, but Lisa quietly assured me that it was normal here. According to her, only a few people made the journey, mostly those who wanted to compete in the League. Of those, only a handful stayed in Snowpoint after they finished their time as wandering Trainers, while quite a few young locals moved away, leading to a problematic development. In order to combat that, the locals were deliberately cultivating a welcoming climate, trying to entice people to stay in their town. Over time, the strategy had borne fruit, keeping Snowpoint from collapsing, even after one of their neighbouring towns, Forestburgh, at the northern edge of Eterna Forest, had been destroyed a few decades ago.

After check-in, we were directed to our rooms, amusingly strictly segregated by sex. Guys on the left, gals on the right, and never shall the two meet, or something like that. Luckily, the centre was far from full, giving us the choice between single, double or group rooms and I certainly wasn’t disappointed to have my privacy for once. I liked Claire well enough, and Lisa had grown on me the last few days, but being on my own was a rare pleasure, one I planned to indulge in.

The rooms even had private bathrooms, allowing me to enjoy a long, hot shower, though amusingly, that was something I didn’t enjoy on my own. For the shower, I had little Vio join me, my cutie loving her hot showers just as much as I did. Her behaviour made me wonder at times, how much of her actions were mimicked from me? From what Cynthia had told me, she had been quite young when we met, so there had to be some sort of development going on. There were quite a few mannerisms that appeared to be human, or at least mimicked those of a human, at least that was what it felt like to me. Or was I reading her actions through the lens of a human, projecting what I thought onto her, with her possibly getting some sort of positive reinforcement from my approval? Without another Ralts or Kirlia to compare and contrast her actions, I couldn’t be certain.

But given those apparently human, and most certainly intelligent and emotive traits, was having her remain in her Pokéball as much as possible really the right thing? Was I somehow stunting her development, or maybe even that of all my partners, by having them rest for most of the time, only calling them out to battle? It allowed them to conserve their strength and direct more of their energy into their growth, simply because they didn’t need it to retain or recover their strength, thus ultimately allowing them to increase their energy levels faster and reach the evolution breakpoints.

But was that growth stunting the development of their personality? Thinking about it, I felt like that might be the case. If they only knew battle, how could they become their best selves? Sure, they would be at their strongest, physically, but what about the emotions they so obviously had? Su was already growing apart from me, the surly behaviour that I had named him for only getting worse and I wasn’t liking the situation one bit.

As I was carefully washing Vio’s teal hair, I made a decision deep in my heart. I would take as much time as possible to bond with my Pokémon outside of battle, to learn what made them tick. I had done quite a bit of that with Vio and Charm, but what about Su and my newest companion, Aura? They, too, needed to become their best possible selves, not just the strongest they could be.

Now, I only needed to figure out the best way to do so, especially while I was on the road. I needed to find some sort of balance between training them and bonding with them, with neither part of the process falling behind on our journey. But if one of them fell behind, I wanted it to be the training. There would always be more time to train but I had a feeling that failing to truly bond and connect with a Pokémon wouldn’t be fixed easily. Hopefully, my bond with Su hadn’t been distorted to the point that it couldn’t be repaired and we could get along again.

Just as I was considering that, Vio poked me in the side, the look on her face giving me the impression that my little cutie was quite unhappy that I wasn’t paying full attention to her. Apologizing with a grin, I focused on her, carefully soaping her up and lavishing attention on her. Just because I worried over my other partners, I couldn’t neglect my sweet, little Vio.